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Lots of forms. Stacks of forms. An average of nine thousand, seven hundred, and forty-seven of them were required to gain entrance to Hell. The largest form ran to fifteen thousand, four hundred, and ninety-seven questions. The shortest to just five, but five of such subtle phraseology, labyrinthine grammar, and malicious ambiguity that, released into the mortal world, they would certainly have formed the basis of a new religion or, at the least, a management course. This, then, was the first torment of Hell, as engineered by the soul of a bank clerk.
Ratuth Slabuth, a stack of shifting non-Euclidean angles topped by a horse’s skull in a stylised, ancient-Grecian helmet, looked down from a great height upon the insolent human. “This is Hell,” he tried to explain for the third time. “Not a drop-in centre. You can’t just turn up and say, ‘Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I’d call by and have a bit of a chinwag with Lord Satan.’ It simply isn’t done.”
Satan sat comfortably on the unyielding basalt throne, massive and urbane. All things to all people, he looked exactly as you’d imagine. Exactly.
“A scientiss?” moaned Dennis. He put his hand on Denzil’s shoulder. “He woan have no money. C’mon, Denzil. Less go.”
ouch
Behind the wide, welcoming smile was a mantrap baited with desires and delight, pleasures and popcorn, hedonism and hot dogs of dubious content.
We’re supposed to be doing the devil’s work and you’ve gone and contaminated it all with the whiff of virtue. I really don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of being an agent of evil.”
