I am Angelo, and I am falling.

I think I am an Angel--

--a fallen angel.

And still falling...haha...

                            Angelo is the only thing I can recall. It's my name. The skies above are filled with puffy clouds, and they look like sweet white cotton candies pinned above me--as I fall. I am falling with my back.

                            I'm facing the heavens.

                            It starts to change.

In just a blink of my eyes, the once puffy and cottony clouds turn into dark and muddy bedrocks with the figuration of a thunderbolt. Embers and scorched feathers are falling with me--I imagine. I know that heaven is angry, but something tells me to care less. I fell happy, though.                                   Haha.

                            The roar of thunder vibrates in my ears and reverberates into a resemblance of a demon's growl. But still, I feel happy without any reason. I don't know. All I know now is that I'm falling.

                            The sky blinks at me with a flash of blinding light.

                            I close my eyes.

                            I open them back.

                            My vision is blurry as if my eyes were covered with translucent films. I blink to clear my vision.

                            I can see clearly now.

The sky is mirrored into multiple, identical images in a tetrahedral arrangement as if I am looking through the world's intricate kaleidoscope. I attempt to wipe away the sickening images by blinking. I blink for the second time, the third time, fourth, fifth...nothing happens.

                            The world seems to wobble on its axis. How should I know that it does?

                            I don't know.

                            I'm falling.

It doesn't matter. I don't care. I'm just happy--and free from worries. All my senses are stimulated by eternal bliss. My entire body is relaxed. My mind is soaking in a concentrated euphoria that the thought of colliding to wherever my weight is heading to is not enough to dilute my ecstatic condition.

My vision starts to change. The multiple images of the sky with its bed-rock clouds and all are swirling, twirling, whirling, gyrating, spiraling into colors: crimson, amber, citrine, viridian, turquoise, lilac, mauve, cerulean, and all the shades and hue of the vibrant colors alternating and cascading in a wondrous, almost impossible, orientation.

                            My heart feels like a seraph's feather.

                            I'm still falling--

                            --not floating--

                            --falling from grace, falling from the heavens.

                            I think I am an angel. Or, probably, I am Icarus.

Why? What did I do to be thrown away from the heavens? It's a mystery to be played. I am attempting to maneuver myself, turn my back from the heavens, and face my fate. Besides, the colors are sickening, the flashing of thunderbolts is making my headache with a strange tingling sensation.

                            Now, I am facing where I am doomed to fall.

                            It is still a swirl.

I am falling to the center of swirling colors. It is a colorful maelstrom spinning faster into the obsidian center, the eye of a colorful storm-- the singularity of a black hole. I think I already experienced this. Or maybe it was just a dream. A deja vu.

I can see the ground. I'm going to collide. Oh no! This might hurt a lot.

                            BOOG!

I can feel excruciating pain in every square inch of my body, especially on my head. I think I broke my crown like Jack as he fell from the hill where he and Jill fetch water with their pail. Haha!

A sense of urgency to stand came to me. I help myself.

                            I'm standing or I think I am.

                            I can see my body flat on the solid ground. My brains were out from my open cranium. My extremities are contorted in all angles.

                            "That's a veeeerry bad dive." A hoarse and rusty voice comes behind me. Being curious, I turn around from my squashed body. I am expecting a demon with a pair of protruding horns, a slithering tail, parched and roasted red skin, and a glowing pitchfork. But the entity behind me is not characterized by those descriptions. The entity, the man behind me is very neat. In fact, I think he is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. He's wearing a black, well-ironed tuxedo, a bloody-red tie, black slacks, and the shiniest black shoes. The man isn't holding a pitchfork, either. His arms are crossed. I notice that the place around me doesn't have flames. In fact, it doesn't have anything except for some sort of tower. It's not burning nor incinerating with souls to be punished for all eternity. It's a place I'm not familiar with.

                            After all, I think I'm not in hell.

                            "Who are you?" I finally ask. The feeling of joy in me starts to ebb and fade.

                            The man laughs hysterically.

                            "I am the devil. You just died."

                            "You are the devil?"

                            "Yep! Hahahahaha! I must say that you take more dusts, and repeat the dive."

                            "What? What do you mean?" I'm starting to doubt this man.

                            "Pick it up. It's in your pocket."

I don't understand what he means, but I am reaching my pocket. There's a small plastic pack, I pull it out. The tiny pack contains white crystalline particles which remind me of--drugs.

                            It is a drug. An illegal one.

I stare back at the man with a painful glimpse of realization. "I just did something wrong to myself," I say.

The man laughs hysterically, and he claps his hand in a languid manner. He walks toward me, taps my left shoulder and stares at me. "But, you wished for it. You like it."

                            "If you are the devil, are you going to bring me to hell?" I ask.

                            "Just what exactly do you think hell is? Do you really think it's a place of endless flames? Devils are not fond of telling the truth, but I won't lie to you about hell, either. The burning place you call hell or inferno is not real. Devils don't enjoy barbecue souls, you know?"

                            His statement is puzzling. He taps my shoulder again.

                            "My friend, you've been into troubles in your mortal, adult life for more than thirty decades. Sometimes, the nasty things were done by you. Sometimes, nasty things were done to you. Your wife cheated on you. Your kid died in your helpless arms because you haven't had the thing of evil to pay for the hospital. You've been judged by many, scorned by many, destroyed by wrong decisions and suffered much in the mundane world. Do you think it is not hell?"

The devil's words are sinking in me more than a pierce of a pitchfork. It is painful.

                            "Angelo, you’ve already been in hell. Your eyes have seen it. Your ears have heard its constant discord. You smelt its decadence. You felt its tortures, and even tasted its bitterness."

I am quiet. I fell. I died. And still falling even beyond death. I swallow whatever there is to swallow in my mouth, and ask the devil, "If hell isn't real, what's going to happen to me now?"

The devil laughs again.

                            "Well," he says after recovering from his laughter. He claps his hands and continues, "You're going back--to the top of that tower." He pointed to the top of a very high tower. "You're going to jump off from there again. This time, make it the best suicide dive. Savor the escape you were searching for when you were still alive but only found it in death. Enjoy the pain, the splattering of your brains and the sight of the rigid ground as you in-crimson it with your blood. You'll do it for all eternity.

The devil smiles.

                            "At least, you won't be burnt."

                            In an instant, I'm now at the top of the tower. The devil's laughter are just mere echoes which gradually dissipate with the wind.

                            I know what to do.

                            I'm going to jump.

                            I am Angelo, and I am falling...