Windows Into Hell

by James Wymore

  The second thing that ever happened was a man. A full body, this time.

  I woke up from dozing to hear a series of leaping arpeggios over a low drone and then an octave-high jump to a flatted tone. And there was a man, sitting on the edge of the stage and looking at me. He wore nothing special, jeans and a polo shirt, but he stared at me with wild eyes.

  The conductor and the choir both seemed to be ignoring him.

  It took me a few seconds to think of what to ask first.

  “Where’d you come from?” Is what I settled on.

  He pointed a finger up.

  I scratched my head. “Heaven?”

  “No,” he said. “I came down the curtains.”

  I squinted up into the darkness. “What, there’s a door up there?”

  He said nothing.

  “Did the Awakener of Eternal Spring send you?”

  Still no answer.

  “So, look,” I tried, “you’re the first new thing I’ve seen here in, oh, I don’t know, a bazillion years.”

  “Maybe not a bazillion.”

  I smirked. “Maybe not. But a long time. So… tell me something. If you got in here, there’s a way in. So there has to be a way out, doesn’t there?”

  His face betrayed nothing. “Unless the way out just goes to where I came from.”

  “Where did you come from?” I asked him. “Was it like this?”

  He looked around, examined the choir and the conductor. “No. There was an art show. Nudes. And before that, flowers. Before that, authors. It was a reading, they sat around reading their short stories to each other.”

  “Forgiver of Sins!” I cursed. “That must have been Hell indeed.”

  He nodded. “You have a tree.”

  “Yep.” I pointed at it. “Help yourself.”

  He plucked a piece of fruit, looked up at the higher branches. The tree is a tallish one. “They all have trees.”

  “Guess you gotta eat, even in Hell.” I smirked. “Who knew?”

  He pointed. “The fruit at the top of the tree… does it look different to you?”

  I shrugged. “Fruit. Hard to care much.”

  He then lay on the floor and fell asleep, which pretty much ended the conversation. I dozed off myself, and when I woke up, he was gone.

  “A key change,” I tell the conductor. “That’s not even subtle, I don’t know how I missed it. What? A to E, I think.”

  The conductor nods and turns back to the choir to start again.

  Later, I tried to climb the curtains. I thought maybe I could find where that guy came from, or maybe I could get back to Red Sonja’s desk and demand an explanation.

  It felt like I was getting up there pretty high, but every time I looked down, I saw the choir right below my feet. I never could see the ceiling, either. Just darkness.

  Eventually, I gave up.

  So here I am.

  Sleep. Wake. Listen, spot differences, look at the girls. Get a drink of water and eat low-hanging fruit when I need to.

  Repeat.

  No more staring faces, not since the one. No more mysterious men in polo shirts who want to talk about trees.

  I don’t know what the hell Red Sonja was talking about. If you’ll forgive the pun.

  I’m not learning anything.

  ood evening, Jennifer Fairbanks. How are you?” The leather-skinned demon stroked his beard with thick fingers that tapered off at black claws.

  I looked up with wide eyes, my hands trembling as they clutched a worn black purse. I puzzled at the white robe. I wanted to scream at the terrifying demon looming above me, but I knew his type thrived on fear. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Where am I? Who are you?”

  The horned beast smiled and growled. “Nobody ever wants small talk. Well, who can blame them? Straight to the point, then. You are dead. I am Xandern, and this is my office. I have the inglorious task of deciding how you will spend the rest of eternity.”

  “I’m dead?”

  I looked at the vacant metal folding chairs next to me, as if they might offer some clue. I glanced at the window, presumably holding back the smell of brimstone and the heat of tall fires. Behind it, more demons whipped and tortured people as they floated on islands of rock amidst red, flowing lava. An office with a view of Hell—was this supposed to be ironic?

  Xandern laughed. It came out as a sadistic super-villain mad with power. “Yes, the only way to get here is to die.”

  “The cancer finally got me. Took my sister and my aunt, too.” I clenched my teeth and exhaled sharply. Something wasn’t right. I opened my mouth and moved my tongue around. “These aren’t my teeth.”

  “Actually, those are your teeth. The dentures you’ve been gluing to your gums for the past few years weren’t.”

  I pulled a small compact out of my purse and examined my mouth, sneering into the small mirror and tipping it at extreme angles so I could see with one eye. Then I pulled the mirror away and saw my own eyes go wide. “My eyes! I can see without glasses.”

  The demon snorted, leaning against the huge desk between them. “Your entire body has been restored to the prime of your life.”

  “What? I look like a raisin. This isn’t the prime of anything.”

  “Look again.”

  I held up my young hands, sticking out of the drab sleeves. “Would you look at that?” I touched my own face and pinched one of my forearms. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Quite.” The demon tapped one hand’s claws on the heavy wood surface, chipping splinters that flew in every direction. He glanced periodically at a red tablet sitting nearby.

  “Why didn’t it start that way?” I had my soprano voice back now. Was it all some kind of trick? “Why am I here?”

  “We’re in a kind of transition here. You could probably be any age you like. It’s all very technical and not very important or interesting. As for the other question, that’s a lot more complicated.”

  “I shouldn’t be in Hell.” I couldn’t believe the words. I glanced at the window and back at his yellow cat-eyes. “I did everything I was supposed to from day one. I always went to church. I was a grandmother by forty, and when my daughter’s lousy husband cheated on her, I helped her raise my granddaughter like my own, too.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  I started to talk, but choked up. “The ungrateful child grew up to be a drug-abusing slut.”

  The demon knit his brow. “Those are pretty harsh words.”

  “I taught her right. Everything was just so difficult! I worked hard, prayed hard. The only thing that kept me going was the belief that someday, when it was all, over I’d finally get to be in a nice place where everything was soft and warm and nobody could hurt anymore. I suffered so that someday I could have a good life.”

  “Yet here you are. It would seem you traded your only life for a chance at a better afterlife.”

  I looked around, finally bringing my eyes back to the huge, goat-headed creature. “I don’t understand, I…” The stress and the fear finally overwhelmed me, and tears began to roll down my cheeks. I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue from the same purse. I couldn’t think. A deep sense of betrayal seemed to filet my soul from whatever hope I’d clung to. After long minutes of sobbing, I finally choked it back and began taking shallow breaths. “I… don’t belong… here.”

  The demon chortled, shaking his head so his beard swished back and forth. I looked down, unable to endure the horrible face.

  “As much as I enjoy watching you cry, I’m due for a break here in a few minutes. I have another group of dead people coming in afterward.” He shrugged.

  I bit my lip. Clearly, pleas for justice weren’t going to work. “What happens now?”

  “Like I said, it’s my job to figure out where to put you.”

  “What about my mother and friends? Can’t I see them?”

  “Maybe some of them. It depends where they are and where you end up. We can’t really base any lo
ng-term decisions on things like that.”

  “What about my ex-husband? Where did he end up?” I tried to be casual, but felt my eyes squint anyway.

  The demon raised one eyebrow. “How long have you been divorced?”

  “Fifteen years. He ran off with a bimbo. Said he didn’t want to watch another bitter woman grow old in our house. He was talking about our granddaughter.” I ran my fingers absently through my long brown hair. “I heard he died a few years back. Seems somebody who’d abandon his own posterity to go whoring around with a younger woman should deserve a pretty bad Hell, don’t you think? Didn’t even pay the alimony the judge ordered. He owes me something like a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.” I smirked, the thought making me both happy and mad.

  “You never sued him?”

  I shook my head. Maybe this was my chance. “The Lord says to forgive. It’s a sin to sue people. I never approved all these frivolous lawsuits. People are meant to do the right thing for the right reason, not because of lawyers. Wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. He moved to Argentina or someplace without so much as a word.”

  “How’d you hear about his death?”

  “Internet. Same as anybody.”

  Xandern scratched the iron cords of his chest muscle, drawing blood. The wound burned closed right behind. “So what was the best part of your life, Ms. Fairbanks?”

  “Don’t call me that, please.”

  He glanced at his tablet again. “That was your legal name?”

  “I only kept the name for the benefit of my daughter. Just call me Jennifer.” I looked at my fingernails, smooth and pretty again. I had no use for such things, but it diverted me for a moment.

  “Okay, Jennifer. What was the best thing that ever happened to you?”

  “Church.”

  “Really?”

  “It was the only time I got to sit down and let somebody else do the work for once.” I smiled at my joke. Then I bit my lip. It was an old woman answer, not the kind of thing somebody with my now twenty-something body would say. “I just liked the idea that someday there would be justice. Those who were weary and downtrodden would be taken to heaven and the sinners would all burn in Hell. I guess if I’m here it means I was a sinner?”

  “Don’t let it bother you. A lot of people are surprised by their final judgment.”

  “I thought…” I looked down again, playing with a stray thread of cotton.

  “This is no time for false modesty, Jennifer. The rest of forever is on the line. Spit it out.”

  What did it matter now? What did any of it matter? “I thought the final judgment was the Lord’s, or at least one of the apostles or saints. I never expected, well, you.”

  He gave a crooked smile. “I get that a lot.”

  “It just isn’t right. I gave up everything for this. I was strict with my kids. I kept all the commandments, even when Joshua Fulmer tried to hit on me after my husband left and I wanted nothing more than to have somebody to hold me. I did everything I was supposed to because that’s how I was going to get into heaven.” Tears fell anew, but this time my anger rose and I couldn’t help myself. “I was the good one. I followed the right path. I did everything right. So why am I here now looking at you? Why, after all my pain and long toiling, why am I in Hell?”

  “Wow. You have no idea how tired I get of hearing people say that. Technically, this isn’t Hell. I mean it is, but it isn’t.”

  “Just speak plainly to me, please.” I dragged out the, “please,” until I was ashamed to hear myself begging. “I’m so weary, from the moment I wake every morning to the darkness every night. I’m exhausted in soul and body. Just tell it to me straight.”

  “Very well. This is technically Hell. But it’s more of an office, obviously.” He indicated the file cabinets with a sweep of his hand in one direction and the potted plants with a spiked tail in the other. “So you are in Hell, but this place does not serve as Hell for most people.”

  I narrowed my eyes. There was something to what he’d just said. Was this his Hell? Had he been sentenced to work in this office? He’d never tell me. I waited for him to resume.

  “Hell for most people is where they go after they die.”

  “Punishment for sins,” I parroted from so many sermons.

  “More or less.”

  “This isn’t right then. I believed in the Bible and confessed my sins. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Right. That’s a common misconception.” He stood up, pacing on his hooves. “Christians especially come here with strong misconceptions. Take the word hell. That’s not a Jewish or Greek word. In fact, when the original letters and gospels of the New and Old Testament were written in their original languages, they never once contained the word hell. Hel, one ‘L,’ is actually from Norse mythology, begun more than half a millennium after the Bible. So how could it be a part of anything taught by Jesus?”

  I furrowed my brow, clenching my jaw. Why was he saying this? The words were more horrible than his fanged red face. “But we’re here now.”

  Xandern looked at the window longingly. “So we are. That’s not all, though. The concept of infinity wasn’t created until the 1300s. So how can you associate it with your beliefs, which purportedly originated long before then? Have you even asked yourself how these words got into the Bible you’ve been believing your whole life? Did you ever even read the whole Bible?”

  “I’ve read it, of course.” I shrugged. Nobody told me studying the Bible was required to get into heaven.

  “But you never asked any questions? Never meditated on the meaning of eternity or the nature of heaven and Hell?”

  “I put my faith in it, and in those who knew it.” I pointed at him, forcefully at first, but then my finger dropped as doubt gnawed at me. I never let anybody, including myself, doubt my beliefs. “Are you saying the Bible is wrong?” My entire body slumped down in the chair, as everything I vehemently defended seemed to dissolve under sulfuric acid. A real burning pained my chest.

  “A whole lifetime of fiery passion, and you abandon your sensibilities at the first sign of opposition?”

  I looked up, gasped, and turned away in shame. “It’s not the same, is it? I mean, now I’m dead. There’s no arguing with facts.”

  “So death is what it takes to accept facts? That’s new.” He raised one eyebrow in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.

  “Was this a test of faith? Did I fail? After a lifetime of loyalty, I lose everything right after…” I began bawling, uncontrollably.

  Xandern snorted again. A soft growl purred behind it. “This isn’t a test. That’s all over now.”

  I whispered through tears, “One way or another, if I’m here with you, it means I failed.”

  “You know, it takes some of the fun out of it if you figure it all out on your own.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Forget it. Look, I’m kind of busy and you’re clearly not up to any kind of interesting philosophical discussion. Let’s say we just get this over with so we can both get on with it.”

  I nodded, taking another deep breath and dabbing at my eyes again.

  The demon snapped his fingers. “I think I’ve got just the thing for you. Have you ever heard the old saying, ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?’”

  I whimpered a yes. I didn’t care for it, but I’d heard it.

  “Have you ever thought what might be Hell to one person could be heaven to another?”

  “No, but I guess it could be so.” I didn’t try to understand his words. The hot lashing of wailing souls behind the window was too strong an image to think of anything else.

  “Indeed. So, Jennifer, why don’t you tell me what you think heaven would be like.”

  I looked up, down, and then up again. “Heaven?”

  “Sure. I’m not promising anything, of course. Just humor me.”

  He would probably use this against me, but I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t control anything. If this was my last cha
nce to have my say, I would have it.

  “In the church there are paintings of heaven. Angels, little cherubs with wings and harps, fly around in the clouds. I always thought it sounded so wonderful to have no cares, nobody who needed me to cook dinner or find money for new shoes. No alarm clocks. No pain or tears. Nobody I could let down. No one to impress. Just childlike wonder in the presence of God’s love. No worries or hurting or loneliness ever again.” I smiled with one side of my mouth, expecting him to mock me.

  The demon gave his wicked laugh again, this time with full timber. My eyes went wide, and a new kind of fear I couldn’t name welled up inside.

  He finally hacked his last guffaw, and said, “You were right all along, Jenny.”

  I held my breath.

  “You deserve exactly what you always wanted.”

  “Heaven?” I whispered, expecting him to take it back as a cruel trick.

  “Ironically, you described the exact place you will be going. Before you get too excited, don’t even think about hugging me. This is not a mercy, as I have none. Maybe for a long time you won’t care about what I’m saying next, but it’s very important. So listen and remember this for later. You are being sent there to learn something.”

  He stopped talking. I kept looking at him as if the climax or punch line was still coming. He shrugged and said, “That’s it. You need to learn something.”

  “Okay,” I said. The tears were gone. I repeated the sentence quietly to myself a few times, but the light of hope clearly overpowered the shadows of warning in his sage advice.

  “Whatever.” He laughed again and tapped several times on his tablet. “Have a great damned time.” He tapped once more and disappeared.

  The sensation of falling brought no fear. Wind pulled my hair and clothes in strange directions as I tumbled through blue space. I knew I should be afraid, but my stomach didn’t lurch as it would in freefall. Gravity tugged at me gently. Logic told me I should be screaming as my body accelerated toward the Earth. Rather, I slowed as I descended.

  I gripped my purse instinctively with both hands. When my fingers protested, I lifted it to find it had changed into a small harp, flecked with gold and light as a feather. I ran one finger across it experimentally, setting loose a resonance that vibrated through to my very core.