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Section 6 Entry 0001. Date: 2004 March 02 Tuesday
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Let me tell you why I am in Hell. Let me explain exactly why I have been condemned to internal damnation. (This makes me scream! I meant to write "eternal damnation" but wrote "internal damnation" instead, and now this infernal blogging software won't let me correct the error. Error eternal: welcome to Hell!
So why am I here? Well, I found out months ago, of course, after Rumsfeld made a point of telling me. I'm sure he knew I'd be ready to tear my hair out once I knew, and I was. Oh yes. I couldn't believe it, at first, but I've checked, using the same bureaucratic channels that Rumsfeld exploited, and I've found out that it's true.
Why am I in Hell? Well, you know how cartons of milk used to have "best by" dates stamped on them? And you know how the supermarket people always used to put the newest milk at the back on the rack, meaning for you to take the oldest milk first? Well, I'd always (it was a habit with me) reach to the back and select the newest milk.
I knew it was wrong when I did it. If I bought the oldest milk, that at the front of the rack, I'd still finish it before the expiry date. And what if everyone did what I did? (Kant's test, if I remember correctly, for deciding whether an action is right or wrong.)
If everyone took the newest milk and left the oldest, the supermarket would be stuck with thousands of cartons of dead milk, and the distribution system would break down. Either that or (more likely) reaching for the new milk would be deemed to be economic terrorism, and offenders would be put up against a wall and shot under the terms of the Enemy Combatants Act, or whatever it's called.
(I try to keep in touch with the Former World, as I've come to think of it, but newcomers are often so confused, and the garbled tales that some of the latest arrivals have been telling are so improbable as to be hard to believe.)
So that's why I'm in hell. And I thought it was for something serious, like the hit-and-run, or the time I shot Mr Sebrosmith, or the manner in which I disposed of Mr Sebrosmith's body.
But, no. It seems the "hit" part of the "hit-and-run" was deemed to be an accident (which it was) and the "run" part was accepted to be understandable panic (which it was, sort of.) As for the killing of Mr Sebrosmith, even though it was an act of cold-blooded premeditated murder, I got off on that, too.
From the trial transcipts, which I read recently (I did get a trial, even though it was in absentia) it seems that my Heavenly Advocate (everyone gets a lawyer, even those who can't afford to pay for one) successfully argued that my killing of Mr Sebrosmith was justifiable in terms of the Just War doctrine.
Where I come from, private individuals can't go and kill someone and explain it away as a "Just War." Only governments can do that, and, even then, to make a real war, and make it properly just, they can't go and kill just one person. They have to kill thousands, and only then do we leave the grubby world of murder and enter the glamorous realm of heroic flight suits.
However.
Things are different in the Courts of Heaven, and it was agreed that the striking down of Mr Sebrosmith was not a murder but an act of war, and that the war was justified. A justified preemptive strike.
So I've been finding myself wondering about Bob, who used to cheat on his golf score, and about Trudy, who turned me down when I asked her for a date, and about Mrs Pelsburg and the incident with the raspberry jam. I mean, just how much could I have gotten away with under the Just War doctrine?
Well, anyway. That's beside the point. The point is that I got sentenced to eternal damnation on account of this idiot milk carton business, deemed to be "a crime of mean-spiritedness, a deliberate and systematic abuse of the perpetrator's own spirit."
I have to admit that there is justice in those words, which issued, it seems, from the mouth of Justice Mangosteen, one of the sterner of the High Lords of Heaven. As I've said, I knew when I was doing it that it was wrong, and it did indeed feel wrong. It made me feel smaller. Kind of sly, sneaky. Like a plagiarist.
An astonishing number of people are in Hell on account of plagiarism, which I'd never thought of as being a real crime, not really. But it turns out that morality is not quite what you'd think it is.
Anyway, when I found out (found out about being here on account of the milk, I mean) I was so crushingly depressed that I couldn't bring myself to blog about it. So months have gone by without me uploading a word. In fact, I see I haven't blogged since December last year.
But now I'm in the mood for a rant. So I'm going to write down exactly what I think about Rumsfeld. Always supposing that this infernal blogging software will
Section 6 Entry 0002. Date: 2004 March 05 Friday.
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My God! I stabbed Rumsfeld! I can't believe I did it! He'd gone and read my latest entry online, and he couldn't resist jeering at me, and finally I did it. I snatched up my paperknife, a converted bayonet, and - well, the details are a bit messy. Suffice it to say that the it took me a whole twenty minutes or so before I was done.
By that time, Rumsfeld had been reduced to a corpse. The word "dead" doesn't quite fit because, after all, we are dead. Already. We're in Hell. You can't die here. You're immortal - that's part of the hell of it. But you can be recycled in rather interesting ways, and I hope Rumsfeld has something particularly interesting in store for him.
Anyway, once I stabbed Rumsfeld, I waited for something dreadful to happen. But nothing did. Unless you count the business with my tongue.
About two hours after I'd stabbed Rumsfeld (by which time the cleaners had taken the corpse away) my tongue started to swell. It grew larger and larger until it bulged out of my mouth, extending outwards, growing black as it swelled. Until finally it burst.
The pain was excruciating to the point where I wished I could pass out, only I couldn't, so I screamed for an hour or so, at which point the Big Boss became annoyed at me, and came and hit me on the head, which quietened me down rather effectively.
Anyway, it's now late at night, and nothing dreadful has happend, unless you count the tongue. And I don't, really. Because the tongue business has happened before. Twice. I know from experience that I can expect to grow a new tongue inside of six months, and, in that time, I have a very excuse for not taking my turn on the telephone desk.
The tongue hurts, of course. But if it wasn't that it would be something else. The good thing about Hell is that there seems to be some kind of efficiency principle at work, which is more than you can say for the former world. It's a bit erratic, but, as long as you're in a reasonable degree of agony, then, as a rule, nobody can be bothered amplifying your suffering.
Nobody official, I mean. There are still free will lunatics like Rumsfeld to contend with, however.
So, that was my day. Rumsfeld has been corpsified! This is my best day in Hell ever! Now, if I could just get my feet to unstick from the floor - they've kind of gone and frozen themselves to the floor, which shouldn't be possible in Hell - then I'd call myself a happy man.
Section 6 Entry 0003. Date: 2004 March 08 Monday.
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Oops! Today, the Big Boss stopped by my desk and asked where Rumsfeld was. This came as a nasty surprise. I was under the impression that the Big Boss understood that I'd gone and corpsified Rumsfeld, and that it was okay by him. But apparently it's not so. He's annoyed that Rumsfeld hasn't shown up from work, and he seems to think I have something to do with it.
I don't think he reads my blog. That's the one saving grace of this situation. Now I think about it, it was unwise to confess online. But I felt compelled. I can't endure the annihilation of the self, the reduction of my own being to a functional zero.
What's done. So I suppose there's no use worrying about it. Even so, whatever my rationality might tell me, I'm worried. It's one thing to endure the torments of Hell. It's quite another thing to become the target of the personal animus of the Big Boss.
I really shudder to think what's going to happen now.
Section 6 Entry 0004. Date: 2004 March 09 Tuesday.
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Never underestimate the power of a bad example. There are suddenly half a dozen people, at least, missing from the office. Furthermore, I see guys eyeing each other with evil intent. Hell, as I think I've remarked before, is other people. However much one hates the system, it's one's fellow human beings, ultimately, who make the tormenting into the intolerable.
Ordinarily it wouldn't both me that my fellow workers are stabbing each other in the back or pushing each other down elevator shafts, or whatever it is that they're doing to do away with each other. But, unfortunately, I've been put in charge of our push to get ISO-666 certification, and the missing half dozen include some of the people I'm really depending on to get this done on schedule.
This is not looking good. For me to go and corpsify Rumsfeld was one thing. I feel I was justified. But I didn't mean for people to go copy me. Unless I'm wrong, we've had a minimum of six people corpsified in just twenty-four hours or so, and it's hardly thinkable that this reckless indulgence in free will is going to go unchecked. Hell, after all, may be chaotic, but it's not designed to permit people to go indulge themselves.
I have the most horribly ominous feeling about this.
Section 6 Entry 0005. Date: 2004 March 11 Thursday.
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The Big Boss has been getting us new recruits, not all of whom make effective workers. There's a headless body, for example, which wanders round in helpless circles, bumping into things. I don't know whether the Big Boss really thought it could do productive work or whether he's frantically trying to keep up the numbers in an effort to keep Higher Powers from inquiring into the increasingly depopulated state of our department.
Another new addition is a guy in a dress who moved into Rumsfeld's old cubicle today.
"Hi," he said. "I'm Martha Stewart."
Then he looked at me expectantly, evidently waiting for some kind of response. Actually, I didn't much want to talk. Since I've lost my tongue, communicating has become a real hassle.
"Martha Stewart," he repeated, impatiently.
"Who?" I said.
At first he didn't get it. Speaking without a tongue is an uphill battle, and the word sounded like a wounded frog trying desperately to escape from my throat. But then Hell's erratic short-range telepathy kicked in, and he got the message, more or less.
"You know," he said.
"Haven't a clue," I said, honestly, helping out my mutilated articulation with some hand gestures.
"You know," he said. "The woman who sold her shares."
I didn't know you could go to Hell for selling your stock holdings. But then, despite having been here in Hell for quite some time, I can't yet claim to be much of a theologian.
"Right now," said the man, "I'm the most important news story on planet Earth."
That didn't make any sense at all. From the garbled rumors that have been drifting around recently, I've been under the impression that planet Earth is the locus of a war on terror, with terrorists blowing up nuclear power stations, assassinating the president's dog, hijacking aircraft carriers, stuff like that.
And all that's supposedly been shoved to one side by the story of Martha the Stock Seller?
Something's gone nuts here, either planetary civilization or the guy in the dress. On the balance of probabilities, it has to be the guy in the dress. I told him so, at which point he became noisily upset, which drew the attention of the Big Boss, which soon settled him down.
I have no idea who he really is. He still insists on being called "Martha."
Section 6 Entry 0006. Date: 2004 March 13 Saturday.
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Today Martha (as our green guy still insists on being called) asked why we don't form a labor union. Yeah, that's right, a labour union. Right here in Hell. When he asked the question, we were in the middle of a five-minute break, having worked nonstop for the previous forty-eight hours.
"You can't have a labour union in Hell," I said.
(Or, more exactly, wrote - with my tongue gone, it's easier to scribble things on bits of cardboard than try to articulate.)
"Why not?" said Martha. "Is there a rule against it?"
That was an extremely irritating question because I didn't know the answer. Anyway, there must be a rule. Martha tried to pursue the point, but our break was over.
Finally, just after three o'clock this afternoon, the Big Boss told us we could go home. I think the reason for this was that our telephones were starting to explode. (Opinions differ, but I don't think exploding telephones are one of the torments of Hell. I think they're just symptomatic of the fact that the equipment we have to work with is utter crap, if you'll pardon the expression.)
"Well, great," said Martha. "We could go to a bar or something."
"No thanks," I said.
"We could get drunk," said Martha. "Then go to one of those caterpillar places."
I shuddered. I really did. If I was ever to stoop so low as to go to a caterpillar joint, I'd want to go alone, in total secrecy. I wouldn't want anyone to know about it, least of all this weird guy Martha.
"I'm going home," I said.
"Come to a bar," said Martha. "And I'll tell you the story of Janet Jackson's breast. You guys haven't heard about that yet, have you? It's hot news."
Now, the last thing I wanted was to hear a creepy story about some woman who, from the way Martha was talking, only had one breast. As for it being hot news, well, what Martha doesn't seem to understand - and a lot of green guys have trouble wrapping their head round this point - is that once you've been in Hell for a while you don't really care all that much about the Former World.
Earthquakes, Ebola fever, famine, flood, war - it's all the same to me. Just background noise, really. And it's so repetitive. Nothing never new really happens back on planet Earth. Unlike Hell, which can get quite inventive sometimes.
"Tell you what," I said, "why don't you ask Big Boss to go drinking with you? He likes to go to bars."
"The Big Boss?" said Martha. "You mean, the ogre thing? But he was - he was violent to me."
"That's in work time," I said. "Outside work hours, he's completely different. Plus, he knows all the best caterpillar pieces. He's a fan. He can get you a discount."
That was, more or less, a joke. I didn't for a moment expect Martha to take me seriously. Anyway, I exited the building. Or tried to. Fact is, my elevator got stuck. A regular occurrence, but this time it was only twenty minutes before the elevator got moving again.
As I was leaving the building, I saw two figures walking down the street ahead of me. One was wearing a dress, so I think it must have been Martha. The other, unmistakably, was the Big Boss. Maybe it took Martha all of twenty minutes or so to annoy the Big Boss sufficiently for him to get in the mood for some recreational punishment.
I felt a bit guilty - a really useless emotion, because what's the point of having a conscience if you're already marooned in Hell for the rest of eternity? Anyway, what's done is done, and it will be interesting to see what Martha has to say for himself if he survives his session with the Big Boss.
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