Hell is a Sunny Day

Dear Linda,

I know you’ll be shocked to receive this letter because I never wrote to you while I was alive, but I met a guy who said he could get a message to the surface in case you ever, I don’t know, visit a medium or go to a séance or something. 

Knowing you, that’s highly unlikely because I know you’re too smart for all that mumbo jumbo kind of stuff. 

But I have to try.

It’s horrible here.

Linda, you have to believe me. You have to do anything in your power possible to avoid the fate that I am suffering right now. It’s hard because I want to see you so badly. Part of me thinks that if I just had you here with me, everything else would be bearable. But I don’t want this for you.

I can’t subject you to an eternity of this.

If I had known what was waiting for me here, I would have done everything different.

Every day here in hell is a beautiful day. The sun shines its warm rays across perfectly cut lawns. It is exactly 72 degrees at every moment. There is no breeze. The sun does not move. It is always day. It is always every day. 

I live in a one-bedroom house, furnished exactly to my taste. It’s next to the ocean. The palm trees dotting the shoreline remind me of the first neighborhood we lived in, back when I had my first management job at Maersk and could barely scrape together enough for a down payment and had to ask my parents for a loan.

Okay, reading this I can see that maybe it’s not quite clear why living here is so bad. But I promise you that I have never experienced anything so excruciating. The sun never sets. Ever. It’s always just up there in the sky, always noon. 

Taunting me.

I don’t have a body. 

Not a real one, anyway. Not in a way I can explain to you. I told you, I’ve never been good with words, with this writing stuff. But I know you understand. I feel bad that after forty years of marriage you don’t have a single letter to remember me by and all you’ll have now is this. 

If you even get it.

But I can’t change this past. This is all I’ve got.

I never get tired. I never sleep. It’s just me. The sun. The beach. The rhythmic waves. They taunt me. There is no way to tell how much time has passed. I’m afraid my brain is going to break apart, but I know it won’t because that would give me an escape from this relentless boredom. 

And the universe apparently doesn’t think I deserve that. 

Which you and I both know is complete bullshit. We are good people, Linda. We never hurt anyone. I never hurt anyone. I donated the maximum amount I could deduct from my taxes to non-profits every year. We raised two successful, kind, well-adjusted children. 

We voted.

I’d ask you to see if there’s some sort of manager you could appeal to about the situation (You always have been so good at that), but even I know by now that that would be futile. 

I was an idiot.

You know, when I first got here, I thought I was in heaven. 

The perfect weather, the beachfront property of my dreams, the women.

Okay, I know I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. I know it’s something you don’t want to hear, but I need you to understand how horrible this place is. 

When I first got here, I was looking around, trying to get my bearings, thinking, “We did it.” I couldn’t believe the Christians were actually right about everything. I wondered if I would find Sparky, my dad, David Bowie or something. I walked along the Strand, enjoying the warmth on my skin, the picturesque setting, missing you, feeling so stupidly pleased with myself when this woman came up to me out of nowhere.

She was—I mean, no offense, but she was breathtaking.

Like, exactly the kind of girl I would search for when I went on Pornhub on my phone while you were in the shower. Sorry, I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s important. You don’t think porn is the reason I’m here, do you? It can’t be. That seems too unfair, too petty. Even for the universe. But I don’t know anything anymore, so maybe.

Anyway, this girl had to be like 25, bouncy blonde hair, huge… well. You get the idea.

And she’s wearing this tiny bikini top and cutoff jean shorts. She skates over to me on roller blades like something out of a dream I had when I was in high school, and without any words, she just gets on her knees and gives herself to me. And, well. I don’t need to go into the details. 

The thing is, now anytime the thought even crosses my mind that I’m craving sexual stimulation, a different, equally perfect angel comes out of nowhere, wordlessly pleasures me all the way to completion, then leaves.

Okay, I know how this sounds.

Yes, I was smug the first time it happened. I was a good guy in life. I saved my money, invested in rental properties, sent our kids to college, never cheated on you (though there were a couple times I had the opportunity and resisted). 

I felt like I was finally being reward.

The first time. Well, the first dozen times.

But Linda, this has happened hundreds, maybe thousands of times by now. I’m drowning in the monotony of instant satisfaction. I’m losing myself to comfort and pleasure. There’s no rest from it. No joy in it. 

It fucking sucks.

Oh, and the food here. Lobster, caviar, steak. Perfectly cooked every time. By who? I don’t know. Demons, probably. It’s available whenever I want it. Any candy or dessert too. Just an endless buffet appears the second the faintest desire pops into my mind. 

I would beg for death if I wasn’t already here. 

You have to believe m.

I don’t know what we did wrong. All my life, I constantly worked to invest in our family’s safety, our security, our pleasure, our comfort. I created good memories for the kids. This should be the culmination of that—just getting to relax and enjoy the fruits of all that sacrifice. So, why am I being tormented like this??

I think I have been here a thousand years, but it’s impossible to tell. 

Maybe you’re already dead too. Maybe you ended up somewhere else, somewhere better than me. God, I hope that’s true. 

Or maybe you’re still alive.

Linda, I hope you remarried.

I hope you met a nice guy. I hope you moved with him to Ohio or Michigan or Minnesota. A city where during the winter the sun goes down at 4pm and you struggle with seasonal depression. I hope you’re watching a weather report on TV, wondering if it’s going to snow this week. If you need to get the chains out of storage in the messy garage. 

I hope you’re telling him that you need a new winter coat and that your sheepskin gloves are getting threadbare. I hope you’re warming yourself by the fireplace, taking off layers. Your scarf, your puffy jacket, that itchy wool sweater you refuse to throw out. I hope your wrinkled, cracked hands are white, almost blue as you hold them over the biting warmth of the flames. 

I would give anything to stroke your coarse gray hair, kiss your crepey neck, lift your shirt up, revealing the soft rolls of your aging stomach. 

I want so badly to kiss you, for you to push me away laughing, making lazy excuses. You’re too tired, too busy, haven’t shaved in weeks. I want to feel the ego hit that comes from being rebuffed, which just makes me try harder, form a plan, make dinner reservations, find an excuse to plan an island vacation. 

I miss the wilted kale salad you’d hastily assemble from a prepackaged bag you picked up at the grocery store. 

I want to complain about your insistence that we follow a plant-based diet, and I want to fight about my cholesterol levels. I want to resent your nagging, hate you for making my life miserable. Without you here, it’s all just sunny.

I’m drying up. 

I thought I would be forever alone here, but I should have known better. 

I had brief thought. A wish for pen and paper, and at my command a writing desk was present in my living room. As soon as I wondered how I could ever get word to you, I saw a man outside my window. 

He wore a mail carrier’s uniform and carried a shoulder bag stuffed with letters.

I asked where he was taking them and he replied (infuriatingly, predictably), “to their recipients.”

He told me if I wrote to you, he would take these words where they deserve to go. I asked him how, and he told me that was above his pay grade.

I don’t know if this is part of my punishment or if it’s helping me atone.

All I know is that you have to believe me when I tell you I have never known such misery.

Linda, I don’t know what we did wrong. But you have to figure it out. Do whatever it takes. I beg you. Save yourself. 

Every moment I wish for the death that I know already happened to me years ago. I don’t want this for you too. 

Love,

Mike

PS: Don’t tell the kids about any of this. I don’t want them to worry.