“I’m here to check your ticket, sir…and my name isn’t Jim. Yours is, sir.” A voice slithered out of a mouth never meant to utter English words.
“He..here you go…hey can I ask you something?” I turned to look at the owner of the slithering voice and saw a large, swollen belly covered in hairy scales. Choosing to look down instead of at where I assumed the eyes of the demon would be, I saw cloven feet underneath a vulture’s legs. Though I was approaching the point of nausea, I looked up toward the face of the demon and, to my joy, there was no face. Just a blank patch of hairy scales in the shape of a human head. I leaned back and began to smile, pleased with myself for keeping composure in front of a demon. As I was congratulating myself, the demon’s stomach creased and ooze began to come out of the crease. The crease finally gave way to a mouth heavily populated by fangs.
“What is your question, sir?” Asked the demon’s stomach.
I threw up.
“Sweet Nephilim, man! How do you think this sort of thing affects my self-esteem? It’s not great, I’ll tell you that.”
“I didn’t mean to be so rude, I’m just so astonished by your…umm charisma.” I tried to recover my good graces.
“It’s because I’m so hideous isn’t it? That’s why all the humans throw up when I check their tickets!” The demon began to wail inconsolably.
“No no no. It’s because you have such a powerful presence it upsets our mortal tummies. Come on, cheer up. I’ll tell you what: why don’t you go and admire yourself, tell yourself you’re quite handsome a few times in the mirror, really get wild with the compliments and I’ll go over my ticket so you don’t have to worry about it anymore than you have to. How would you feel about that?”
“You…you’d do that for me?” Salivated the demon.
“Of course. What’re friends for? What’s your name there, bud?”
“My name is Garnf.” Garnf tried to put on an air of professionalism as if he hadn’t been crying a moment before.
“Garnf, huh?”
“Yes, master?”
Garnf’s behavior became like that of a puppy sure to be adopted.
“What? Oh no no no.” I tried in vain to back the conversation up.
“I forgot to mention, if you say a demon’s true name, you control them. Haven’t you read the books? Or even Kierkegaard? If you label me you – never mind.”
“My name is Jim. Why did you tell me your true name then?”
The demon made a face like the one that gets made by elderly women when accused of foolishness.
“Maybe I thought we could be friends? Is that such a difficult thing to grasp? A demon who wants friends? It’s not the Old Testament anymore, Jim. Wake up.”
“Of course I meet the only liberal demon on a train barreling toward Hell. Who could think it different? Fine Garnf, if we’re going to be friends you can’t call me master and you have to help me with a few things.”
“Like what kinds of things? I’m not so great at a lot of things but I can crochet, knit, cook a mean pasty, play chess, deliver an infernal cherub, balance a checkbook and I know several types of sacred geometry. How can I be of service?”
“Can you read a tape measure?”
“Why would you measure tape?”
“Can you lift a board?”
“I can lift the tectonic plate Mt. Vesuvius is on, Jim. I can lift a few boards.”
“You’re hired. I don’t know how to pay you.” I said sheepishly.
“We’ll figure that out, new friend! I’ll tell you all about Hell if you’d like.” Garnf tried to squeeze into the seat but his outer limits were a bit too far out to fit inside. After he blew out an amount of air that would impress a leaf-blower, his girth had shrunk to the point of accessing the seat. Once he squeezed inside, he allowed air to re-enter his body – the stench of his pungent intestines was overpowering as his body grew to its original size. I threw up.
The rest of the train ride to Hell was an extended period of physical discomfort with the occasional relief of Garnf’s strangely practiced humor. He had a civilized manner to his disposition that came as an important break in the cavalcade of horror that was the descent through the lower dimensions.
Garnf talked about various neighborhoods in Dis, the terrible lake-effect weather, great places to buy food, the redundancy of grilling in Hell, and plenty of other less pleasant items of conversation. I began to commit some of my surroundings to memory. This was my first train out of the Golden Station after all, I wanted to remember it. I looked up first.
The ceiling of the train was the rib-cage and spine of some humongous many-legged basilisk with dark grey webs between ribs. Immediately horrified, I looked across the aisle of the train, this view mainly being of the wall. I was vaguely comforted by the almost Victorian look of this part of the train. There were ghastly paintings on the wall, a few newspaper clippings of venerable characters from Dis and a list of upcoming matches related to some sport I couldn’t get a hold of. This part of the train seemed to me the most ordinary, or Earthly, I should say. With renewed constitution I looked to the opposite wall. This wall was similar to the one across the aisle, except for my expanded view of the worlds outside the train. They were horrible, endless chasms of chaotic miasma hurling its deformed visage at the barriers of sanity itself. My liver tightened and my teeth began to itch as I stared into the void, terrified. Garnf handed me a grocery bag and gave me a look of approval, which was also the first time I had seen his eyes. They sat where a human’s mammary would be; this sight coupled with all the others contorted my stomach in such a way that I was convinced it would throw me up instead.
“I’m going to get some sleep Garnf, before I die some more.” I said with the tranquility of someone who has accepted a life of indefatigable madness.
“You really don’t understand much about being dead, do you Jim?” Garnf asked with some genuine concern.
“Tell me about it later.”
“You can’t sleep, Jim. You’re dead.”
“Well I wanna pretend. One last time, Garnf.”
“Living creatures sure are silly.”
“I can’t pretend if you’re talking all the time, Garnf.”
“Just tell me to stop then! You know my name! Sheesh! …oh no wait -”
“Garnf! I command you to be quiet!”
“mmmmfffmfmfmfmfpft” Garnf tried to speak but his mouth seemed to betray him.
“We’re gonna get a lot done buddy. See you when we get there.”
“mmmmmfffmffmfpfft! HMPF!” Garnf crossed his arms over his face and looked as if he were trying to sleep.
“Of course the demons can sleep but I can’t. Of course!” I complained.
“You’re not being very quiet, Jim.”
The train came to a stop at a station that looked like the maw of a gigantic skeletal sea-creature. The theme of the train station’s decor was bones, bones and charred flesh. The kiosks seemed to be living creatures made wretched through some kind of servitude. The damned were herded to and fro by creatures so disgusting, it would take scribes eons to decode the profanities needed to describe them. By this time, I had grown slightly accustomed to being surrounded by the most awful visions of things it hurts to imagine, or, at least they didn’t surprise me anymore.
As I stepped off the train a lizard-faced demon in a nice blue suit asked me:
“What brings you to Hell, desired patron? Business or pleasure?”
I was taken completely back by his courteous demeanor.
“Well…I uh….business! I’m here for business.” I flopped the words out of my mouth.
“What exactly is your business in the City of Dis, Mr…?”
“My name is Jim and Jesus sent me here to do some construction work?”
“You’re the guy Jesus hired? Holy Heck where does he get off having a soft-spot for you mortals? Do you have the paperwork he sent you with?”
“Yeah here you go. Garnf! Come on!” I howled as I handed Lizard-face my paperwork.
“Here I come boss!” Garnf garbled from the luggage rack.
“Pantheon Contracting Co.? Jesus Christ, Jesus, you’ll do anything to outsource some labor won’t you? He was a carpenter, you know that? Now, God’s only son won’t even lift a board. I think it’s a shame myself but I only run the Public Relations Department down here, what do I know?”
Garnf, with a voice now sullen with duty and a brow of a focused cro-magnon shouted from several yards behind Lizard-face.
“Did you say lift a board, boss? Garnf do what is commanded of Garnf!”
Garnf proceeded to hoist the nearest board to him high over his faceless head. Unfortunately the board he grabbed was a support beam for the new tunnel addition to the ticket office currently under construction. The frame of the whole structure began to shake as its integrity became rapidly less secure. It began to creak and buckle as Garnf continued to triumphantly hold the board over his head. His victorious image was buried under rubble to where the expressionless face he had above his torso-face was the only thing above the brand new ruin.
“Garnf, get out of there and don’t leave my side.” I said without a modicum of patience.
“Well, that seems to take care of the question of where you’ll be starting your efforts here in Dis, eh?” Lizard-face said with some condescension.
Lizard-face continued: “Here is the standard newcomer information packet. It comes with a map and a quick overview of the neighborhoods in Dis and even the outer suburbs. These items should answer all your questions should you come up with some more. Which I’m sure you will. You seem, to me, to be the type to be confused in perpetuity and I can only imagine your concern as you walk the streets of our fine city. I’ve taken the liberty of placing a marker on the hostel downtown. I’m sure they will put you up for the night. Oh, also, I have a running tab for your work-related activities.”
Lizard-face turned around to maintain his post at the receiving end of the train. After a few steps, he spun back around.
“Jim, are you familiar with Karma?”
“Like my good Karma?” I said with a wink.
“‘Good’ may be a stretch, but yes. In Hell, your currency is like a bet against your Karma. The more good Karma you have, the more you can purchase. The worse your Karma, the harder it is to obtain goods and services through conventional methods. Don’t forget that, okay? Everyone tries to sin in the home of sin and they don’t realize that the market is already flooded with that sort of thing. A discerned lack of conscience is what it is down here, Jim. That’s the problem but you didn’t hear it from me. Good luck Jim, maybe I’ll see you around. Maybe you’ll lose your soul to Ammit, who knows? It’s a big underworld out there.”
With that, Lizard-face turned around and stood attentively at his post. I looked back at Garnf as he was finishing his crawl from under the rubble he created. After he caught up with me, we decided to look around before we made our way to the hostel in downtown Dis. Honestly, I didn’t like Hell very much so far but it did feel good to be somewhere besides Kansas City. I let a small drip of joy work its way around my soul as we entered the mouth of Hell.
flipcheesewell 