I’ve been posting a lot about Hell, from that Dantean fiction post to my review of the kickass Mortality Bridge. So I recovered this silly story I wrote back in high school (that’s my excuse for the bad writing) about a pompous twit who finds himself in quite the predicament when he dies and enters the poorly-managed hierarchy of the underworld.

THE DIVINE COMEDY OF ERRORS

© Joanna Parypinski

I suppose you’ll want to hear all about how I died.

Well, that’s a shame, because I’m not going to tell you. I’ll tell you that it was very unexpected—so unexpected, in fact, that I wasn’t even immediately aware that I was dead. One minute I’d been enjoying my earthly corporeality as I waved to my neighbors on their way to Sunday morning mass, the next, I was standing in a gray room that seemed to stretch on for ages without windows or doors. Needless to say, it was a most peculiar sight, as was the line of dubious-looking scoundrels before me.

“Next,” came a thoroughly disinterested, dispassionate, and distrustful voice. “Name.”

The line budged forward, and I looked wildly about for some explanation as to my sudden appearance in this oddly blank chamber, waiting in line for what, I did not know.

“Next.” Pause, dull, silent, as the line inched up. “Name.”

“Excuse me,” I beseeched the person in front of me, a bulging man with balding scalp and bewildered expression. “Have you any idea where we are?”

“Ah, eh, um,” the man stuttered, round face turning a bright tomato-red. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong, ah, see. Well. The maid was just—helping me, ah, with a situation, heh. Er. Yes. And then my wife, Marge, well, she, ah. Jumped the gun—so to speak!” his voice choked off at the word ‘gun’, and afterwards he broke into nervous chuckles. He pressed a hand to his chest. “I didn’t even… eh, didn’t even know we kept a gun in the hall closet, heh. Um. Apparently Marge did…”

What a peculiar person.

At long last, my impatience fraying away at the end of my otherwise thick and resolute rope of fortitude, I reached the front of the line. “Next.”

I stepped up to the desk, a deep brown that clashed with the blankness of the floor stretching into oblivion. The woman behind it did not look up from her thick pile of papers; a head of grizzled dark hair fanned outward from a pale face, and two inward slanting almond eyes stared down at the papers behind a pair of thin glasses; her lips were pink and almost discolored in their pallor; her fingers were long and bony, curling into long nails at the end, which gave them a claw-like appearance. She was a bit ugly.

Her voice, pitched low and dull, sounded a bit like dry chalk. “Name.”

“Would you be so kind as to tell me where I am?” I inquired. “I’m afraid I’m completely turned around, and I don’t know what I’m waiting for.”

She lazily turned her gaze up to me, scathing and piercing and dark. “You’re waiting for judgment, what do you bloody well think?”

My smile slipped sideways like an egg sliding on a tilted frying pan. “Judgment? Have I committed some offense of which I’m not aware?”

The woman wrinkled her crooked nose and gave a slow, sardonic smile. “You talk funny, you know that?” I blinked, and she shook her head. “Name, please.”

“Why do you need my name?”

“Because I need to do my bloody job, and I can’t place you unless I look you up in the files, and I can’t do that unless I know your bloody name,” she growled.

“Well, I hate to be petty, but I’m not giving you any personal information unless you explain to me just what this is all about.”

She glared. “Look, you’re here because you have to be sent to one of two places. You can either go to Heaven or Hell. I have to look here on my alphabetical listing of the recently deceased to find you and send you where you need to be. Got it?”

“Wait.” I took a breath. “You’re telling me I’m dead?”

The woman quirked an eyebrow and stared at me condescendingly. “Well what does it bloody look like? Now, are you going to give me your name or spend eternity in limbo? Because I could use an assistant.”

I paused, eyeing her suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“What, now?”

“I said, who are you? You’re obviously not God… or Satan, for that matter. Otherwise you’d know who I am.”

“Oh, you’re a hot-shot now, are you?” she laughed, yanking off her glasses and dropping them on the desk. “That’s fine. Look, I guarantee those two don’t know who you are. You’re not important enough. They don’t just know things at the drop of a hat. You know, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. They get all the bloody recognition, and what do I get? A stinking office job where I work nonstop with you idiots, and nobody even gives me any bloody credit!”

I had to take a step back, nearly running into the line of zombies. “Well, you’re… a very good secretary?”

“A bloody secretary, that’s fantastic,” she spat, clicking her long nails against the wood of the desk. “I’m Death, you fool!”

I perked up at that. Clearly she was someone of importance. “I’m terribly sorry I’ve disrupted your peace,” I apologized. “Well, time to pass on, shall I?” I gave her my name, and she flipped through the packet of papers to find me.

“Ah, here we are,” she said with a smile. “Looks like it’s Hell for you.”

“What?” I cried, my heart practically shooting through my chest. “Hell? The lecherous baboon got to go up! I want to talk to my lawyer!”

She rolled her eyes, but a smirk tugged at her pale lips. “I hope Satan roasts your bloody ass.”

And then I was transported downward.

***

I was thoroughly unimpressed when I stepped into the fiery underworld and laid eyes upon the infamous creature whose malevolence and sadism were widely feared. The curved black horns and cloven hooves, the glittering beady eyes, the highly unimaginative forked tail poking inelegantly from behind—it was no more than a walking cliché, a thousand sketchy representations mashed into one. I almost felt sorry for the ugly creature whose appearance aroused less fear than a piece of undercooked chicken breast. I knew that I should have been screaming for my life (or, as it were, death), but the creature held my rapt yet decidedly under-whelmed curiosity, so I watched its movements with bemused fascination.

“Halt!” it cried. “Are thou not prepared for an eternity of suffering and pain by the fiery pits of Hell and all its seedy inhabitants?” Its voice boomed in the cavernous expanse, and my mind involuntarily became fixated upon that terribly familiar voice, deep and sonorous, revealing the basic plot of every horror movie known to mankind as its preview plays out on the television screen. It was sort of sad that the infamous creature would have so dull and tritely annoying a voice.

“Oh, certainly,” I replied at its sudden silence. “Yes, send me to the depths. Erebus, Tartarus, Hades, whatever you want to call it, I suppose. My trip down the river Styx was lovely, by the way, but your canine friend seemed rather keen on a bone and delayed my journey quite a bit. I would advise, however, buying one of those fancy multiple CD changers, as I’m sure the newcomers get tired of hearing ‘Come Sail Away,’ despite its rather amusing and blatant ironies.”

Satan narrowed its eyes at me—or at least in my general direction, as the smoke was so thick and hazy that I found my sight quite obscured. “Dost thou always talk so much?” it inquired.

“Oh, heavens no. Or, rather, hell no. I’m not sure which would be the apt version of the sentiment. Speaking of, shall I say ‘oh my god,’ from now on or ‘oh my devil’? The latter might be a fresh twist on an old favorite, but so often that can go awry, wouldn’t you agree, ‘bub?”

“Bub?”

“Yes, ‘bub. Or Beelzebub, if you prefer. I happen to be quite fond of nicknames, is all.”

The Lord of Darkness put on a puzzled expression, or at least its version of such. Unfortunately, its whole face was fixed in a permanently ugly glower, which gave little room for varying expressions. But its great worm-like eyebrows quirked and lines formed in the blackened leather forehead.

“Would you mind if I asked you a question?” Satan queried politely, leaning in confidentially. “Why, might I inquire, are you not screaming in calamitous, terror-stricken horror?”

Its eyes were bright and keen, so I could do nothing but oblige truthfully. “Well, I’m afraid you’re simply not all that terrifying.”

It let out the growl of a hundred bloodthirsty dragons as it banged its fist in frustration. I now saw that it stood beside a podium at this entrance to the Underworld. “It’s my age, I know it! All these eternities of work are starting to wear me down. I mean, it’s just nonstop, 24/7, and it’s all administration work down here, filling out paperwork, sending new souls in the right direction, assigning minions to torture them—and sometimes, if I’m running low on available minions, I have to torture them myself. Sure, it can be fun, but it gets so tedious and tiresome. And don’t even get me started on trying to maneuver around on two cloven hooves! The agony! And do I get any benefits? No! Not even dental! Oh, work. It never ends!”

“Sounds hellish,” I murmured in sympathy. “And now I have a question for you.”

Satan heaved a longsuffering sigh and leaned against the podium. “Fire away.”

“Why is it that I’m… here? I mean, I don’t believe I’ve done anything truly awful in my life, certainly nothing to warrant a one-way ticket to Hell. Is there some great sin I’ve forgotten about?” I asked, my curiosity brimming within me as I listened to the tormented shrieks of Hell’s inhabitants echoing through the cavernous fire pit.

“Oh.” Satan appeared nonplussed. “I must have won you from the Big Man in a game of cards.”

“From who in the what, now?”

“Cards.” Satan’s blackened lips curled in a grin. “From the Man Upstairs. You know, the Lord Almighty. Jehovah. His Holiness.” Satan paused, eyebrows quirked at my ignorance. “God.”

“God?”

“God.”

“Good god, you play cards with God?”

“Certainly.” Satan rifled through some papers disinterestedly. “See, I’m a fan of Texas Hold ‘Em, but God, he just has to play Gin Rummy. You’d swear that’s the only game he knows. Sometimes we play for the pot, which is usually a bunch of new souls. I must have won you.”

“Oh. Fantastic,” I murmured, shaking my head as I crossed my arms. “So he and you are on speaking terms, I take it? Unless all your card games end in fire and brimstone.”

Satan smiled—or, at least, I think it smiled. It’s so difficult to tell when one has a face of worn-out leather, wrinkled and withered until it is unrecognizable and expressions become the slightest quirk of a caterpillar eyebrow. “Oh, we’re old pals. But this is exactly the kind of prejudice I tell him about. One little misunderstanding, a rumor starts, and all of a sudden I’m the bad guy for eternity! And of course he doesn’t bother to clear it up. He thinks it’s funny. I mean, what do you think I’m doing down here? I’m punishing sinners! Does that sound evil to you? No. I just got landed with the lousy job while God gets to lounge around and do nothing all day because he gets to hang out with the people who never do anything wrong. I swear. I need a vacation.”

At that precise moment, a tiny cherub-like creature with charred black wings and gleaming red eyes flew over to us and bobbed around timidly. “Erm, Your Evilness?”

Satan rolled its fathomless black eyes. “What is it now, Francis?”

“We have a—er—situation in torture chamber number four. It seems one of the souls has started… well… a rave,” the baby demon squeaked, fluttering around as its chubby body bounced nervously in the air.

A sigh welled up from the depths of Satan’s being and was released into the blistering, fiery cavern. “A rave?”

“Yes. They’re playing some loud music—‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ by Van Halen, ‘Cowboys from Hell’ by Pantera, ‘Hell Bent for Leather’ by Judas Priest, ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC, and they even found an old Charlie Daniels Band album. The Southerners really like that one,” the demon explained hastily. “They’re all dancing, among, um, other things. I couldn’t control them—they’re like wild animals. And they’re having too much fun.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Satan groaned wearily, poking the chubby demon with its pitchfork. “Can’t you see I’m busy with a client? Look, why don’t you go find that old Celine Dion album and switch the music. You’ll stop the party and make them suffer greatly.”

The demon bowed low to the rocky ground, skeletal wings fluttering furiously. “Certainly, Your Evilness. I’ll get right on that. Another sadistically genius idea, as usual.” Upon completing his ramblings, he turned and whizzed off through the leaping flames in the distance, presumably in the direction of torture chamber number four.

“You see what I have to put up with?” Satan appealed to me, eyes wide with tired annoyance. “They’re all a bunch of incompetent weaklings, I tell you. Can’t do anything by themselves. It’s like I’m a babysitter or something. What is it now?” it grumbled as the demon reappeared, tugging at its own fingers, which were like thick, burnt sausages.

“Well, I couldn’t—that is, I don’t know about Celine Dion, but I did come across a Carpenters album… will that work?”

“Yes, that will work,” Satan replied as the demon flew off again. “See? No creativity. No minds of their own. Sometimes I think the recruits take the term ‘minion’ a little too seriously. But what can you do?”

I nodded, startled that I was feeling a bit empathetic towards Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, the Lord of Darkness. Curious. It returned to the podium, looking through some papers again. In the distance, something clanked loudly like chains, followed by a terrified, bloodcurdling scream. Peering through the darkness, I watched flames leap up sporadically on the barren landscape. I figured it must be dreadful, having to work in a place like this, which didn’t seem at all conducive to creativity or intelligence, but rather barbarism. It would make anyone seem like a lousy person, no doubt, and surely would fan the flames of any rumors about Satan. I pitied the poor creature. It wasn’t its fault that it had a forked tail, ugly skin, and no physical distinction between male or female.

“Okay,” Satan announced, pulling a yellowed sheet from the stack on its clipboard. “I have your papers. All you need to do is sign, and you’ll be a legal resident of Hell. Now, this part I have to say—it’s in the job description: if you’re unfamiliar with Hell, we have brochures on the far wall behind you. Our recreational facilities include a wide array of entertainment, from fire polo to Guess That Method of Chinese Water Torture, hosted by our top expert in the area. If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, we also have a selection of classes ranging from intensive studies on eyeball acupuncture to multivariable calculus. Please abhor your stay in Hell.” Satan paused, shrugging over the sheet of paper. “Anyway, just sign on each dotted line.”

I stepped over some hot coals and reached the podium, bending over to peer at the tiny print spanning the pages before me. I signed once, twice, thrice… lost track, and had thus far counted about twenty-three pages with plenty more to go. My hand began cramping up, and I had to readjust the pen in my grip.

“Just a few more… here… here… yes, here, too…” Satan mumbled as it flipped the pages. “All right, yes, here… there… and one more… good!”

I dropped the pen in relief. Satan’s mouth twisted up into something I suppose might have passed for a grin. “Congratulations! Not only are you now an official resident of Hell, but you’re also the new ruler of the Underworld!”

I raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

Satan tucked away the papers in the shelves behind the podium. “Look, it isn’t my fault if you neglected to read the fine print. The job isn’t that difficult, anyway. You should be flattered—you’re the new Satan!” As it spoke, it rummaged around the podium and produced a black bowler hat, a cane, and a leather suitcase. “Do enjoy yourself. Now, I’m off on vacation. Perhaps I’ll head over to Bermuda… I should pack a jacket…”

My heart plummeted into my shoes as Satan continued to yammer on—certainly I had never heard a creature speak so much in my life! Perhaps that was the real terror of Hell. Interminable annoyance. “…and don’t forget, you have a card game with God scheduled for two Fridays from now, and if he tries to get you to shut down demon recruitment, just tell him that I already authorized the project, and he knows we have a severe shortage already, so if he thinks he’s going to get away with having twice as many employees as me…”

Just as Satan was rushing off in the direction I had come, I held up a hand, mind spinning with new information. “So… am I Satan, now?”

This time, I really could not tell whether it was a grin or a look of utter disgust that crept upon that loathsome face. “You’re very sweetly ignorant. Yes, you’re Satan. So, have fun, don’t work too hard, and if you have any questions, make up the answer yourself because Hell knows those minions are the most brainless bunch of creatures ever. Well, I’m off!”

And with a quick wave, Satan vanished into the shadows, leaving me alone at the podium. The next moment, a withered old woman with gray hair and a pair of spectacles perched atop her crooked nose shuffled in and observed me shrewdly beneath two bushy eyebrows. “Well, damnit. I was hoping I’d make it upstairs.” I gaped at her, rifling around in the papers under the podium and finding that which admitted new residents. It was only a page long.

“Ma’am… if you’re unfamiliar with Hell, we have brochures, and fire polo, and a bunch of other stuff. Um, I’ll just ask you to sign this…”

She shook her head. “You know, for the devil, you’re really not all that terrifying.”

***

Old Satan had been right; those minions were extremely clueless, and not creative in the least. The first time Francis showed up with a stammered, “Er, Your Evilness?” I knew that trouble lay ahead.

“What is it, minion?” I asked, leaning against the podium, fanning heat away from my sweaty face.

“We have a slight situation… erm… our ballroom dancing instructor won’t be able to make it, so we have one hundred or so souls waiting for a boring lesson, and they’re becoming, well, a bit rowdy,” he replied, flitting about my head like the winged demon seed.

I heaved a great, burdened sigh. “Why don’t you just send them all to torture chamber number sixty-six? It’ll be free for five more hours.”

Francis beamed excitedly, his black wings fluttering above my head. “Of course, Your Evilness, what a perfectly malicious idea. And… do you mind my asking where our old leader has gone to?”

“Bermuda.”

“Oh, dear. I hope Old Master doesn’t catch a chill.”

I rolled my eyes and waved my hands, indicating that the little demon-cherub could depart. “I’m sure everything will be fine.” With another midair bow, Francis took off into the shadow and leaping flames behind me. “Sorry for the interruption,” I apologized to the incoming souls. “If you’re unfamiliar with Hell, we have brochures on the far wall behind you. Our recreational facilities include a wide array of entertainment …”

By around the fiftieth time I had to repeat that, it was, needless to say, growing a bit tiresome. There were problems left and right with the mindless minions, and the demonic recruits were no help in the area. Every little thing came directly to me, and I was growing quite aggravated at the lack of organizational management. I even exploded upon the arrival of a new resident: a large, muscled biker who took one look at me and told me that I wasn’t frightening in the least.

“Don’t you think I know that? Curses, do you know how difficult it is to run an evil empire when no one fears you? Because if no one fears you, then no one respects you! How little respect I get, despite all my hard work. No thanks! Just a bad reputation and a lot of hopelessly dimwitted minions. I wonder if the angels are as doltish as my demons? Oh, work! It never ends, I tell you! No wonder Old Satan went on vacation!”

Upon completing my outburst, I felt marginally better, and the biker was cowering on the other side of my podium. I gave him my most terrible smile and showed him the direction to his new room (which I might add, had a wonderful view of the Styx). “Please abhor your stay in Hell!”

In these weeks of endless paperwork, greeting new residents, and management issues with the lower level demons, I found myself in total sympathy with Old Satan. Poor thing! At least I hadn’t that same dreadful appearance, but I was beginning to wonder about the effect of the extreme temperatures on my delicate complexion. I didn’t even have any suntan lotion with me.

It was during this time that I realized this was not the job for me, and I had to somehow get out of it. Perhaps my impending card game with God might yield some way to break the contract that I had unwittingly signed…

***

It was a lovely park with lush, green grass and several checkers tables set up about the trees. In the distance, I was almost certain I spotted a playground and a little blonde girl playing hopscotch. It was a very nice place, indeed, for a game of cards. Of course, I’d nearly gotten lost on the way back to earth—God gave very vague directions: Thou shalt firstly leave the realm of Hell, but if thou ascendeth into Heaven, thou hast gone too far and must double-back toward Earth. There lieth a tree of bountiful fruit, and in close proximity, a table wrought of wood upon which the game shall commence. The Word of the Lord!

Thus, I did my best to follow these written instructions, and at last I came upon the place. God was already there waiting for me.

He looked a bit like those representations of Jesus found on stained-glass windows: flowing, well-conditioned brown hair; a nearly blinding white robe tied with a golden rope; fashionable sandals revealing well-manicured toenails; a golden orb hovering above his head like a flying saucer. When he saw me, a grin broke out over his face, and he stood and spread his arms wide, making the white robe fan out like wings.

“So it seems my good friend Lucifer has indeed decided to take a vacation at last! Very Good!” he greeted jovially, and immediately I began to disdain the air of self-importance hovering about him. “Sit, sit, and we shall commence the playing of our game. I’ve brought three of my seventy-two virgins for the pot today, and there’s a whole slew of Southern Baptists waiting to get into the pearly gates that I’m willing to wager as well.”

“Er,” I murmured. “I know of a few souls… a crazy arsonist, a talented graffiti artist, and several accountants. I could throw in some demons as well.”

“Very Good!” God shouted again. “Please be seated. Amen.” He sat, and I joined him at the table. He shuffled the cards.

“So,” I said. “Are you the Christian God, or another religion’s…”

He gave a loud, hearty laugh. “I should smite thee for asking such a silly question. I can, too—I can send many plagues after you to prove my power. Locusts, frogs, boils—you name it! But there will be time for that later. I’m just plain old God. It would be sort of difficult to keep up with all those new, crazy religions that keep popping up—do you even know what the Mormons believe?—and have one of me for each of them, so we just decided that one could encompass all.”

“’We’?” I prodded.

God appeared uncomfortable. “Well, we shan’t talk of such complicated matters as the fabric of the universe, shall we? Now, Go Fish or Gin Rummy?”

I blinked and decided that I had to get to the bottom of this—if I could get God to reveal to me the secrets of the universe, perhaps I could break the contract I had signed and release myself from the position of Satan. I had not even answered his question before God started dealing the cards. He arranged his quickly and asked, “Dost thou hold… a king?”

“Go fish.”

“Blasphemy!” I was growing quite irritated by his righteous indignation and leaned my elbow upon the table as he carefully selected a new card.

I clucked my tongue as my mind worked out a way to get answers. “My work hours are absolutely dreadful. Do we have a union representative? Is there perhaps someone with whom I might speak about… oh, I don’t know, hiring a second Satan?”

God spluttered and nearly dropped his cards. “One God and two Satans? I shall not be outnumbered!”

“Well then suppose we merged departments—had one all-inclusive Heaven-and-Hell resort?”

He paused, scratching the golden stubble on his chin. “Ambitious. It would defy all current religious dogma… and yet it sounds so original, so clever… so fun! Man, I hated those Puritans who refused to ever have fun in My name. I sent them all to Hell just for that. If Heaven is anything, it’s a party! And what a good balance it would be to have torture and fun in the same establishment!”

As he went on and on about the cleverness of this idea that, apparently, he had concocted on his own, I shuffled my cards around and peaked at some in the pile—hey, I was Satan; therefore, I was entitled to the sin of cheating.

“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! We must have this arranged at once! As soon as our game has ended and we may go in peace, I shall run it by Susie—”

At last, the mention of a name! “Who’s Susie?”

“Oh,” he replied, blushing slightly. “I mean, Death. Yes, Death and I are not on an informal-name basis; that is, we never had any relations other than those of strictly professional co-workers. And if you hear her refer to me as George, well, then she’s merely exercising her—”

“Your name is George?” I asked dubiously. God tossed his cards onto the table and stood up, flustered, and I could see that he was floating a good two feet above the ground.

“Well, we can’t all have fun names like Beelzebub, all right?” he snapped. “If you’ll excuse me, I just realized I have some importance business to attend to. We shall together resume this meeting at a later date.” And with that, he made the sign of the cross, then some wiggly gestures with his hands, which I suspected he made up on the spot, and vanished.

“What an odd fellow,” I mused. Well, at least as Satan I had the power to return to Purgatory so that I might have a word with Death on the matter of my immediate retirement. Now, if only I could get some decent directions…

***

“You again?” Death snapped the minute she spotted me in the colorless room. “How in the bloody world did you get out of Hell?”

She was just as plain as I remembered her: frizzy black hair, thin glasses, and pale—very pale, almost translucent, almost blending in with the ashen wall behind her.

“Didn’t you get the memo?” I said. “I’m the new Satan.”

“You?” she erupted, slamming a taloned hand on her desk and glaring at me with fire in her eyes. “I knew the organization would go downhill once I heard Lucifer was on vacation, but I had no idea you were taking his place. Fantastic. Hey—you lot!” she shouted to the line of people behind me. “Go in the next room and have a coffee or something. This may take a while.”

As they dispersed, one scrawny man raised his hand. “Am I in heaven?”

Death rolled her eyes. “Go!” The man nodded and ran off to join the others. “Now,” she returned her attention to me. “We’ve got to go about reversing all this, bringing back the real Satan, and sending you back where you belong.”

“Yes, exactly my reason for coming here,” I agreed, and she appeared mildly pleased that I was not trying to argue. “But… must I be sent back to Hell? I mean, an eternity of Celine Dion and calculus lessons?”

Death grinned, revealing pointed white teeth. “They call it Hell for a reason, sweetie.”

“It’s just that this whole thing seems so utterly ridiculous… so absurd,” I tried to explain. The rational side of my being had been steadily hacked to pieces throughout my bizarre stay in the afterlife, and I feared for my very sanity if this madness ensued for much longer. “I mean, God is a pompous snob, Satan is an unfortunate-looking, overworked whiner, and frankly, this whole afterlife thing is starting to give me a headache.”

She stared at me for a moment, tapping her pen against the desk. “It fools most people,” she murmured. I raised my eyebrows questioningly. “It was my idea—this grand illusion for those who desperately sought an afterlife. You see, so many humans believed in one, that there was much upset when they realized the big joke. So I, and several other revolutionary inventors, created all of this. Unfortunately, I think I may have hired the wrong people to play God and Satan. God’s always trying to prove himself, even though he hasn’t got a lick of power, and Satan’s always complaining about his bad reputation—if you have to listen to their bloody yammering for that long, you go insane, I swear.”

She rolled her eyes, sighing heavily. “No matter. I’ll get Satan back, destroy whatever contract he used to put you in his place, and solve this whole mess.”

As she began shuffling around her desk for some papers, I shifted my weight nervously and spat out, “And as for me?”

When she smiled, it was far less ugly than the scowl she usually wore. In fact, it was almost pleasant. “Well, I run this whole operation, don’t I? Just say the world, and you can leave.”

“Where shall I go?”

She snorted. “Isn’t it obvious, you twit? You’ll die. Go to sleep forever. Everything is supposed to just… end. Eternity doesn’t really exist, just the illusion of it. So, it’s Hell for you, or even Heaven if you like, I can pull some strings, or the Big Sleep. What do you say?”

I took no time in making my decision. This whole afterlife was quite a good show for those who expected it, but it was simply a load of hogwash for someone as shrewd of intellect as myself—and no, I’m not trying to be arrogant like His Holiness, George, but rather stating the facts as I see them. After all, that’s what this is all about. Facts and fictions. It’s a shame so many seemingly intelligent people become swayed by the lure of the fictitious, but there it is. As for me, the truth is the most inviting of the two choices, and I shall choose truth over lies, fact over fiction, and reality over an hallucination any day.

And as for today…

Susie is smiling at me and shoving a paper in my direction. “Just for the records… sign here.”

I pick up the pen and sign my name.

“Jolly good show,” she says, and yes. It certainly is a good show. Jolly good.

And now I’m off to sleep. I bid you all goodnight!