Dante felt his face getting hot. How dare this old fucker lecture him! Yeah he wasn’t perfect, and had made a lot of mistakes. Hell, from an objective level Dante even agreed a little, but that didn’t mean the high and mighty snob could rub it in his face.
The Saint must have seen Dante’s expression. “It’s not as if you’re treated poorly, here,” he said. “Limbo is no Heaven, mind you, but what would be the point of Heaven if it was?”
“No Heaven?” Dante spat, “I shit myself when I got here.”
The old man chuckled. That caught Dante off guard. “Everyone soils themselves after they die,” Saint Jude told Dante. “The saved are bathed in heavenly oils, wrapped in silken robes, and a crown placed upon their heads. You were cleaned and diapered, with the knowledge that you would continue to make a mess of things time and time again.” (A poop joke, ha-ha, very funny.) “The damned, I imagine are just left to stew in it.”
Dante rolled his eyes. What was the point of all this? “Why are we even talking?”
“There’s the question I was waiting for!” Saint Jude pointed at Dante, his eyes lighting up. He rubbed his hands together. “The true heart of the matter. Why did the Judy’s attack you? Why were you even able to stand when it is fact that no denizen of Limbo may do so?”
Uh oh. The codger had suddenly gotten a little too excited for Dante’s liking. “Yeah…why?” Dante asked hesitantly.
“You child,” the geezer smiled, “are an Orpheus.” He said this as if it were obvious and well known. He might as well have said “You have brown hair,” or “You’re a male.” Dante just stood there, trying to comprehend the words that had passed the old man’s lips. There was a long silence before the Saint deigned to explain.
“God made man in his own image,” Jude finally said. “Do you think that means God has two arms, two legs, and a head?” Dante shook his head. Frankly, he had never really thought much about what God looked like, but he knew what answer Jude was looking for. Dante knew a straw man question when he heard it.
“No,” Saint Jude stated firmly, “but he did gift us each with a bit of the Divine Spark, free will. Every human has the ability to make their will manifest, to create or destroy for no other reason than it is their desire to do so, much like God.
“Sadly,” he went on like a professor who had just turned the page in a dusty textbook, “they lack perspective. Too often, man will favor their own will over anyone else’s-even the Creator’s. They try to become gods unto themselves.” He looked up at Dante. “If you know even the basics of the Word, you know what happened to the first being that tried to be equal to God.” He shook his head sadly and clicked his tongue, “Poor self-righteous Devil.” Wow, this guy must be a Saint. He was actually showing sympathy for the Devil.
“What does that have to do with me?” Dante asked, missing the point.
“You’re an Orpheus,” Jude restated. “You’re a human with enough will and passion to defy even God’s edicts, if only temporarily.”
Dante gasped. He the chosen one? He was Keanu Reeves? He was the Matr-
“Don’t look so cocky, boy.” the old man scowled, interrupting Dante’s train of thought. “Anyone can do it. Most just don’t. They never figure it out.” He shrugged, more to himself than to Dante. “It typically starts with an emotional conduit or form of expression.”
“Like singing.” Dante stated this just as Jude had stated the Orpheus comment. It wasn’t a question. It was fact.
“Yes,” Jude conceded, “like the original Orpheus. Man went into Hell and coerced the Infernal Triumvirate into giving him his wife back with the condition of proving his love and trust by not looking back before he left Hell.”
“He looked back”, Dante finished, remembering the old Greek Myth.
Jude nodded, his hands folded in his lap. “It’s what happens when man becomes a god unto himself. He trusts only himself, and loves himself above all others.” He cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable about what he was to say next. “What the story fails to mention anymore is that afterwards, the Orpheus decided women were too much trouble, and spent the rest of his life laying with boys. Ruins the romanticism of the account, I know, but it’s the truth. Humans are capable of great and petty things.”
“I bet you’ve had this talk with a lot of singers.” Dante changed the subject and allowed himself a nervous chuckle.
“Not as many as you might think.” the old Saint answered, “It doesn’t have to be singing either. Any creative form of expression will do”, the geezer started looping in a circle, showing an imaginary list that went on and on and on.
“Preaching, writing, painting, sculpting- even particularly barbed insults or clever lies will do. You were not marked as an Orpheus because of your talent. You were marked because you managed to defy God’s decree that the inhabitants of Limbo will be as infants in that they may not stand or walk.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Dante said defensively.
“I’m aware.” Jude replied. “That is why we are having this talk and you’re not sleeping in a cradle till the end times…yet.”
“Yet?” Dante did not like where this was going.
“You only have this second chance as a courtesy,” Saint Jude summarized. “Around here, ignorance is still just barely an excuse. So I have seen fit to remove you from the Newborn Room. From now until you prove otherwise,” he continued, “your treatment in Limbo shall be as it has always been.”
“BUT,” he added with emphasis, “if you are to be returned to the crèche, where your Lysa waits for you, then you must never sing again.” the old man paused to let it sink in. “If you break this arrangement, you shall be subdued and returned to the Newborn Room for all time.
Dante didn’t know how to feel. He’d get to see Lysa again, but he was forbidden his music. “But singing is one of the ways that I stay…well….me!” he pleaded. “It’s how I came back to myself the first time.”
“I am aware.” the old man grunted. “I am also certain that the Judy’s would prefer to pick up where they left off and make sure there’s not a second time that you come back to yourself.” He drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “Some, I’ve heard, would even prefer that you not be given this second chance and be returned to the cots and swaddling clothes immediately.” Dante opened his mouth to speak, but the old man waved him off with a gnarled hand.
“Don’t worry, that will not happen until you provoke it.”
“But what if,” Dante paused, “without my singing, I regress again?
“Then you shall be innocent, loved, and cared for.” Saint Jude replied, starting to lose patience but remaining neutral in tone. “All will be well.”
“But I don’t want that!” Dante raised his voice and took a half-step forward, only now remembering that he was still diaper-clad.
Saint Jude did not react. “Then I will pray that your connection with the girl is strong enough to sustain you; or that you develop a new connection that does not defy the Creator.” He stood up from the wicker chair and pushed it back into the darkness. He turned as if to leave. Oh fuck this! They weren’t done talking yet!
“This isn’t fair!” Dante yelled, “You might as well sentence me to Hell!” The old man stopped and turned around. His sweater and slacks reshaped themselves into flowing white robes. He marched up to Dante and stared the boy right in the eye.
“If you had even glimpsed the torments of the pit, you would not dare say that!” the Saint whispered. “And as for fair?” his voice gained a little volume. “You know what’s not fair? Postponing your eternal reward earned from a lifetime of devotion and martyrdom so that spoiled children may evade the flames of the inferno!” His voice was booming now. “So long as I am Regent of this realm, I may not enter Paradise!” The echo of this voice thundered in Dante’s ear.
“MEANWHILE!” he boomed, “I MUST ENDURE LISTENING TO WHINING BRATS A FRACTION OF MY AGE AND THEIR PROTESTS- BECAUSE THEY ARE WELL CARED FOR BUT HAVE LOST THE PRIVELEGE TO WIPE THEMSELVES!” Dante swore he saw a literal flash of lightning in the man’s eyes. “THAT’S what’s not fair!” Dante shrunk down, put in his place.
The wizened elder exhaled and stepped back. His voiced lowered to a whisper again. “But I am the Saint of Lost Causes. It is my duty, so I will endure.” That was all there was to it then. Dante could either go back to the nursery and try to get along without his ace in the hole, or be sent back to the endless loop of consciousness that he had already experienced.
“I like you, boy. I do.” Saint Jude said, nodding slightly. “If you last long enough and manage to grow up a little more, perhaps we’ll talk again. Until then.” he turned to leave once more.
“Wait!” Dante called out, more a request this time than a demand.
“Yes?” Jude turned his head back around.
One last thing was still nagging at Dante. He knew he had seen the lightning in the man’s eye, heard the power in his voice. “You told me of divine sparks. Of using my will and emotions to defy God.” Dante began. “That’s why the Judy’s called me Orpheus.”
“And?” the old man in the robes let the question hang in the air.
“What do they call people with all of that inside them who don’t defy God and look out for other people?”
“Saints,” Jude winked. “They call us Saints.”