Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 45 - The Den of Curcio Part Two

This is Episode 45 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or at Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Den of Curcio Part Two

 “You put your art on that machine, but the people who view it are only spectators. They don’t understand. They become entranced or depressed. They’re merely entertained.”

“That is the nature of the culture, Jonathan. You have studied their nature, right?”

“Only their economic nature, that which causes them to make monetary decisions.”

“That is their exact nature,” Curcio said. “They are economic beings, or so they believe. They desire material comfort. They desire entertainment. They desire sleep and safety, ‘bread and circuses.’ They don’t desire eternals, or even conflict or wrenching, nauseating ideas to struggle with. They only want trifling rituals and symbols to focus and hypnotize them, to appease their fears and comfort them. With or without us, they will invent this type of happiness someday. Either I alone exert my will over them, or, in a couple decades, faster technology will allow only a few others to exert their wills over them. But I can do it now. I can help make their own world visible. That’s all.”

“I wouldn’t want my words and ideas presented as yours are. It hypnotizes them, as you said. They don’t need to consider and struggle. They only focus and watch. What’s the value in that?”

“In the quantity, Jonathan.” Curcio flung the tea bag to the sloppy side of the room and set down the mug. “The billions. The medium is very efficient. The images reach them in milliseconds. Could Napoleon have ever imagined such omnipotence? Why should control require armies or legislatures, or courtrooms? I command their wills by my own will, without violence. I will not rest until I have convinced your will also.” He shook his mane. Curls straightened and rebounded.

“I dislike the type of control you wield.”

“Why is that, Jonathan? To reach others is your only aim. You want to change them. This is the only way. I have discovered that this entertainment is what humans need for their greatest happiness. Do you think you can persuade them to do what is against their advantage?”

“Maybe. Some always will be willing to subvert what is to their advantage and to choose for themselves. Some don’t want to be hypnotized or dictated to by the outside world, or by the algorithms and formulas that act on them.”

“I do not destroy your precious free will.” He sipped his tea. “Free will should match one’s best advantage. Why do you resist what is to your advantage? You wish to reach them with your ideas, but will your novice poet verses scribbled in an obscure leaflet reach billions, or even dozens? Why would you live among the sleepers? Why would you wake them? Do you want them to become Christians? Even if you were to change them, their old natures would recur in their descendants.”

“I want them to realize what they’re supposed to be, as humans.”

“Jonathan, all they’re capable of is mediocrity and sin.” Curcio stood and exhibited his monumental height and girth. “I have waited many years for just one person to ease my loneliness. The rest are hopeless. Even if a few of them listened to you, their ordinariness would return.”

“Have you no faith in humans?”

“Faith?” He slammed himself down on the chair again. “I have no faith in anything. I believe only what my senses provide me. I am simply the most honest man alive.”

“Honest?”

“Yes. I never had faith in man when I was religious. In fact, my distrust of man evolved from my religion. Religion must distrust man to demand that something else is required to save him. It demands that man hate himself, his body, and his animal. I’m sure you understand. I know you are religious, since you have endured so much.”

“You think so, Curcio? But I don’t hate the body.”

“Yes, but hating the physical is required for illumination and freedom, isn’t it? The resilience you have just shown can only come from realizing a higher magnificence. And you shifted from a Magic Theater master and its great messenger to its greatest cynic. Judging by your person and your Western background, all this could only stem from the Christian God.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I once thought as you think. We are similar, Jonathan. No doubt Xavier told you of my history. Did we not sound similar?”

“No.”

“You may lack my knowledge of medicine, history, technology, religion, psychology, and art, but that’s because of your culture. We are similar.” He leaned back in the chair and stretched.

“And now, Jonathan, you will turn from religion too. Now I will show you the murder of Christianity and its God.”

“By you?”

“I’m simply supplying the weapon,” he said. “The motive and the foundation have been around for hundreds of years.”

“How so?”

“We’ll prove that everyone is automatically saved. All we need to do is change Who God is, and the groundwork is in place. We show that God is a God of love, yes, but not a God of justice and law. He is a subjective God, ruling by whim. Since all things are possible with God, He can save everyone. When that happens, it’s the ‘everyone’ part that matters to people. The purpose of heaven becomes a reunion of humans, not a vision of the face of God. The nature of our souls on earth no longer matters. You no longer need to prepare to meet God; He must prepare for you.

“This is the answer to the fears that you and everyone you know summarily ignore: The fear of hell. There cannot be a hell. A religion based on hell crumbles on its own tenets. A loving God is ethically mandated to give us heaven. So, He cannot allow eternal damnation.”

“But you believe God must follow our same moral code. You believe God acts out of our definition of love, rather than out of His designed system of justice, out of His definition of justice, which He’s revealed to us. You’re deriving an explanation of how the world should or must be, not how it actually is.”

“We don’t know that, do we?”

“Then all our efforts on earth are unnecessary. Being good, loving the poor, making peace with our enemies, being faithful to spouses – why do it?”

“Exactly,” he said. “We’ve already started to see what happens. Humans flourish. Those well adjusted in my new non-Christendom order know that God has gifted them eternity, as soon as Jesus died, which was due to His own religion. God cannot do otherwise.”

“But you think that humans will die and accept God. If they don’t accept God on earth, why will they after death?”

“Because that’s their nature, and they don’t know it yet,” he said. “But many of us do know this. The scientists in Minnesota know this. I suspect your Iowa utopians know this. Humans, as a whole, separated from God at the beginning. Their own movement, ever since, has been to return. They will reunify, once they break from their bodies, which are declining, and further separating from God. But their spirits yearn to unify back.” Curcio stood.

“I had hoped you would follow me in this company after the executive workshop,” he said. “Or, failing that, perhaps I could exile you to a life of comfort forever with Miss Paula. Now I see you might even surpass me in resilience, although not in knowledge. Yes, Jonathan, I once thought as you do. And you will soon think as I do.”

“I don’t think we’re so similar.”

“Yes, we are, Jonathan. I struggled as you struggle. I fought with my particular culture, which was dogmatic and religious, only a few years ago. Yours too was dogmatic, but it was a different dogma: the dogma of relativism. I once followed culture’s sacred words, as you did. I was a diligent believer in ‘thou shalts.’ I chastised others for not accepting and performing them. I was a devout member of that culture. But my honesty, that foundation of religious virtue, enticed me away from religion, just as your honesty enticed you away from the current relativism, where we have no religious commandments. No one dares speak of it, but science and industry and philosophy have already attempted to murder God and Christianity in cold blood. Today, I will finish the job.”

“These statements don’t frighten you?”

“Of course not!” Curcio shouted. “We have nothing to fear. First, if there is a God, He’s already saved us. Second, if there is no God, we need no God to save us. Save us from what? We have only life, here on earth. Then death is eternal bliss for everyone. The dead go nowhere except to blissful inwardness. So why would I concern myself with the life after? This is what the world will soon discover. The public aims for only safety and comfort, so we will deliver them the grandest comfort: agreeable death.”

“How?”

“One does not need a God like yours to reach one’s pinnacle. Everyone knows that. Most are too dishonest or fearful to speak of it. You will learn that, and so will the culture. I will soon force that honesty. Jonathan, now you will choose the life of idyllic knowledge that you can do and feel whatever you want, because your God is compelled to save you.”

I shook my head.

“No, Curcio. Your religion of free salvation is pure deceit. Universal salvation is a distraction meant to pull each of us away from knowing the True and Authentic Reality, and the Good and Beautiful Purpose: to live according to God’s design for our soul, holiness; to live in order to reconcile our own soul’s individual fallen and decrepit nature to the Holy Trinity’s perfection. You say I will learn your theories. But I won’t join in those images. I won’t assent to those lies.

“Our soul is that which must choose to align with what God designed for us. If people choose not to, they do not choose Him. They choose damnation for themselves.” Curcio boomed a laugh. “You will retract all that, Jonathan. That is why I need you, my friend. You will be the first to use The Shroud.”

“What?”

“Yes, Jonathan. The Shroud must be first used by the greatest cynic and a person of courage. You are ideal.”

“You say people will learn to be honest and to not fear. But what is The Shroud?”

“I am certain you know, Jonathan. Today it will teach you the absurdity of fearing death, and the honesty of the earth. For the billions that follow you, death will become entertainment, as love, work, and religion already have. The Shroud ends your life. Your biology ceases. Your psychology continues in bliss. Then The Shroud returns your biology so you can tell others that everyone is saved. I insist that you participate this morning.”

“I refuse.”

“But, Jonathan, you are a trespasser and a conspiring computer pirate. Imprisonment for thirty years would not suit you, so I must insist you comply with my plans. I implore you, however, that The Shroud is not permanent. That is my word as an honest man. However, if you refuse to participate, your prison sentence will be final. But no need for that, because I will not waver until I have persuaded you to help me. I need not only your example and your fortitude, but also I need your promoting this product after having the experience.”

“It sounds frightening. I don’t have that much courage, Curcio.”

“Of course you do. Soon billions of people will follow you. You will report the truth. You will deliver the message and the experience itself to them. You will deliver their greatest comfort.” Curcio stood, turned from me, and walked to the window. “The day will dawn soon. The clouds have left too. It will be beautiful for you.”

I again felt the vial thump against me in my jacket. It was inches from my hand, seconds from removing its lid and a foot from Curcio’s cup. I reached for it. It was between my fingers. Inside my coat, I removed the cap. A sweep of the arm would poison the tea. As I watched Curcio’s wide back, I swung my arm over the mug. It froze.

Curcio still stared out at the graying wasteland. My fist hovered above the tea. Steam warmed my wrist. A deadly drop dribbled over the side of the vial onto my shaking hand.

“Think of it, Jonathan,” Curcio said to the window. “You will see what non-being is.”

I must rotate my hand. A mere contraction of a muscle would send the toxin into the drink. Could I thwart such genius? The end does not justify the means. Is there another means? My fist retreated.

“Your death doesn’t interest me, Curcio.”

“Of course it does, Jonathan,” Curcio said as he turned back. “You know death. You have witnessed it. You have been near it. It fascinates you.”

“I do not seek death. I seek Beauty, which is Goodness itself. That’s what I seek, the only Truth I need. But it does seem like the body has always deprived me of discovering it.”

“Yes!” He ran up and sat close to me. “Yes! You can escape your body, to pure spirit. Yes!” He sipped his tea. “Think, Jonathan.” Then he swallowed the tea whole.

Again the Holy Trinity poured through me. I had allowed the Holy Trinity to lead me as I spared the life of that evil. I needed Its teaching, or else murder would be permitted. My wrist would have twisted easily.

Now, I could not avoid death. My pathetic muscles quivered. My skin goose-fleshed. My soul resolved to die.

But as I was accepting Curcio’s demands as unavoidable and maybe worthwhile, my counter-offer was formulated and presented to me, then I offered it to Curcio.

“Curcio, I trust your genius. I accept your honesty. I understand that the images will take me away from life, into death, and back. And I’m ready to discover what death is. But I’d rather die by throwing myself through the window than by succumbing to your images, alone.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I’ll accept your Shroud, but not unless you accept it too.”

“Jonathan, you’re in no position to negotiate.”

“Yes, I am. You’ll lose me. More importantly, I challenge you as a man of honesty. I demand from you the courage you demand from me. Certainly, you want to explore the absence of life as much as I do. You created this game. You must wonder too.”

Curcio’s laughter resounded off the walls. “Such resiliency! Astounding. You are correct! You are correct. I will also go. I must go. I too hastened to go alone. Now I will find the truth with my courageous, cynical friend. Yes!” He leaped into the air, towering twenty feet above me, it seemed. “Yes! Picture the dawn there, Jonathan. See it. Now we will surpass even that!”

I shuddered. My muscles quaked. Curcio bounded through the room, collecting the helmets, gloves, and bodysuits. “Ah, to see those Grobel images. To smell the Benikard gases!”

He leaped and exclaimed. “The inner fears of mankind will soon be released, Jonathan! Think of the neuroses and psychoses that will dissipate. Think of the wars that men will fight for pure principle, without fear of death. Think of the pleasures that humans will seek, without fear of punishment. Prepare yourself, Jonathan. Have you learned to laugh yet?”

I trembled. I wriggled out of my jacket and slung it over a chair. As Curcio handed me the SensorSuit and gloves, my dread swelled. “Laugh, Jonathan. Why do you fear this? I will join you. We will die together and return.”

“Is this what all users will see, later today?”

“The version we’ll see is the journey that a subset of users will see each week.”

“How many?”

“Always enough to lure millions more.”

Curcio tapped the keys and instructed the electrons flowing through the cables, gates, and magnets.

I went to the window. I imagined the chair that I leaned on bursting through the window. My body could follow it to the snow. But a different journey to death awaited me. I must endure it, to shield others from what could be spiritual doom. Only I could die and return. I trusted only myself to report the experience to the masses desperate for this entertainment.

The morning gray turned red. The first flames of the sun peeked over the horizon. As I inserted myself into the SensorSuit, I summoned the Holy Trinity within me. Then I said the Paternoster and ten of the little prayers with Mary, wishing I had time for more. It was Friday, the day to consider the pain Christ endured for us. For me.

I slouched into the chair I’d die in.

For me to be redeemed, each lust for a woman, each viewing of pictures of nude women, each self-pleasure, each drunken binge, each lie I ever told, and each time I raised my voice against my parents, required a lash to His body.

For me to be redeemed, each Sunday I worked and failed to worship and participate in the Mass, and each time I spoke doubt about God, required a thorn in His head.

For me to be redeemed, each time I made small choices to veer away and to fail to act and think well, required His shoulders be dented with that Cross He carried.

For me to be redeemed, each sexual act prior to Maureen, each thrust, required a hammer strike to nail both His hands. Each act enticing women to sin required a hammer strike to His feet. The sexual act creating the baby in Meredith required the sword to pierce His side.

I affirmed my longing for Goodness, for Him. I pleaded for the unceasing, unimaginable mercy of the one loving God, the mercy that His suffering enabled.

Curcio sat. “It is ready, Jonathan. Tap the start button, here.”

We faced one another, helmets in hand, bodies armored with wires, staring and panting.

Finally, Curcio laughed.

“I have immense plans, Jonathan. I have waited in this tower for the arrival of someone such as you, someone equal to, maybe higher than, me. I now know that one such man exists. Now I can grant safety and peace to the rest. After this, you will join me, I assure you. We will prepare them for their entertainment, which will be death itself: either salvation for all, or peaceful sleep. Death is entertainment! Yes, my hour has come, not to go among men with some message, but to go above them and deliver their final gift. This is the end of death as fear. This is the end of fear. ‘Well then! The lion came, my children are near, Zarathustra has ripened, my hour has come: This is my morning, my day is breaking: rise now, rise, thou great noon!’”

I gazed at the orange sun as it broke from the horizon tangent and

 weeks. I may never again. I lifted the helmet to my head and encased it. I turned to Curcio. His eyes shone through the shaded plastic of his helmet. I reached down to the keyboard and pressed.

In the shopping mall, I burst through the door under the sign:

DEN OF LIONS

NOT FOR EVERYBODY

I moved inside. A pride of lions grinned at me with pointed teeth. They roared and chuckled. All at once, they pounced, claws first.

Colors, shapes, vibrations, and aromas seized my existence.

Blessed are they that are merciful, for they shall be shown mercy

Forgive us our trespasses

Next week: Episode 46 - The Wide Path

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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