maskormenace | [04] Voice

[04] Voice

[ So even though the feed opens up, Walt doesn't talk for a moment or so. There's a sharp inhale and it's accompanied by a piteous cough. And then after a couple minute pause, he starts talking -- sounding rather relaxed. ]

Today was my birthday.

[ A beat. Nonchalant. ]

But it's also my death anniversary. How many people can say that? Their life came a full and complete circle, starting and ending all on the same day? I mean, what are the chances? Pretty crazy, that.

[ Another brief pause. Another follow up cough. When he speaks, his voice is a little strained. ]

I mean like, this whole world. What an insane concept, right? To think that our own individual worlds are just this tiny fraction of all the different worlds out there -- some with crazy powers or vampires or Satan. We have Satan. Does anyone ever stop to think about that? How Satan has a TV show? I mean, I guess...what a better way to say welcome to hell than Satan with his own TV show. I've never actually watched it, mind. But I imagine it probably involves burning people alive.

But following that thought -- I still think this place is hell. I mean, I can't be the only dead guy walking here, can I? And it's definitely not heaven. My therapist called it purgatory once.

[ A beat. ]

Purgatory is kind of accurate. Sometimes he knows what he's talking about. All of us just sitting here and waiting -- to either go home and die for good or to do whatever it is we do here. I mean, we can't die. There's a definite statistical likelihood that we come back to life if we get killed, so do we age? I'm 53 today, but am I not really 53? Am I eternally 52 until I die again? Do I die again? Or do I just live an endless loop of my life -- dying, coming here, dying coming here until some otherworldly being makes up their mind?

Maybe that's what Satan's show is about. Collecting as many of us that belong in hell and dragging us back with him. That's a pretty morbid thought, isn't it?

[ So why is Walt laughing. Why is Walt laughing like it's the most hilarious thing in the world? Why is he laughing at all? What was he laughing at again?

The laughter dies. ]

What was I talking about again? [ But it's lost. ] Anyway, I just want to know. Is there anyone else out there who died? Bonus if you died on your birthday. Might be good to talk about it. Therapeutic. And I'm here to listen. We can talk here or in person. If anyone wants to go with me to get birthdeath day breakfast for dinner, that could be a thing. That we do.

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Adam... Well, Adam is Adam. [ Ever mysterious. ] I mean for all you know the story is purely hypothetical, that's the beauty of it. Faith isn't about proving anything, it's about finding an ability in yourself to believe in something without a shred of proof, something beyond your empirical self.

Faith is like dangling from a rope, holding onto it for dear life, when someone asks you to let it go. You know that if you let it go, you're going to fall, because science - gravity - says you will. But he tells you that the wings of angels will lift you, save you, if only you have faith. I mean, really? What kind of lunatic would believe something like that? Isn't that why you're thinking about this now, Walt? Heaven and Hell and Purgatory? I'm here, I'm real, and you've seen the scope of my power, so now you have to ask--what about the rest of it? It's still intangible to you, but you can't deny what's right in front of your eyes, just as you understand that bonds are energy, without ever being small enough to see one up close.

Because human eyes? The human mind? Look at them for what they are: small organs of small mammals, biochemical life computed before your birth, preordained with blue eyes, brown hair, long toes, narrow shoulders, cancer. If someone made you, exactly how you are, if I am possible then so is He, so is that. So tell me...do you believe? And if you believe, well...

[ What are you going to do about it? ]

I'm....hesitant to believe.

[ Walt confessed, even still. ]

You are here. Your power is great. But for all we know, it could be nothing more than a fantastical story, told by the greatest and most deceitful of tellers. Most of us who grew up on Earth have heard the main stories from the Bible, have had some form of Christian belief pounded into us by those who believe it is the one true religion, but can't agree which practice serves it best. Is it Catholic? Protestant? Jehovah's Witnesses?

That being said, it's impossible for one small part of me not to believe because it's been told to me as a child. But whether I believe or don't believe, it doesn't much matter, does it? Either way, to the victor go the spoils.

And if there's a hell, I imagine there's not a whole lot I can do to change the fact that I'm going there.

I think the real question here isn't whether there is or is not a Hell, but whether you believe there should be. Do you believe your sins deserve eternal damnation, Walter?

Ah--no excuse me.

[ One of the rare instances where he changes the feed to private himself. ]

Do you believe it's a suitable fate for your immortal soul? And if you accept it does it mean that you believe that others you love will find the eternal rest that they deserve?

As for true religion, there's a correlation between understanding the true divine and the development of civilization for a reason. People write what they understand--like alien abduction, it's never immediately obvious what the truth is.

Edited 2015-09-15 15:37 (UTC)

Do I deserve hell?

[ Walt muses with morbid amusement. ]

What does it make me if I say 'no, I don't?' Everything that I've done has been for a greater purpose. Money for my cancer, money for my family, eliminating a threat to my life and Jesse's, saving Jesse's life. There were obviously mistakes along the way. The choices I made led to consequences and consequences led to losing everything. My empire, my world, my very family crumbling around me. After living through all of that, I would say I've suffered more than my lot. I've made mistakes and I lived with them.

Why should I have to suffer for eternity on top of that? I had hell on Earth ever since my cancer diagnosis, and then afterward. Once I was pulled into this world. I would say it's about time I got some goddamned peace, wouldn't you?

Edited 2015-09-16 01:15 (UTC)

[ In Lucifer's opinion, it isn't just Walt but every one of them that deserves Hell. They could rot in their flesh suits, populate the earth until it buckled under their weight, and self destruct themselves as a consequence, he wouldn't care. Why would they deserve God's unconditional love, his Heaven, the place that had belonged to Lucifer and his brothers before humanity was even a glint in their Creator's eye? Walt doesn't see it all as anything but noble, self sacrificing. He sees his suffering and imagines nothing worse. He looks at the world with the entitlement that every human being does, as though it owes him something, when the fact of their existence should be more than enough.

Out of pettiness, Lucifer would have them all burn for eternity, and maybe then they would feel a fraction of the agony that he felt, thrust from his Father's Grace. A hard two years. A tragic life and a tragic end. Boohoo.

But he doesn't say any of that. What he says, in the end, is this: ]

You're absolutely right. Why should you have to suffer? It was God that gave you your cancer, Walter. It was God that took your family away from you. It's God's prerogative to see you punished, and it was Him who created Hell in the first place--not me.

Do you think it's a coincidence? You mix this inert substance with this acid, you add a catalyst, you bring it up to temperature and down to temperature, and you create a drug that brings sin straight to sinners. Do you think that's chance? God created every facet of your fall just as He facilitated mine. He made it that way, and if there is a Hell, and you are going there, then that was the fate that He chose for you. Why? What did you ever do to Him?

[ Nick, he'd whispered into his vessel's ear, It was God that sent that man to murder your wife and your baby. It was God that took them from you. Don't you want - don't you deserve - revenge? ]

[ The frown that creases his lips is the only insight into his internal thoughts. What did Walt ever do to God? ]

I turned away.

[ His gaze is distant, unfocused -- lost in his own reverie. ]

I turned away from the church and from God in pursuit of chemistry.

[ And he supposes that could justify the punishment. But it's then that anger seizes him. Why should he be punished for that, though? ]

No. I made my own choices. I was finally satisfied with my life. Even though I lost everything, I died free from the whole world trying to control me. I died doing the things I wanted to do. It's bullshit to say God had any hand in the choices I made. Those choices were mine to make. No one else's. Not my wife. Not my bosses. Not the whole world. Mine, you hear me?

Oh. Oh, absolutely. And dying free is so much better than living free, after all. You made the best of the situation, but did you die in your wife's arms, surrounded by your friends, and will you go to the loving embrace to wait for them?

You say you're satisfied, but I don't see satisfaction, I see bitterness and grief; I see a man who would rather self destruct than spent five minutes talking to someone who can see inside his soul, because he so fears himself.

You can take control of that, Walter. You turned away from God and you think He punished you for it, but you can show God your contempt; not loving Him is punishment enough. You don't have to aspire to Heaven when eternal life, eternal retribution, waits for you below.

Welcome Hell as your salvation, Walter, not your punishment.

[ It's just like the devil to be so connivingly convincing. It's just like the devil to promise that eternal damnation really wasn't damnation at all but salvation. He sells it so well. And it's only those years immersed in religion that causes Walt's reluctance -- that causes him to stop and think, hey, this is supposedly the serpent and he's probably offering the forbidden fruit here. ]

You make it sound like such a simple matter. And for you, it probably is a simple matter to collect men like me. To give them the promise of power as their ticket to changing their lives with only the small oversight of spending eternity in hell.

I don't want eternity. I want the end of everything. Ab...

[ Walt trails off, not really wanting Abduxel to hear his name mentioned in conversation. ]

Matthew mentioned that there is an eventual nothingness for demons like him. So what does a man like me have to do to obtain that? To cease to be?

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[04] Voice

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