A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck

Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after.

Do you have any idea how long eternity is? My heavens, what an imagination you humans have. What kind of God would leave you burning forever?

1. Please be kind. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Failure to do this will bring unhappiness and misery to you and your fellow citizens. 2. Do not get discouraged. Remember nothing lasts forever. Someday this will be a distant memory. 3. Please leave towels on the floor if you wish them to be cleaned. Hang up those you wish to use again. 4. Books not in your possession will be returned to their original place on the stacks every night. A book will be considered in your possession if you are touching it. 5. If you are killed you will be restored to life on the following day. Please try to avoid death as much as possible. 6. All contracts, bonds, commitments, covenants, pledges, and promises entered into prior to your entering Hell are null and void. This includes, but is not limited to: debt, marriage, natural births and adoptions, requirements of citizenship, military obligations, student loans, etc. 7. Remember you are never really alone. Although it may feel like it for very long stretches of time. 8. Please don’t write on, mark, or mar library materials. Although repairs are made nightly, we would like to keep repairs to a minimum. 9. Lastly, you are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

I could reconstruct every second of every day I’d been alive from the moment of my birth until the day I finally shut my eyes at the end. This clarity of memory surprised me the first time I tried reviewing the past, but it was all there. (This was to be the greatest curse of Hell. Sometimes I would replay my entire life again and again for thousands of years.

‘lightbulb ocean left,’

But somehow I feared the defining point of this Hell was its unrelenting uniformity, its lack of variation from type. If there was a heaven at the end of this, it must be filled with great variety, perhaps a multiplicity of intelligent species spread across universes. Yes, heaven would be as full of difference as Hell was of sameness.

Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope’s finest expression. In hope’s loss, however, is the greatest despair.

Now the search is all that matters. I know there will come a time when I find my book, but it is far in the future. And I know without doubt that it will not be today. Yet a strange hope remains. A hope that somehow, something, God, the demon, Ahura Mazda, someone, will see I’m trying. I’m really trying, and that will be enough.