Awake in Hell

Awake in Hell

By

Helen Downing

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 Helen Downing

All rights reserved.

Published by
Beau Coup
Publishing

http://www.beaucoupllcpublishing.com/

Cover By

JRA Stevens
for Beau Coup
Publishing

Photo Retro telephone Silhouette©
Jara3000 | Dreamstime.com

Photo Flames © Sebast1an |
Dreamstime.com

Photo Silhouette of a Girl at her Vanity
  ©
Ponytail1414 | Dreamstime.com

Photo Vintage clothing ©
Mikhaylovaelen
| Dreamstime.com

Photo Closet of Clothes
  ©
Velusariot
|
Dreamstime.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book
contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and
Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system without express written permission
from the author / publisher.

For:

Rev. William Downing

Marty Downing

Linda Jackson

Patrick
Haughey

Larry Wiles

And In Loving Memory:

Eddy Downing

With all my love.

Acknowledgements

The amazing folks who gave me the
opportunity to finally find the book hidden inside of me and get it out onto
paper…

Michelle Vinson – Who was at the
start and said “Keep writing!”

Diana Welch –Gave me safe haven to
finish the book.

Gabrielle
Mappone
– Photographer, friend, cheerleader.

Larry Wiles – Who taught me to
practice what I preach, how to forgive, how to love again, and how to keep the
story going.

Friends and Family who read the
book and asked for more! I love each and every one of you!

Chapter
One

Waking
up in Hell is the worst part of my day. During sleep you can kind of forget
where you are — dream about happy places, happier times —  other than the
heat, the oppressive heat that is always here. Because, what else would Hell be
if not hot?

My
bed is actually kind of comfortable. Well, more comfortable than anything else
here.  Sometimes I dream about when I was alive. Nothing major like
working out life’s big mysteries, but little moments like having an orgasm, or
the look on my best friend Linda’s face whenever I gave her relationship advice
(something I am not qualified to do, by the way.) She would look at me with
this intent admiration, as if no wisdom could be greater than mine. Dreams are
the one thing Hell cannot take away from us. It is as if our creator is giving
us one last peace, despite our sins.

My
alarm is set to go off exactly one hour before I want to get up. It's a psychic
clock. We have a whole different set of tech down here. Regardless, I wake up
every morning with that sense of being more exhausted than I was when I went to
bed. That's just one of the lovely amenities this place has to offer.

When
I say amenities, please hear the facetious nature with which I proclaim such a
thing. My “apartment” is about 8 feet by 8 feet. No TV, no phone, no air
conditioner (obviously) and one window that does not open. The walls are gray,
the floor is bare wood, and nothing is designed with comfort in mind. This is
not my sanctuary, where I can escape Hell. It’s my little corner of Hell that I
get to call my own. I live in a relatively small building. I think there are
about a dozen other tenants here, but we are not what you would call a friendly
bunch, so I don’t exactly know my neighbors. I rarely hear any of them. The
occasional scream will seep through my walls, but that is pretty much it.

I
hit the snooze button (which never works, yet I still try each morning) and I
wake yawning and rubbing my sore, dry eyes against the super-heated air. I get
dressed quickly, since I have little choice in my closet. It changes from day
to day, but today is a prime example of what greets me each morning; a pair of
shit-tan hip huggers a size too small (circa 1977) complimented by a blue
polyester shirt with a lapel wider than the ass of a waitress at a greasy
spoon. Additionally, I have been issued a
g-string
stained with some unknown substance. I cast it aside. Oh well, in keeping with
the glass half-full mantra I've been employing lately, I think to myself,
“beats yesterday's five layers of itchy underwear from the Victorian era.” And
if, by chance, today’s outfit is worse than yesterday’s, I simply look at the
clothing of others and am eventually bound to see some poor soul clearly worse
off than myself. Indeed, as I look out my window right now, I spot someone
across the street in an Eskimo coat and wool sweat pants. Who says the Devil
doesn’t have a sense of
humor
?

Ah,
but it gets worse. Aside from the tortuous togs I must don for the day, there
are other truths to face. One immediate concern — I need a job. I was fired
three days ago from the job I've held ever since I found myself here. I can’t
say exactly when that was because there is no way to keep track of time in
Hell. Although it is possible to make tally marks on the wall (one for every
time you wake up) it seems futile and a bit of an annoyance. Things change down
here all the time, with little or no warning. Like, for instance, my employment
status. 

I
was in tech support at the IP&FW (Internet Porn and Fetish Web). See, we
have high speed Internet down here but every search leads right to IP&FW.
If you search for your grandmother's recipe for chocolate zucchini cake, you
arrive at a site where naked girls sit and squirm on your granny's favorite
dessert. If you attempt to look up your favorite football team, you land on
overweight gay romance. Oh, and if this would have ever turned you on when you
were alive, it will not down here. For instance if you search “hot lesbian
sex,” you’ll be taken to images and videos of disfigured lesbians literally on
fire, attempting to have sex. What can I say? This is Hell. I spent every day
at a call center listening to newcomers bitch about not being able to follow
their favorite sports teams or download a single Miley Cyrus mp3 from their
computers. Then one day, I got a call from a gentleman who claimed that he
couldn't get online at all. I asked him if he'd reset his modem and he didn't
seem to know what I was talking about. I then asked him if he'd had Internet
when he was breathing and he claimed that no, he was unable to get Internet
access when he was among the living due to the fact that he lived in the woods
and eschewed technology while he was alive. I pondered why he might want
Internet now when he had gone so long without it. I imagined maybe he had more
to entertain himself when he was alive; like HBO or masturbation. He claimed to
have spent his entire welfare check every month on baked beans and guns. Oh,
and the occasional purchase of lye and burlap bags for body disposal. Anyway,
to make a long story short, I told him that he will occasionally have to reset
his modem by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds and plugging it back in — simple
right? EVERYBODY knows that —   right?

Well,
he didn't and I told him exactly what to do step-by-step, which constitutes
being helpful. Being helpful in tech support at IP&FW is in direct
opposition to their primary directive, which is an immediate terminable
offense. Fuck IP & fucking FW. How was I supposed to know that I was
talking to the ONLY person in the entire Hell-verse that would find the
resetting-the-modem spiel actually helpful?

So,
now I have to find another job.

Here,
there are no social services. You work for any of the small cottage businesses
that pop up all the time, or you work for IP&FW, or you get stuck working
for one of the big chain stores or a law firm. If you turn out to be totally
unemployable, then you go work for the government. I would assume, the
government of Hell is run by SATAN. I would assume, although I can’t say that
I’ve ever met the guy personally. Trust me, no one goes to work for the
government on purpose. With that in mind, I hit the streets telling myself I
won't go home until I have secured employment somewhere.

I
walk out and immediately have to adjust to the outside environment. Hell was
created (I assume it was created at some point, as opposed to just sprouting up
after the
Fall
) to look like any old city; it has
standard grid streets, homeless people, tall buildings that seem to go up
forever. There are a few random smaller buildings in between that seem to say
the city was built up around them, although, I think that is just part of the
illusion. I mean, do you think Hell used to be a much nicer neighborhood with
rising property values? No, me neither. There’s an orange color to the
atmosphere, like ambient light, making everything seem as if it’s about to
catch fire but never does. This is accompanied by the smell of phosphorous,
like someone behind you has just struck a match. All of this seems to magnify
the hot and make it even hotter. People behave here just like they do in any
city of the living, rushing around like they are late to something really
important. The sidewalks and streets are worn and cracked and filled with
potholes, but still usable. Every once in a while there will be a repair crew
out to fix one, but I don’t think it’s to improve our infrastructure. I think
it’s because laying tar on a street, in temperatures close to 200 degrees
Fahrenheit in the shade, sounds like a perfect job for someone in Hell. There
is no sky here. If you try to seek the heavens, whatever it is up there will
burn your eyes, and you will be blinded for a few minutes, like with a camera
flash.

So,
you have to be on your toes if you're going to stroll around in Hell.

There
are three coffee shops within walking distance from my apartment. One makes
weak, watery coffee strained through dirty socks, one makes strong, bitter
coffee strained through dirty socks, and the last claims to be “organic”. The
populace believes that they are serving the waste produced by people drinking
the stuff at the other two shops. I'll need my caffeine boost today so I go for
the strong, bitter choice. I walk past the hoard of beggars. Believe it or not
the beggars are actually employed by the government to stand outside and beg
from folks sent to Hell. It's one of the more dead-end jobs you can have around
here, no pun intended. I step inside and walk up to the counter. I'm third or
fourth in line so I look at the bulletin board next to the cash register while
I wait and see if any jobs are posted. They have the usual job fair notices
from the chain stores, one from (
grrrrr
) IP&FW,
and a help-wanted sign for the coffee shop itself.  So, I take a look behind
the counter — could I do that for 12 to 14 hours a day? I shrug and commit to
asking for an application when I get up there. Then I notice a small piece of
paper tacked way up on the corner of the board. I can't really read it until I
reach up and take it down. Then I see:

DO
YOU BELONG HERE?

CALL
US TO FIND OUT!

SECOND
CHANCE TEMP AGENCY

(666)-573-2236

I
look around and when I'm sure no one has noticed, I stick the note in my
pocket.