Mike Jones: Infernus

“It was me that inspired the boy to push you off the wagon so you would jump onto the rusty nail when you were four. I kissed the crust of the scab, because of my desire for you. I led the other, when you were but a mere man, to throw you to the ground that broke your foot. I kissed the sweaty foot from below and you had a sense that someone was there, didn’t you?” The man humbly nodded. “I command you to always love your Fire Father, and always wash me with your tongue.”

“Dr. Mountfountain, your shock therapy is progressing rapidly. You hardly ever tell me anymore of actually living the lives as demons of Hell.

“Now, that is what we agreed upon, isn’t it? Oh, you just have dreams of Hell — you’ve been… ahhh, I see; you’ve been deceiving me all along.” The little doctor paused to consider this. “I see. Carl, strap him in. Yes, Judy, throw the switch.”

…brrrrrrzappp!…

The room was silent for a moment, making sure he was finished. Then it erupted. Many voices said things like, “Why would you even want to write a book like that ?” “How horrible!” “The government should string you up for that.”

Professor Delaney stood and walked to the middle of the class, her plastic shoes clacking on the hardwood floor. “Class! Class!” She clapped her hands. “Now, really. One at a time. This is a University, not middle school. One at a time.”

The nude man stood grinning at them, pleased with himself.

The same big, beefy young man spoke. “If this were a former time, you would be hauled off to jail for writing a story like that. It’s shameful, at best.”

“Yes, it is,” the man said. “I agree with you.” Slowly, he began putting his clothes back on.

A young woman, who identified herself as Student Mortensen, spoke. “Chapter One” does not lead anybody to believe the novel will proceed in that manner. You told us before that you made this up. That it was fiction.” [1] See appendix, at the end of the book, for an explanation of this mystery.

“It is,” he said. “Confused? Good. I intend to tip over every preconceived idea you have about conventional narrative. To you, young lady, I would repeat what C.S. Lewis wrote in the beginning of Mere Christianity . ‘To hell with your standards.’ I forge ahead with my own. Just wait, folks, until we get to the end of Chapter Eight. You are really gonna wanna hang me then.”

“Maybe we really will hang you.”

“And not hear the end of the story?” He laughed. “How tragic!”

He put on his clothes and left.

The next week he came back, stripped off his clothes, quite unashamedly, stacked them neatly again, laid out a rug on the hardwood floor to sit on, and read four or five chapters in a row. A student, Dante, recorded for posterity that when one student objected to the shortness of the chapters, the nude model remarked that his records only showed them as fragments, not in their entirety. Many students reminded the man that he had proclaimed, more than once, that he had written them himself, not found them somewhere.

The old man seemed to enjoy laughing at them.

“THE CANTATA OF PAIN, OPUS 10”

A smile appeared on the handsome face of Red. His voice raked through the man’s brain like a claw. “Do you know what arouses me, my child?”

A puff of smoke hung in the air between them.

“No, my father,” the man said weakly.

The impossibly-muscled demon sat upon a thick throne. His two black orbs rested on the marble like massive rocks. He began pumping his member into the base of his beard. The orbs were dragged upward in their leathery sack and then quickly released to fall with a wet smack on the stone.

He rolled his head with pleasure and began to breathe heavily. He tightened his grip on the member and jerked it upward. The orbs kept slamming onto the stone, countless times, always the same.

“What really arouses me is when my son shoves his head up my ass as far as he can and… yes, that’s it, like that, my only son… and then breathes in the soul of his father. You can hear the sound of my great testicles slamming even in there, can’t you, my son? Yes, you can. Now, because you have done this great favor for me, I will do something for you. I will give you the present of always having the presence of me living inside you for eternity.”

Of course, the man knew that he was unable to do any such thing.

(In the time of the great explosion of the twenty suns — no Earth time can coordinate your understanding; here was a momentous occasion, the man was sitting in the soul of another. There are no separate identities here, only illusions of such things.)

The new arrival, a young lad of eighteen or so, spoke from blackened, smoldering lips, little puffs of smoke finding their way out now and again. “My, what is going on here? I will never again be me, will I? I will always be this entity of three.”

“Be happy, harpy. There are others who will do more than we, but you must awaken to this knowledge later. It’s no good thinking of it just yet. A green demon, your father/trainer will arrive soon. We (my father who occupies me) are only torturing you until he comes; to let you know that this is all there is. It amuses me to be in you, yet controlling you. It is orgasmic. And I will help him torture you when he arrives.”

“FALLEN LEAVES ARE ALREADY DEAD”

The young, baking Spanish woman ran wildly through the crowd of frying, milling villagers. The demon and his trainee watched from a hill that leaned over the village. The woman flailed her arms as she screamed into all the brains of Infernus.

“Don’t you see, my many relatives, this man you think is the killer, whose name we cannot speak, is allowing you to feed your inability to see the truth. Lo, the sun sinks. I must work my mischief. You are all doomed. You’ve known all along. I will now express myself.”

She spread her arms high toward the blazing crimson sun. All the villagers fell to the ground like paper kites with no wind and disintegrated. She fell as well, and scattered harmlessly behind them.

“LESSONS TO LEARN”

Red, radiant in sweat and erotically glorious, spoke bile into the man’s mind. “My son, approach me.” His phallus was erect and stood straight along his heat-stretched jawbone.

The man, who no longer was the man he had been many thousands of centuries ago, walked in a regal fashion to his father.

“Lick the hair that is on top of my feet, slave.”

And he did, for three million generations’ worth of time. It has been said by some demon lords that soon (again the reference to time) there will be an inability to communicate anything in such concepts. These sayings must not be said in the first person or punishments will follow. For even thinking them.

In a standard generation (what the man is experiencing at this “moment”) the demon is describing (for the man) three sets of a dozen little plays called collectively The Writhings . He performed them upon a surface of the man’s skin for many millennia. The plays enabled all to feel the pain at once. It was exquisite.

A woman, who was skinless, asked Red and the man if they knew where The Domes of Wares could be found.

She bled while standing there.

They ignored her, for she was full of foolish talk.

“Ah,” said the demon. “Watch these large black stones slam hard on the rock. I shall now cover myself like a blanket.” A great viscous liquid exploded into his beard and continued flowing until his whole body was lost in the glue of it.