Journey into Hell

I have a story you won’t believe. I don’t care. My telling is more important than your believing.

Have you heard of Maundy Thursday? It is the Thursday before Easter. That'is when my story begins. I was thirty-five and had lost another job.

I could see blessings existed but my every path seemed to lead to disaster. Fitting in nowhere, depression tasted bitter as death. Choked like a hangman’s noose. Each rejection, sunk me deeper until I couldn’t escape the mire.

That was when I saw the dark, distant figure and desperately cried out. “Help. Whether you are shadow or man, please help me.”

The fantom wandered to where I stood and looked down at my pathetic self. “You’ve dug yourself this hole. Only way out is through.” There was something familiar about his gruff voice, scruffy beard, and shaggy hair.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Before dying, I was a man who earned my bread telling ‘fuck’ jokes. Truths people only heard, if they could laugh at the words.”

“George Karlyn?” I asked disbelieving.

“Hey, ain’t I cute,” George answered.

I couldn’t believe it and told him, “You were amazing. I thought I might be a comedian. Once.”

But George was dead.

Instead of helping me out, he walked past me deeper into the pit, saying, "There were many things you thought of doing once. What are you doing now?”

Even a ghost demanded what I was doing with myself.

Used to the question, I reached for my phone, “I’m trying to find work. Look at all the places I’ve applied.” A video of a leopard chasing a gazelle played on my screen.

George arched his fuzzy eyebrows at me.

“No, not that.” I had so many rejections emails, they should have been easily found.

“Forget all of that,” George answered. “You need a new path. Let’s walk. My journey is through hell, but sometimes you have to face flames.”

How desperate was I? Enough that I hurried after him.

Now as I sit back to tell my tale, I can hardly believe it myself. Who but a fool would follow a ghost into hell?

This occurred to me even then, and I tried, “Mr. Karlyn, George, I don’t have the courage for this.”

“I understand,” he answered. “Everyone fears stepping into darkness. Nothing stops people from doing what’s right more than fear.” He didn’t even slow his pace.”

“But sir.”

“My being here’s not an accident. Angels heard your cries and sent me as your guide. Thought my blunt talk might break through your dull shell. Sometimes flames got to be faced.”

We were in such gloom, all I saw was George’s white balding head that I followed until we reached a gate above which a sign proclaimed, ‘Leave all hope, ye that enter.’ Beyond it, orange flames danced.

Here George looked at me and sadness showed in his blue eyes. Whatever he looked for he must have seen, for on he continued with me following.

The farther we descended the darker the orange shadows grew and more sultry the air. Suffocating. Worse still were the frigid pockets. Imagine gasping for breath in the hottest of deserts and then being plunged through ice. It was like being breathed on by an ice demon. Surrounding us were mutters and groans with the occasional shriek or wail whipping through. And buzzing.

When we started, I was too scared to look at anything but George. But the buzzing drew my attention and I saw hornets and wasps flew in circles about dark shadows.

“Is this hell?” I asked George.

“Not yet,” he answered. “The shadows are souls who couldn’t get into heaven or hell. In life they couldn’t decide whether to be good or bad and so served not God or devil.”

Only outside hell, and I didn’t want to go further. But as George continued, I didn’t know what else to do but follow. I couldn’t stay in limbo. Through the orange fog we walked across rough mudflats until reaching the bank of a wild river. From the raging waves of ice and flame, a gruff voice hollered, “Hear me. I come to lead the dead to eternal darkness. If not dead, leave from those who are dead.” Looking out, I saw an old man stood on a ferry. The river’s orange and black flaming waves cast his face in an eerie light, but I saw he stared at me.

“Dante is willed to be here. Ask no more,” George rebuked the boatman.

A glower went up the creature’s face, seeming to stretch its forehead. Bulge it like a mad fever.

When he turned his back to us, George grasped my arm to help me aboard. Behind us, ghosts followed until every space on the ferry was crowded with grumbling spirits. They did complain, cursing their parents for giving them life and God for giving them death and everything else that had ended them in such a place.

As though pleased by their grumblings, the old man raised his brow and sneered at the lot. That was when I saw that instead of eyes, he looked through flames. It was not a man, but demon of hell.

I must have fainted then. Just remembering and my skin is soaking in sweat.

When I woke, I was lying atop a cliff surrounded by wailing as loud as thunder. Likely that was what woke me.

Beside me, George said, “The demon had to warn you off. No good spirit is allowed passed that crimson shore.” He must have meant the words as a comfort, but I felt sickened.

Looking away, I turned to look down the cliffside but saw only darkness. From the ground beneath my head the smell of sulfur reeked.

“Now, we go down,” George said.

Hardly able to believe his words, I stared and saw he looked spirit-white.

“Seriously. You look terrified. If you’re scared, how can you expect me to follow.”

“It’s not fear you see on my face,” George said. “But pity. We are now at the first ring of hell.” Like that was reassurance.

I don’t know why I trusted George, but I knew we had to keep going. Through was the only way out.

Testing each step, we crept down until reaching a flat area filled with sighing. On we pressed, into increasingly thick fog until we reached a curved wall of entwined smoke and fire with a demon guard at its gate.

Having seen one demon, it was easy to recognize the even more reptilian guard as another. And the feeling about the creature. It was like malevolence rose from its scales as with a demonic grin it asked, “And what poor wretches are these?”

George said, “The Demon Minos divides lost souls into realms of the deadly sins. But as you are not yet dead, we’ve no need for poor Minos.”

Pressing through the fire ring, we entered what looked like an old tavern. After everything I’d seen and feared seeing, my head was dizzy with relief. Only instead of smelling wine and whiskey, a reek of sulfur tickled my nose and burned the back of my throat.

“These are my people,” George told me. “The cynics of the world who were so sure they knew better than what the wise taught.”

“What sin is this?” I asked.

“Some sins blend together,” George answered going to sit at the bar.

 “Can I ask them questions?”

“Try.” George reached for a pouch and a bit of paper. “If you ask them about what they love. About their lives, they may answer.” He began rolling a joint. “Notice anything?”

Most patrons watched a woman dancing on a dark screen as she began taking off her clothes. Some looked at what they held in their hands.

“They never raise their gazes,” George said. “Like they don’t know where they are or even that they’ve left their lives.”

Smoking, George seemed in no hurry to leave, but the surrounding clicks grew eerie.

“Please. I can’t stay,” I begged.

The next room was a long stretch of classrooms.

“Hell for bad teachers?” I asked.

 In each section a teacher stood in front of disinterested students.

“Wait, I know her.”

George followed me to the ghost, but like the men at the bar, she didn’t seem to know we were there.

“She’s in hell for being a bad teacher?” Bad teaching didn’t seem a grave sin.

“This is the first ring of hell,” George answered. “What do you remember of your instructor?”

“I didn’t pass her class,” I answered.

“Did she give you extra help to enable you to learn.”

“No, I don’t even know why I failed the course.”

“Such is this self-focused lot. Not noticing or ignoring those they were entrusted to protect. Instructors who tolerated bullies. Officers who allowed inmates to be tortured under their watch. And the like.”

Rows of these ran out as far as I could see. It would have taken me a hundred days of wandering to reach their end.

“Come on then,” George called me back to our path. “We have a long way yet to travel.”

In the next lurid room, circles of mainly men did a strange dance. Like pack animals, many swayed back and forth, surrounding, and watching one. Fingers would stretch and bodies pounce seizing from the flesh of the center one who’d flail and howl. Then rhythmic feet would spin and a new ring be spun about a new victim, and the dance begin again.

“Put their hands where they weren’t wanted. And worse,” George explained, pointing out at the distant circles fading into darkness.

From that groaning room, we raced through the rage of fighting men. Shrieks and curses hurrying us as fists clashed and sullen onlookers spat in the dirt.

Next was a gray room was full of quiet sighs.

“Despair,” George said.

Despair sounds strange, doesn’t it? Why would sad people be sent to hell?

Walking through the sorrow, our pace slowed, allowing me questions. “I noticed it gets darker the further we travel. And that smell stronger.”

“Sulfur,” George agreed.

“Meaning the evil is worse the deeper we travel.”

George didn’t argued.

“But why is sadness worse than anger.”

George looked at me. “While alive, every heart longs for something. It’s the reason we live. People who deny their dreams end here. Some are lazy. Some afraid.”

I often think about George’s words, and wonder if I understand them.

Despair was the last shelter. Then we were in a place I’m not sure how to describe.

Darkness kept me from seeing on what we walked. We sunk into something like sand or mud, but not exactly. I don’t want to call it soil, as our every step stirred up the stench of sulfur.

“More priests,” something cackled at us.

“We are not priests,” George answered the beast.

But the demon only cackled louder. “Pastors or cult leaders?”

“Out of our way,” George commanded and flames jumped from the ground to swallow the creature and allow us to continued.

How can I explain? I want to describe the feeling as darkening, but the dull light stayed the same. Only the evil feeling grew more intense.

“Careful now,” George warned. “We are headed toward the Beast. Our escape is under its feet.”

Not what I wanted to hear, but still I followed.

“Men who abandoned their children.”

“Women who faked love for money.”

George pointed out people sitting in tubs of excrement as we fled through the wasteland.

“Hey, you there. You know me,” a spirits called to us.

“Its because of our clothes,” George said. “It thinks she knows us.”

The ghost woman may have worn clothes like ours, but I saw only putrid mud.

“I shouldn’t be here,” the spirit said. “It’s not my fault. You have to get a message out for me.”

“Alright,” George answered. “Tell us your story.”

“None of what happened was my fault.”

Feeling as though my feet were sinking into grasping sludge, I was desperate to leave. How much worse for the filthy spirit standing in ankle-deep mud.

“I married the wrong man. Took the wrong job. They didn’t appreciate me. All the things I did for them. No matter how much I complained, they wouldn’t listen. All they wanted was to take advantage.”

The more it spoke, the further she had drifted from us.

“I’ve seen that spirit before,” George told me as we began again. “Nothing is ever her fault. Never happy with any man or job. Always looking for the better one somewhere else. And only make herself and everyone else more and more miserable.”

Deeper in the darkness, I heard snorting and fizzing sounds and saw puffs of smoke.

“Ah, here is our ride to the next realm.” George stepped twice toward a scaly dragon before pulling back and laughing. “Don’t worry. I might walk you through hell, but I sure as fuck won’t fly you through it on dragon back.”

“Is it guarding something?” I asked.

“Yes, the worse of the worse. Those who betrayed God’s calling. Priests who refuse baptisms and last rites.”

Oh wait. I should tell about the headless spirit I saw around there. That was something.

It had a head, I should say, only not attached. Instead, the pitiful ghoul coiled fingers through its hair and held its head out like a lantern.

Whenever we passed by spirits, George would say why they were trapped. For this sad ghost, George said, “Always causing problems. Everywhere used gossip to turn friends into enemies.”

Sorry. I hesitate to speak of the last ring. The center of hell guarded by three animal-looking demons. The first had the beauty of a leopard except for its blood-red demon eyes.

“That one swallows the lustful,” George said.

“What!”

“Didn’t I tell you. It’s impossible for the damned to escape. If they manage this far, these last demons swallow them and they’re returned to hell.”

“But we’ll be safe?”

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

After looking us over, the leopard lowered its head and tail and slunk back to the shadows.

The next demon was a great lion with golden, glowing eyes.

“Pride,” George said.

“Why pride? Isn’t pride good? Like having pride in accomplishments.” Despite my protest, I kept my voice and face humble.

“The only rule is Love,” George answered. “Anything that thwarts love is sin.”

The proud lion sniffed the air above us before circling back.

Next was a mangy, gray wolf with glowing blue-gray eyes.

“Greed,” George said and I didn’t argue.

“Is that all. Can we go through now.”

“Yes,” George agreed. “Yes, lets go through to the last demon. Father of all lies and Prince of all hatred and death.”

George was good at telling me things I didn’t want to hear.

When we rounded the last corner to enter the final circle of hell, a fiery glow blinded me.

Remember now, we’d been travelling through an ever-darkening abyss.

Only George’s hand on my arm kept me from stumbling as I squinted at the glow trying to see the final pit. The brilliance seemed to rise from a well. Like where people used to draw water. The beast sat atop like the circle of bricks was its throne. And that was our escape. Through a pit under the Devil’s feet. My heart must have stopped looking at the hideous creature. But like the leopard, there was some shimmer of beauty about it. Most beautiful turned most foul.

I doubt I could have spoken, had I dared. Or resisted when George’s grip tightened, but he guided me to the brilliance. Into it we climbed down and down. I couldn’t say how far, but clung to George unthinking.

Only when we started climbing did I panic.

“No, I can’t go back,” I pleaded.

George never loosed his grip, but forced me up and up until my face was bathed in cool, fresh air. Fresh air. I’ll never forget the glory of those scented pines. Cedars smelled of heaven when we crawled to look at the heavenly stars.

Heaven and earth are not to be taken for granted.

It was early Easter Sunday morning and, I wanted to breathe everything in. Take the freshness into my lungs and make it apart of myself.

Nothing in my life had changed. But everything had changed.