Remembering Hell (13 page)

Authors: Helen Downing

I approach Gabby as she is hovering
over Linda. “Will she be okay?” I ask nervously.

“She will be fine,” Gabby says.
“But she won’t wake up until you are gone.” She looks at me and gives me a sad
smile.

“That’s okay,” I say with genuine
gratitude. Then I ask, “Will she understand?”

Gabby looks at me and puts her arm
around me. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, yes. Lou, you know how this
story ends. Just be patient, she will come. In her own time.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Gabby picks up the unconscious Joe
and carries him back to the agency. Will and I walk together without talking.
When we get back, I stop at the elevator and say, “I’ll be back. I have to talk
to someone.”

Will says, “He will be okay, Lou.
Just be honest with him.”

I approach Hank’s door with
trepidation. I knock, and he opens the door slowly. He looks at me with shock
and concern. I look down at my charred clothes and soot covered skin. “It’s
been a bad day,” I say.

“Come in!” Hank says and leads me
into the living room. He gets me a cold glass of water that I drink quickly.
Then I look at him and start to cry.

“What happened?” he asks, his
concern etched deeply in his face.

I try to tell him the whole story.
I keep having to stop when I get so upset that I can no longer form the words.
When I am finally done, I look at him with pleading eyes. “Can you forgive me
Hank? Can you understand?”

Hank grabs my hands and squeezes
them. “Can you forgive me?” he asks through tears of his own.

“Why should I forgive you?”

“I had no idea what I was asking
you to do. I don’t know anything about Hell, Louise. The fact that you had to
fight the devil himself…what if you had agreed? What would that have cost you?
And whatever the price, it would be on my head because I asked you to do it.”
He sits back and searches for the right words to say. “You made the right
decision. Linda has to do this, and she will do it her way. Just like you have
done everything you have your own way. There is nothing to forgive, Louise. You
have always loved Linda, and you proved that when you left her exactly where
she needed to be.”

I hug Hank for a long time before
heading back to the agency. Now that the literal smoke has cleared, I have to
face Gabby. I think I am as frightened of this as I was when I realized Lugner
was Satan.

I walk in, and Gabby is sitting
alone in the lobby. She looks at me and gives me an appraisal with her gaze
that makes me wish I could go home and change. “You are a mess, Louise,” she
says. “Coffee?”

“Please,” I answer. I sit and wait
for her to hand me the mug. I breathe in the aroma and immediately am crying
once again. This is the theme for the day. Louise Patterson, the woman who
never runs out of tears.

“Did I forget to put cream in it?”
Gabby jokes with me.

I just launch. “Oh, Gabby. I’m so
stupid! I am the biggest, most arrogant, most unbelievable dim jerk in the
universe! I was conniving with the devil!” I am now wracked with sobs.

“You really are pretty arrogant if
you believe that you are the only person to ever be tempted by Lugner. That is
his game. He makes it sound better to do it his way. He had to trick you
because he knew you were coming from a place paved with good intentions. If you
wanted to openly defy Deedy he would have been completely honest with you about
him or about the contract he would have made you sign. And at the end of the
day, when you had to make a decision, you made the right one.”

“Will Deedy be angry?” I say, like
a frightened child.

“Why did you want Linda to be free
from Hell?” Gabby asks.

“Because she is a good person. She
was my best friend. She loved the people in her life, including my daughter.
She is more than her mistakes,” I say with renewed passion.

“So what you were thinking of doing
came from a place of love?”

“Of course, unconditionally!” I
say.

“And who is the highest example of
unconditional love?” I see where she is going with this.

“Deedy,” I murmur.

Just then Joe comes out of Deedy’s
office looking shaken but overjoyed. “Speaking of Deedy, I think Joe just got
re-introduced to him,” I say with a smile.

“Creator…my creator…I’ve been
working for…Gabby! You have wings!” Joe is still a little star-struck. He looks
at me and gives me a huge grin. “You have known, right? This whole time?”

“Of course I have. What kind of
guardian angel would I be if I hadn’t?”

“Guardian angel? I knew you didn’t
fix elevators!”

We are all laughing as Joe pulls
out a post-it note. “Louise, I have to go to this place. It is called
WF&PI. Will you be coming with me?”

“Not this time. But you will be
fine. That place will rock your afterlife!” I say, giving him a congratulatory
pat on the back. “And I will see you very soon.” He offers me a hug, and I
happily take it.

“I’ll walk with you Joe,” Gabby
says, then whispers to me, “He has so many friends and family waiting for him,
it’s going to be a long night.”

“I’ll hang back here for a little
while if that is okay?” I ask. “I just feel like being alone for a minute or
two.”

“Certainly. But please, do not make
coffee. Drink what is there. If I come back and find a mess—”

“I know, I know, there will be a
smiting in my future.” I tease.

After they leave, I stand and look
around at the sparse lobby. I choose a chair and go and kneel, putting my
folded hands under my chin, and begin to speak.

“Hello, Deedy. I am not sure you
can hear me. But I want to say I am sorry that I almost got sucked into a
really bad idea, and for getting Linda and Joe caught in the crossfire of my
bad decision-making. I’m also sorry I was kind of a crap guardian angel to Joe.
I don’t know how many other guardian angels ever had their charges deliberately
ditch them, but I am sure it was not many. And I have to say I am sorry that I
wanted to punch Suzy in the face, but that is really hard to apologize for,
because she had it coming. So I guess I will just apologize for not wanting to
apologize for wanting to hit her. Does that make sense? I also just want to say
thank you for letting me see Linda, and for letting me get to know Joe. Damn,
Deedy, I miss you. And I love you. Amen.”

I get up and turn around and look
out the window. It is all just bright light, blinding me. But I let it sear my
vision and dry my tears. Suddenly I am startled by a strange sound. It is the
sound of jingling. Like bells on Santa’s sleigh…or change in a jar!

I turn and see the curse jar
sitting on the chair where I was just praying. I laugh as I put a quarter in
it. Then I feel someone take my hand.

I look up into the face of Deedy.
The face I know with the pointy nose and the funny teeth and those huge
expressive eyes. “Deedy!” I exclaim as I launch into his arms.

He wraps his arms around me and
holds me close. I feel renewed and refilled. I feel whole again. My vision
clears, and I can see everything. It is all back. But the most important thing
that is back is Deedy. “I have never been so happy to see anyone more than I am
to see you,” I say with fresh tears falling. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, my darling
girl,” Deedy says in his Welsh brogue. “But I will say you did a tremendous job
with Joe. Mae gwaith da!”

“I even missed your gibberish,” I
say giddily. “And thanks, but I know I didn’t do everything right.”

“So you met Lugner. What did you
expect, that you can hang out in Hell and never run into him?” Deedy says
casually.

“I think I made it worse for Linda
instead of better. She still has to work for him.”

“No, she does not. Just because she
is in his territory, does not mean that she is not mine. I have already
arranged for her to have another job. And I’m getting her out of that hotel
room and into an apartment. She won’t have it easy, but you didn’t make it any
harder for her.”

“Thank you, Deedy! But I have to
tell you something. I didn’t just meet Lugner.” Suddenly I feel the need to
confess. “At first, well...for most of the time…I actually thought he was
attractive.” I wince at my own words.

“Oh, please,” Deedy says
dismissively “Back in the day, before the fall, when he was with us up here?
Gabby and the others were nuts about him. They treated him like Elvis.” He
laughs.

“Thanks again,” I say with more
gratitude than I can ever really express. I asked for this demotion and you
gave it to me. But I think you knew that you were giving me much more.” I am
being totally honest with him now.

He looks at me with that look of
pure affection. “And I haven’t even gotten started yet. Louise, I have
something for you that I think you have finally earned.” Then he slaps me hard
on the back.

“Ouch! That hurt!” I whine at him.
But then I realize that there is a new sensation where he had made contact. I
feel like I have extra arms or something, but when I look to my side I see
them. Not arms. Wings!

“Really?” I say overjoyed.

“Yes, really. But no powers yet.
You have to work with Gabby, and we are talking a whole new skill set, Louise.”
Deedy smiles down on me, and I really do feel like I can fly.

“I can. I will. Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.” I am so excited.

“And that means you will be on her
schedule, so you might have to get used to being a morning person,” Deedy says.

“Stop trying to depress me,” I
murmur. “You can’t make this bad. These are wings!” I am now dancing around the
office.

“Then why don’t you take them for a
spin?” Deedy opens up the window.

I look at him once more and say,
“Thank you for everything.”

And then I leap and start to soar!

As I am looking down on Heaven and
Hell, I am considering what I have learned.

That each of us must take our own
journey. When someone decides they are taking a different path than you would
take, or you would like them to take, that it is not your right to take away
that choice. Understand that if you love them…you will let them. Even if that
means letting them go.

We are not who we are in spite of
our mistakes. Many of us are who we are because of our mistakes.

Not everyone who offers to lead you
has your best interest at heart. Likewise, sometimes people who let you pull
yourself out of a bad situation do.

Face all things in life first with
love. When you do that, then you will always be making the right decision.
Don’t measure love by how much you can take. Measure love by how much you can
give. That is unconditional love.

If you find someone willing to go
through Hell to be with you, never take them for granted.

And finally, it is okay to fall
every once in a while. But just never forget, with enough faith and enough
love, you can fly!

THE END

See how it all started.-Enjoy
Chapter One of

Awake in Hell
:

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: