A Short Stay in Hell (3 page)

A man came into the bathroom and saw me
preening before my newly fit reflection. He turned around with a
quick “Sorry!” and left me alone to my marveling.

I went back to the corridor to look at the
sign placed next to the clock. The letters were large and black,
printed on a reflective background – like the surface of a
speed-limit sign. This is what it said:

Welcome to Hell. This Hell is based upon a
short story by Jorge Luis Borges from your world called “The
Library of Babel.” 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. During your stay you may be interested in reading a
book on Zoroastrianism. By special arrangement, there is one on
every floor. The other books are randomized. The food kiosk will
provide whatever you would like to eat. Just ask for it. We would
ask that you 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.

4. Books not in your possession will be
returned to their original place on the stacks every night. A book
will be considered in your possession if you are touching it.

5. If you are killed you will be restored to
life on the following day. Please try to avoid death as much as
possible.

6. 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.

7. Remember you are never really alone.
Although it may feel like it for very long stretches of time.

8. Please don’t write on, mark, or mar
library materials. Although repairs are made nightly, we would like
to keep repairs to a minimum.

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

We hope you enjoy your stay here. We have
done all we can to make your stay a pleasant and instructive
one.

I stared at the rules a long time. Especially
number six. As a Mormon, I had always believed I was married for
eternity, but now my wife was gone? Was she here somewhere? Were my
children missing me? Was everyone here who had ever lived? No. I
remembered the demon tapping away on his handheld device, seemingly
to send people to a variety of Hells.

Still, all I had believed in during my life
appeared to be mistaken. Gone just like that. All my hopes. All my
prayers. It was all wrong. I remembered what little I had read
about Zoroastrianism: Iranian, started in approximately 600 BC. I
found I could recall every detail of my life; every event ever
experienced I could remember with perfect clarity. I could remember
every word on every page I’d ever read. Every conversation. Every
tax form I’d ever filled out. I could reconstruct every second of
every day I’d been alive from the moment of my birth until the day
I finally shut my eyes at the end.

This clarity of memory surprised me the first
time I tried reviewing the past, but it was all there. (This was to
be the greatest curse of Hell. Sometimes I would replay my entire
life again and again for thousands of years. Remembering all the
things I could have done differently, all the things … no. I won’t
go there now. I must tell this story.)

The first few days were ones of discovery.
Everyone just sort of nodded to one another; I think we were all
disoriented and confused. It was not until about two p.m. on the
second day that I noticed I felt hungry. I had seen someone using
the food kiosk earlier. The man had just walked up and said, “Roast
beef sandwich,” and one appeared on the tray before him. I decided
to be more specific. “A roast beef sandwich, with provolone cheese,
Dijon mustard, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on rye bread.” Much
to my surprise, exactly what I asked for appeared. “Could I get a
diet Coke, too?” It appeared likewise and looked and tasted like a
diet Coke. “And how about a vanilla shake?” As an afterthought I
added, “Like the kind at the Purple Aardvark on Second South in
Mountain Grove, Utah.” It came. Just like I remembered it. The
taste, texture, and presentation – including being served upside
down in a bowl – it was all the same. There were no tables, so I
sat on the floor under the railing, dangling my feet over the edge
and staring at the rows and rows of floors on the other side of the
abyss. Across the chasm, people were also reading the rules,
wandering around, and, just as we were, starting small
conversations. Some were using the kiosk and eating.

“Mind if I join you?” The speaker was a young
man – but then so was I. That thought cheered me. He was wearing
the same cotton robe we all wore, thick with wide sleeves that fell
to about the forearm, with a hole cut out at the top wide enough to
expose the bottom of our necks. It hung loosely and modestly to
about mid-calf. Our feet were bare. The temperature seemed pleasant
– not too cold or too hot.

I motioned to the floor and he plopped down
beside me. We dangled our legs over the edge, our arms resting on
the railing. He was eating an apple and had a can of V8 Juice.

“Strange Hell,” he said, motioning to the
people on the other side of the chasm.

“Not what I expected,” I agreed.

“Not Zoroastrian either then?”

“Mormon.”

“Ah. I was agnostic, so of course I wasn’t
thinking of this as the final ending,” he said, waving his arm
around randomly. “You from Utah?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I’m from Santa Rosa, California.”

“Never been there.”

We sat silently for a few minutes, eating our
lunches thoughtfully. I think at the time we were still taking it
all in. He drained his can and tossed it down into the bottomless
space separating us from the floors on the other side. We both
watched it fall until it grew so small it disappeared. We both held
our breath waiting for some sound of it hitting the bottom. It
never came.

“Deep hole,” he said conversationally.

“I wonder how far down to the bottom?” I
said, inclining my head downward.

He shrugged, shaking his.

“I can’t imagine. What did you think of the
rules?” he asked, taking another bite of his apple.

“Not very informative. Seemed simple enough.
I wonder what happens if you don’t follow them? I mean it says if
we aren’t kind to each other we’ll have a miserable time of it. Is
that because we’re punished in some way?”

The man looked at me, somewhat frightened. He
finally asked if I’d seen the lake of fire and brimstone. I told
him what our demon had said about them all being actors.

“What a strange place. Well, I can tell you
one thing. I’m getting out of here as soon as possible. I’m going
to find my book and get it in that slot in two shakes of a lamb’s
tail,” he said determinedly. “I’m not going to stay in this place
for twenty years before starting and then spend another twenty
looking for it.”

I nodded and said I would be doing the same.
Spending twenty years looking for a book did not sound pleasant.
What if it stretched to fifty or even a hundred years? I wondered.
Looking around at the size of this library it would not be hard to
imagine that there were more than a million books lining the
shelves that stretched up, down, and side to side as far as the eye
could see.

We talked most of the afternoon. I told him
about my death. He told me about his. He died of a heart attack at
age ninety-three in his sleep. It sounded like a pleasant way to
die.

“Of course, I was a little surprised to find
myself sitting in a room with a demon and watching a scene from
Dante’s
Inferno
. I’m still a little surprised to find myself
here. But it’s all so real. There’s a sense of actuality that I
just can’t dismiss. I’m fairly pleased to find myself so young and
strong again. If only Sally could see me now. Wouldn’t she get a
kick out of this? My, what a strange universe we live in.”

About this time we noticed a young lady
standing by the kiosk next to us who seemed to be waiting for a
chance to ask us something.

“Hello,” my companion said simply. She looked
sad and lost. And seemed near enough to tears not to be able to
hold them back much longer.

“Are we in Hell?” She shuddered.

We both stood up awkwardly. I looked at my
companion and he looked at me. He spoke first.

“We think so.”

With that, she let go and sobbed bitterly
into her hands. I looked at my companion, and tears were running
down his face. It took me a minute to realize I was crying too. She
looked up and soon we found ourselves in a group hug bawling
furiously.

We looked at one another, all strangers, all
lost and alone, and the absurdity of our situation struck us. We
all suddenly burst into an awkward laughter that just as quickly
melted into sobs again.

It took some time, but we eventually gathered
a measure of composure. I ran into the nearby bathroom and grabbed
some toilet paper and passed it around to our small troop. We
introduced ourselves. I learned my companion’s name was Elliott
Callington. The woman was named Larisa Sims. She had died of breast
cancer at age fifty-four. It seemed odd, standing there in Hell,
but understanding how we each had died seemed the most important
thing about us. I see now, however, that it was only because it was
the freshest thing on our minds – and something we had worried
about all our lives in one way or another. Now it was over. We were
dead. And now we were in Hell.

We three talked until the lights went out
again. The only light visible was a faint greenish glow coming out
of the room with the beds. The source of the light turned out to be
a dimly lit exit sign facing into the room. Inside the room was
dark, but each of us felt or maneuvered our way to one of the beds.
Last time I’d looked at the clock it was about 9:45, so I supposed
it was about 10:00 when the lights went out. I lay there a while,
but could not sleep. How strange it all was. I decided to try to
see if I could get a glass of warm milk to help me sleep. I felt my
way to the kiosk and said, “Warm milk, please,” but nothing
happened. I tried a couple of times, but apparently the machines
only worked when the lights were on.

As I made my way back to the bed, Larisa
asked if I had tried the kiosk just now. I replied in the
affirmative, explained my failure to get some milk, and then
climbed into bed. Other than the breathing of my companions, I was
stunned by the stillness. I’d spent the last month in a hospital
and was used to commotion, ticks, hums, beeps, and the hush-swish
of air-conditioning systems going on and off, nurses coming in and
out at all times of night. Here in Hell it was absolutely still.
Not even the whisper of any air movement. The stillness of the
grave? I shuddered and curled up into my blanket. The mattress was
firm and comfortable, and I soon drifted into a deep, dreamless
sleep.

~~~

I AWOKE WHEN the light came on. Elliott was
first to the bathroom, and I could hear the shower running. Larisa
was still asleep. I drank from the drinking fountain and walked
outside and asked for a glass of cold orange juice. I leaned over
the railing and drank my juice, looking deep into the crevasse
between the floors bracketing our side and the other opposite. I
don’t think I’d ever seen anything so deep. Not even the Grand
Canyon had seemed so vast. After a few minutes, Larisa joined me in
staring over the side.

“I used to be afraid of heights. But this
looks even beyond my fear. It looks like it goes on forever,” she
remarked.

“Maybe it does.” (I was wrong of course. It
does end. There is a bottom. But “forever” would have been a better
word. “Forever and ever” would hardly have described it. “Infinity”
is even too small a word to describe the vastness of the distance
to the bottom. But I’ve stood upon the bottom floor. The human mind
cannot comprehend what it took to reach, but I’ve been there.)

For the first time since our arrival, Larissa
and I walked over to the shelves of books and pulled one down. Each
volume appeared to be identical on the outside. They were bound in
light brown high-quality calfskin. The edges were gilded in bright
gold, and the paper was a thick heavy bond – substantial and bright
white, fibrous, and nicely stitched into the binding. Each page was
a solid block of text. An ordinary book by all appearances – except
the text was complete gibberish. A random splash of capital and
lowercase characters, punctuation marks, and other characters like
&, *, $,
and
#.
Here is a line from the first
page of the first book I picked up:

Aj;kLJjppOjnfe7 ImNB2uyS@;jHnMBVF
ghT/.hk%hKh’2jh< ,bYblZl@)m $’n@gD E#zB /,,]hqH

Every page had a similar look.

“These books are nothing but garbage,” Larisa
said in a disgusted voice. “When I was looking at these, I was
thinking about a lifetime spent reading great works of literature.
Now I get it – this is Hell; an eternity surrounded by books, but
they’re all nonsense.” She gave a sarcastic laugh and heaved the
book over the railing.