The Poet’s Trip to Hell/The Poet’s Fall from Grace

The poet then entered the land of his dreams. It was a dark and hollow place, shrouded by mystical clouds that floated above his head. A blue mist masked the far open road, and the ravens flew above the ground, forming an epic circle of contempt, watching carefully as the poet calculated his first move. He placed his right foot, and then took it back. He proceeded with the left, and immediately removed it. He was paralyzed, as if subdued by an enchanting force that was invisible to the naked eye.

He traveled with his thoughts, gazing into the starless sky, its pitch black darkness sucking the life of every living creature on this infected land. Ahead of him was the open road; dark, empty and frightening. He roamed, calmly planning every step he took, unaware of the dangers that lay ahead. The night grew grimmer as he moved, and the light turned dimmer.

He then stopped at a crossroads. Two wooden signs indicated separate roads, but their respective engravings had faded into the night.

The poet followed his mind and went right. Suddenly, the skies opened up, and the once decaying wasteland was filled with light. Angels descended, carrying golden harps and chanting in acclamation of the newcomer. Red roses drizzled down on him as they would on a triumphant hero returning from battle. His mind was clear, his soul at peace; he had chosen his path wisely.

Then came a stranger, a hooded figure in a white robe. The poet, fearful of his mysterious aura, stood his ground firmly and asked him: ‘Where am I?’

‘You are in heaven,’ proclaimed confidently the mysterious man. 

But the poet �" who was a man of emotions �" chose to look into his heart. ‘Then why don’t I feel that I am in heaven?’ he duly asked. The hooded man stood there, observing the poet’s confusion, succumbing to his silence. Then, in a hasty movement, he turned his back and disappeared into the light.

The poet, shocked by the scene that had just taken place, felt numbness inside of him. His heart was pounding through his chest. Suddenly, his vision turned blurry, and forced him into blackout.

Back on his feet, he realized that the landscape surrounding him had morphed into more lugubrious scenery. The chanting angels had disappeared and were replaced by crows echoing a sad resonance. The roses that once showered his head made way to rising thorns that overtook every shade of greenery.

The nauseating air filled his lungs and drugged his soul. The poet had met his fate, he was facing his destiny. No doubt in his mind; he had entered his hell. This was the place he feared the most, the place where lost souls seek redemption, and where an empty space of vacuum blends with the shadows to form a black hole. Burning flames blazed the pathway as the gates of hell opened.

The poet, seemingly stranded midst this horror, chose to escape it, and sought to return to the land of promises, the one he thought of as a sanctuary, a safe house, a shelter that shielded him from the cruelty of this underworld.

But the skies darkened, and fierce thunderstorms animated the lifeless pit that he was trapped in.

As death was staring him in the face, the poet felt doomed, yet he would not succumb to his destiny. He reached into his pocket and pulled a small memoir. It had been his most effective weapon against everything life threw at him. On the back of the journal, he had engraved some words he had picked up from his previous altercations with life. He flipped the booklet, and they read ‘In the end, believe that light shall triumph over darkness’.

At that moment, fire erupted from the pit of the underworld, and as it burned everything in its sight, it soon turned to ashes that were carried by the staunch breeze of the night.

The poet stuttered, fearing for his life, and watched helplessly as the ashes rose to the skies and burned brightly like an incandescent candle in the night.

The resulting flames propagated through the skies, and assembled into one big mold; the poet identified the figure of a soaring phoenix, illuminating the pitch black darkness that had reigned for so long over these forgotten lands.

The poet saw clearly now; a gushing light piercing his blinded eyes opened up his mind and liberated him from his chains. The phoenix shot down every thorn with its mighty breath, while the erring souls lay under a bed of roses.

The poet looked on as the mounting chaos washed away the remains of the once demonic wasteland. The demons had awoken from their slumber to succumb to the judgment of the phoenix.

Tears of joy and jubilation ran down the poet’s cheek. And after the light settled in, with nothing but the shadow of a former dream in front of him, he was left stranded, alone, in the midst of it all, consumed by his desire and the endless hollow pathway that had flooded his dreams.

The light had triumphed; the skies had regained their clear blue color. Symphonies erupted and filled the air, as the poet rested and was swallowed by the fertile land.

On a tree stump, there in the corner, a small memoir remained. It was a journal, a keeper of dreams, with an engraving marked on the back. As the wind blew for the first time in a while, washing away ancient memories, the journal tumbled into the ground, and its first page read

‘It is the end’.