I, Hell

by Ben Stevens

  The words I’d said – Jesus Christ – had actually felt mildly distasteful in my own mouth. Guess I’d been in Hell a few years now, and was slowly beginning to get a bit more evil. Not that I was exactly whiter-than-white when I first rocked up here, however. Much as I may not have actually meant to kill Mr. O’Reilly, I’d still pressed a white-hot poker against his back – twice – to get him to tell me where he kept his loot…

  Well, anyway, compared to what the flying demons did to me as punishment for my second blasphemy offence, a white-hot poker pressed against my back would have been a – well, blessing. Instead I was sawed in two from the groin upwards, nice and slowly, the saw naturally both extremely rusty and extremely blunt.

  That was for starters. Then came the cutting-off of the ears, the putting-out of the eyes, and so on. The flying demons almost moaned at me as they carried out the tortures, basically complaining that I’d been in Hell long enough now not to make such stupid mistakes as the one I’d just made.

  But all through my outward agony and screaming, I thought: Just you wait, fellers. Because I’m gonna be making one of you hurt just as badly as I’m hurting now…

  Oh yes.

  Anyway, the mutilation and such finally concluded, I was almost instantly made whole again. It was like being Hitler’s buddy had somehow conferred some sort of special treatment on me. I was definitely respected by those other residents of Hell who labored around me, and the flying demons didn’t even whip or bother me much unless I did something really dumb like shout out the voice of you-know-who…

  Only that hadn’t been dumb – not like the first time I’d committed my faux-pas. On this second occasion, I’d 100 percent deliberately shouted out the name of old JC himself. Because I’d wanted to check how the flying demons would react.

  And they hadn’t disappointed.

  Now it was time for stage B of my plan.

  You know, the bit where I got the Hell out of – well, Hell itself.

  Oh yes, this was it.

  But first I had to do me a little faking.

  I let a few more months go past. Let the dust blow over from my second blasphemous offence, as it were. Deliberately wound up Hitler a bit more, stating that of course Winston Churchill had been the better wartime leader, as he’d not been the dumb fucker who’d a) lost, and b) blown out his brains in a fit of pique. If ever I thought that Hitler was going to attack me with his pickaxe, it had been then. But ultimately he just shook his head, and with as much injured dignity as he could muster said –

  ‘You are just a silly, spoilt little American brat who knows nothing about what it was like back then.’

  He then told me some stories about his experiences in the First World War – about how he’d been temporarily blinded by mustard gas and such. I have to say, much as I despised what he’d gone and done later, I had to take off my metaphorical hat to him for being one tough son-of-a-bitch.

  Finally, it was time. My heart beating so fast in my chest I thought it would burst… Ah – that was how I’d ‘fake it’. I’d not quite decided until just at this moment.

  Refusing to give myself anymore time to think, I uttered a shrill cry and fell down to my knees, clutching my chest.

  Uproar and hullabaloo. Hitler and several others clustered around me, demanding to know what was wrong. Then they were whipped back by one of the flying demons – as I’d very much hoped they would be. The demon leant its repulsive head in close to me, its breath reeking of decay as it demanded to know what was wrong with me. Because no one ever got sick – seriously sick – in Hell. However old or young they were when they died, even if they’d been half-rotted with cancer already, or had jumped off the top of a skyscraper and splattered themselves all over the sidewalk (yeah, suicide is a sin – just in case you were wondering), in Hell they still found themselves sturdy enough to perform the endless labor which being one of the damned entailed. The only real pain came from the torture and punishments dished out by the flying demons, although ultimately (albeit sometimes after several weeks or months, depending on how long you were being made to suffer), as I’ve said already, you always found yourself whole again.

  One thing I haven’t mentioned so far is that before I’d got into junk in a big way, I’d been quite successful at wrestling in high school. I could still well remember a few moves. Plus, all this hacking at the rock-face with the pickaxe these past few years had done wonders for my previously drug-addled physique. (See? Guess that was Hitler’s influence – the way I looked on the pros, as it were, of being in Hell.)

  Anyway, in a flash I was up and grabbing the demon around its thick, black, scaly neck as I hopped onto its back. It was about twice my size; there was plenty of space for me between its two wings.

  Keeping both my arms wrapped tight around its neck, I hauled myself up slightly and so with my lips close to its pointed right ear said –

  ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven…’

  The demon roared and began thrashing about, trying to throw me off. But, believe me, I’d never gripped anything as tightly as I was gripping that demon’s neck now.

  ‘…hallowed by thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven…’

  A sickly, burning smell was now emitting from the flesh around the demon’s ear. My words were literally melting its skin; I was causing it the first agony it had probably felt in well over a millennia – since it had graduated from being just another damned soul to a winged demon, I mean.

  ‘Take me up to the cave way up there now, fucker, or I’ll keep saying this prayer until your fucking head melts completely away,’ I hissed into the demon’s blistering ear.

  The demon thrashed around and roared some more – cursing me, basically – but when I began again: ‘…Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…’ it suddenly flapped its wings and took off.

  Some other demons were now flying towards the one I was piggy-backing on. Quickly, I warned the demon to tell them to stay away, unless he wanted to hear further extracts from the Lord’s Prayer.

  Just those last two words caused more foul-smelling steam to emit from the part of the demon’s head my lips were close to. He (it, whatever…) shrieked something at the other demons in Hell’s own language, and they at once veered away from what had previously seemed certain to be a collision course.

  I should say that as I repeated the Lord’s Prayer, the usual rumblings and such were occurring in Hell itself. All the damned shrieked and covered their ears, and as I rose further and further into the air I could see many hundreds of thousands of those wretched slave laborers, from all parts of the world and from all periods of history. A great mass of naked, burnt, sweating specimens stood against the endless red rock. And they were all staring up at me as I made the first ever serious escape attempt from Hell itself.

  The cave was getting ever-closer! I tried to contain my excitement. I had to focus entirely on this, as free from emotion as was possible. One slip up, just one mistake, and I’d either be falling back to ground or else this demon would suddenly have me in its claws and at its ‘mercy’ (so to speak).

  Its claws… Yes, that would be how I’d do it…

  ‘Listen up,’ I said to the demon. ‘When we reach that cave, you’re gonna grab the bottom of the entrance with your claws, and hang there nice and steady. You’re gonna be my ladder, you see, so I can climb up and get in there.’

  The demon screeched and suddenly turned completely over, obviously trying to dislodge me. But I had too tight a hold, and first saying, ‘Silly boy…’ I then continued: ‘…As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…’

  One side of the demon’s head was by now a bubbling, festering mass. Its pointy ear had almost completely dissolved away. It uttered a scream of agony it greatly pleased me to hear – and then pleaded with me not to say anything more. It would do exactly as I wanted, it promised.

  Of course, once
the demon was hanging from the bottom of the opening, I’d have to move fast. Satan was by now surely being informed of what was happening; he’d either intervene directly, or else order the other demons to pick me off this demon’s back.

  So I’d scrabble up, threatening to continue the Lord’s Prayer unless this demon stayed absolutely still, put a foot on its head as I also put my hands on the floor of the cave’s opening – and then I’d launch myself inside…

  A few seconds later, and I was doing exactly as I’d just planned. The demon hung there, panting and sweating, its great black wings hanging down.

  ‘Don’t try anything… I mean it…’ I said, my lips close to the fizzing aperture in its head that had once been a pointy ear. Then I was clambering up, my left foot on its shoulder, my hands on its head. The treacherous bastard began to push away from where it was hanging, realizing that I could no longer talk directly into its ear… I leapt up; my hands caught hold of the floor of the cave’s opening; I hauled myself up and crawled quickly along the narrow tunnel as the demon outside shrieked and spat in its long tongue, which partially wrapped around one ankle before I ‘kicked’ myself free and basically threw myself further along, out of its reach.

  And that was it. I’d done it. The sandy floor of this long, narrow cave, and ahead of me…

  I don’t want to get into clichés, here. But there really was the whitest bright light ever, from which there somehow radiated immense, profound beauty and peace. I crawled towards this light, crying now, a pathetic sinner who’d somehow escaped the one place no sinner was ever supposed to leave. The light spread out to me, engulfing me, soothing my burnt, bloody limbs and body and my tortured mind. I was engulfed in its eternal, infinite power; it caressed me, cleansed me… I was staring into that bearded face I knew so well and the kindest pair of brown eyes I’d ever seen.

  ‘Welcome, my son – welcome,’ said a voice that caused yet more tears to flow – like mini-rivers washing all the sin out of my body and mind. ‘You have suffered so much, and yet the fact that you are here is truth of all the goodness that is still in you and always was.’

  ‘Please forgive me,’ I pleaded, down on my knees, my cheeks wetter than they’d ever been in my life. The deep, kind eyes met my own and stared deep into my soul.

  ‘Come, my son – come,’ said Jesus Christ; and I followed him into the kind of place you can only dream about.

  In fact – forget that.

  You can’t dream about it. It was too perfect.

  4

  When I think of my time in Heaven, I always feel as though there was some sort of music playing. Faint, impossibly beautiful… It wasn’t the sort of sound you heard with your ears – more your soul, if that makes any kind of sense. Although, if you haven’t been to Heaven yet then it probably doesn’t.

  Another thing about Heaven was how much more spacious it was than Hell. I don’t want to get into some clumsy routine about there being more sinners than saints, ha ha – but in Heaven you rarely rubbed shoulders with anyone else, where as in Hell it was difficult not to.

  I and everyone there was clad in shimmering white. We sat on grassy banks beside a gleaming river and picked the impossibly gorgeous fruit from the low hanging trees all around. Occasionally an angel flew above, great white wings beating, lovely to behold.

  Unlike in Hell, however, no one really gossiped. There was no Hitler here to tell me the way things lay. I sort of picked up that the angels were those men who’d followed Christ as his disciples before he’d gotten himself crucified, but that was kind of it. Whether you had to wait a few millennia in order to become angels – as Hitler claimed you had to in order to become a flying demon – was a mystery to me. Maybe there was no becoming an angel.

  I’ve said already there was no one like Hitler. That is, there was no one I befriended. Everyone was charming and polite and all the rest of it, but no one struck a chord in me. Also, I didn’t see anyone famous. Just the meek and mild who’d dutifully done their time on Earth without fucking up too majorly, and so were now being rewarded with a little eternal bliss.

  If you’re beginning to get the impression that ‘eternal bliss’ was starting to get just ever so slightly on my nerves, you’d be correct. I couldn’t believe it myself at first. Wait, I told myself – you escaped from never-ending damnation to the most perfect place in the universe – and you’re still not satisfied? What the Hell is wrong with you –

  There. I’d thought of that place again. The heat, the endless rock faces, the cries of the damned and the shrieks of the demons and… The list just went on. Talking with Hitler, joking sometimes, pulling his leg at other times. Conversation with some other denizens of Hell I’d got to know. They don’t particularly merit a mention individually, but they were okay so far as people who’d been sent to Hell went.

  So quiet, peaceful and still here in Heaven. People walking around in their white cloaks with that same funny little smile. One little guy in particular, round belly. Always seemed to pass me round about the same time every day. Looked as though he’d been a proper smug, self-righteous git in his day…

  What was I thinking? How could I even be this way, here in Heaven…?

  I’d been in Hell, I suddenly realized. It had left its mark in me. No matter where I was now, no matter my previous illusion concerning all my sins having been somehow ‘washed out’ of me by the Man himself…

  I knew I was the first soul ever to escape from Hell into Heaven. There was no precedent for what I’d achieved. So who – even JC himself – could say how I’d now react – how I’d now think…?

  It just went on and on, over many months and a few years. Inwardly stewing, outwardly adopting the same silly smile as every fucker resident in Heaven. Hoping my strange mood would somehow just vanish, yet also somehow knowing that it wouldn’t.

  And that same little guy with the round belly, every goddamn-day walking past me with that smile I was growing to so despise. It was mocking me, I realized. He knew where I’d come from, that I didn’t belong here – every one of these self-satisfied, sanctimonious, smug zombies knew I didn’t belong here. Recently I thought I could hear them whispering, talking all about me, saying that I’d been in Hell and –

  Finally, I couldn’t bear it any more. As the little guy with the round belly walked past me one day – there by the river whose water was so impossibly cool and sweet to drink – I sprang up and punched him in the face.

  Instantly, Heaven sort of shook like Hell had when I’d blasphemed. Although here I at least knew I wasn’t going to get my arms chainsawed off, or something of the sort.

  And so why exactly did that feel so fucking disappointing?

  Yeah, as I’d thought, the Man himself appeared. Deep brown eyes looking all disappointed and upset in me. Lecture coming, blah blah.

  ‘Stow it,’ I said, before JC even had a chance to speak. ‘I want outta here – I want back to Hell.’

  ‘Walk with me,’ Christ said simply. But his voice no longer sounded beautiful or mysterious; it no longer spoke to my soul. But I’ll always appreciate, at least, the fact that during the long time we walked by the river, he tried his very best to change my mind. Everything was perfect and lovely here in Heaven – and that was the problem. What’s the point of existing, if you don’t have obstacles to overcome and shit to deal with on a regular basis? Challenges, as it were. And you certainly got those and more ‘down there’ in Hell. On the other hand, what the frig was I supposed to do in Heaven for the rest of eternity? Sit by a river, eat some fruit and watch the world go by?

  Boooooooorrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiing...

  ‘Only one soul has ever left here, and – ’ Christ began.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I cut in. ‘And now I wanna do the same. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, really – but I don’t belong here. I’m just not cut out for Heaven.’

  Christ gave a deep, mournful sigh. It’s pointless recounting our conversation exactly – that would take pages and pages – but he
really had tried to make me change my mind. Now, evidently he realized that I was determined to get back to Hell.

  ‘Once you go back – there,’ said Christ, ‘understand you can never come back here. Even if you manage to get to the entrance you reached before – it will now be sealed off to you forever.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ I returned.

  With another sigh, Christ sort of waved one of his hands and a mist appeared. Then I saw ahead the cave/portal, through which I could hear the shrieking and howling I’d so grown to miss.

  ‘See ya,’ I said, walking straight towards this rocky portal. I got down on my knees to crawl through it – and then there was the red light, the heat, the rocks, the legions of the damned toiling away with their pickaxes, the black flying demons whipping them mercilessly…

  I was home.

  Still, when a couple of the demons noticed me and started to fly up towards me, I got a bit nervous. I actually looked behind me, as though checking for a quick retreat back into Heaven. But there was now a solid rock wall blocking the path I’d taken before, just a couple of feet away from me.

  I let the two demons snatch me from my perch. Although, there was in fact nothing I could do to avoid being taken one way or the other. With the two demons each holding one of my arms, we soared even higher towards the red, hazy, burning sky.

  These demons were seriously pissed at me. Apparently (so they said), their buddy who I’d forced to take me up to the cave had been turned back into just another damned human soul, by Satan himself, as punishment for ‘allowing’ me to escape.

  So the demons stated their intention to drop me from a great, great height, and furthermore to let me lie smashed and screaming on the ground for the longest possible time… I closed my eyes, bracing myself for what was about to happen, and then –