The Party's End

I woke up to smoke, and blinding heat. What had happened? I tried to sort through the thoughts in my pounding head to remember last night. I went to a party last night? With the football guys? Yeah, yeah that’s right we won the big game and were looking for some fun for the rest of the evening. I smelled, once again, the soot and smoke in the air and painfully I realized this heat and smoke meant there was a fire nearby. I blinked again, my eyes stabbed by the smoke, sweat pouring out of me like never before. Oh my God! This much smoke meant the house was on fire, I had to get out! I got up and began running trying to find a wall to guide myself by.

That’s when it happened. Realization hit me in the head like a 300 pound lineman whose girl I stole. I was breathing! Not that that in and of itself was shocking, but I had to have been awake at least 5 minutes, and passed out long enough for Chad’s house to go from “Party Time!” to “Oh God the burning, raging inferno of death!”. That much smoke inhalation should have killed me. Perhaps this was all just some trippy hallucination from the party? That would explain the fact that after walking and thinking to myself for 5ish minutes I still had not felt a wall, as well as this blasted fever I had.

Convinced I was on some weird drug from the party I continued walking, until I saw some guy with a baton made of flame and robes of pure, rainbow-like light. Unsure if it was just part of the drug reaction, or some person whose appearance the hallucination was twisting, I carefully said, “Man my head is pounding.” just loud enough the thing could hear, but soft enough someone could think I was musing to myself.

“What are you doing in here?” the figure replied, “Don’t you know this place was not built for youngsters such as you? Yet here you are because of your own choices. It couldn’t be easier to stay out, yet here you are…”

I sauntered away as the man continued talking about some insanity or other. No offence to the guy, but I did not need someone preaching to me. I needed info!

Sometime later I nearly ran smack into John, the new guy on the team. He was sitting on his knees praying, gasping out every word as though he had been there for hours. “Hey man,” I said, “where are we? I think I’m hopped up on some drug or other so I really can’t tell.”

“You can’t tell? This is no drug man! This is no damn drug! This is THE prison, I heard about it, but I couldn’t conceive it. Oh Lord, why? WHY DID I NOT SEE IT?” He rambled, sounding half-crazy the whole time.

“What do you mean man? You take any drugs last night? That’s not your usual speed. Come on, we were at Chad’s party, then what happened?”

He looked me straight in the eye, he sure looked about as sober as any man could look and he said, “I headed home from the party with no substance in me more impairing than a diet soda and some coffee. Three blocks later, and a Semi truck ran a red light, crushing me in an instant. That was when I learned, it wasn’t some damn fairy tale as I heard the Lamb say ‘ I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.’ The only way out, is out there, it is too late for you or me, heaven help us it is too late! Because ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’”

Seeing John ramble like the pastor’s son he was proved to me he had to be baked. He never believed any of that hokum. He had at least known we were in a “prison” more than likely a jail cell for people who were as “under the influence” as we had to be. Noting that this cell could not be as big as my addled imagination would have me believe, otherwise, it would be several miles long, I walked on. A brief worry crossed my mind as I thought of Julie. Damn, how I wanted to see her auburn hair dance around her head, and the gold locket with the picture of her father that graced her slender neck. I still had to propose to the marketing major that I knew would later become my wife. Did she make it out of the party? Yeah, she would have got out fine, she wouldn’t be caught on drugs or drink; always said while she might be able to work through it, there was no reason to handicap herself.

I saw another person ahead of me, this time it was on old man, probably some hobo they pulled off the street for drunken carousing. Since I still had a fever, and everything I saw was still smoke and fire, I decided to pass the time by talking to the old man. “So what did they put you in for?” I asked.

“I was a doctor, I made my entire life about helping my fellow man, saving lives. I thought the good I had done would commute the sentence to something more bearable. When at the seat of judgement I asked that consideration be made, and there I was shown that to He whom I asked, ‘all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.’”

“Well of course that doesn’t matter,” I replied, still thinking the doctor was either drunk or drugged as I was, “even if you saved hundreds of lives, you still broke the law by being drunk.”

He eyed me oddly then simply asked, “How long have you been here?”

I replied honestly, “I don’t know, I woke up in here, but I’m having the weirdest hallucination. The drugs even seem to have taken all my sense of time. Maybe, 2-3 hours?”

“Then I envy you as you are, the realization of where you are and what has happened has not hit you yet. I do not envy you when it does hit.” He said. “Were you not here I would caution you to remember, ‘Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.’ This condemnation can only be passed over by the recognition that Jesus is God and then one may avoid this place by his mercy, ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.’ It is too late now when the realization hits because, ‘And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.’”

“What is with everyone in this cell becoming a preacher? What, because I am on drugs the ministers decide to have everyone spout this meaningless drivel?” I hotly exclaimed as I walked off.

I decided I would just sit down and wait out this hallucination, as anything would be better than hearing the childish nonsense everyone seemed to be saying.

…

It seems like I have been sitting here on the floor for at least a month. I need out! I need medical attention because these drugs have to have put me in a coma. Yeah, yeah that’s it! This is all some coma fever dream! That’s why I am still here! Obviously, I am being treated for whatever happened. I tried to console myself with those thoughts, but every smell of smoke, the screaming of every nerve in my body, told me this was all too real. Funny how deception can give a person the strength to ignore pain, drive it from your mind as though it were not real. This? This seemed more real than life itself. My flesh began to seer as the pain reached my head; it’s as though I were swimming in lava without water wings. My lungs were not merely on fire, they were made of fire. As the pain burned all thoughts out of my head I looked down and wrote this record in the dirt and soot beneath me. The only book written in hell. I might laugh at my legacy were my thoughts not all pain and torment.