Chapter 3: The Consequences

It was cold, and wet, and nasty. Despite the winter clothes they were wearing, the cold at the high altitude was too much for them, and they were yearning for nothing but some hot chocolate and a blanket. The old man kept them afoot, marching over the frozen dirt paths up the mountain. There was a tiny stream on the side of the path, but it was frozen solid.

Through the barren canopies, snow fell on them, but a lot of it remained on the trees’ branches, and only a few spots on the ground were white. Where the snow fell, however, there was a layer that reached their calves.

The old man kept moving up the slight incline. How was he not freezing to death? All he was wearing was a white robe that looked as thin as the white dress shirt he wore underneath, and pants to match. His sparse, white hair flew in the wind and seemed to merge with the snow that had formed a small pile on his head. Every few minutes, he wiped his hand over his head to remove it, but it always returned.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t care much about the titles they have going on in Hell,” the man said. “Agbar is what they said your name was, right?”

“I’m not really sure,” they said. “They started calling me that, but it’s not my real name at all.” A cold shiver ran down their spine and they buried their hands deeper in their pockets. “Why do we have to be here? It’s so cold, I can’t feel my nose any more.”

The old man laughed. “Don’t worry, it’ll be worth it. Agbar it is, then. Unless you really don’t like it, that is.”

“It’s…” They didn’t care. It was cold. “It’s fine, I guess.”

The two of them kept walking, one with icicles hanging from their nose, the other wearing sandals as if he were at the beach. How long they had been walking, they weren’t sure. It had to have been a long time, but in this weather, any time spent outside was too long. The mountain only got steeper, and the further up they went, the colder it got. At least the trees blocked most of the wind.

“If it wasn’t storming like this, it’d be a beautiful day, trust me,” the old man said. “Have you been to Greece before?” His question remained unanswered. When he turned around, he saw that their lips were blue and shivered too much to talk. “We’re almost there.”

Around the next corner, the snow ceased. The canopies grew green in front of their eyes, the small stream thawed, and the ballads of birds returned to the forest. A bright sun broke through the leaves and cast shadows of mighty branches onto the ground. Their winter clothes were too warm, and they took them off.

“I told you it’d be worth it,” he said with a smile. He sat down on the ground where the stream ran into a small pond and invited them to join him.

“Where on Earth did you take me, Peter,” they said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Mount Athos, it’s called,” Peter said. “And I agree that it’s a beautiful place.”

They sat together and listened to the birds for a while. Once all the cold had vanished from their bones and they had settled in this summery oasis, their tense muscles relaxed. They stretched their legs, felt the warm dirt underneath their hands, and smelled the flowery air.

“I’d ask you why you brought me here,” they said, “but honestly, even if we were to turn around right now, it would’ve been worth it.”

“I’m glad to hear you like this place, but I have to wonder why you’d ask me that. You are the one who wanted to talk, after all.” Peter wiped the water from the melting snow off his head and cleaned his hands in the pond. “But I can guess what you wanted to talk about.”

The beauty of this place had been tainted by the return of reality, and they wanted to be mad about it, yet one look at a small bird fetching a drink from the stream calmed them down again. Never before had they felt so at peace.

“You’re the guard at the pearly gates, right?” they asked, and Peter nodded. “If I take this job, what would the consequences be?”

“That’s not up to me to decide,” he replied. “I only look at the list, and whoever is on it, gets in. However, from my personal experience, I wouldn’t say that you’d be doomed from the start. If you were to take this job, as you called it, you’d be playing with fire. As long as you don’t die, though, there won’t be any judgement, and until judgement is upon you, you have all the time in the world to change your spirit.”

“That’s not what I meant,” they said. “Like in some films… I don’t know if it’s just a racist stereotype, but sometimes you’ll have some Asian character go, ‘I curse you and all your ancestors.’” They thought about it for a moment and chuckled because it was such a stupid example. “Would this, in any way, affect my family? My friends?”

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Peter took a deep breath. “It wouldn’t,” he finally said. “Your judgement is yours, and yours alone. And the same goes for everybody else. Another person’s actions are irrelevant to what your final fate will be.” He hesitated for a moment, then spoke with a lowered voice, “I’m not supposed to say this for the sake of your soul, but… darn it, I can’t.”

They looked at him. “Can’t what?”

“Never mind.” He shook his head and motioned ‘it’s off the table’ with his hands. “You tempted me there.” He laughed, but his laughter wasn’t reciprocated. “What I can say is that, no, your decision will not affect your family’s and your friends’ judgement. Though, yes, you do have to be careful not to lure them into your business because if they choose to go down that path on their own free will, that will be relevant on the Final Day. I suppose it’d be best to keep it to yourself, really.”

“Fair enough,” they said. “That’s all I really care about.”

Peter gave them the look of a worried father. “Is that really all?”

All they could muster up in response was a shrug of their shoulders. “We’ll see. I’m still not sure if I even want to do it. Though there is one more questions that I’d love to know the answer to if you don’t mind.”

A stone fell off Peter’s chest. They hadn’t made a decision yet. Could this be another soul saved? “What is it that you’d like to know?” he said.

“Why is Heaven so interested in this? I mean, sure, Heaven and Hell are kinda intertwined, but why is this position in particular so important to you? You were present when Lucifer and King Bael made me the offer, and even though they treated you like shit, you insisted on being there. What’s up with that?”

“Keeping the peace,” Peter said. “We cannot eradicate Hell at this point. If Hell were to let all demons loose and threatened the very existence of the mortal world, Heaven would see itself forced to intervene, and this would cause a long and bloody war. Neither side is interested in this type of situation, and we have therefore come to an agreement. There are strict conditions under which residents of Hell may enter the mortal world. And this is where Agarus comes in: somebody needs to enforce these rules to keep the relations between Heaven and Hell stable. Not peaceful but stable.”

St. Peter couldn’t name every single one of the many conditions, but he knew that there was a long list of them, and although Agarus didn’t have to know every single one of them either – it was a separate job to accept and deny requests to enter the mortal world –, they were part of his job, and he had to be familiar with them at least. In other words, more learning would be ahead of them if they were to accept the offer.

“My child,” he continued, “may I ask why you are even considering the offer?”

They were quiet for a while and looked at the line where warm sunshine met the snowy ground. The snow there had melted, but the water that came from it touched the remaining snow, and half of it froze to ice again. A thin film of water ran down the pieces of ice that froze, melted, and froze again. It looked very slippery.

“A job is a job.” They brushed their hair with their hand. “It sounds like an interesting time. A fun time, even. I mean, look at what I can expect from life at the moment. I’ll finish my computer science degree in, like, nine or ten months, and then what? Work away forty hours a week until I’m old and senile? That doesn’t sound like life to me.”

“They aren’t offering you life either,” Peter said.

“It sounds better than what this world has got to offer at least.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He stroked his beard to find the right words. “They presented it like a job to you, with hours and a salary, but it isn’t. Ask Agarus and he’ll tell you that it’s his entire purpose. And it will be yours too.” He paused briefly. How could he convince a human when he hadn’t been mortal in nearly two thousand years himself? “Being on-call for sixty-five hours a week will make it impossible to maintain any kind of relationship, especially if the other party must never know what you’re doing. The secrecy alone, good heavens.” He shook his head and rested it in his hands. “And even if all that is fine with you, they’re still not offering you life. A life always has to come to an end. Being immortal may sound intriguing, but it’s the polar opposite of life.”

Silence. Sweet silence. Birds in the trees. The songs of birds. They broke the silence. It was pleasant. Warm sun. Exposed skin. Amidst it all, electric terror racing through their brain’s pathways.

“I’ll have to think about it.” They scratched their head and dug their nails deep into their scalp. “They gave me fourteen days to think about it.” And after a pause, “Somebody’s gotta do it.”

“I wish, with all my heart, it weren’t so.”

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