excuses!’
Lucifer roars.
The first head scowls at the other two, a bit annoyed not to have a line that time. The other heads scowl back.
‘Get on the wheel!’
the first head screams, holding the floor.
‘Who? Me?
Us?’
the other heads enquire, confused.
‘No, you daft cunts! The girl! You, Kimberly Clark! Get on the fucking wheel! Run! Run! Run!’
the first head squawks, spitting sparks.
Panicking, I stumble towards the flaming Wheel of Misfortune. I wish I’d never bought that daft hamster now. I gave him a good home, and fresh sawdust every week, and only occasionally forgot to feed him – now look how he’s repaying me …
Cringing, I linger gingerly by the side of the wheel, dreading placing my foot on it. I ask politely, ‘Can you switch the flames off? It wasn—’
‘Get on
the fucking
wheel!’
Lucifer yells, raising the whip.
I do as I’m told. I slowly edge my big toe towards the whizzing rungs, as if I’m about to step into a scalding bubblebath. As soon as the first flame licks the soft soles of my feet, I squeal, feeling hot electricity jolt up my leg. There’s no use crying, though – the trick is to just keep running; hopping from rung to rung, like a Russian bear dancing on hot coals. At least I’m keeping the locals entertained. The devils’ dinghies rock with raucous laughter as my screams become more and more outrageous.
‘A a a a I a a a want a a a out a a a I a a a a fuck a a a ing a a a a a o o o o o a!’ I screech, feeling my feet sizzle. Sweat gushes down my legs, but it’s not enough to dampen the flames. I feel hopeless, like that famous Greek fellow, King Ixion, who was condemned to infinite torture on his own fiery wheel in Hell. And all he did was have sex with a cloud.
If I’d known the Underworld was going to be this bad, I might’ve tried a bit harder to stave off death. Exhausted, I slow my white-hot sprint down to a half-arsed canter. My feet look like elephant hooves already: all swollen, with bits of grilled keratin and callous hanging off. At least the heat doesn’t hurt so much, now all my nerve endings have burned and blurred. Limping clumsily from rung to rung, I see someone’s strung a huge red banner between the two tallest volcanoes, which reads: WELCOME TO HELL – THE HOME OF POINTLESS VIOLENCE! Underneath the banner, to the left of some neon-jacketed charity workers, there’s a ramshackle children’s climbing frame. I squint at it between the whirring rungs, and feel my blood run cold. There’s a macabre form attached to the top of the climbing frame, with four pairs of shoelaces tied around its neck. Stevie swings softly, with his arms by his sides, like a lonesome, gravity-defying ballroom dancer. I yell breathlessly, losing my footing, ‘A a a why’s a a a Stevie a a in a a a a Hell a a?’
‘To
torment
you!’
Lucifer explains, reapplying a little serum to the whip’s barbs, from the pot on his utility belt marked HELLUCINOGENIC WAX: a hellishly bad pun.
Stevie doesn’t flinch as a brute of a magpie swoops out of the cyan sky, and lunges for the round, shiny thing lodged in his skull. It’s all too much. I scream, choking for breath, ‘A a a a get a a me a a out a a a make a a it a a a stop a a I’ll a a a do a a anything!’
The magpie flies off with Stevie’s bloodied eye-stalk dangling out of its beak, like a sunburned worm. As the black beastie retreats back into the cyan gloom, I feel a swift, sharp crack of a WHIP!! and all the flames disappear from the Wheel of Misfortune. Endorphins and lactic acid instantly kick in, kicking me off the scorched, steaming wheel. I land in a smouldering heap in the sawdust.
‘Well, there is
one way out
of Hell,’
Lucifer says, casting a cooling shadow over me again.
Outside the cage, the crowd edges closer, eavesdropping. The Tourette’s-afflicted thunderheads stop swearing and sparking for a second. Meaty and Fruity Stevie look about themselves dumbly, wishing they had ears.
‘How?’ I ask, brushing away the last of the embers.
‘We’ll let you
work in Heaven,
if you can pass
three simple tasks,’
the Cerberean hamster explains. He takes the TV remote out of his belt and fires it over my head. A fine thread of infra-red lightning shoots out of the end, causing the cyan sky to dim, and a 125ft silver cinema screen rises out of the crater of one of the volcanoes. The crowd ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’.
‘What type of work?’ I ask, sensing a stitch-up.
‘Menial,’
replies Lucifer.
‘Cash desks, probably.
Reasonable hours, though.’
‘Aye, go on then,’ I say.
Lucifer’s heads curse and cringe, as he struggles to find the right button on the remote. He flicks awkwardly through the AV channels, until the words
TASK ONE
WATCH THE FOLLOWING PROGRAMME
WITHOUT FALLING ASLEEP
appear on the silver screen.
‘Make
yourself
comfortable,’
he carries on, conjuring up a couple of pillows and a 10-tog duvet out of thin air. He tucks the pillows behind my back and throws the duvet over me, like a tablecloth or napkin. After all the sprinting, it’s tempting to stretch my legs out and unwind, although I’d best not get too comfy. Instead, I rub my face vigorously, as the action begins on the silver screen. It starts with two commentators, in grey suits, with grey faces:
Hello, and welcome to the Beelzebub Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of the FA Cup fifth round. We’re live from Bramall Lane, in what promises to be a stinker of a match between Sheffield United and Middlesbrough.
Oh hell, Hell. Not this. Last time this match was ‘live’, Lucifer kindly gnawed through the TV cable, so we didn’t have to watch it.
On the teamsheet for Sheffield, we have Kenny and Geary and Morgan and Kilgallon and Naysmith and Stead and Tonge and Quinn and Martin and Beattie and Sharp. For Middlesbrough, we’ve got Schwarzer and Young and Wheater and Pogatetz and Grounds and O’Neil and Rochemback and Arca and Downing and Aliadière and Mido. On the bench for the Blades are Armstrong and Carney and Hulse and Lucketti and Shelton. And on the bench for Boro are Alves and Boateng and Hines and Johnson and Turnbull. The man in the middle is Chris Foy from Merseyside. To recap, for the Blades we’ve got …
I can’t for the death of me remember if it was a twenty-goal thriller when me and Stevie trudged over to the Lord Parmo to watch the lowlights. I glance over at Stevie on the climbing frame, but I can’t seem to catch his eye.
Southgate looks stern as the teams kick off. Boro pass it about a bit. United pass it about a bit. Geary. To Morgan. Naysmith. Back to Morgan.
The picture flicks to the pitch at Bramall Lane, where the teams are passing it about a bit. The ball’s like a pendulum, swinging softly from one side of the silver screen to the other. There’s only been one minute of play, and I can feel myself drifting off already …
Quinn swings a cross in. Kilgallon gets a volley on it … ooh, straight into Schwarzer’s paws.
As if Hell isn’t warm enough already, Lucifer slips a hot-water bottle under my covers, then skips off to brew me a cup of cocoa. While he’s over by the toiletwaterbowl, filling up the kettle, I discreetly nudge the bottle out of the bed with my left hoof.
Some div’s chucked a beachball into the penalty area. Ahh, the ref clears it in fine style. Ha, marvellous stuff.
Lucifer hands me the hot cocoa, topped with whipped cream and flambéed Grand Marnier marshmallows. For a second or two, his vast frame obstructs my view of the screen.
‘Piss off, I’m trying to watch the footy ball,’ I snap, to humour the bastard.
That shot-to-nowt seemed to hit Rochemback on the arm. Hands go up. Blades whinge for a penalty. Referee denies.
In between sips of cocoa, a strange PLOP PLOP PLOP
sound catches my attention.
Mido on the break, with Aliadière PLOP in support. It’s two-on-one. My word, he’s PLOP toe-punted it out of play! Mido seems PLOP to blame a bobble on the pitch. The pitch blushes.
I have a long, delicious yawn. As I carry on gazing at the silver screen, through slitted eyelids, gradually all the players and pixels merge into one big, blurred mess, pulsing in time with the PLOP PLOP PLOP sound. Suddenly, I feel ever so sleepy.
Young clatters into Martin. Quinn clatters PLOP into Young. Free-kick to Boro.
Through sagging lashes I spot something blue and round land in the mug. I swirl the mixture. To my horror, a half-dissolved Valium bobs back up to the surface.
Sharp through on goal, och, dragged down by Wheater. Wheater should be off! Ref goes into his pocket. Ahh, only a crap, boring yellow card.
Panicking, I chuck the mug away from me, showering the spectators with bluey-brown sludge. As the mug smashes against the bars, an infant woolly monkey leaps from the Death-Cap Mush-Room, in fright, with a teapot full of Valium under its left arm. Trembling, the monkey scrambles behind Lucifer’s hind legs, ‘yook yook yook’ing.
Blades win yet another free-kick.
I force my fingers down my throat and vomit a creamy stream of cocoa all down myself. A dozen regurgitated Valium spatter across the duvet cover.
Bit of amateur dramatics here – if you watch, er … watch on the replay: Tonge and Beattie pretend to run into each other. Training-ground antics. Marvellous stuff.
In the corner, the woolly monkey stares glumly into the teapot of Valium with its tail between its legs. Lucifer grabs the monkey and flings it back into the Mush-Room, unimpressed.
Only one minute to be added on, thank fuck …
I mop up the puke with one of the pillows, casting evil eyes at Lucifer. While I do feel slightly livelier again in the head, I’m still ever so weak in the stomach – and I’m sure Lucifer has more foul play in store for me.
‘Come on, England!’ I shout, trying to get back into the game.
Wheater concedes another free-kick. Expertly wasted by Tonge.
I wipe flecks of bile out of my eyes so I can focus on the lads better. One way to keep myself occupied is to judge their legs in terms of handsomeness or hirsuteness, but that only reminds me of all the nice boys I’ve left behind on the surface of Earth. I’ll never take a boyfriend down here. The men in Hell are either hideously disfigured, or only interested in pre-teens.
Finally, the referee puts us out of our misery. Half-time.
‘That went quick!’ I chirrup, with a smirk. Lucifer triple-sneers.
‘Just carry on
making yourself comfortable
now, breathing in
and out,
innnnnnn
and ouuuuuuut,
as you await the
half-time analysis,’
Lucifer coos, attempting some slapdash, amateur hypnosis. He swings his antique pocketwatch in front of my eyes, substituting the commentators’ grey faces with clockfaces, one after the other after the other after the other after the other after the other after the other …
Unfortunately for Lucifer, the hypnosis fails to take hold. I barricade my brainwaves against his subliminal spiel, filling my head with as much nonsense as possible (like recalling the Boro and Blades teamsheets, counting the shavings of sawdust, praying to God).
Exasperated, Lucifer rummages through his belt of tricks, swapping the watch with a silver harmonica. I bite my lip. Rather than throwing blues into my cocoa, it looks like the hamster’s going to sing me some. The middlemost head blows a B for three seconds, then the three of them burst into song, like a demon barbershop trio:
‘Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop,’ they chorus, harmonising badly, ‘when the wind blows, the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall …’
This is awkward. It’s never nice having someone sing at you. I’ve spent far too many birthdays staring at the floor with burning cheeks, while people belt the ‘Happy Birthday’ dirge at me.
With a couple of flicks of the whip, Lucifer commands the crowd to rock the hamster cage back and forth. They heave their oars underneath the plastic, and swish me seasick.
‘And down will come baby,’ Lucifer’s heads carry on, ‘cradle and all.’
While the grey-faced commentators carry on discussing the first-half inaction, Lucifer claps his paws together, summoning a queer orchestra from the outer limits of Hell. All sorts of vulpine violinists, bovine bassoonists, serpentine sitar players, asinine accordionists, noctilionine nose-flautists, proboscine percussionists, tethidine theremin players, and a hippopotamine horn section turn up, cruising along the lava on separate gondolas. Sullen-faced, the animals adjust the tuning pegs of their instruments at random, before breaking into an atonal, sickly-sweet rendition of Brahms’s Lullaby.
I feel like I’ve been painted into the Musical Hell panel of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. The lilting lullaby soon swells to a death march, with Adolf Hitler conducting from the mountaintops, throwing Nazi salutes and Sieg heils this way and that.
‘GUTEN ABEND! GUT’ NACHT!’ Hitler croaks, like he’s still at Nuremberg. ‘MIT ROSEN BEDACHT! MIT NÄGLEIN BESTECKT! SCHLUPF UNTER DIE DECK!’
Fortunately or unfortunately, the football begins again on the silver screen. I stretch my eyelids open, trying to stay alert, despite the lullaby and lugubrious voices of the commentators combining to make a kind of aural anaesthetic.
Right, we’re under way again, here at Buggerall – pardon – Bramall Lane.
I slap my cheeks.
Martin whips in a cross, oh, oh … no. Kilgallon nuts it into the side-netting.
When Martin whips in the cross, Lucifer WHIP!!s the air, turning the sawdust into some other, green and smelly, substance. At first, I’m worried he’s decked the floor with cannabis buds. A lot of folk who smoke cannabis suffer from heavy, bloodshot eyes and lazyitis, but this stuff is even worse: hops. One of the four major ingredients of lager, hops are what make you fall asleep on your sofa after a marathon session down the pub. I can feel them kicking in already, like the Green Man tugging on my eyelashes.
Och, Mido pulls off a bicycle-kick. Straight into Kenny’s hands.
‘You bastard,’ I grumble at Lucifer. The more I writhe about in the hops, the more it ignites their stench. Soon, I’m feeling terribly, terribly drained.
Two substitutions. Hopefully this might liven things up. Boateng comes on for Arca. Martin makes way for Armstrong. Repeat: Boateng comes on for Arca. Martin makes way for Armstrong.
I slap myself across the face again. A hundred half-finished dreams flutter from my brain like swatted flies. I wish I had some smelling salts, or coffee beans, or Pro-Plus. I even start lusting after a goal – anything to keep me occupied for the last twenty-odd minutes.
Boateng’s kicked the ball against his hand in the penalty area, trying to spice up proceedings. Ref denies Sheffield the penalty.
Clocking my desperation, Lucifer comes over to ply me with drugs – however, they’re not the ones I was hoping for. The hamster detaches the jumbo 15ml syringe from his utility belt, flicks the chamber, and sprays a little of its silvery contents into the air. The spray hits a passing death’s-head hawkmoth, which instantly yawns and falls, unconscious, into the hops.
Neither team looks set to clinch the match. In fact, they’re all looking a bit spent.
I shriek as Lucifer jabs the needle into my flabby left arm. The sudden pang of pain perks me up for a moment, before the tranquilliser stakes its claim on my veins. My bottom jaw sags. The silver screen blurs again.
Downing launc wards P gatet oggin, but Mad D ecides not to ore. Bolloc.
‘MORGEN FRÜH! WENNS GOTT WILL!’ Hitler squawks, whipping the orchestra into a monstrous/monotonous frenzy. ‘WIRST DU WEIDER GEWECKT!’
Looks lik estined fo replay. Beli r not, we hav hrough this all o ain, next f king Wedn ay.
The tran
x sends each of my limbs to sleep, starting first with the arm which has the syringe stuck in it, like a flag marking the territory of the Land of Nod. I feel the evil gel literally creeping through each of the fingers of my left hand, then back up … up … up … to my left shoulder, then back down … down … down … towards my abdomen.
Three minu dded on. Oh el, no.
The tranx is like a tickly, sickly snake – a horrid, liquid Medusa gently turning me into stone, from the inside. Lucifer watches with glee, kicking hops at my nostrils.
It’s all over. It’s all over. My plight, that is; not the match.
A bit of a pass. A bit of a kick. A bit of a jump. Ooh, a bit of a kick there by Grounds.
The referee’s a wanker! Blow your fucking whistle!
‘GUTEN ABEND! GUT’ NACHT!’ Hitler yodels, egging on the tranquillisers. ‘VON ENGLEIN BEWACHT! DIE ZEIGEN IM TRAUM!’
Pass. Kick. Dribble. Dribble. Dribble. Dribble. Dribble. Pass.
If I can … just … hang … on …
‘Get me
the fucking
chloroform!’
Lucifer roars, his eyes burning redder than ever. He races about the cage, flapping his arms and panting. Perhaps he’s given me the wrong dosage of tranx, forgetting to account for my size 22 frame!
There’s a rustle of confusion in the crowd. The whole scenario feels like a Vaseline-tinted nightmare. A tank marked CHLOROFORM is passed from dinghy to dinghy, edging its way towards the hamster cage from a storage unit in the far reaches of Hell. I watch the clock tick to 90:00+1 through sore, slitted eyelids, as Lucifer hauls the tank aboard. The crowd are all in raptures! They think it’s all over!
Dribble. Dribble. Dribble.
It is now.
In a moment of genius inspiration and intense stupidity, I yank the trident out of Lucifer’s utility belt and plunge it into my left kneecap. The sharp snap of agony and adrenalin perks me up enough to stay conscious, just as Lucifer comes at me with a chloroform-soaked rag. I scream, blindly pushing his furry wrists away. The hamster spits fire as we wrestle, digging ourselves a shallow grave in the hops. I kick at him helplessly as the rag edges closer to my nose, and the clock ticks to 90:00+2, and the orchestra plays a bum-note, and the crowd all hoot, and then
Kimberly's Capital Punishment Page 38