Balance?
“You cannot have light if there is no dark, Ramel. Did you even know that Heaven was so bright until you came down here into the dark with me?”
I suddenly understood. She was right. I had just simply thought that was what existing was—endless light. I had nothing to compare it to, and so I had not appreciated it for what it was. Though, if I was being honest with myself, I still wasn’t sure I appreciated it. It wastoobright. I much preferred it down here with Lilith. However, I didn’t think I could ever tell Yahweh that.
She looked down at her ink-black hands and gave me a sly smile.
“Let’s go on a little trip to the mortal realm,” she said, and my eyes widened in shock.
“Yahweh might not like that,” I cautioned, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fuck Yahweh. He does not rule me. I am a ruler unto myself.”
I was startled at her crassness but felt a smile curl across my lips despite myself. I had a feeling Shem would like her as much as I did.
She held out a death-ridden hand to me, and I hesitated. She laughed softly. “It is okay, Ramel. I cannot kill you; you are immortal,” she reassured me, and I nodded, finally putting my hand in hers.
Her hand did not feel wet. It was warm and dry, and the contact sent little shockwaves of pleasure directly to my heart. She took us to a leafy green forest, and I marveled at this new and foreign environment.
Everything was lush and loamy. I could smell a wet, earthy musk and reveled in how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting us in a green-gold glow. This was much better than endless blinding white as well. I frowned.With so many beautiful places to live, why did Yahweh insist we live in an endless abyss filled with nothing?
“This is called a rainforest,” Lilith explained to me, and I nodded, willing my mind to sponge up every word that came out of her perfect mouth.
“This is one of the best examples I can think of to demonstrate balance.”
With a wave of her hand, she brought us before a large jungle cat that seemed to have caught a wild boar. The crimson of the boar’s shredded corpse stood in sharp contrast with the earthy greens that surrounded it. The cat’s yellow and black coat shone in the dappled light, and it snarled as it tore into its prey.
“Do you feel bad for the boar?” Lilith asked. I looked at the poor, dead animal and nodded.
“Yes. It is dead now,” I whispered, and Lilith smiled at me.
“That is true. However, if it did not die, what would become of the beautiful jungle cat? She has cubs to feed, you know. If she had not killed this boar, her cubs would perish.”
I frowned. I had not thought of that.
With a wave of her hand, she fast-forwarded through time to when the jungle cat’s life ended. The cat’s body lay in the underbrush of the forest, and Lilith stepped forward, laying her black hands on the cat’s fur and stroking it softly.
“Shh,” she whispered to the corpse, “walk in peace.”
I watched in awe as decay began to spread from Lilith’s inky fingers, and the cat’s body decomposed at an accelerated rate before my very eyes. Once the cat had melted into the earth, I marveled as fungi grew over the mound of decayed flesh. Soon, the enriched spot on the jungle floor erupted into new life. Green shoots grew, and before I knew it, a little family of wild boars appeared to eat the shoots, and I smiled.
Lilith turned to me. She came forward, and I watched the sensual sway of her hips, finding myself unable to look away. A strange twinge of feeling grew low in my abdomen, and my throat felt tight. She smiled at me knowingly and placed her decay-ridden hands on either side of my face.
She smelled of death and carnations, and I had never smelled anything so lovely.
Suddenly, we were back on the sandy beaches of Hell, and I found my hands had fallen to her hips. I was lost in the earthy green of her eyes. They were reminiscent of the lush rainforest she had just transported me from.
“Just as you cannot have light without darkness, you cannot have life without death. Without decay, nothing would grow.” Her voice was quiet, and I found myself staring at her lips. Why couldn’t I look away from that little pink mouth?
“They call this place Hell, Ramel, but a world without death would be the true tragedy.”
She leaned forward, and I held my breath, unsure what she was about to do. She brushed her inky thumb against my forehead and pressed a vision into my mind. The wind left my lungs, and the strength sapped from my limbs.
Lilith showed me what a world without death, natural disaster, or disease would be, and the sight of it horrified me. Too many mouths and not enough food or space. Mortals piled on top of each other, unable to find rest. They writhed against one another in a living ball of eternal torment and pain.
When the vision faded, and I found myself back in Lilith’s arms, I felt I had been given some forbidden knowledge and a layer of Yahweh’s lies had been peeled away.
Yahweh had said that Lilith was a disgrace. He said because she was the Queen of Disease and Decay and the Goddess of Death and Destruction that she was evil… sin incarnate. He had implied her only role was to torment the souls of the wicked. However, what she had just shown me was the opposite of those things. Without Lilith, there would be no balance.
