Hitherby Dragons

Jesus steps onto the stage.

“I’ve got a message for all y’all.”

Jesus draws his gun. It’s got ‘Jesus loves you’ written on it in sparkling silver letters.

“I want you to love your neighbor or—”

Jesus whirls, takes aim.

“I SHOOT THIS PUPPY.”

The puppy’s eyes are very wide and sad. Its ears are floppy. It has a long history of being used by deity figures as a message for someone else.

“Look,” says Jesus. “You know that guy? You know, who got his skin caught in the printing press and ripped off to form a special edition of the Enquirer? And that other guy? You know, the one who died of AIDS? Well, a lot of people thought that was divine vengeance against them. But it’s not.”

Jesus squeezes the trigger. BANG! He spins around to point at another puppy.

“Look, mofos, it was a message for you. It’s the universe telling you, wise up, love your neighbor, do good works in the world, because you don’t know how long anyone else’ll be around.”

Jesus shoots another puppy. I guess you weren’t paying enough attention.

Do a better job, or the fluffy German shepherd gets it.

They stride through the streets, bold, swaggering. They’re the students of the Silver Cello University. Everyone respects them. Everyone fears them. They abide by no conventions. They ignore all laws. They defy the commandments of God and Caesar alike with their blasphemous melodies. Yet they are so beautiful! The SCU cellists can play three notes and brighten the darkest and most terrible days. Two notes, and they can shatter the most hopeful heart. Here’s an example.

Sid and Clair walk down the street. They’re just minding their own business.

“My dog died today,” Sid said.

“I’m so sorry.”

Two men in the SCU uniform swagger by. One pauses to strut. The other twirls moustaches. Sid and Clair ignore them.

“My distinguished mentor fell off a balcony onto him, breaking his spine. It was because of the heart attack, you see.”

“That’s awful.”

The SCU students get angry. They hit Sid with a metal stick. He’s too sad to notice.

“He didn’t have a very weak heart,” Sid explains, “but when he found out that our home town burned down and that the Easter Bunny was caught in the fire, that just did it for him.”

“I can understand that.”

The SCU students pound Sid harder. They flail at him like the mad beating of an impassioned heart. Ba-BUM! Ba-BUM!

“The fire was my fault,” Sid wails. “My experiments in physics lab changed the constant S and made things burn down more readily.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Plus, it means that the universe is going to run down in three days, rather than in endless aeons.”

Suddenly, THREE CELLO NOTES ring out.

“I’m so happy!” exclaims Sid. “This is the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.”

That’s right. That’s the power of the cello! But if you invert the bow and play it backwards, it has a darker power.

“It’s the best day of my life, too,” says Clair.

“Oh?” asks Sid. He grabs her hands and dances her down the street.

“I woke up this morning and the cancer was gone! Also, the Alzheimer’s.”

“I didn’t know you’d had Alzheimer’s, Jenny!” Sid sings out.

“That’s because I’m actually Clair — Jenny’s mother! I woke up looking younger, too.”

“So beautiful!” carols Sid.

The SCU students pout. Sid’s happy, but he’s not paying attention to them! One of the students tries to kick a puppy. It grows laser-studded tentacles and growls. The student backs away. His health insurance isn’t good enough! He can’t kick that puppy!

“On my way to meet you,” Clair beams, “terrorist paratroopers invaded the U.S. and gave me all their country’s money.”

Sid stops his dancing. He looks puzzled. “Why?”

“It’s economic warfare,” Clair explains. “They made me promise to spend it — in economically unproductive ways!”

“Wow!” says Sid. “So what’re you going to do now?”

TWO NOTES.

“I’m going to kill myself,” sobbed Clair. “Life’s not worth living.”

“Buck up!” said Sid. “The Easter Bunny’s dead, so it can’t be that bad.”

He’s being as reassuring as he can, but Clair sobs anyway. People are so strange!

¹ a legend of Santa.

Santa Claus wakes up. It’s the Tuesday after Christmas, so he dresses in black. He goes to the shore of stars. He calls for his boat. He sails south.

Pirates come, but he runs up the Santa flag. They don’t attack him. Pirates don’t board Santa’s ship. It’s a law of the sea.

The terrible shark comes. Each fin is as long as a man is tall. The beast could swallow a horse in one bite. It hungers. Santa faces it down. He meets its cold black gaze. It shakes itself, twice, and dives deep. It still plans to eat him. It’s not a very nice shark. But not this year. This year, it leaves him be. It’ll come again in 2004.

There’s the sea of angels. There’s the ocean of fire. There’s a place of strange waters glistening like black abalone shells. The waves shine with soft green light.

Santa reaches his destination. It’s just an ordinary hill. It’s not important in itself. It’s just the place he’s chosen.

He sets three dolls on the ground. One boy, one girl, and one for just in case. He doesn’t look at them. He’s looking far away.

“There are so many of you,” he says, “that I couldn’t reach. This year or any other.”

He touches the dolls upon their hearts. “Strength,” he says.

He touches the dolls upon upon their heads. “Hope,” he says.

He touches them upon their hands. “A future.”

Santa rises and walks away. Behind him, the wind starts up, as it always does. It carries his gifts away.

Merit City

Merit City keeps its pain in a box. The box is by the tracks. There’s a hole in the box. There’s a stick by the hole. You can poke the stick through the hole. Then the box says, “Ouch!” It’s not very surprising. That’s just the kind of vocalization you’d expect from a box of pain! Plus, it’s getting poked with a stick.

“I find the world astringent,” says a blonde woman. She has very straight hair.

“People never seem to be as moral as I’d like,” adds a short man. He has an estimable degree.

They say it together. “Let’s poke the box with a stick!”

That’s what the box is for.

The First Theory

The box has a terrorist in it. That’s why Merit City encourages you to poke the stick through the hole. It’s preventative medicine! Terrorists never visit Merit City. They’re too scared! What if they got put in the box too? They just unleash terror weapons from neighbouring jurisdictions.

Children are too sympathetic to the terrorist. They always want to feed him. “Don’t feed the terrorist!” That’s what their parents have to say.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Why?”

“Because!”

“WHY?”

The question’s too good! The parents have to explain. “Food is what makes terrorists strong,” they say. “It contains microscopic calories that people burn for energy. Most people burn their calories to do good works and advance the cause of civilization. But a terrorist converts the special energy of calories to evil.”

Stacy feeds the terrorist anyway. She’s too sympathetic! Sentiment causes all sorts of trouble. The box makes crunching noises. Is the terrorist consuming calories and converting them to energy? Yes! Sparks fly in every direction. Zap! Zap! Zap!

“Stacy!” her mother exclaims, aghast. “You’re grounded!”

The box always smells winter-fresh. That’s how you know it’s got a terrorist in it. Terrorists smell winter-fresh!

The Second Theory

Sid is just walking along, chilling. He’s wearing a sweater, jeans, and flip-floppy shoes. He’s pretty cute, as Sid goes. Suddenly, men in black suits surround him. “Ack!” says Sid. “Now I’m underdressed!” They grab Sid and hustle him to the train tracks. Then they put him in a box!

“Well, that helps,” says Sid, somewhat mollified. He’s still not as nicely dressed as the men in black, but no one can see.

“Ahem,” announces one of Sid’s captors. Everyone near the train turns to look. “This is a box of pain. It’s a special service — a Merit City exclusive! If you’re hurting, you should come down by the tracks. You can blame the box for your pain!”

He demonstrates. He reaches down to the ground. He picks up a stick. He pokes it through the hole in the box. He pokes Sid. “Ouch!” says Sid.

The man in black takes a deep breath and then relaxes. “I feel much better,” he says. “Everyone should try it!”

People cluster around. They blame the box for their troubles. They pick up the stick. They poke Sid through the hole. “Ouch!” says Sid.

Later, Sid says, “Er, could someone let me out of the box?” But he never says that when anyone’s around to hear. Only when he’s alone! That’s his mistake.

Sometimes, it snows, down by the train. Sid must be cold, but he never complains. Maybe the box is heated. Maybe he’s just naturally frosty. It’s difficult to say one way or the other. That’s the point of the box!

The Third Theory

Inside the box is a robot. It’s not just any robot! It’s a robotic pain. That’s the worst kind of robot. It’s an electronic nuisance!

The robot comes from the factory. The people who work at the factory wear black suits. That’s their dress code. It reduces reflections. It reduces glare! That’s what makes them so good at robotics.

“Smith,” says the boss. “Jenkins. I want you to take this robot and put it in a box. Then leave it by the tracks! It’s a Merit City exclusive. People can blame it for their pain!”

“That’s a good idea,” says Jenkins. “Otherwise, we’d have to use it for a doorstop!”

“0101101,” says the robot, mournfully.

“That’s what you think,” says Smith, and puts the robot in a box. Then he takes it down to the tracks. “Ahem,” he says. He tells people about the robot! You’ve already heard his speech.

“This is cruel to the robot,” says PETR. They break into the box. They try to free the robot. The robot zaps them. “Ow!” cry the PETR agents. “Why must humans program robots to be so mean?”

“0101101,” says the robot, with poetic irony.

PETR goes away. They can’t save this robot! It’s important to have realistic goals. “We’ll gatecrash Robot Wars and end its senseless violence!”

The winter air is crisp and clean. It’s a beautiful world.

A Mom walks by. She has a young girl and an AIBO. The AIBO sniffs the box and whines. The young girl looks at the box.

“I’ll show you, dear,” says the Mom. She picks up the stick. She pokes it through the hole. “Ouch!” says the robot.

The girl giggles. She picks up the stick. She pokes it through the hole. “Ouch!” says the robot.

Then the girl drops the stick and hugs the box. “I love you!”

“Sheila,” lectures the Mom, “don’t hug the box of pain.”

“Mommy,” says Sheila, “I want to give the box of pain my Barbie, because it’s so cool!”

The robot goes whirr-click. Then it shoots sparks at Sheila! It objects to the unrealistic portrayal of women that Barbie dolls embody.

“Hey!” Sheila says. She shoots sparks back. That’s unexpected! It must be her mutant power. Hopefully the robot’s learned its lesson about shocking five year old girls — sometimes, they bite back!

The Fourth Theory

The box is just what it says it is. It’s a box full of pain.

Never open the box! It’s very important that you don’t. If you do, the pain will get out. It’ll get into everything! Soon everyone will be hurting. Merit City won’t have public pain any more. It’ll have private pain! Ninja Buddhas will shake their fingers at you—that’s how naughty it would be!

It’s pretty obvious what you’re thinking. “You can’t lock pain up in a box!” But that just shows how much you know. The pain people feel—that’s just an echo. That’s just a memory. People haven’t known real suffering since 1963, when the first mage-smith of Merit made the first box of pain.

She was trying to make strawberry shortcake. She got the ingredients wrong.

People laugh at her when she tells that story, but shortcake is complicated! It really is! Anyone could have made that mistake!

The tunnels are deep. The tunnels are dark. They have lots of water in them, and giant spiders. They also have a subway. Sometimes, the subway hits one of the giant spiders. Whoosh! Bam! The spider goes flying end over end. Then it scurries off to the side with a horrid shambling gait. It licks its monstrous spindly legs. It meant to do that! That’s what its body language says.

Jenna lives in the tunnels too. She likes to watch the subway train. She’s decided that it can hit anything. She’s seen it hit ruby-studded zeppelins. She’s seen it hit frogs. She’s seen it hit ancient mummies groaning with the weight of years. In December 1981, Jenna watches it hit Dukkha, the principle of universal suffering, the world’s fundamental tendency to include hostility and anguish in everyday life. Dukkha goes flying end over end. Then he scurries around on the tracks, scarring them black with his passage. He licks his left bipedal quality. He meant to do that. Oh, yes. It was all part of his plan. Whoosh! Bam! The subway hits him again. Jenna giggles.

On the landing, not far from Jenna, Ninja Tathagata watches. He’s as still as the mind that knows emptiness. He’s as calm as a placid lake. His expression is flat. It shows no gloating. Ninja Tathagata has freed himself from attachment to material existence. He does not gloat like ordinary men. His smug satisfaction is a flower blooming in nothingness; a diamond shining in the darkness; a perturbation in the nihilistic void that is Nirvana. He is a ninja Buddha, and he does not giggle. Instead, he turns away and slips into the trees.

Jenna shouts, “Hey!”

Dukkha looks up, eyes blazing. He doesn’t see her. Ninja Tathagata’s already taken hold of Jenna’s wrist and dragged her away.

“You shouldn’t shout around Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata says. “It’ll only attract his attention.”

Jenna puts her foot down. “There shouldn’t be any trees here. Tunnels are a subterranean environment. Trees are superterranean! Down here we only have their roots. You’re hiding in an illicit forest!”

Ninja Tathagata smiles. “Your anger stems from an irrational attachment to the prevailing conditions of your home. It’s natural, but the key to happiness is understanding that all things change.” Wisps of enlightenment rise from Ninja Tathagata like the steam from a fresh-baked pie.

Jenna pokes his chest. “You’re the Buddha,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want and blame it on other peoples’ irrational attachment!”

“That’s a fair cop,” admits Ninja Tathagata.

“Good,” says Jenna. She sits down with her back against a tree. “I suppose that the trees aren’t so bad. It’s really only because of the character of suffering and torment pervading the universe that I mind.”

On the track, the subway hits the pervasive universal character of torment and suffering. He shrieks. Then he narrows his eyes. “If I get off the track now,” he murmurs softly, “everyone will know I didn’t really plan to get hit three times. I’d better just lounge here, bitter and languid, until I hear a Dukkha Call.”

“It’s difficult waging a constant shadow war against Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata explains. “Sometimes I need a break. That’s why I carry a forested glen with me everywhere I go. It’s relaxing to sit under the green and watch the shadows drift by.”

Ninja Tathagata sits under the green. The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

“You’re deliberately not looking smug,” Jenna observes.

Ninja Tathagata winks.

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

Jenna sighs and pats the tree. “I get tired of pain, too,” she says. “I suppose you’d say that I should cultivate enlightenment?”

“In the long term,” Ninja Tathagata agrees. “In the short term, if you’d like, I could leave the forested glen here.”

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. Someone shouts, “What’s that? Is that a Dukkha Call I hear in the distance?” There’s no thump.

“Oh!” Jenna says, disappointed. “He must have swirled his cloak around himself and become a nonlocalized phenomenon before it hit.”

“I didn’t hear a Dukkha Call,” says Ninja Tathagata. “I think he made that part up.”

“What’s a Dukkha Call?”

Ninja Tathagata doesn’t get a wicked grin. His sudden, mischevious impulse is a blind man’s sunrise; a fire without fuel; a warmth and a heat rising in and filling and falling in the emptiness of Ninja Nirvana. He stands and walks over to a pile of leaves. “Help, help,” he says. “The placidity in my heart is stifling my potential for growth.”

With a swirl of his cape, Dukkha localizes. “Then face the malevolent wrath of Dukkha!” he shouts. Under his feet, the leaves give way.

“The covered pit is a nice touch,” Jenna admits.

SIZZLE 1
1. Pain eats at the earth.
2. Natural weak spots collapse under the pain.
3. This forms a razor-edged chasm.
4. Pain pours into the chasm.
5. Pain reaches the molten core of the earth.
6. Sizzle.
7. The pits convert pain to thermodynamic energy.
8. They also eat suffering.

ECOSYSTEM 1
1. The ecosystem requires pain pits.
2. Otherwise, the animals wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.
3. They kill and eat one another, you know.

SIZZLE 2
1. Og suffers.
2. Ba suffers.
3. Og and Ba go to the pain pits.
4. Sizzle.
5. Now Og and Ba are happy.

THE SICKNESS 1
1. People forget.
2. It happens.
3. People forget the glasses on their heads.
4. People forget the pencil behind their ear.
5. People forget basic physics.
6. People forget to be people.
7. It happens.
8. People forget.

TIME PASSES
1. Minutes pass.
2. Then years.
3. Then centuries.

BUDDHA 1
1. Buddha achieves enlightenment.
2. “Dukkha,” Buddha says.
3. “Yes?” Dukkha answers.
4. “No,” Buddha explains. “I was more in the way of stating a universal truth.”
5. “Ah,” Dukkha says.
6. They laugh and laugh.
7. Then they fight!

BUDDHA 2
1. Ananda asks Buddha, “What is dukkha?”
2. “We cannot rid ourselves of suffering,” Buddha says.
3. “We are chained to the world by our ignorance and desire.”
4. “To live is to suffer.”
5. “Freedom is death.”
6. “This is enlightenment.”
7. “Oh,” Ananda says.
8. He sounds disappointed.
9. He was hoping it was some sort of superpower.

JESUS 1
1. Jesus is born.
2. He sees a world of pain.
3. He shoulders that pain.
4. He finds an answer.
5. He takes it onto himself.
6. He dies in agony.

JESUS 2
1. A thief asks Jesus, “Why?”
2. “I will suffer,” Jesus says,
3. “Or they will suffer.”
4. “I chose myself.”

THE MONSTER 1
1. The monster would say,
2. “That’s a stupid decision.”
3. Then he’d adjust his tie.
4. The monster laughs at God.

THE SICKNESS 2
1. Somewhere along the way, people forgot.
2. So now they deny the pain.
3. Or they endure it.
4. Or they take it on themselves.
5. Or they put it on others.
6. And they’ve never heard of the pain pits.
7. And the pain pits are lonely.

RICHARD THORNTON 1
1. Richard Thornton hikes through the woods.
2. The ground gives way.
3. He rolls down cliffs like razors.
4. He catches himself on a ledge.
5. “Ow,” he says.
6. But it doesn’t hurt.

JANET MAYSEN 1
1. Janet Maysen walks through the city.
2. The street gives way.
3. She falls down cliffs like razors.
4. She plunges into the core of the earth.
5. “This should hurt,” she says.
6. But it doesn’t.

THE SICKNESS 3
1. “But isn’t it wrong?” says Janet Maysen.
2. “Isn’t it wrong?” asks Richard Thornton.
3. “I mean,” they say,
4. “There’s so much wrong in the world.”
5. “Shouldn’t someone have to hurt?”

Once upon a time everybody was mortal.

Just being born—it meant that you would die! And you’d probably suffer first. That’s how horrible a time it was.

The Buddha took one look at that world and said, “No, sir.”

No sir!

That’s not the right way for things to be.

Once upon a time, if a banshee howled, somebody would wither away. That’s the way banshees did things. They weren’t slackers! And mermaids were just as energetic. If they called you you’d hear them, no matter how far away you were, and you’d walk right down to the water and you’d drown. There wasn’t anything you could do about it if a banshee decided to wail your death or a mermaid to call you or if Coretta’s Lion decided to hunt you down and eat you slowly over the course of three full days. It was the nature of the banshee, the nature of the mermaid, the nature of the Lion. They’d made their decisions! That was that!

The worst of it was the monster.

He’d catch you. He’d hollow you out. He’d hurt you unbearably. Then he’d blame you for it, make it your fault, and you would generally agree.

But—

“No, sir!”

That’s what the heroes would say to that. No sir! That’s not right, Mr. Monster! That’s a poor methodology for a world.

So 539 years before the common era, all that mess got sorted out.

The Buddha said, “I’ll be a Buddha.”

He didn’t ask the world’s permission. He just did it! And the world had to change. A world where you’re always suffering couldn’t have a Buddha in it. If Death and Time and banshees and Lions could be masters of your fate, then so could the Buddha—and he said, “You’ve got a choice.” That just blew up the whole system, like bolting a jet plane to your car, and nothing ever after was the same.

He saved the world from suffering; and he was not alone.

539 years before the common era, the hero Mylitta made an answer to monsters forever and ever.

They were unanswerable!

Until she did.

Maybe she didn’t know there wasn’t any way to fix things. Maybe she just got confused. People have been saying for the longest time that he beat her, that she failed us, that that’s why the Lord got so angry he smote everybody down. But that’s not how things looked to her. She took that impossibility and jammed it back down the world’s throat, and then there weren’t any monsters any longer and there couldn’t really be monsters again.

So there was that.

And even Belshazzar—bless his black and twisted heart!

Even that fell beast did one thing bright and brilliant at the last. He was the one who ripped the world open and let all the suffering drain out the hole.

He opened a gateway in his flesh and soul. He became emptiness for our sake.

And if it was the Lord’s judgment on him—

For so the tales say—

Then let us remember that he accepted it with joy.

And Chen Yu, in China; and Nohochacyum with the jaguars; and him, and her, and them, and those people over there:

539 years before the common era, they delivered the world from sorrow.

The poor mermaids! The poor banshees! That poor Lion!

It was like twenty-five hundred years before it could hunt a man again.

¹ requires that you’ve seen enough fiction about robotic battlesuits (“mecha”) to treat them as part of the medium rather than the Message.

Apostle Mark has a mecha. It transforms into a fish. Apostle Luke has a mecha. It transforms into Caesar. Even Judas has a robot battlesuit. It’s not very big, but it’s made of shiny silver.

In this time of troubles, when mecha and angels walk the world, Jesus is special. He does not have a mecha. This is a verifiable historical fact. You can check any of the gospels. You can check with any Bible studies course. You can check the archaeological records for Rome. No giant robot. This is his fatal weakness. If he had a mecha, or even a robot battlesuit, he’d laugh in the Pilate’s face. But he doesn’t. So the Pilate attaches him to a crucifix and he dies.

There are many people in Hell. One of them is Saul. The people in Hell have not had a chance to hear the gospel of Christ. This is because they died before Christ was around to have a gospel. So as part of the grandfather clause governing these arrangements, Jesus has to go down to Hell to save the people there.

He does so.

“Hello!” he calls. “I need virtuous pagans!”

The demons start torturing him.

“Virtuous pagans? Anyone?”

Saul emerges from the staring pack of souls.

“Are you virtuous?” Jesus asks.

“I killed people,” Saul says, “and ate them. But on the other hand, I never had the chance to hear the Good Word. So possibly that’s why I was so sinful.”

“Doctrine allows for this possibility,” Jesus says.

“I had a platinum mecha,” Saul says. “Its terrible maw would grind people up for me before I ate them. It was predigested. Like I was a baby bird! This too served to shelter me from the moral implications of my actions.”

“I see. . . . Would you like to hear the Good Word, then?”

“No.” Saul shakes his head. “I just wanted to know . . . does it feel different?”

“Pardon?”

“Well,” Saul says. “I’ve been getting tortured here for doing horrible things. And you’re being tortured for being some kind of messiah. And I wanted to know. Does it feel any different?”

“I’m only here for three days.”

“Without that?” Saul asks.

“No,” Jesus says. “It would be the same.”

Saul frowns.

“That’s not the answer you wanted?”

“I keep trying for strength,” Saul says. “And it never helps. And I thought that maybe it was because I was a bad person.”

“No,” Jesus says. He shrugs. “Pain is pain. Torture is torture. It’s all the same.”

“Oh.”

“Strength doesn’t help?” Jesus asks.

“It’s strength,” Saul says. “I like strength. But it doesn’t stop it from happening.”

There’s a pause.

“If I had a giant robot battlesuit,” Jesus says, “then I could cut the demons away from you with a laser sword.”

“That’s what Buddha said, too,” Saul admits.

“Alas.”

“You messiahs talk a good game,” Saul says, “but without a mecha, isn’t your faith just so much hot air?”

“I can be three people at once,” Jesus points out. “One of them is omnipotent.”

“. . . that’s pretty good,” Saul admits. “But I won’t really be impressed unless one of you has a mystical insemination coilgun attachment and a glossolalia-inducing nerve taser.”

There’s a pause.

“What a ridiculous idea,” Jesus answers.

See also
Genealogy: the People of Salt and
Genealogy: the Monster

Lia and Amiel were sisters who survived the destruction of Sodom.

Amiel swore to protect Lia’s family forever.

Lia had children, and they had children, and eventually you wound up with Aerope of Crete. Aerope had children by Atreus and Thyestes, including Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Pelopia. Her line zigzagged off in a couple of directions: for instance, to Priyanka, by way of Menelaus and Helen of Troy, and to the first hero Ella, probably by way of Agamemnon. That’s where we think the ancestry of Liril and Jenna diverged, by the way: Liril inheriting from Helen of Troy and Jenna not so much. That said, there’s plenty of genes in the pool, and certain disreputable scholars claim that just about all the people of salt have a common ancestor in Helen’s daughter Hermione.

We call this family the Nephilim.

Meanwhile, Amiel’s line became the House of Atreus, which hooked together with the people of salt up at that mention of Atreus above. The two bloodlines didn’t become one people, though; genealogy or no genealogy, Amiel’s heirs fissioned off and stayed fissioned off as the line of monsters.

By the time you had Nabonidus in Babylon, the House of Atreus was a pretty serious threat to just about everything. Its branch in India was mysteriously culled back around 583, and the American House had problems of its own, but the Middle Eastern lineage was going strong and educing all kinds of domesticated gods from the Nephilim there.

They were a threat even to the throne of the world!

So everyone breathed a sigh of relief, more or less, when Mylitta was born.

At last! the world thought.

At last, the world thought, somebody would do something!

Because heroes can kill monsters. That’s in the rule book. Heroes can kill monsters. All Mylitta had to do was kill off Nabonidus and cut a swathe of blood through his family and Babylon’s aristocracy, burn the ground and salt the earth, and maybe spend a few decades wandering the earth murdering whatever representatives of her ancestor’s sister’s family she could find, and then everything would be all right forever.

And that’s exactly what she did!

Except for the part where she didn’t do any of it, at all, causing no end of historians who were not there and don’t know what it was like and never had to do anything hard in their entire lives to look down on her.

But it’s OK.

It’s OK.

She won!

It’s like we said a long time ago.

Strength was set 556 years before the common era.

17 years later, in 539 BCE, the hero Mylitta would make an answer to monsters forever and ever;

and they would deliver the world from sorrow.

“Hell,” answers Scoop, “is what keeps us good. It’s something that spurs us to greatness. Like jaguars. If you’re afraid of jaguars, then you’ll be good so they don’t eat you in Hell. But if you’re not afraid of jaguars, then maybe they’re in Heaven!”

“What if you’re ambivalent about jaguars?” Meredith asks.

“Then they will chase you in Purgatory,” Scoop says, “while you make yourself ready for Heaven.”

“Two thousand quatloos on the jaguars!” an alien voice cries out.

“It’s more of an example,” says Scoop.

Scoop is a challenger. He’s going to challenge the American Gladiators on Monday. He’s firm in his purpose. He walks to the street corner. There’s a sandwich wrapper on the ground by his feet. There’s an evangelist in a feathered trenchcoat standing on the corner. There’s a sign across the street that says, “Don’t Walk,” so he doesn’t.

“Have you heard the good word of Quetzalcoatl?” asks the evangelist.

“I gave at the office,” says Scoop.

“He’s not a charity,” says the evangelist. “He’s a feathered serpent god. I have been moved to testify in his name.”

“No,” says Scoop, “but thank you.”

“You have to listen,” the evangelist assures him. “Otherwise, jaguars might fall from the sky and eat you!”

Scoop hurries out into the street. A car races towards him. Scoop is distracted by doctrinal matters. The car hits him and he dies.

There is a fuzzy time.

“Am I in Heaven?” Scoop asks, when he wakes.

“You’re on American Gladiator!” says the announcer.

Scoop is hesitant. Then he realizes that it’s true. He’s standing on top of a fifteen foot tall platform. He is holding a magnificent giant Q-tip. Facing him on another platform is the inscrutable Gladiator known as Iron Claude, holding a Q-tip of his own.

They fence.

Scoop wins. Iron Claude plummets screaming to his doom.

“I’m all right!” Iron Claude says, after a moment, from fifteen feet below.

“Yes!” exclaims Scoop. “I really am in Heaven!”

“Five hundred quatloos on the newcomer,” whispers a distant voice.

“One thousand quatloos that he cannot beat the maze!”

Scoop shakes his head. Such alien voices have no place in Heaven. He ignores them and makes himself ready for the Maze. In this event, Scoop races through a giant maze. Gladiators leap out from behind corners to stop him. They’re dressed in brightly colored uniforms and have many muscles. While he admires the uniforms and muscles, Scoop does not fear them. He dodges around them. He ducks and rolls. He reaches the end of the maze.

“I win again!” cries Scoop.

And so it is with Swingshot, with Skytrack, and even with the Gauntlet. Scoop is subtly disturbed.

“It seems almost too easy,” he says.

At the end of the day, he rests. He is in his room. One of the Gladiators comes to see him. Her name is Meredith. She is comely and dressed in a colorful uniform.

“I have been assigned to you,” she says.

“This can’t really be American Gladiator,” Scoop says. “I’m dead, and I’m always winning. It has to be Heaven.”

“What is Heaven?” she asks.

“It’s . . . a place of happiness and peace,” says Scoop. “Run by the Trinity. With beautiful girls like you.”

“Then this is Heaven,” she says, and walks into his arms.

Days go by. Scoop continues to win every event. Even when jaguars fall during Hang Tough, Scoop proves triumphant. He grows uncertain.

“Where is the challenge?” he asks Meredith. “Where is the true gladiatorial spirit? This string of victories palls. And there are always voices bidding quatloos on my victory or failure.”

“They are the Trinity,” Meredith says. “Powerful brains that live beneath the gladiatorial arena and serve as the epistemological source of existence.”

Scoop sulks. “Just admit that it’s Hell,” he says.

“I cannot do that,” she says. “I do not understand your words. Tell me, Scoop.”

She touches his lips, his arm, his hand.

“What is this alien thing called Hell?”