362 Leaving Well Enough Alone
Friday, December 27, Day 362 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge
The monolithic ant mound stands colossal, stubbornly inert. There's not a living thing on this parched, stucco, gated community, masquerading as a dead artifact in the dead desert.
It fits into the desert all too well, contiguous with the hot, steaming dirt, in both geographic continuity and a promise of action should the right disturbance occur.
Heat lines oscillate horizontally off of it, articulating thermal innuendos along the desert floor. It radiates as a prelude for someone careless enough to inspire the story that typically follows.
Yet, now, all is quiet. All is well. Serenity bakes into the mound the pent kinetic energy that is cocked and ready. Its inertness is a warning of things best left undisturbed.
Until all Hell breaks loose.
Two types go to Hell. First are those who choose it and, as C.S. Lewis said, “lock the doors from the inside.” Second, there are those who blunder into it—careless, feckless, and incompletely innocent.
Why would anyone choose it?
ALAN
Alan Montgomery so chose. His solipsism and self-serving indulgences, at the expense of others, was a life strategy. The doors so locked had nothing to do with any alleged afterlife of any religion. It had everything to do with identification.
“I am what I am,” was his credo. If I were to everything up, it'd make no difference to all others. As a whole.
Which made him a hole.
A big one. But that didn’t matter to one whose doors lock from the inside. He liked who he was, but only for its rewards. Rewards are distractions.
From oneself.
MARIA
Marie Heintz was a woman who chose poorly, too. She did for others in organized events, giving her spare time—what was left—after work, travel, nightlife, and private times with others. She assigned what was left only after satisfying all else.
Like Alan Montgomery, she was first; unlike him, she found the time and wherewithal to put the others last.
And so they met at the gates of Hell, equally baffled and resentful.
She didn’t like him for who he was; he didn’t like her for who she thought she was.
They stood, each accusing the other of politlely knocking on the ant mound.
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!
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361 Memoirs of Eddie H. Christ, Jesus' Little Brother—"Come in Peace"
So let’s see. The Christmas star was so mysterious that no one would've guessed the real truth. There was that supernova theory, for which we can be thankful that we have stuff like Cesium in us—and iron doesn’t hurt none either. And then there are all the comet theories; there’s the hypothetical conjunctional conglomeration of three planets in the constellation Pisces.
By Gerard DiLeoabout a year ago in Fiction
Comments (5)
I enjoyed this story immensely, which was narrated in my head throughout by Rod Serling. Well done - splendid creative burst of a story.
"Rewards are distractions." Indeed. Be True and Follow You Happiness Will. Well-wrought! As for Hell, it turns out it's just another place like any other. Some people even vacation there now, I hear. "What's next on our itinerary?" "Oh, we haven't seen the frozen three-headed devil exhibit yet! How 'bout that?" "Oh, I dunno, I was kind of hoping to scope out that room where they feed the gluttons to bursting." "Okay, okay, compromise: Hot pokers up the arse! It says here in the pamphlet that they'll be timing their screams to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" at the eight o'clock session!" "Oh, how delightful!" Onlookers and gawkers don't even bother to judge. I guess they leave that to the proper authorities...
This is ominous, Gerard! Great storytelling!
This was both funny and thought provoking!
Dante as entymologist? An ominous fable.