A world of minor inconvenience
A short story about hell.
It was shocking to me that the first thing I saw was the sun. I mean, when you picture going to Hell, you picture what the movies tell you— eternal fire and damnation, demons eating babies, et cetera. So when I woke up and saw the light, I thought it had to be heaven.
I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing black cloth shorts, a plain white shirt, and shoes that looked somewhat like moccasins. Dense forests surrounded me, and a single trail ran through the towering pines. The trail ended where I had woken up, so with no other way to go, I followed the beaten dirt path. As I walked I became confused. This just looked like Earth— did I just fall and hit my head or something? Was my whole life a dream?
I kept on my way, questions racing through my mind, and soon I began to hear things. I couldn’t quite make out the sounds, but it sounded like the ambient noise of the city. My walk turned into a jog as I became more curious about where I was. I knew if I could just find another person I’d get my explanation. Up ahead a couple hundred yards I saw the trail begin to open up into a clearing.
I ran ahead, the sounds of this mystery city drawing closer with every step, until I could begin to see sky-scrapers peeking through the trees. I made it to the clearing and was astonished. In front of me was a booming metropolis bustling with activity. I took in this sight and soon realized something was different about this place. Not necessarily the look, but the feeling. A sense of mundanity washed over me as I watched this sea of strangers filling the sidewalks.
I turned back towards the forest to see if I could find a sign of some sort, and it had vanished. There in its place stood more buildings, more people, more mundanity. I turned back around and I noticed a sudden change in all of the movement. People on the sidewalk began to jog, many of them nervously checking their watches as they hurried into buildings. Cars began to turn off the main roads and arrive at their destinations.
In a matter of minutes, this overwhelming urban metro was rid of any evidence of life. Before I could even wrap my head around the events that just unfolded, I heard a voice.
“You’re probably wondering where all the people went.”
I turned to see who it was, and I saw a striking young woman. She looked mature but no older than 30, loose curls of jet black hair flowing over her bony shoulders. Her alluring eyes of emerald green drew my gaze to her face. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t say how.
Before I could respond to her first remark, she continued, saying, “That little ‘disappearing act’ gets everyone on their first day. Just the end of a lunch break, don’t worry. After orientation you’ll understand all of it.”
“Orientation? As in?”
She smiled politely, then said, “Your little introduction on how we do things here.”
Realizing that I still didn’t have a firm understanding of where I was, I asked nervously, “And here… where is that?”
Smile still on her face, she said confidently, “Hell.”
I was taken aback, and I stood at a loss for words as a look of horror draped over my face.
“Well,” she continued, “that makes it sound worse than it is. This is HellCo— we just call it Hell for short.”
“Hell-Co? What the fuck is the Co?”
She turned her head to look at the grandiose buildings surrounding us, appreciating them. “Here at HellCo we all work together to make sure that terror and fraud cover the entire earth in the most efficient, and sustainable way possible.”
I was baffled at her answer. Efficient? Sustainable? Wasn’t Hell’s whole “thing” destruction and suffering? My hand covered my mouth as I sat in disbelief.
After a brief moment, I said in sort of a daze, “I just— I didn’t think Hell would be like this. When has Hell ever cared about efficiency and sustainability?”
“We’re HellCo, we’re not monsters like Amazon,” her face showed her disdain as she went on, “Let me tell you, Jeff Bezos has a special place here.”
I snickered, asking myself, Did she just make a joke? In Hell?
She took a breath and cleared her mind of the scorn she felt, then went on, “You’ll get everything cleared up for you at orientation, okay?”
“Okay,” I paused for a moment, nervous to ask, then said, “Where is… um— I have no idea where I am.”
She teased me endearingly, saying, “Would you stop worrying?” She pressed two fingers into her neck like she was checking her heart rate, and said seemingly to nobody, “Employee B2764-X775 is ready for pickup.”
Immediately on the next block, a HellCo branded bus turned the corner, heading our direction.
I glanced at the bus, then back to her, saying mildly sarcastically, “I take it that I get on the Hell bus you conjured?”
Looking content with my cooperation, she said, “Yes! There you go, trust the process.” She looked to the bus for a second, then extended her hand, saying, “Well, it was great to meet you. Best of luck in your career at HellCo.”
I shook her hand, then replied, “Thanks… I think. Wait— who are you?”
Just as the bus arrived in front of me, she said in closing, “I’m Lucy. CEO.”
Obviously, I was shocked, but I figured she was important from the whole “appearing to me out of nowhere and calling a bus by touching her neck” thing. The bus doors opened in front of me, and Lucy gestured for me to get on.
I stepped onto the bus hesitantly, not knowing what to expect in the coming moments. I looked back out the door for Lucy, but she had vanished, probably meeting another freshly damned soul. The bus was completely empty — not even a driver — however, it looked luxurious. I found a spot near the middle of the bus, and sat down on the surprisingly soft velvet lined plush seat.
As the bus slowly started accelerating, the engine hummed quietly— clearly electric. Once we got moving, a prerecorded voice played over the speakers.
Hello! And welcome to HellCo! We’re thrilled to have you join our team as we continue our 4 billion year campaign to bring terror, grief, fraud, and immorality to Earth. After this ride on our HellCo Cerberus Electric-Powered Bus, you’ll arrive at the HellCo Employee Services Complex - North American Division, where you will find your assigned employment task and learn the procedures and protocols of day-to-day life and work as an official Shadow of Hell.
Once the voice stopped, the lights dimmed, blinds closed over the windows, and the seats of the bus began to recline. Now laying down and looking at the ceiling, I heard the voice return.
Now, please enjoy this video presentation highlighting HellCo’s various successes over time. Thanks again for your sins.
The ceiling — which apparently doubled as a viewing screen — lit up, and for the first time I saw the HellCo logo. Bold black font with two large red horns appearing to come out each side of the text. It was very sleek and modern looking, they definitely had a good graphic designer. What began was a video-list with photos of Hell’s greatest moments accompanied with narration and music. The same voice as before came back in.
The Burning of the Library of Alexandria; World War II; The Chicxulub Asteroid; The Hindenburg Disaster; The Challenger Explosion.
The list went on as I saw mankind’s worst moments all in succession. The video was edited incredibly nicely, and although it should’ve been horrible to watch, I honestly didn’t mind the 25 minutes of tragedy. As the video came to an end, my chair returned to its original position and light gradually filled the bus once again. I looked out the window and noticed that we were just arriving at a large complex of modern office buildings. The bus went on down the main road through the campus, and eventually slowed to a halt in front of the central building, cuing the voice for a final time.
We are now at the HellCo Employee Services Complex - North American Division. We hope you enjoyed your ride on the HellCo Cerberus Electric-Powered Bus.
I stood up out of my seat and walked to the front of the bus and out the door. What I saw when I got out was a series of high-end, brand-new looking buildings, connected by stretches of lush green grass and sidewalks. A few feet from me was a directory like one you’d find in a mall— “you are here” dot and everything. On the top was a large heading that read, New Shadows proceed to building 3A. An arrow under that message pointed to a building, which was conveniently the one right by the little dot.
I looked up from the directory and to the building. A large bronze statue of the HellCo logo sat in front of it, sitting beside a flagpole bearing a flag with the same design. A large sidewalk led to the building and I followed it to the front doors. The large glass doors were made heavy by their metal frames, and I had to pull hard to get them open.
I walked inside and saw a reception desk, and to my delight, another person. I made my way across the marble floored lobby, and when I arrived at the desk the receptionist met me with a smile.
I smiled back and told her my situation, saying, “Hi, can you tell me where I need to go? I just got here— I think I need to go to orientation.”
“Yes, new Shadows start here,” she said cheerfully, “Follow the left hallway down until the first door, go through there and you will see some signs.”
I listened closely to her directions, then replied politely, “Great, thank you.”
As I walked down the hallway, I stopped and noticed the floor, which had carpet unlike the lobby. The charcoal grey nylon had a soft iridescent shimmer, like no carpet I’d seen before. I started walking again, and as I went I thought about my experience so far. Lucy was nice, well-spoken and witty, the bus was better than any public transport I’d ever seen, that receptionist was friendly— why was Hell… good?
My train of thought came to a screeching halt when I saw the door the receptionist had mentioned. I opened the door to find an office of employees, and I saw again the bustling activity that I had seen on the street before. People speed-walking around cubicles, others sharing conversation over the water cooler, phones ringing throughout. Just as promised, I saw a sign hanging from the ceiling. It was above a small area with a few chairs lined up near a door, and it read, Shadow Registration - Wait Here. I followed its orders, and I walked over, and sat down.
For a few minutes I sat, anxious, the reality of the situation sinking in for the first time. I thought about how long eternity is— even if this wasn’t as bad as the lakes of fire I was expecting, I was about to get assigned a job that lasts infinite lifetimes. My mind spiraled into a place of fear and worry, until I heard the door open.
I looked up to find a bright, older, heavy-set woman. Her brown hair stopped above her shoulders, not touching the lavender sweater she was wearing.
“Are you B2764-X775?” she asked with a smile. Her midwestern accent was thicker than cold syrup.
“Um… I have no idea,” I replied.
She looked around the waiting area, then said, “Welp, you’re the only one here, so follow me, honey.”
I stood up and followed her down a smaller hallway, where she led me to a private office. In the office was only a desk with a computer, and chairs on each side. She walked in, and looked out the window as she sat down, admiring the sunshine. I went to sit in one of the two chairs across from her.
As I crouched down to sit, she abruptly stopped me, saying, “Oh, no, not that one!”
I figured that the chair was just broken, so I stopped myself, saying, “Shit, I’m sorry.”
As I went to sit in the other chair, she giggled and grinned, saying, “Oh, no, I’m just joking. Yeah, no, just a joke. We like to have fun here.”
I awkwardly forced a laugh along with her, not understanding what about that was funny, or a joke.
As I sat down for a second time, she began talking, “Well hi, I’m Tammy, I’m a demon here—”
“You’re a demon?”
“Oh, yeah,” she responded. I sat in disbelief, unable to process what she just said. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she said, “Yeah, no, yeah, I’m a demon.”
“Aren’t demons… scary? Like,” I paused for a moment as every demon from the movies I knew crossed my mind, “Red face, claws, not— not… you.”
“Well, I used to be real scary,” she explained with a smile, “I had all the, you know, spooky parts and all that. My name was Kimaris.”
“What? What happened to you?” I asked, shocked.
“Well some years ago— what was it, 2006? We had a rebrand.”
“Alright,” I said as I stood up, “No fuckin’ way. Hell did not have a fucking rebrand! There’s no way this is real— this is a prank! Where’s the camera, lady?! Wait, am I on acid?”
“Oh, no, honey. Yeah, no, no jokes this time.”
“How does a plane of existence do a rebrand?” I rebutted.
“Don’t ask me, ask her.”
She pointed to a portrait of a familiar face that was hanging on the wall, to which I replied, “You mean Lucy? I met her like an hour ago.”
“Yep, she likes to meet everyone.” Tammy’s eyes left the painting and went back to me. “When she took over things got a lot better here… and a lot worse everywhere else!” she joked.
“No kidding,” I said with a chuckle.
“She’s a real smart kid, too. Totally changed how we use the Shadows. We used to pay back sins in such a bad way. Heck, I even ripped some heads off when I was a torturer!” She laughed hysterically at the fond memories, then continued, “But she said that it would be better to have us join forces with the Shadows, and pay back their sins slowly over time. So, we dropped the whole ‘nine circles of death and despair’ thing.”
I never would’ve guessed that this was how the underworld operated, but it began making sense to me. “How do we pay back our sins?” I asked.
“Well like I said, it used to be bad. Liars would get stuck in a cycle of getting their tongues cut off and having them grow back, gluttons would have to cook and eat themselves…oh, yuck— nasty stuff, I tell ya’.”
I shuddered at the thought of anything remotely close to that happening to me. I leaned forward a bit, and asked, “What do— how do I do it now?”
“Oh, it’s easy dear. Just little things, minor inconveniences” she paused for a moment and said, “Let me pull up your file so we can see.”
“File? What’s in it?”
“Everything we could possibly know about you,” she said nonchalantly, “everything that God’s got up at HeavenTec— except all that ‘divine plan’ mumbo-jumbo.”
“Heaven’s corporatized too now?! What the fuck—”
She cut me off, saying, “Alright, here we go.” She turned the monitor so I could see the screen. “So here’s all your stuff,” she said as she moved the cursor around the screen. She began listing various information about my life on Earth, “Name was Alan Robert Douglas, died at 27 from a car accident— well with three first names it’s lucky you finished early!” She laughed.
I smirked, then asked, “Can you see what I have to do to pay back my sins?”
“Let’s see here,” she leaned into the monitor then continued, “Okay, it says you’re paying back lustful behavior, infidelity, greed, and wrath.”
“Sounds about right,” I said as I thought back on my previous life, “So what is it— my payback?”
She turned the monitor back to just herself, and began typing away on the keyboard. After a minute, she looked back to me excitedly, saying, “Not too bad! You’ve been assigned to work at the HellCo Office of Thought Production! They come up with all the bad thoughts that pop into people’s heads— fun place, lots of creativity.”
I felt incredible in that moment, the thoughts of eternal torture escaping my mind. I looked back at Tammy thrilled, and said, “That’s it? That’s all I’ve gotta do?”
“Well, that and one other thing,” she replied, “every Shadow has one of what we call a ‘Minor Penance’, a little annoyance to pay back your suffering in the long run. Some people always feel like they need to shower, others have eternal shirt static.”
“What’s mine?” I questioned anxiously.
“There’ll be a little rock in your shoe that you will never be able to get out.”
“Oh, fuck. That is bad,” I said. I then thought about what I expected to go through, and changed my attitude, saying, “But not horrible.”
A smile came to Tammy’s face as she said, “Well great! If you can tolerate it, it’s not so bad down here!”
She then opened up her desk and grabbed some papers, organized and stamped them. She placed a paperclip around the stack and handed them to me across the desk.
I grabbed them from her, asking, “So where do I go from here?”
She stood up from her chair, then replied, “Just follow me.”
I followed Tammy out of the room and through a maze of hallways, admiring the carpet the entire time. Soon we found ourselves in front of a large machine, with what looked like a closet beside it.
“So this here is our little ‘employee maker’,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re gonna put all your paperwork in here, I’ll have you step into the closet, and you’ll come out with your new uniform and badge! Like magic!”
Curious, yet nervous, I nodded and opened the closet door, stepping into the small, boxy wooden room. Tammy grinned as she shut the door behind me.
Soon I heard what sounded like hydraulics releasing, and in a split second, I was dressed in black slacks with a white HellCo branded button-up.
“Okay, sweetie, come back out now,” Tammy said through the door.
I stepped out and was met with Tammy handing me a small plastic card.
I studied it, and saw my photo, and below it, the words, B2764-X775—Editor/Bad Thoughts.
I looked up and Tammy began to explain, “So now I’ll take you to the tunnels — that’s how we get around here — and I’ll send you over to Bad Thoughts for your introduction training.”
Again we went through the maze of hallways, until we reached a staircase that led down into a small chamber. She opened the glass doors of the small box in the chamber, and gestured for me to step inside. A single seat with a seatbelt sat in front of me, and I figured I should sit down and buckle up.
As I looked back up to Tammy, who was now punching information into some control pad, she smiled once again, and then waved goodbye.
Before I could wave back, I accelerated away from the chamber, and presumably under the building. It was pitch black, and the only thing I knew was that I was moving incredibly fast, yet smoothly. After only a few moments, I stopped at a new chamber, and light was let back into the box. Waiting outside for me was a scrawny, hunched over man with a thin mustache.
The doors opened, and he greeted me, saying bleakley, “Hello, welcome to Bad Thoughts. I’m Lasculatu, Duke of Hell, and I’m gonna help you get settled in your new career here.”
“Great—”
He quickly cut me off, saying “Follow me, please. I’ll show you to your desk.”
I followed him up the stairs and down a short hallway into a large office like I had seen at the building prior. As we went I noticed the rock in my shoe— a minor inconvenience just as Tammy had promised. Through the ocean of people and cubicles we went, until he arrived at an empty one, with just a chair, desk, and computer.
“This one’s yours. Make yourself at home. Turn on your computer and you’ll automatically begin your training videos.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, but before I could get a word out, he began walking away with the same joyless expression, saying, “Thank you, enjoy your eternity.”
A placed my stack of papers and ID tag on the desk, and sat down in front of the computer. I pressed the power button, and a new logo flashed onto the screen. This one said HellCo Net Services, and bore a similar design, only with some binary code placed behind it for decoration.
Magically — just like everything else so far — my new name and job popped up on the screen. Below my credentials was a question, Is this you? I clicked ‘yes’. This brought me to a new page with a video.
I pressed play, and heard the cheesy elevator music of a corporate training video slowly fade in. A man appeared on the screen and outlined my responsibilities and new way of life. As he listed the details, none of it seemed too bad. I was to use their MindEater software to review and submit nasty thoughts that got sent to the minds of humans everywhere. I got thirty minutes for lunch at 12:30, and at 5:00 PM every evening, I was allowed to go to my unit of the HellCo Employee Housing complex.
The video ended and I stared at the screen, cursor hovering over the ‘Click Here to Begin Your Career!’ button. As I thought again about beginning my eternity of dastardly responsibilities, I was overcome with a feeling of relief.
I thought to myself, Wow, I’m glad I grew up in America. I’m built for this shit.
