A crowd of disoriented and naked people of all ages and ethnicities is slowly ushered through a plain doorway into a white windowless conference room. The walls are white, the carpet was originally smoke blue, but now faded, stained and torn. The ceiling hangs with a typical suspended acoustic tile grid, interspersed with recessed florescent lights that flicker occasionally. The wandering masses steadily flow in and find seating among the rows of folding metal chairs that are positioned in a semi-circle around a raised platform on the opposite side of the room.
The crowd is assisted by the officiants of the event—short deformed human and animal crossbreeds who wear red T-shirts that simply read STAFF across the backs. The staff all carry extendable pitchfork batons by their sides or clipped to their belts. At times the staff have to use the fork-like devices to poke and prod the attendees in the right direction or to keep the line moving at an efficient speed.
Once the chairs have all been filled, the squat staff members signal to each other and the door shuts and locks. The confused attendees sit and shift in their seats, they look around the room and at one another’s nakedness. Then, once the uncomfortable waiting begins to plateau into a new sense of normalcy, something starts to happen. Bugs start to emerge from the carpeting on the raised platform, at the same time, worms begin to fall from the acoustic ceiling above the raised stage and the worms cascade down onto the raising mound of bugs. The writhing mound of bugs and worms combined with gelatinous ooze that seems to accumulate from their comingling, the mound starts to grow into a tall column, and then starts to take the shape of a man standing on the platform. The man-shaped mound of squirming bugs begins to develop the unmistakably features of a human being—and eventually the concentration bugs and worms becomes so dense that it solidifies into an actual man standing in the center of the stage, looking out at all of his attendees. The man has dark hair that is slicked back and carefully styled around the two small horns that protrude from the hairline of his forehead. He has a long angled nose, a handlebar mustache full pouting lips and deep distinguished wrinkle lines accentuating his face. He wears a black and red cape, which together with the rest of his clothing looks like he’s dressed in a classic Dracula costume. He looks human, with the exception of his eyes which have pupils shaped like those of cats, his fingers seem longer than most humans’ and they have long pointy nails. He looks both youthful and ancient, his vanity has cajoled the ravages of time along his determined path, so that each brush of his hair, each shadow that falls along his cheekbone, the direction of every eyebrow hair, is all reinforced in its set position and everything else simply accentuates it.
The man smiles to the crowd and grabs a microphone from the hand of an assistant who had run to get it into position just in the nick of time. “Hello Damned, how are you all doing tonight?” his voice causes a squeal of reverberation through the equipment, however the man simply closes his eyes and enjoys the piercing squeal. The crowd only mumbles in reply to his question and groan in response to the failing speaker system. The man continues.
“So, Let’s just start at the beginning. You are all dead. This is Hell, and my name is Satan.”
The crowd breaks into a loud murmur of disbelief, discontent, objection, and outrage. The man, Satan, raises his finger, beckoning the crowd to compose themselves, and then he continues.
“The sooner that you come to grips with this, the better for us all. Now I know what you are all thinking. If this is really Satan, what’s he doing greeting everyone at the door here, doesn’t he have better things to do? Well, frankly, yes I do have better things to do—plenty. But I enjoy this part of the job, for thousands of years now I have watched all of your dumb faces pile on in here day after day. I just love the look of despair you all get when you learn that your lives are over and that this is what it has all amounted to. It never gets old, and I consider it to be an important part of my duty here to welcome you all into the next phase of your eternity. So let’s get started.
You are all alike. I know, sitting here in this room, exposed in front of one another, you all look about as different as can be, you stand out by the color of your skin, the fatties versus the emaciated, the small cocks and the sagging bosoms, the old infirmed and the ripe young flowers struck down in their prime. But you are all the same here, equal in your worth and your potential. I’ll prove it. You are all thinking at this very moment… ‘There must be some mistake—I don’t belong here!”
This comment elicits the release of a suppressed laughter from the crowd, as if they had been each individually been holding their breath up until that moment, indicating that many of them had been thinking precisely the same thing. Satan continues.
“What you need to know about this place, and about me, is that it’s not all that bad, and nothing like what you have been led to believe. I love you all, and I built this place for you. I created the heavens and the earth, I gave you the best gifts in life that I could, and when I had the control over all life yanked from my grasp, I created this place for your souls to live throughout all eternity, with the full freedom to live and do as you please. You Libertarians out there? Anyone? I know your out there somewhere, you don’t need to identify yourselves… But you are going to LOVE it here. This is your mecca, this is the land of no rules, this is a world determined by the free will of man. I don’t live to make your lives miserable, what’s the point in that? Even if it were possible, why would I want to do that day in and day out? I want you to enjoy yourselves. This world is your oyster, make of it as you will. I invented free will, and this is my experiment in enjoying it to it’s fullest. Be warned however, the bullies rule the sandbox here. There are no grownups around to step in. So you get to choose, are you going to join the bullies? Get bullied? Or conspire together to kill the bully and bathe in his blood?
But if you have any doubts about me, and you don’t take me at my word that I’m a fair guy—and I know that there are some rumors out there in the living world that have told you exactly that, I give you one last element that proves my good will towards you all. If you are still certain that you don’t belong here, if you are unhappy with this place and you can show evidence that you have been wrongly damned, then you can go. Find yourself a lawyer—and believe me there are plenty available, and petition your case to our courts. It happens everyday, someone defends their case and ascends out of here.” Satan nods to the sea of disbelieving faces in the room. Then he returns the microphone to his lips.
“But you know what? It’s a two way street. We have souls that have traveled the other direction. Many of your best known artists and scholars have opted to leave that wishy washy nexus of alternative options in favor of living their final days right here in Hell, where the soul can be truly free.”
The crowd is starting to pick up it’s life again, the murmur of voices is starting to sound individualized and energized again as it would have as a random gathering in life. Satan raises his hand to restore calm and to regain the attention of the room.
“Okay, now this is the portion of the evening that I like to call the ‘good news/bad news’ part. So, the good news about this place is that you can’t die, you’re already dead and these bodies are just representative of the shells of who we once were. The bad news is that you can get hurt, scarred, torn apart even—and you will still be alive. Take for example a guy a few years back who was married to this real floozy, but he didn’t know this, all this was going on behind his back, as far as he knew he was her one and only. So he comes home one night to find her just going to town with this massive Viking warrior—I mean he was huge, in all respects. So this nebbish guy flips out and starts yelling and throwing stuff, and this Viking guy allows it to go on for a bit but at some point he gets pissed off and rises up out of the bed, schlong flopping down to his knees, and he pulverizes the guy. I’m not just talking about punches and bruises—he literally gets torn, and smashed, and smeared into tiny little pieces. And this bitch won’t even spring for the cost to have him reassembled. So there he is for years, watching her screw different guys night after night from every conceivable vantage point all around the room. Eventually he got put back together, I think enough of him got shoved together at some point so that he could start compiling himself into enough of a human machine to start collecting up the parts and start assembling himself again. But to this day he still has parts of him in that apartment, he’ll still see people on the toilet, someone will step on some part of him on the floor and he’ll feel it miles away.”
The crowd looks terrorized. Satan smirks, then returns to the microphone.
“So, you all have a lot to take in within a short amount of time, you have an eternity to figure it all out, but let’s just get the basics out there and we can all move on to the rest of our respective days. So, what next? Money!! Yes, money. So to get around here, you need money, but not the currency of your past, here it’s your memories that are exchanged. This is the great equalizer, the rich typically have less to barter with down here, the shittiest of your life experiences are like gold, while those who lead quiet lives of obedience are left fumbling for loose change in the sofa just to get by. As they say, the journey has been your reward, and this is the place for you to enjoy your reward.”
Satan racks his brain to remember the next keen piece of information. A person in the audience raises their hand and then just speaks anyway.
“Sir, why does everybody look… you know blurry?”
Satan spins his attention onto the person with a terrible growl and sneer like a ferocious animal in mid attack. His curled back lips reveal a second row of sharp jagged teeth protruding from behind the front row of perfect white ones. Satan then instantly composes himself and stands more upright.
“Good question, I don’t normally take questions, but that one is straight on point, thank you. Yes, you may have noticed that the people around you look funny. The old repulsive woman next to you might from some angles look like a young beautiful woman, upon closer examination she might look like a bratty school girl and you will want to scrub your eyeballs for having been aroused by her a moment earlier. You are each, all of these people. You see one another for who you have been, ever. So, you are both the you growing up, as well as the you after plastic surgery, and the two images can sometimes come across as a blur, especially when the two don’t exactly line up.” Satan makes some gestures in the air symbolizing small petite breasts going to huge augmented breasts, and then lowering his arms to suggest sagging elderly breasts.
“As time goes on you will learn to see one another for who you want to see them. You will work on emphasizing how you want to be seen over other ways that you might have been, also, you can dress how you like down here, it’s all like any other commodity, the things of your liking are forged from the stem particles that make up all mass in the universe, so this is as real as anything else is. You might want to cover up too, because as you are all now experiencing a lack of modesty—congratulations, you have thrown off that undue burden from the big guy in the sky, but you might want to keep some things private. For example, this guy here, William, in the front row, great looking kid, handsome gentleman, kept in shape, but then he had to go and blow his brains out. Can you all see that people? These scars are just as visible as your awkward teenage years. So, unless you want to gross everyone out when they look deeply into your soul, I’d cover up at least those parts of your past that you wouldn’t want to advertise. I’d suggest that you wear a hat Willie.” Satan comforts William briefly before continuing his pace across the front row.
“So, that’s it, I’ve said my piece. Go out there and enjoy your free will people. I’m not going to tell you how to spend your eternity, you choose. That’s what I took the heat for all those years ago, that’s what I stand for, and I’d do it all again. I did this for you people, so get out there and have fun!”
The door to the rear opens and the crowd energetically rise up and start migrating their way out of the room, much faster than they did when they first entered. Satan and several staff members wave goodbye to them as they leave. Once the room is mostly empty of new souls, Satan leans in toward a pig-man staffer wearing steel rimmed glasses, and Satan mutters to him “Have the cleanup crews ready. How bad is it out there?”
The pig-man turns to him and murmurs back “pretty packed outside the main door, word got out that a new batch of newbies would be getting out soon.”
Satan shakes his head in pity. “Damned shame really. They get so swelled up with hope just before they hit the pavement. Oh well, what can you do? Do as thou will, and that’s what thou dust. How much time until the next group?”
The pig-man checks his clipboard. “An hour and a half sir.” He replies.
“Dammit, that’s barely enough time for lunch! Why can’t these people be a little more careful, what is there a war on?” Satan bitches.
“Several.” Replies the pig-man.
“Yeah, I suppose so. I’ll be upstairs…
…and none of that ‘Sir’ crap, got it? I’m not your boss—just the guy who you don’t want to piss off.”
“Got it.” Replies the pig-man, keeping his eyes fixed forward.
Satan exits the room.