fiction - brigits_flame - heat

[hwango]

Hell was not how I imagined it would be.

This isn't to say that I ever sat down and seriously thought about what hell would be like. Bits of cartoons, sermons, and other nonsense sort of blended together to form the idea of a bad place filled with pointy rocks, fires, and red-skinned things poking naked people with sharp pieces of metal. Possibly there would also be an Ironic Punishment Division, if hell had been keeping pace with human innovation. It was, depending on who was shouting at you, someplace to be avoided or someplace you were doomed to go, and either way you weren't going to like it.

Based on some of the choices I made during my life, I was pretty sure to end up here. Not to say that I was in any way a religious man, it's just that the idea of an afterlife where you were further punished for things that happened when you were alive just seemed like a logical continuation of the universe as I'd experienced it.

So my last conscious thought when I was alive was something like "Damn, I think I've been shot!" and then there was a bit of disorientation, and then I was in hell. I was sure of that, even though it wasn't what I expected.

It did have the pointy rocks, and it did smell sulfurous. But there wasn't a soul (ha ha) in sight, nor were there any creepy little red men with pitchforks. And not only were there no open flames, but it was actually cold. I'd had enough people tell me during my lifetime that they hoped I'd burn in hell that I was able to experience a brief moment of gloating self-satisfaction at having disappointed them. Of course, that seemed wrong too, though. Surely you weren't allowed to feel even a little bit happy in hell?

I wandered for quite a while (or so it seemed) before I ran into anyone else. The guy I found was pretty messed up and didn't make a lot of sense, but I got the impression that things had changed recently, and that for most of his time here things had been a lot more like I imagined them. And then things had gradually begun to change. Demons had started to look strangely worried, and began disappearing. Fires started going out. Then demons vanished in droves, and eventually weren't around at all. The temperature noticeably dropped.

Now, you would think all of this would come as a relief, but of course that's not how human beings work. There's nothing worse than the unknown, and no one knew what was going on, and in what ways it might get worse. Worse then hell already was? Apparently.

Left unattended, human souls had gone exploring. Hell was apparently a big place with only a small corner of it devoted to tormenting dead people. But no one was finding anything, and it just kept getting colder.

So people were looking for the demons and wherever they might have gone. Looking for someplace it might still be Dante's Inferno, or at least Dante's Nice Warm Rocks. I had to admit, I agreed with them. If I'd been breathing, I'm sure I would have seen my breath. I started seeing frost on the rocks. Being roasted over a pit of lava for all eternity sounded pretty awful, but an afterlife of endless cold and ice didn't really sound better.

And then of course, even among all of the fear and uncertainty, I once again had to laugh a little to myself. What next?

Maybe, back in the land of the living, pigs were flying.

Comments

[bluegerl.livejournal.com]

OOOh dear oh DEAR ME... Hell freezing over.... but I haven't seen any porcine aeronauts around? And money still doesn't grow on any trees round here! (actually there IS a naked (dead?) one in the garden here... denuded of paper leaves???)

Oh dear me... I do hope your dead shot person can find somewhere warm... maybe a nice hot passionate wicked woman?

Oh I DO LOVE your stories! Thanks EVER so much.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

And I, as always, appreciate the enthusiasm of your comments. = ) Thanks for reading!