Hell Is a World Without You

by Jason Kirk

named Anna Grace,

During lunch, I almost told Bobbi to get saved, but she persecuted me by describing something as happening “eons ago,” as if there had ever been that many years.

The bleaker the world got, the sooner we’d get raptured, unless the Rapture was fake or we missed it or whatever. So bleak it up!

In my life, I’d attended 3,200 events at a half-dozen churches. Passed catechism tests all through Awana. Read so many Christian apologetics manuals that my devout mother laughed at the pile. Studied the whole Bible cover-to-cover twice, memorized chunks, done daily devotionals, and loved correcting adults’ scripture references. Won awards for beating other children at explaining popular Western Christianity. But I couldn’t figure out what we believed.

“That’s God’s insta-passion promise,” he said, wiping his forehead as our jaws unclenched, along with our buttholes. “Wedding night, all your switches flip. Gentlemen, start your engines! But only if you’ve waited, okay? Otherwise, that marriage is ice-cold snoozeville!” Sinners pretended that sex takes practice, but men of God assured us: just get married, then get instinctual.

“All that Hell shit,” she said, unzipping my hoodie and handing it back, “isn’t just afterlife panic. It’s excuses to abuse people now, like addicts and victims need more bad shit. Let’s create middle-school self-haters! Then call them sluts who’ll get boys damned! Because we’re the only way outta Hell, everyone better agree with us on everything. Hell is a world without God? Hell is a Christian president bombing Iraqi babies!”

Moribaldi’s address in Pomona.” She laughed, like I’d mock her. “Part of my mind’s fifteen forever. Same goes for every other former teenager.

‘Captain Planet, you think this world’s our home?

really, really, really hate you. But I believe you.

“What if,” she whispered, smooth knees screaming near my leg, “being created is being chosen?”

When we sat up, she said, “I think I’m dirty, but I know I’m adored.” Feeling daybreak, I said, “You can only pick one. Say it.” She admitted, “adored,” and made me answer, too. It physically hurt to call myself beloved.

And don’t tell me to memorize my Bible unless you’ve accepted I’ll use it against yours.