A Short Stay in Hell (6 page)

One man, a newcomer I did not recognize,
said, “There’s only one thing that explains it – the rest of you
aren’t real – mere creations like the books. My soul is probably in
a vat somewhere being pumped full of sensations. You, you, and
you,” he said, pointing at three of us, “are nothing more than
input signals to a single consciousness swimming in a God-created
void.”

We looked at one another and nodded. We could
not refute it, but I knew I was real and assumed everyone else
there was too. We turned away from him.

One young man paused and started asking me
about the density of the people in the side rooms. “How many people
were staying in the rooms as you traveled along?”

“About the same as here, three or four people
in a room, about three empty beds everywhere I went,” I
answered.

“It seems strange,” he said, the lines in his
forehead narrowing. “Why do you suppose they didn’t try to pack us
in more, or spread us out more? Why a density of three or
four?”

A woman named Betty seemed genuinely
depressed. “A thousand miles of books? How many are here? This is
going to take forever. I’ve looked through thousands of books
already and I haven’t even found a single phrase like Biscuit’s
‘sack it.’ How are we supposed to find a whole life story?”

Betty struck me as pretty, with long,
straight red hair that fell around her shoulders. Her youth drew me
in a way that surprised and delighted me. I was in a bit of a
tizzy. I’d only been away from my wife for a month, but I felt a
strong attraction to Betty. Although sexual in part, it seemed
purer than that. I did not remember her from before I left on my
run.

I answered a few more questions about my
trip. I think everyone was surprised I did not find the hall’s end,
that I gave up after going so far, and that it was all the same
wherever we went. A couple of fellows from downstairs who had come
up to hear about my trip were downright hostile and implied I had
made the whole story up.

“Go yourself,” I shrugged at them, and they
said bitterly they would. I think everyone was a little
disappointed that the size of this Hell was much bigger than people
imagined.

As we began to scatter to our own kiosks, I
asked Betty if she was eating alone, and if so, could I join her.
She seemed sort of surprised at my request, but pleasantly
consented to join me for a meal. We walked awkwardly over to the
kiosk.

“What would you like?” I asked
innocently.

She seemed amused. “Is this a date?”

I stammered and muttered something about
being a married man.

“Look at the sign on the wall. You’re not
married anymore,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. She looked
radiant, like an angel, or a Greek goddess. I just stared at
her.

“Oh yeah,” I mumbled, but she was taking my
breath away with every word she said. I had to quit looking at her.
I knew I was staring and was embarrassed and ashamed. I couldn’t
help it.

“I’ll take a tuna salad,” she finally said,
adding, “with romaine lettuce.”

I ordered for her and passed the salad to her
as it came out of the device. I asked for fish and chips, and we
carried our plates over to the middle of the nearest row of books
and sat down with our legs dangling over the side. We ate in
silence for a few bites, making a comment or two on how good the
food was here in Hell. She was curious about me and I chattered
away until we finished the ice cream sundaes we had ordered after
tossing the remnants of our meals over the side. I told her about
my Mormon mission in Maine. I told her about getting my master’s
degree in geology. I told her about raising my children, and of
course I told her about my dying.

She was a polite listener and paused
occasionally to ask me questions about this or that aspect of my
narrative.

Finally, I asked her about herself. She
looked at me shyly. “I don’t know how to tell my life. It was
sometimes a good life, sometimes it was not – mostly not. I grew up
poor in Mississippi, near Tupelo not far from the banks of the big
river. My father was nothing but hate embodied. He hated my mama.
He hated me and my sister. He hated my brother most of all. He
weren’t the kind to beat or mistreat us, but he never said a kind
word when a miserable one would do. He didn’t even shout much. Just
ignored us. Now, Mama he would beat. She was a small woman and if
things weren’t the way he liked them he would take her over his
knee like she was a child and beat her black and blue with a
belt.

“One day we woke up and papa was gone. Just
like that. One day he just didn’t come down for breakfast, and that
was that. Mama never said a word where he went, but just went on
with her work, washing clothes for folk like nothing had changed.
She did sing a bit more after he was gone, but that was about
it.

“In high school I got pregnant with my
history teacher’s child. He wanted nothing to do with it and told
me he would kill me and the baby if I told whose it was, so I never
did. The baby got taken away shortly after it was born because I
kept writing bad checks. So they took the baby and put him up for
adoption. I was in prison for only six months but when I got out no
one would tell me where my baby was.

“So about then the war was starting, and I
heard there were jobs up North for women, so I headed up there.
There I met my husband of fifty-two years. The best man on earth.
As good and kind as my papa was mean. We raised four daughters and
a boy. All of them went on to college; every one of the girls
became nurses, and the boy came back to take over my husband’s
lumber mill. My husband never had a sick day in his life, and when
he died I thought my guts had been ripped out and thrown under a
herd of buffalo. I thought I could never live or love again. But I
did. I outlived two more husbands. Good men both, but no equal to
my Jonathan …”

She trailed off, and I was silent awhile. My
lust seemed to have disappeared as she became a real person and not
just a red-headed object with a nice face. I still was not used to
the incongruity of this twenty-something young lady next to me
talking like a ninety-eight-year-old great-grandmother.

“Do you ever think about meeting him here in
Hell?” I asked. She looked at me with large wet eyes and
nodded.

“Me too,” I said. “I think any day she’ll
come walking up to me and say, ‘Hi babe,’ and …” I let it go.

We sat awhile stirring our sundaes and then
threw the dishes into the hole. We knew if we left them out in the
morning they would be gone, so why not enjoy the thrill of watching
them fall into nothingness?

I spent my first two years in Hell with
Betty. We had a fun time, but it turned out that other than our
night activities we did not have much in common.

It took a couple of months before we were
both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell
and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was
hard to start a sexual relationship in circumstances of such
bizarre uncertainty, especially for an active Mormon and a good
Christian, both lost in a Zoroastrian Hell. We were like virgin
newlyweds. All my life I’d been raised to believe this kind of
thing was wrong. All my life I had lived with a strong sense of
morality. How do you give it up? How do you do things you thought
you’d never do? 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? It was
difficult. So tricky to untangle. I still remember the deep sense
of loss. The pain almost killed me. If it hadn’t been for Betty I
might have jumped – but then where would I go? I now know, of
course.

YEAR 102: THE MOST SIGNIFICANT
TEXT

M
ASTER TREACLE
CALLED THE MEETING to order. As Professor of Geology, I had a seat
on the fifth row and could see him standing tall on the stage of
stacked books, smiling brightly in his purple robe – dyed with
grape juice. A few curious onlookers from the barbarous other side
of the chasm were shouting rude remarks, but as always, we ignored
them. I turned around and looked at my bedmate Sandra, who was a
few rows back – Assistant Professor of Calculus. She gave me a
smile, looked at Treacle, and rolled her eyes. I smiled back and
nodded.

Treacle cleared his throat as a signal we
were to quiet down and attend.

“We will begin with a musical number by our
university music ensemble.” As he said this he cast a scowl my way.
I was supposed to play this morning, but my turkey-bone flute had
been CU-ed (cleaned up) last night and I had not had time to carve
another. Apparently it came loose from the strap around my leg
where I had bound it. It was a shame because I had managed to hold
on to it for over a year. Oh well,
c’est la vie
.

The music was lovely, and I did feel a tinge
of guilt that I was not there. I was also a little disappointed
that the flutes sounded so strong without me. By ordering raw
intestines to eat, several types of harps had been created by
stretching the gut between the bookcases and the railing, or up and
down the railing. It took most of the morning to set these
instruments up, so the music they created was well appreciated.
Even the barbarians in the stacks across the gap stopped heckling
us while the musicians played.

After a loud and appreciative applause,
Treacle stood again.

“Our invocation to the great God of
Zoroastrianism will be offered by Professor Donaldson. After her
prayer, this year’s Most Significant Text will be read by Dr.
Rachel Hasnick. Dr. Carter will introduce the text with an award
presented to Stew Sand who found the text three months ago on level
minus fifty-six in row five, book forty-eight, in area minus three
hundred eighty-eight. There were a number of entries that might
have been contenders for the MST, but when this one was found there
was no question of this year’s winner.”

Professor Donaldson stood and raised his
hands into the air.

“Great God, whose heaven we eagerly await. We
are gathered here on the first day of the one hundred and second
year of our time in Hell, to praise you and to honor your memory
and presence. Bless these proceedings that we may find favor in
your sight. That we may be led to our life stories. That the days
of our imprisonment may be short. Bless our efforts. May peace be
had in all our districts. May the search be undeterred. Bless our
university that it may continue to prosper. That its leaders and
councils may be wise in teaching truth to the inhabitants of Hell.
May we be led to be better people by combining our knowledge and
teaching one another the truths gleaned from our lives while on
earth. May …”

About here I faded out and snuck a peek at
Sandra, who seemed to be sincerely participating in the prayer.
While I would never admit it to the administrators of the
university, I was more than skeptical about trying to pray. What
kind of God lets demons choose such a bizarre Hell? Why put
conscious beings through this? What purpose could it serve him or
us? Was he/she/it worthy of worship? I honestly didn’t know.

Stew, the finder of this year’s Most
Significant Text, was introduced and given an award (a piece of
soap from the showers carved into an amazing replica of a chicken,
which had been placed in a nest of coconut fiber – it is impressive
what you can get out of the food kiosks. Apparently, if it is
possible to eat, you can ask for it).

Rachel got up to read the text. She was a
good friend, and we had spent many a day in long talks and
thoughtful conversation about the nature of life, reality, and the
implications of this afterlife. She had been the editor of a
literary magazine before Hell and now held a post in the philosophy
group as Professor of Hell Studies. She received the book she was
handed with great solemnity. She opened it. “Reading from page
eighty-seven, I quote, ‘The bat housed again four leaves of it.’”
There was a deep silence as people pondered the significance of
this passage. Barbara handed the book to Professor Treacle, who
continued.

“First, note that the text is a complete
sentence. Significantly, it begins with a capitalized article and
ends in a period. Notice the subject, ‘bat,’ and the verb ‘housed’
refers to ‘four leaves,’ and we find out that they belong to ‘of
it.’ Never before have we found such a perfect example of a complex
sentence. Stew Sand is to be highly praised for finding this year’s
Most Significant Text. Its location has been memorized by all here,
and I think there will be many who will want to visit the site of
this book and ponder its meaning. Thank you again, Stew.” Treacle
turned toward him and with a slight bow of his head, began to clap
politely. We all joined in.

Johannas Back, a food scientist, turned to me
as we clapped and whispered to me sardonically, “I know exactly
what it means, and I don’t have to ponder it much – it means it’s
going to be a thousand years before we find a paragraph that makes
as much sense as this stupid sentence.” I laughed and nodded. But
inside, of course, it disheartened me. We’d been here over a
hundred years. And that was the most significant text this year?
Last year’s was worse – “Can dye dogs riverward.” Everyone was
abuzz about how this year’s sentence started with an article, had a
great verb, and even seemed to make a little sense. But it made me
realize it would be a long time before we found anyone’s story, let
alone mine.

The proceedings over, the people began to
disband. A few had come from a long way. Some from as far down as
the 12,853th floor and some as far away as 22,889 shelves over. The
university was well thought of, and people knew its reputation even
a great distance from its origin. I felt blessed to be on the
faculty. I saw Rachel standing by herself holding the book she had
just read from.