A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck

It’s crazy. Create a few beings; those that don’t obey you roast forever? Give me a break.”

Have you ever loved someone for a thousand years? I would have bet it impossible, but that’s how long we were together. A thousand years we traveled the halls of Hell together.

She was magic. Nights were wondrous. Days full of laughter and long, slow conversations.

In our 708th year together, we started an elaborate game of tag that involved hundreds of people and lasted for over twelve years.

We were a team, Rachel and I. Oh, I miss her so much. I think our love could have lasted forever. I’m sure it would have. She was so … no, I won’t cheapen it by trying to express it in words and short sentences. I loved her. That is enough.

Yes, heaven would be as full of difference as Hell was of sameness.

“Ninety-five raised to the one million three hundred twelve thousandth power.”

Why would this take so long to calculate? I did this math in part one (minus the 95 bc I wasn’t sure how many non-alphabetic symbols appeared, but that would’ve been easy to count.)

Ages of universes pass while I look at books of nonsense, yet I think on and on of a love so far in the past it is incomprehensible to believe it was even real.