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.

Despite my substantial efforts, I have failed to find another soul. 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.

The argument took on special meaning to me because it had been almost 160 billion years since I had found such a long string of coherent text.

…HUH?

The Demon looked on quizzically. “You were a Christian then?” “Yes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I shouldn’t be here. I’ve been saved,” the man shouted, though with waning bravado. “Well, there’s your problem. You didn’t join the one true religion.”

i wonder if this author has seen the good place

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. What kind of God would leave you burning forever?

Here you will find all the books that can possibly be written. 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.

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?

We can’t care about anything here. We can’t make a difference – all meaning has been subtracted, we don’t know where anything comes from or where it goes. There’s no context for our lives. We’re all white, equal ciphers, instances of the same absurdity repeated over and over.

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.

My heart :(

puss of gall.

This is takin me out LMAO

I stayed awake for hours, but just before dawn, that inevitable moment through which no one in Hell has ever been able to stay awake, that strange hour when books are returned, the dead revived, and all wounds healed – I fell asleep and did not wake until the turning on of the lights.

yet I think on and on of a love so far in the past it is incomprehensible to believe it was even real. What is love that it has such power? Whatever it is, it seems unlikely this God who placed me here knows anything about it.

former catholic kid core

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

We made love twice,

...in the air? ...does this count as the mile high club?

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.