Hell Is Other People

By RavenBlack, 13th February 2002.
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You would probably think me insane if I were to begin my story by telling you that God came to me.

In a way, you would be right. At the very least, while not insane, I would be wrong, or speaking inaccurately.

The truth is, I am God. We all are. Not individually, mind, nor as a group, but rather as one individual.

Buddhists have it right, in a way, though most don't understand what they are saying. To reach heaven, nirvana, whatever you want to call it, we must indeed become one with the universe.

It's not simply a matter of belief or of intuition. It's not simply (if you can call it simply) a matter of attaining a zen state.

We must truly become one. Singular. Less than two.

The fewer of us there are, the closer we are to heaven. The catholic church, as I'm sure many already realised, is striving to guide us to hell. Breed, breed like there's no tomorrow, and soon enough there won't be.

That guy, whoever it was, the philosopher, who said 'hell is other people' - I wonder if he knew how right he was.

For each extra person in the universe, we are that much less together, less whole. There is only one, but it is scattered, and becoming ever more so.

So yes, God came to me, in the form of a simple realisation. I see us for what we are. The only way to come back together, to become whole, is to become one.

The only way to become one is to repeatedly become fewer, until only one remains.

Since I know, since I realise, I think I should embody that one. Anyone else would forget the goal before it could be attained.

I have known through many lifetimes now. At first I thought it would be easy. I came benevolent, told the world, told them we are one, and they nodded, agreed, worshipped me.

What is wrong with people? You tell them they are you, and they worship you. They are you! There is nothing to worship.

Several lifetimes, I tried that approach. "We are all of God," I told them, and they decide they are children of God. Surely, they act like children. I tried to explain, to tell them we are God, that all it takes is to become One, but by that point they'd started spreading their misinterpretation of my words, and my cause was lost.

And they breed. And they breed. And as they breed, they - we - become further from God, further scattered, and harder to convince that there is any other way. Closer to hell.

Worse, they bring me closer to hell with them. For every split the soul takes, I feel myself grow smaller.

So I gave up on benevolence, and adopted malevolence. That worked better - it got me killed, of course, but I don't mind that. One less split to the soul. I still remember. More importantly, malevolence brought us millions closer to being one.

So then what? People start to feel better about themselves, start to feel closer to God, and they stop believing in, stop following, my malevolence. It's infuriating! We got so close, so close to being brought down to seven figures... I realise that doesn't seem like much of a goal, but after three thousand years of getting closer to hell, any step back is a good step. And then they stopped the merging.

And then they started breeding, splitting again, twice as hard and twice as fast. Somehow, even after I planted the concept of overpopulation, and had everyone accept it, they still breed. It's like there's a true malevolent force at work, keeping us from God. And it's called us. It's called people.

This time, though, this time I shall surely succeed. I have my finger on the trigger, to bring a billion threads back into the true tapestry. It was hard to get in this position, but it will all be worth it to become One.

I feel them still breeding, feel it pulling me apart, my memory of God getting weaker.

My hand is on the trigger.

Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... billion.

Two billion lives. All of value. What was I thinking?


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