The Vice
~He suddenly was startled from his deep sleep. Automatically his hand involuntarily
went to the table to switch off the alarm. To his utter amazement his alarm was not to
be located. That is when Mackenzie realized that he was in a strange location. He was
not in his familiar bed. He groped to his right to locate his dear wife sleeping
peacefully beside him, but there too, he hit a blank.
Now he was fully awake and he was in a brightly lit room but without any lights. He
was sleeping in an immense bed draped all in white. Everything in the room including
the decor was spotlessly white in colour. Apart from the bed, there was no other
furniture in the room. Bishop. Mackenzie surveyed the room with utter amazement
drawn all over his face.
"Where am I?" Was the recurring question in his blurred mind.
He had the previous day gone to sleep in his bed with his wife after a day with
vigorous activities. Since he was deadly tired, he soon fell into the deepest sleep that
he had never imagined did exist.
Now waking in his present circumstances was a crossword puzzle too hard to unravel.
He tried to wake up from his bed but a peculiar growth on his back jostled him to
shock, amazement and stupor. He had grown wings on his back. He still had his free
will to use his hands and he literally felt the wings. They were soft with a tender thin
skin spreading between a network of light bones. He was flabbergasted! Was he in
Dreamland?
Then there came soft music from what Bishop. Mackenzie at first thought emanated
from hidden speakers only to realize the room was filled by dazzling white ange-like
figures who were singing those sweet melodious songs. They floated in the air just
like eagles in the sky. So swiftly, they floated and so sweetly, they sang. This was
blissful.
Bishop. Mackenzie opened his mouth and sweet nothingness dropped in the mouth.
He had never tasted such sweetness in his lifetime. He had lived sixty-three years on
earth but this taste was quite different. Then he flapped his wings and he found
himself floating with these celestial figures. He could sing the songs with them. How
wonderful. He needed no couch and neither did he need to learn the songs. They just
slipped on his lips the way sweet honey does.
"Bishop. Mackenzie, welcome to the army of Messengers of The Most High. We
congratulate you for the nomination and we hope you will deliver."
Bishop. Mackenzie just perceived rather than heard this words. If his name had not
been mentioned then he would have thought he just imagined the words. How come
he was called a Messenger of The Most High? His life, though he was a Bishop was
not in any way pleasing. He was a murderer, liar and thief all rolled into one. He had
cheated people into selling their property and give him the proceeds. As a Bishop, he
had asked them to fast till they die in order to meet with God, their maker. This was
only a scheme to acquire their wealthy. He, himself had lived lavishly, sampling the best foodstuffs on earth and never denied himself any single meal. He had strangled
those faithfuls who after starving took too long to die. His squad had murdered
children for members he sold to his masters and sponsors abroad. He was a great
cheat.
Yet here he was floating, singing and even chatting with angels. Is there any need to
be good on earth or was it only a waste of time?
"You are now ready to meet the Most High but remember you are not here through
your good works but you are here by God's grace. You have to repent and change
from your wicked ways."
These words hit him like a time bomb. Do these creatures read your mind. It is then
that it hit him so hard that he almost fell down. He could read through the minds of all
these numerous creatures as if it was large print books opened before him.
It was then that he realized that all he did on earth, as he presumed he was in heaven,
was open to all to read in this new world. The verses he used to read in church began
playing tricks on his mind.
21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first
earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully
dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look!
God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They
will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will
wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or
crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4
So there was some truth in these words. Bishop.Mackenzie had thought that this was
some fictional story just created to scare people out of their wits. He had down in his
heart known it was only a gimmick to ensure people did good. So there was a real
heaven and an existing God. His conscience starting haunting him as they flew on.
Soon their flight suddenly brought them into a narrow tavern. There was a wall on
either side and all the angels floated in with ease but he was too big to pass through.
He hit his wings on the edge and tumbled with a heavy thud on the ground. Funny
enough, it was as if he fell on some sort of velvet and he was unhurt. In the real fact,
he just bounced like an inflated balloon and just lay there in bewilderment. The others
had to stop in their tracks and filed back to his rescue.
"Your iniquities won't allow you beyond this line. In normal circumstances, you
would have gone by that route to hades and total damnation but now we will show
you how to pass through the alley to meet the Most High."
It was then that he saw another wide but a rough winding wide road with fire burning
on its sides. At the entrance was a fiery looking creature carrying what looked like a
burning sword in its hands. The creature looked like a no-nonsense angel of death
ready to force anybody on this road of total damnation which is the second death.

Bishop. Mackenzie was ready to do anything. A beggar's knees are supple and his
were ready to bend. A large screen appeared before him and he started watching his
performance before coming here. He saw cruelty of high order and he started weeping
uncontrollably. The screen showed him with his allies cutting open the bellies of
children despite pleas to spare their lives. Blood dripping down like an open tap, his
allies went ahead and extracted the members they so desperately needed. It was
pathetic. He saw emaciated women and men dying in numbers on empty promises of
entering heaven.
As the screen continued to roll, he saw the same people floating on the damnation
route as the man with the blazing sword cut at them mercilessly. Bishop. Mackenzie
regretted his actions. When he turned his eyes to the screen, it was as blank as a new
page.
"Repent," was the only word that he heard.
The word echoed and reverberated in the the Ecclesiastical world as if it was a Godsent vengeance to his uncouth behaviour. It hit him hard and he started weeping like a
child repenting all his actions. He spoke them loud and cried for mercy. Bishop.
Mackenzie for the first time realized the sinner in him that he had never though
existed. He had assumed a holier-than-thou attitude but now he saw the sinful self.
His repentance was so intense that he was as one in a deep trance till he fell back on
the velvet unconscious. He lay there like one dead till he was awakened by others who
were full of music as he lay unconscious.
"Let us go!"
They all filed in the alley and thistime he floated in by ease. So it is the sins we do
that makes us heavy and wide never to pass through the heavens gates.
Soon they arrived. There was an immense figure sitting on a big throne before him.
The figure commanded much power and his presence was so overbearing that no
words could be summoned to describe him. This was The Most High. Beside him
there sat another shining creature whom Bishop. Mackenzie recognized as the son of
the Most High. There were twenty four elders before him that were bowing and
sweetly singing praises at him. Bishop. Mackenzie, for the first time in his life, fell
down in reverence and worshipped. There is nothing like this he had ever felt before;
a sort of bliss settled upon him.
Then a voice he had not heard before talked to him. It was in something like a soft
and metallic accent. It narrated how bad he had been and his turning over a new leaf.
He had to go back to the world and proclaim God's kingdom. He had misled many
leading them astray and he was the only one to amend the wrong. It was then when an
angel touched him and he found himself on bed beside his deeply asleep wife.
Was it a dream! Is it true he was to lead people back to God