Member-only story
White Devil
I don’t remember the first time I learned about Hell.
Maybe it was at Sunday school. Maybe it was at home, when my parents read out loud from the book of Bible stories for children, with illustrations by children (“just like you!” the cover promised). The Devil, red and angular, drawn in crayon by a six-year-old just like me, was a living presence in my world. He lived in Hell — a physical place, a region of the universe just like the neighbor kids’ backyard or my classroom at school or the asteroid belt out in space.
Hell terrified me. If you weren’t good enough, if you didn’t love Jesus enough before you died, you would go there forever. My family’s church didn’t dwell much on the concrete, particular details of the torture, but telling me that it was worse than anything I could imagine didn’t stop me from imagining. Instead, it gave me license to fantasize extravagant torments, knives and fire and electricity and, worst of all, being totally abandoned by my family and my friends and my God.
And Satan wanted to get me there — get all of us there. I was taught that he was a literal presence in the world, whispering into your ear and testing you. At one point, I could barely sleep for weeks. Every time I closed my eyes, there he was, waiting for me. My parents begged and cajoled — wouldn’t I please just tell them what was the matter, why I sat upright in bed trembling…