One Hellish Quota

One... two... three! She counted and she tapped along with her fingers to the keyboard. Blinking rhythmically with the clock that hung behind her, sunken head hung around her laptop. She felt her limited time slowly slink away, as it’s always done before.

An electronic buzz later, she realized her time was up. She sat up from her seat and began toward the now busy breakroom, where her other coworkers enthusiastically whispered about their works, about their speed, about everything Penny didn’t have. The clattering of mugs as wired workers demanded their coffee filled the room. It’s only been a week since she was hired on, but now, nearing the end of her probationary period, she feared that this would just be another failed conquest to avoid adding to her resume. Anxious for a reprieve from the doubt stricken mind, Penny looked around the room for a friendly face before being disheartened to find none. Low performers were often social outcasts, if you managed to stick around for long anyway.

“Penelope?” A voice rose above the chatter. The Boss. He motioned for her to follow as he left the frame of the doorway. He always left an earthen musk whenever he was near, enough to stick to the back of her nose and remain there for minutes after the initial introduction.

Penelope slunk through the maze of a hallway, throughout the crowded cubicles making her way to the respectable sized office that The Boss never seemed to leave for more than a moment. Although he didn’t have the final say in her application and hiring process, she knew well enough that he had enough power to let go of an employee who couldn’t perform. Even though he had just been in front of her moments ago, she found him already deeply engrossed in his computer, seemingly always busy despite the managerial duties he needed to perform.

“If this is about my work performance, I know... I know,” she began, absently picking at an uneven nail.

He raised his hand, still focused on his screen, to silence her. Awkwardly, she stood, blinking in time with the clock to keep her mind from wandering. Eventually, he grunted in approval at whatever had been occupying his mind and turned towards Penny.

“You have potential. I’ve seen it, your Above work, it was rhymical. Enigmatic. Even though you may not like your assignment, we try to utilize your talents the best way we seem fit. Is there any particular reason you haven’t been able to write? Are your instructions not clear enough? We want you to fit into our community but there seems to be some resistance.” He shuffled some papers before him to clear his desk before leaning over with his hands clasped, “Is this just a subject issue? If so I have some great instructors who help channel inspiration.”

Penny took a slow breath. So maybe there was a chance at this working out. She figured she might as well be honest if she had any hope for sticking this assignment out. “Well sir, to be frank, I didn’t think I would get this far to begin with. The Death department is so prestigious, I never would have dreamed to be this close to joining the ranks. I don’t think it’s the lack of inspiration per se... more of just a culture shock. It still feels like I don’t belong.”

“And yet you’re still here,” he muttered, leaning back into his chair. “Listen, most people would have gotten the boot on day 3 but He likes you. We need to get you on track, we need you to start assigning and creating deaths or else we’ll start to suffer a lull in production. People die every day, Penelope, we just need you to finish their story.”

She sucked in a breath. It was never hard to write when she had been living in her studio apartment. She had her cat mewing somewhere near, the steady bustle of the city outside. She had comfort, none of that would be found here in Hell.

“I’ll give you some resources to look into over the weekend, but by the end of Monday if you aren’t producing we are going to have to look into other placements for you.”

Penelope eyed every street post she passed on her way to her newly sanctioned house. Seventeen more until she made it home. It was a stark realization when she woke up just over a week ago and she didn’t wake up in her bed, the same one she fell asleep in just hours before. Instead she awoke in a grimy holding cell, being introduced to her new life by Him. Not everyone remembers how they end their above life, Penelope sure didn’t, but she certainly didn’t believe in a place she would wind up after she was gone. Regardless of her past beliefs, she was here now. Once a renowned writer, stuck in Hell writing up death manuscripts- well that’s what she is supposed to do at least.

Four more posts. She had to focus. She had only spent so much time down here but she had learned enough about the inner workings. She was set up with one of the most luxurious jobs imaginable, and she was about to ruin it. But the thought of ending someone’s life as just another quota to fill was a hard pill to swallow.

Walking up to her modest bungalow, she reached for the front door and entered. None of this is right, she thought. Earthbound, there were countless things Penny had done to center her creative force. They usually centered around the mundanity of life, a calming rhythm that washed away any distractions. With none of that here, she needed to find something new and different, and before the end of Monday.

Penny had spent the weekend gathering materials she thought would be useful for the oncoming week. At the start of the workday Monday, she had accumulated enough to warrant a small tub to carry her supplies in. Settling into her desk, she quickly had gotten to work unpacking and organizing her new work station.

Poisons in one corner, each label facing forward with a brief description of what side effects there were, although they all had one in common: death. A newly minted revolver, with an ample supply of bullets to last the week, and the tub itself, which would soon be filled with water, enough so that a person could drown.

“Inspirational decor?” The Boss appeared bemused, just as she had settled in.

“Well, I figured that I needed to switch up my tactics; it’s not enough to just write about how they die. I want them to be able to feel every agonizing minute. What better way to describe a painful death than to mimic it?”

The Boss chuckled as he walked away, leaving Penelope unsure if he thought her new tactics were childish or just crazy enough to work out. There was only one way to find out though. She took a breath in, still getting a waft of the petrichor The Boss had left behind.

She pulled up her latest assignment: a grade school teacher, aged 47, needed to die. Although many writers in her section liked to assign appropriate deaths matching the lives they had lived, there was no rule in doing so. Penny began filling out rudimentary information until the form had exhausted itself down to what she had struggled the most with; How will she die?

Her cursor blinked at her. She looked across her desk and picked up a vial. Before she had any time to think about the consequences of her actions, she had put the bottle to her lips and drank. An excruciating numbness wrapped around her throat as she started to see flashes of stars cloud her vision. Foaming at the mouth, she felt her body convulse before finally resting just a few moments. And then there was a blissful, serene awakening. She could not die here- she was already dead- but she could live a thousand deaths just to get it right. And so, she began typing.