A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck

I remember my own father, a real man of the house, someone who knew what it was to be a man. He radiated confidence. I never felt like that. I felt as if I were an imposter all the time I was raising my kids. I felt lost and helpless. I was flying by the seat of my pants, always with a feeling I was not doing things right.

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.

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?