Of Things Seen and Heard

I am come into the presence of an angel, and from him I hear the Truth.

My name is Peter Swenson, but my ancestors in Sweden were called Swedberg. They arrived in Minnesota four generations back when it was still the Dakota territories, and we Swenson men have worked the farm ever since. Now, however, I do not know what will become of it, because I am the only son of my father, who died when I was fifteen, and there will be no Swensons after me. Since I have seen and heard, I have renounced all sexual desire.

The angel tells me not to worry; the farm does not need to be looked after because the land will never again bear fruit for a harvest. I know it will not, because what the angel reveals to me I know to be the Truth.

My mother home-schooled me so that I would not be corrupted by those Godless liberals who teach in the Bemidji area schools. As my family attends a country church, I had never been to town before my father died. Since, I have gone to Fleet or Ace as is necessary. I've learned people don't much like me, and I don't much like them.

A week ago the angel told me my mother would die.

But I am not alone in the world. I have a sister. Faith is older than me and went to school in town before our mother decided it was a bad thing, and took her out. She was always rebellious and our mother says she'll go to Hell, but I like to see her on the few occasions of her visits.

The angel agrees with my mother, but only on that. The angel disapproves of my mother. The angel says she is a hypocrite. The angel criticizes that Mother always says what God wants, but God has never spoken to her.

The day she turned eighteen, Faith married a half-Native and moved out. Then it was just me and mother – until the angel joined us.

I feel like I should tell Faith about Mother, but the angel tells me not to. The angel explains that if I tell her, Faith will call the police, and I do not want to spend my last days in jail.

So I sign checks with Mother's name on them until the money runs out and the phone service is dropped. And soon the angel is joined by another. And they take me up in their arms and bear me away with them.

We journey to Heaven where everything is perfect, ordered, and motionless. The people there are hermaphroditic; the vagina is between their buttocks and the penis is out front, and they are all coupled and coupled, one to another. The chains of people are hung thusly in long lines, which when viewed from a distance are great coils, which in turn form even greater tori and spheres. All are perfect and joined. I am told that through their sexual organs they share thought, so knowing everything in each other's minds, as well as your right brain knows your left. They all think together as a single consciousness, all composed and complicit and one. In the center is the largest, perfect and most immutable sphere. And in between the chains that form it you can see the Christ. And all that see Him cannot help but worship.

Hell is continuous with Heaven. As the angels bear me away from the inhabitants at the pristine center, there is movement within the lines of bodies. Desire causes an undulation; the sexual organs begin to chafe and grind against each other. The farther from Christ and the central sphere, the more violent the thrusting becomes, until the bodies collide and fall away with unrelenting force. As the gyrations become still more uncontrolled, the penises slip out of their intended sheathes and the people become disconnected in thought as well as body. They cease to know one another and become increasingly separate, isolated. Here the people's wombs become impregnated and they incubate new souls to be borne into the world in pain. The souls come out adult and huge, ripping through the flesh of the people's backside, breaking the bones of the hips and clawing their entry into the world. Angels await to shepherd these souls to inhabit newly borne babes on Earth; and because lust and desire continue on Earth, it continues in the afterlife, ever increasing the number of babies borne into woe and torment.

Farther and farther from Christ and the central perfect unity of soul, the men become afraid of the torment of childbirth and so flee from one another. In doing so this increases their solitude and desire, and so their Hell. All try to rape and not to be raped, to chase and not to be caught. Their penises forever dripping semen and their vaginas forever dripping blood. Forever in turmoil and isolation, overcome by lust and despair.

It is among these I see my mother. The angels take me to her. She hides and cowers, yet still reaches out to grasp the ankle of the man running by. She leaps on him as prey, only to have him throw her off, exposing her to the gluttony of the man nearest at hand.

The angels show me, and then they shield my eyes and lead me away.


* * *


Faith dropped by today. I tried to keep her out, only opening the kitchen door a crack, but she forced it wide and pushed past me.

“Is Mom here?” she asked. “God, what's that smell?”

I shook my head.

“It smells like a dead rat. You should check the traps, Peter.” Faith rested one hand on her stomach which bulged out beneath her tube top. She had grown fat about the torso and hips. Her arms, conversely, seemed more stick-like than ever.

“Where is she? Out back? Her car's still here.”

“She's down at the church; Marjean came down to pick her up – quilting or something.” Faith didn't notice that one of the angels had followed her into the room from outside. It stalked silently forward and towered over her. “What are you doing here, Faith?”

“Nice to see you too, brother.” Faith eyed the dishes that had mounted up. It hadn't been my job to wash them before, and I wasn't planning on starting. My sister sighed and sat down. “There's something I have to tell her – well, you both. I can wait.” Faith rubbed her grossly bulging stomach.

“She just left. It might be a while.”

“Shit.”

“You shouldn't curse like that.”

Faith rolled her eyes up at me. “I don't know how you can take it, Pete; that woman telling you what to do and who to be.” A second angel had entered the room without my noticing, and now it stood to Faith's left.

“It's fine, Faith. I would miss her if she weren't here. You know I don't get on well with other people. The criticisms are a small price to pay for –” I watched as a third angel entered from the hall. “– companionship.”

Faith smiled weakly and took my hand which hung near her. I let her have it for a minute, and then extracted it and took a step back. I didn't like the way I felt when she touched me.

“God!” Faith swore, standing up. “The smell keeps getting worse. I thought I would get used to it, but it just won't go away. You should really check the traps, Pete.”

“I will. Why don't you go now, Faith – and come back tomorrow when Mom's here. By then I'll have the smell figured out.” I counted on Faith not coming back. Before when she'd visit, all she'd do was fight with Mother for a few hours; then we wouldn't hear from her for months. With or without Mother, this time would be no different. She needed to go now, because by this time the room was absolutely filled with angels. They filed in through every possible entry and stood silently facing my sister. I knew they were angels and not to be afraid of them, but I will admit that it unnerved me all the same.

Faith turned to the door, but then turned back to me. She was holding with both arms onto that repulsive vastness of her abdomen. Her expression seemed at once introspective and wistful. “I love you, Pete,” she said. And then she came up to me and stood on tip-toe to hug me. And I felt her breasts, her giant breasts, which had seemed to have grown still larger since the last time I had seen her. They pressed up against my chest, embracing me. My neck and cheeks flushed; they aroused me – my own sister was arousing me! I opened my eyes, then, and saw the angels – scores pressed around us, in greater number than I had ever seen before. It was just as it had been the last time.... But no! I thought. I don't want to see Faith in that Hell – that Hell of rape and lust – but the angels crowded in suffocating us. And I couldn't breathe; I could only fulfill.



“Likeness makes for unity.”
-- Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell