Cookbook from Hell Reheated

by M. L. Buchman

He settled slowly into the pillow, sleep pulling at his tired limbs. He felt as if he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a hundred decades. A sudden noise behind him made him turn. The demon. He was still there, hopping from one foot to the other trying to contain himself.

  “What? Bathroom’s over there if you need to pee.” He tried to make his tone as acerbic as possible to drive him off. He was far too comfortable to move.

  “She said you were in charge before she left. Come. Come. Big trouble.”

  “She did what? Why did she do a crazy thing like that?” He rubbed at his eyes for a moment trying to collect his thoughts, which were quite scattered to the four winds at the moment. He sighed. It actually sounded just like the sort of thing the Devil would do to him.

  “Where, pray tell, lurks the conflagration?” He sat up in bed, the sheets sliding over his skin. A slight shiver of pleasure rippled up his spine, as if Michelle had just run her fingernails lightly down his arm. What was he thinking? Fantasizing about the Devil Incarnate. In a day of new thoughts, that definitely ranked high among the strangest.

  “Refugees are streaming into Hell from Heaven. They say riots have broken out there.”

  “Who opened the damn gates? Close them.” Plato staggered to his feet and looked around for something to wear. His himation was probably still in the Devil’s dryer. He picked his way over piles of Clancy, Asimov, Thomas Aquinas, Hesse… How could she read such drek? He found a black-silk robe on the back of the door and slipped it on. It was probably less than flattering, but it would suffice for the moment.

  The demon started tugging on his arm again, “Don’t know who opened them. Some Heavenly sympathizer. Not me. Find him. Cut him. Burn him. Can I watch?”

  “Close the bloody Gates of Hell. I don’t care who opened them.”

  “But that’s no fun.”

  “Close them or I’ll report you to Michelle when she gets back.”

  The demon pulled out a cell phone and made a quick call. Then he listened for a few moments before repocketing the phone. “They’re closed. What about the refugees? Can we burn them? Can we?”

  “How many souls made it through?” he tried to head for the kitchen to make coffee, but the demon kept pulling him toward the back door, the one that faced the Hills of Hell rather than Hell’s Ocean.

  “A bit over four-hundred million.”

  He stopped in the middle of the living room, “Please tell me I didn’t hear you correctly.”

  Michelle would be furious with a half-billion Heavenly refugees cluttering Hell. It would take forever to straighten out such a mess. Of course, if the world ended in the next few days then it wouldn’t be as much of a problem. Damn. The smell of satin sheets was a poor substitute for lost tomorrows. She had to succeed.

  The demon continued in its squeaky little voice that was not becoming more soothing with time, “About three-hundred million of them were cats. That’s not all bad. We’ve had a mouse problem for some time, you know. Yes, we have. All the other souls. They’ve gathered outside. Some old man, he’s demanding to see you.”

  “Demanding? Well, let’s see to that. No one other than Michelle has ever argued their way around me.” He did wish she wasn’t able to do it quite as often, and with such apparent glee. The coffee would have to wait. He’d put these refugees in their place and worry afterwards about clearing up the confusion. Tightening the ties on the robe he appreciated the way the silk felt as if he weren’t wearing anything at all. He folded the collar neatly and headed toward the back door facing the Hills of Hell.

  “Do they have a spokesperson?”

  As the demon held open the door he replied, “Some old geezer. Forget his name. Shoes? Socks maybe? Something like that.”

  Plato felt as if someone had dropped a forty-ton column of marble on him.

  Socrates?

  Oh, shit. Plato stubbed his toe into the doorjamb quite hard. As he hopped over the threshold on one foot, the pain pulsing all of the way up his calf, he wished with all his heart he were still in the Devil’s bed.

  Chapter 37

  Eric landed with a huge splash. As he slid beneath the surface of the water he felt a need to breathe, and not water. The stupid software had it in for him. He swam madly for the surface and flew briefly through brilliantly sunlit air that tasted of sea salt. He took a quick breath before he fell back in. Looking around he could see several dolphins swimming near him. He surfaced a little more slowly this time keeping his head below the surface. The water tickled as it swirled around his dorsal fin.

  Another dolphin swam up and nudged him before doing an elaborate underwater gyration. It must be Peter.

  Eric chased him down into depths that no diver could go. Turning, they shot for the surface side by side. Eric performed a huge flip and landed with a big splashy belly flop while Peter arced in a graceful curve before disappearing neatly through the waves.

  They swam lazily beneath the surface, “Remember, Eric, a few incarnations ago you asked how life could be enjoyed, even with the universe ending?”

  “Was that before or after the kid killed Ron while we were parakeets? Or when we were run over by a logging truck while being banana slugs on the Oregon Coast? Or—”

  “Before and you know it. This is fun.”

  Eric couldn’t hold back any longer and he started to laugh, “I must be going crazy. We desperately need that software, and I don’t really care. I’m having a great time.” He shot toward the surface. At the last moment he turned sharply and barely avoided swimming up into the bottom of a kayak. When he did break the surface, he was totally out of control. He splashed back down, inundated the paddler in a second boat.

  He surfaced quietly behind the pair of kayakers to see how mad he’d made them.

  “Wow, that was amazing. That was so cool. Do you think it’ll do that again, do ya?”

  Peter surfaced beside him as the other kayaker spoke, “I’m soaked and I didn’t see a thing.” An older woman with close-cropped, dark hair and gym-workout shoulders sounded quite angry as she wiped her face with her hands.

  “Well it was just totally to the max. He did this wild sideways flip-like move before he splashed in. It was awesome.” A slim brunette held her double-paddle over her head in celebration.

  Peter wagged his head in what looked like a silent laugh. Eric nodded as they ducked below the surface.

  Peter did a wild loop-de-loop around him and then nodded toward the surface.

  Shooting upward, they flew over the bow and stern of the woman’s kayak. With a last-second inspiration, Eric completely flubbed this landing as well and inundated the young brunette.

  The older kayaker began laughing, quietly at first, but it started to grow and build. He nudged Peter and they swam deep and shot back up arcing right over her head. Her laugh grew until it held a joy, a joy of release like he’d rarely heard. A joy he wouldn’t mind finding himself. Maybe Peter was right and he and Valerie did have a chance at that.

  They were at the top of the arc over the woman’s head when the Buddhist software chimed in.

  Lesson: Right Intention. Think before attempting to eat boat propellers, especially while they’re spinning. Bang!

  Eric never hit the water and he was left to wonder what the woman must think of the evaporating dolphins.

  # # #

  “What a pleasure to see you again.” Plato limped outside and onto the Devil’s back porch, favoring his damaged foot. He tried to shake Socrates’ hand with some sense of sincerity even if he’d prefer to cut it off.

  It felt as if the software had set up to attack him again.

  The rolling Hills of Hell that spread out from Michelle’s back door were covered with the amassed refugees of Heaven all clothed in flowing gowns. He’d never before noticed how similar her cove and the surrounding hills about them were shaped like a Greek amphitheatre.
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  The hordes spread upward in an unbroken expanse almost to the foothills of the Mountains of Hell rising their rusted heads off in the vast distance. Their Heavenly robes were like a pointillist’s drawing done all in pastels, no discernible pattern to a hundred million dots. Maybe the artist was blind.

  Plato finally managed to focus his watering eyes on the little man in front of him. His toes still hurt where he’d stubbed them. He had to slap away the demon as it tried to massage them for him.

  Socrates looked like a cartoon character. He always had. A little man with spindly legs and arms, long white hair that did not go well with his sallow skin color, a huge Roman nose mangled his Greek face and a big pot belly finished the picture horridly.

  Plato thought of his own body, fit from swimming in Hell’s Oceans every day since his arrival. As he stood straighter, he could feel Michelle’s silk robe shift over his chest. Glancing down at the garment’s cut, that would definitely make her body look fantastic, probably wouldn’t have been his first choice of attire for this meeting, but it did show a deep-vee of his well-muscled chest.

  “You’re him? You’re the Devil? I might have known,” Socrates looked like a disappointed first-grade teacher.

  “If you must know,” Plato tried to sound as if he were granting a favor by deigning to answer at all. “I am merely sitting in.”

  “Are you not running Hell?” Two thousand years had not made the old bastard’s voice any less whiny.

  “Yes.”

  “When I asked for the man in charge was I not guided to you?”

  “Yes. You were.”

  “He’s in charge, not me,” the little demon chimed in. Plato kicked it lightly back inside, but not quite far enough to close the door on it.

  “And yet you deny you are him,” Socrates sounded disgusted that such a simple conclusion could be denied. The massed hordes began nodding their heads in unison.

  “Actually, the Devil is a her,” Plato tried to keep from smiling. The lazy twit had never found out who the Devil actually was. Plato had managed to meet her within only a few months of arriving. He rarely used to score one on the Old Man and never this early in the debate. This wasn’t going to be as awful as he had first thought.

  “Indeed. Therefore you are in league with the Devil and appear to enjoy prancing about in her scanty clothing.”

  Socrates certainly could recover quickly.

  “Yes. Actually I do,” he thought of his and Michelle’s centuries of friendship and decided he didn’t care what this wretch thought of him. Plato hadn’t liked being bound to him as a servant when he was alive. He certainly didn’t like Socrates any better now that he was dead.

  “Indeed. And where is she at this time?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, she is presently running Heaven.” The look on Socrates’ face was worth an extra hundred years fighting the software. He had turned as white as his hair. The vast crowds ranged on the hills behind him wavered as a low murmur of shock rippled across the masses.

  “But you wouldn’t know that, because when there was trouble, you simply turned tail and ran. A simple deduction based upon your arrival here.” Plato swept his hand to damn the whole crowd with his conclusion.

  The Old Man’s voice was shaky and it took him several tries before he could speak clearly, “May we proceed on the assumption something is wrong with my hearing?”

  “Let us not. Allow us to take as a given the premise that the Devil is indeed presently operating Heaven.” It felt like winning the finals in an Olympian foot race. The flush of victory made him feel strong. He felt he could brush them all off the surrounding hillsides with a simple wave of his hand.

  The old wretch turned to the refugees, “Oy gevalt! Quick everyone, we must get back and stop this.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Plato put a restraining hand on the Old Man’s shoulder. He could have snapped the wiry little man with a single shake. He should never have feared him.

  “Why can we not return?”

  “The gates are closed. And I, Plato, will not reopen them until I can be sure there are no more unwanted refugees who are, shall we say, dying to get into Hell. And furthermore…” he paused to relish the sense of power that ran through his body and rooted him to the very ground.

  Socrates started to splutter but Plato cut him off.

  “Furthermore, you are not going anywhere until all the cats have been rounded up and sent back.”

  “There must be thousands.”

  Plato saw that the little demon had returned to his side. He tapped him on top of the head, “Ow! There are about 323,345,006 Heavenly cats currently in Hell, but they’re fixing our mouse prob—” Plato rapped him between the horns again. “Ow! Cut that out.”

  Socrates had managed to recover his composure in that brief moment. “I will proceed on the assumption the gates will stay closed for now.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And I will further propose it to be pointless to try to catch cats when firstly, they can’t be returned through closed gates, secondly, they are proving helpful here, thirdly, that it will solve Heaven’s problem of being buried in cats, and fourthly, it is the best thing to happen to the feline souls.”

  “And what could possibly lead you to that conclusion?” he was losing control of the battle quickly and he wasn’t even sure how.

  “All of those cats cannot be returned to Heaven once they have returned to a life of killing helpless mice, they may now proceed on their proper journey through Hell and beyond as originally programmed.”

  “Well… ,” he tried to think of a quick response, but once the Old Man had the lead Plato had always found it very hard to regain control. And he had always thought the whole cat-souls-get-to-skip-Hell scenario a tad bit fishy himself.

  “And Hell is the perfect place for them to reenter this journey as they’ll be able to see the true contrast between the ideal life of Heaven and the less happy circumstances you have chosen to wallow in.” The bastard had shifted into his lecture pose. Suddenly he didn’t look small, his back ramrod stiff and his hands folded gently over his belly. The vast sea of Heavenly heads were once again nodding in unison every time the wretch spoke.

  “Yes, it would be,” Plato felt himself caving in. Then he thought to inquire that if Heaven was so ideal, then why were they here. But before he could frame a proper opening to rebut a point he had already seceded, Socrates ran right on to the next one.

  “Good. Since we’re but temporary guests here I would like to ask you something.”

  “Why don’t you come inside and relax?” Maybe if he could get him away from the Heavenly hordes he could make some progress. A fire poker to the head came to mind.

  “I wish to share this process with all. It is only by open questioning we may learn about ourselves. Is this not a correct premise?”

  Plato tried to think of a new, and different, answer but was drowned out by the Heavenly chorus of a bit over fifty million, plus a half million passing cats, all echoing, “Yes.” It had been one of the few wise things the bastard had ever said, making,it terribly difficult to refute.

  “Good. Now, Plato, my old friend, shall we address the subject of my actual teachings compared with those you put in my historical mouth? I find I’ve had to live up to your ideal to be accepted in society. Is this not so?”

  Once again the chorus of, “Yes,” thundered, beautifully, into Plato’s ears, ringing sweetly around inside his head for a few moments. As a byproduct blurring both thought and speech centers.

  “Did I not teach that wine, women and/or men, and song were the essentials to a happy life? What did I care about republics? I knew myself.”

  Plato felt himself wilting. He hadn’t known he’d have to face the Old Man in the afterlife. He’d simply written what he wanted to. By putting his teachings in a dead man’s mout
h he lived a much safer and longer life. He tried not to whimper as he thought of the satin sheets and the woman too far away to help him.

  # # #

  Michelle sat on god’s throne in Heaven. The great crystalline hall made golden by the late afternoon sun. Squinting her eyes, she wished he hadn’t made it this bright.

  She shifted her tired body. It had taken hours to quell the worst of the riots. The ones who had escaped into Hell were now Plato’s problem. There wasn’t any more time to waste on them. Shifting uncomfortably again, she hoped that her throne was fitting Plato better than god’s throne was fitting her.

  “Why had the old grouch made this chair so blessed uncomfortable?”

  “Maybe,” Valerie had found an intact chair and placed it to the right of god’s throne before dropping wearily into it. “Maybe he didn’t want to ever feel too comfortable while ruling.”

  That actually made sense. If it was true, it would increase her respect for God, and that only made Michelle more uncomfortable. Well, he was long past explaining, her breath caught in her throat, or caring.

  It was time to get back to it. Mary was still off tending the wounded.

  “Henrietta!”

  There was no response.

  “Henrietta,” the room rattled in response to Michelle’s call. Nearly a minute later she could hear her shout echo off the nearest mountains of Heaven. She was going to have to upgrade Hell with this same gimmick if she ever made it home.

  The small angel popped into existence onto the wide arm of the throne with a very reluctant sounding pop.

  “What? I don’t like all of your tricky questions. They make my wings ache.”

  Valerie leaned forward, “Don’t whine, Henrietta. It is not becoming.”

  The angel sat with bowed head and folded hands, “I’m sorry.”

  Michelle looked at her, “Where did you go in such a great hurry?”

  With a tiny finger, she started to trace the patterns of inlay worked into the wood of the throne’s chair arm.

  “Henrietta?”

  “There was a kitten.” She didn’t look up. “I had to interview it. Over in West Heaven.”