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.

We have all scattered far and wide into the vastness of this space and cannot find one another. I suspect by now we are all alone.

A couple of eons ago I found a book that looked like it described my earthly digestive history – from beginning to end, every meal, how the food was broken into its chemical composition and then sent on to the intestine. I’ve also grown fond of what I’m sure are very close to Mickey Spillane novels.

Lmfao what is this purgatory? Similar to midnight library

“Satan?” One of the women whispered hoarsely. “Ahriman? No, no, no. Nothing as notable as that. I am Xandern. One of the Yazatas. A minor functionary. I hope you are not too disappointed?” He seemed genuinely concerned.

“Well, there’s your problem. You didn’t join the one true religion.” “What? I’m telling you, I was a Christian. I read the Bible every day. I donated money to the TV evangelists every Sunday. And I was saved.” “No. Sorry. The true religion is Zoroastrianism,

And your Hell was not our short little correct-you-a-little Hell. This was eternal damnation. At least in the true Zoroastrianism system you eventually get out of Hell. Do you have any idea how long eternity is? My heavens, what an imagination you humans have.

Soren Johansson, died of brain cancer … hmm, died young, only forty-five. Four children. Well, I’m sure they’ll miss you. Looks like you were a good husband, good father … not a bad Mormon.” He smiled. “You would have made a good Zoroastrian. Now, what Hell for you? Let’s see, you liked to read … in fact it seems you loved books. Interesting.” Suddenly the demon looked up. “Bye.” And so it began.

“Year 0000000, Day 2”

Not enough digits for 700 billion years lol

People were scattered everywhere on both sides of the abyss, some standing, staring blankly, others walking in a daze, some weeping uncontrollably, some kneeling in desperate prayer as I had done last night.

When you are ready to leave, find the book describing your earthly life story (without errors, e.g., in spelling, grammar, etc.) and submit the story through the slot below this sign. If the story is accepted, you will be admitted into a glorious heaven filled with wonders and joys beyond your imagination.

please follow a few simple rules during your stay in Hell: 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.

Lmao

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.

Lmfao what

Lastly, you are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

I found I could recall every detail of my life; every event ever experienced I could remember

Can you write your own book??

It seemed like a tedious Hell, but there was plenty to eat, good company, and it sounded like after a while we would eventually get out.

Honestly....is it so bad? Lol

After a week of being in this place, I also wanted to see how many people were here. I thought it strange we’d only found other white people, that all of us spoke English, and that all of us made reference only to things we all understood.

Yess read my mind! I like this narrato

What if this was just some sort of trial God had arranged to test my backbone? What if this Hell was really all a ruse concocted by God to see what I was made of? But no, there was something real and final about this Hell.

The difference in the quality of consciousness between dreaming and being awake was close to the difference between our old earth life and the one there.

Nice analogy i like it

I knew, however, that sometime during the day, at some point when everyone had left the bedrooms, all the beds would be made, bathrooms cleaned, and a clean robe laid on the bed with a new pair of slippers.

I would wait all day to see who comes...

I began to think how strange it seemed that I never met a single person of color. Not an Asian, not a black person, not a Hispanic, not anything but a sea of white American Caucasians. Was there no diversity in Hell? What did this endless repetition of sameness and of uniformity in people and surroundings mean?

Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives?

She opened it. “Reading from page eighty-seven, I quote, ‘The bat housed again four leaves of it.’” There was a deep silence as people pondered the significance of this passage.

Lol after one hundred years this is what they found omfg

“First, note that the text is a complete sentence. Significantly, it begins with a capitalized article and ends in a period. Notice the subject, ‘bat,’ and the verb ‘housed’ refers to ‘four leaves,’ and we find out that they belong to ‘of it.’ Never before have we found such a perfect example of a complex sentence.

Lol

How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning – that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.

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.

Aw

Once for fifty years we discussed dogs and decided to spend a few years pretending we were dogs, running on all fours and eating only dog food out of a dish, or occasionally gnawing on a meaty bone.

Lmfaoooo

This is how his conversation with God went: GOD. Kneel before me, slime. Hell dweller. Stink in the nostrils of the Great God who holds in his hands your extinction. Kneel, less than a worm. Tremble, smudge on existence, twisted and unholy scab.

lol why is this so funny

If I had one wish to make in this eternity of madness, if I could have one prayer answered in this empty place, it would be that we had turned left instead of right. Why? Why? has been my question ever since. We were surrounded. Another gang poured out of the stairwell in front of us, and we were surrounded. Their eyes were terrible, their countenances radiating nothing but fierceness and hatred. They moved slowly toward us, armed with clubs and spears made of cow and water buffalo bones. Rachel turned to me. She seemed surprisingly calm. “I love you,” she said, a beautiful smile on her face. Then she climbed up the railing and jumped.

“Don’t think about jumping. We’ll catch you before you get a foot on the railing. Then we’ll torture you in ways you would find rather unpleasant. The great thing is, every day we get to start fresh.

Jfc this is real hell

In that second that I saw the clear shot, I did not hesitate. My month of learning how to think in the few seconds after awakening in the morning served me well at that instant. I leaped from the step and with the speed of a linebacker picked up the low creature with all the strength born of Rachel’s loss and launched us both over the railing.

Dire dan aka self proclaimed prophet

My enemy was still with me. He was about two hundred feet above me and was in a parachutist’s dive, spread-eagled and looking right at me.

LOL

I kicked out my leg nearest the railing and managed to get it inside. It hit the railing with such force that it felt like my leg had been ripped off, and sent me spinning. My leg was broken, and my femur had been torn from my hip. The tumbling did not help the pain. I had never been in that much pain in my life either on earth or in Hell.

Damn i was gona suggest that lol but bad idea i guess

At dinner he introduced me to a delicious Korean dish, made of sliced beef, dumplings, and a ginger sauce.

Is this dude white?

How delighted I would be to meet someone from Africa or Asia. Someone with a different story to tell.

interesting...asia woukd have different characters. A whole other number of combos!!

Maybe I could meet an Arab from the fifteenth century! But I knew deep down it was not to be. The books were full of Roman letters, I reminded myself.

Lol my thought exactly

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.” “That’s a lot. Right?” “You don’t understand. In our old universe there were only ten raised to the seventy-eighth electrons.” “You mean there are more books in this library than there were electrons in our whole previous universe?”

I WANDERED FOR MANY YEARS after that. I was paralyzed. I knew finally that Rachel and I would never meet again, but I hoped for a hundred years I would happen upon her one day.

But what worse fate could there be? To remember love and know it is unattainable? To know love wanders somewhere light-years and light-years distant, ever knowing it is forever out of reach? Forever hidden?

Crying

There is a despair that goes deeper than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness, to the seat of the soul.

Finite does not mean much if you can’t tell any practical difference between it and infinite.

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.

I hate it but i loved it