Writing Personal Inferno

[Claire]

[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="1"]This is pretty much the best assignment I've ever received in all my thirteen years of schoolin'. We just read Dante's [U]The Inferno[/U] in my AP Lit class, and now we have to write our own. The only requirement is that we have to have nine sins and at least two sinners per circle. I have complete creative freedom over who is my guide, where my Inferno is set, the sins, the sinners, and the punishments.

So here we go.[/SIZE]

[B]Canto I: Whoops.[/B]
My room is stifling. I can’t think. And it’s a beautiful day for once, so I walk outside, hop on my mom’s bicycle, and pedal towards nowhere in particular. Everything is the same as it has always been: duller than a plastic spoon. I wonder why I ever expect a neighborhood bike ride to be entertaining. And then I approach the empty lot.

Which has suddenly somehow turned into a forest.

So of course I clutch the handlebar brakes and nearly somersault to my death with the momentum. I stare for a moment, then nudge the bike’s kick stand and dismount. I can’t pass up this phenomenon. I step between two thick trees, and I don’t even realize I am falling until I have landed in another world.

I hardly have any time to feel the force of impact before a strange noise from above grabs my attention. I see shreds of daylight disappearing as the ground-turned-ceiling stitches itself together, like wounded skin. The pitch blackness that remains feels like sleep.

As I am still conscious, however, the inevitable panic sets in. I grab my phone out of my jeans pocket and open it to bathe the area in dim blue light. To my front is a rock wall. Ditto left, right, and behind. It curves around and meets itself, forming a perfect circle. I am in a dry well. To my relief, my sense of humor is still intact - I immediately want to scream for Lassie.

Instead, I scan the circular shaft for some kind of ladder, or maybe a door. When my weak flashlight shows nothing, I grasp at the stone walls in hopeful desperation. I pass over every inch of stone I can touch, and I fly away in disgust as my hand brushes over something warm, soft, and bumpy.

“Excuse you!”

The indignant nasally voice bounces in every direction, and the only thing keeping me from screaming is the fear of throwing up.

“Who’s there?” I manage through my growing nausea.

“I should say the same!” the voice scoffs. “Who do you think you are? It’s awfully rude to grab somebody!”

Despite my better judgment, I direct my phone towards whatever it was that I touched, and I can hardly comprehend what appears. Stemming from the wall are five gnarled, clammy hands, positioned together in a way that resembles a ghoulish face. The eyes are formed by two pairs of forefingers and thumbs shaping an oblong “o,” giving a comical expression of anger. Two more hands become a down turned mouth, and a fist in the middle is a bulbous nose.

I swallow my disbelief and acknowledge what feels like déjà vu.

Aren’t you going to say something?” the face demands, the mouth hands moving in perfect sync. I’m wondering where the voice is coming from. It seems rude to ask, though, so I try to come up with something else.

“I’m sorry…” I begin. I am speechless.

The face turns joyously upward, and raucous laughter erupts all around me in many different voices. I don’t have to move to know what I would see behind me, but out of curiosity….

The entire shaft is covered with decrepit hands, all grouped together, all creating unique, horrible faces. I wonder why I am not completely mortified, and why I feel like I have encountered this before.

“What is there to be sorry for?” asks one face. I ponder my response, but have no time to speak:

“The poor child is confused!”

“She didn’t even land on her head.”

“What a marvelous occurrence!”

“Quiet!” the first face snaps. I give it my attention.

It continues: “Now, you can obviously not stay here, but you are incapable of getting yourself out. We have no choice but to lift you to the top.”

I hear some cries of protest, but I can’t join in before I find myself rising up the shaft. The voices groan and laugh as the hands shove me higher and higher. Then I realize:

“The ceiling is solid!” I struggle in their rough grips. “Stop!” And to my surprise, they do.

“We will have to let go.”

I tense up. “No, that’s a bad idea.”

Then my stomach flies into my throat as I drop down. But there is no bone-shattering impact when I should hit the floor. I land on something soft, I bounce. Then there is more laughter, but this is not mean or ghastly. It’s oddly familiar, comforting.

“Are you alright?”

I open my eyes and I’m in a room lit red by torches. The walls are papered, the floors tiled. There is a small wooden desk and tall filing cabinets, and a gigantic steel door behind that. Below me is a gargantuan mattress, and to my right…

A cloaked figure is kneeling. As a scream wells up within me, the reaper pulls back its hood to reveal shimmering blonde hair, vibrant blue eyes, and a flawless white smile. Star-struck, I convulse.

Ellen laughs again. “It’s nice to meet you too!”

I try to maintain a decent level of calm; after all, I’ve already seen some extremely bizarre things. Why wouldn’t Ellen Degeneres show up? That’s a better thing to wonder. All the same, I clamp my mouth shut before the squeal escapes.

“So, you’re wondering what is going on right now,” she says. “Basically, I am your tour guide. Come on, we don’t have time to waste.”

She grabs me by the hand and helps me stand up, then catches me as my legs buckle from the residual shock. I’ve got to speak sometime, so I do:

“My tour guide through what?”

She reaches under the desk, and there is a loud beep. Air hisses around the steel door as it slowly swings outward. What lies beyond it is total darkness.

“Hell,” she answers matter-of-factly.



[B]Canto II: Act Appalled.[/B]
Of course I panic. Disbelief, no longer suspended.

“Hell!?”

Her bright smile does not falter. She looks like she is about to bestow some spectacular gift on her studio audience, not transport someone undeserving into the inferno. Or at least I don’t feel like I deserve this. Sure, I’ve bent the law a few times, but only out of carelessness. I never meant any harm. I am made up of flaws, but stitched together with good intentions. I am not a bad person.

She, however, is telepathic. “Don’t worry! It’s just a tour. You won’t be here for long.”

I am still very upset with this turn of events. My feet are anchored to the floor and my interior organs are MIA. Ellen’s miraculous presence does nothing to soften the ominous image of hell.

“Look, I know this doesn’t make any sense to you, but you just gotta roll with the punches.” She does a little dance, gently beats the air. “I will explain everything as we go along.”

And as if I am standing on a conveyor belt, I move forward without trying. The lobby-like room disappears behind me and the door closes. I am alone in the dark. The atmosphere is very reminiscent of Disney World’s Space Mountain: the sluggishness of the moving floor, the total blackness. The anticipation of the first harrowing descent.

“Can’t see a thing….”

The narrow walls sprout lit torches and flood the hallway with an orange glow. There is nothing else to see. I notice that I am no longer in motion, and I wonder if I had been at all. The thought makes my head spin. Ellen vaporizes by my side, perpetually cheerful, as if to suppress my fears.

“How’s that? Not so bad, right?”

I am silent as she leads the way. The reality is starting to set in: I am being led through hell by Ellen Degeneres. And I can’t think of anything to say. So I simply follow.

“Now, what we are going to do is pass through each circle, and at the very end you will be transported back home. Just think of it as a vacation. Think of it as sight-seeing.”

I try to envision this, but I am stuck on the fire and brimstone picture of my destination. Not much else to look at. Maybe some roasting corpses here and there, lots of tortured wailing. Like a trolley tour through World War II. For some reason, I just cannot get excited.

Suddenly, the hallway dissipates, and we are standing in another circular shaft. This one is much larger than the one that got me into this mess, though, and is somehow sky-lighted. I can clearly see yet another giant door, and the oh-so-cliché inscription above it:

[I]ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.[/I]

“Don’t mind that,” Ellen says, pointing at the message. “It’s really only for the people who are checking in permanently, but the boss thought adding that in would make it less effective.”

She reiterates: “You have nothing to worry about.”

Unfortunately, I find the warning impossible to brush off. I am pretty sure several of my blood vessels burst from the pressure of my terror, like shoddy water pipes. I am verklempt. Something suddenly obscures the light from above, and my senses vanish.

---

[SIZE="1"]It's a work in progress, but I can promise that it will get done because I have to turn it in, like, Tuesday. Eeep[/SIZE].[/FONT]

[Claire]

[font=arial][B]Canto III: Mute.[/B]

I regain consciousness before I can realize that I had even lost it. Upon awakening, I expect the air around me to be hot and dry, entrenched with the screams of suffering every depiction of hell is famous for. But I have been on a losing streak lately. Nothing I have predicted so far has come true, and this is no exception.

I am lying on my side next to a crystal clear pond, full of shiny little fish and floral lily pads. A slight breeze nudges the green discs along the surface of the water and stirs the blades of grass below me, tickling my arms. The serenity of the scene fills me first with carefree calm, then total bamboozlement.

There is no way in hell that this is hell.

“Welcome back,” Ellen says, appearing overhead. She has abandoned her underworld snuggie and is looking quite sharp in her charcoal sweater vest and vegan sneakers. As I look up at her, I can see that the sky is the color of rust. I wonder how there is a sky underground.

She pulls me to my feet once again, and I am suddenly embarrassed. I apologize, and she, of course, laughs. Perhaps I should feel a certain pride in amusing Ellen DeGeneres this much.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Everyone swoons right about now. I think there is something in the air.”

My heart nearly leaps out of my chest as what appears to be a ginormous golden dragonfly flitters across my field of vision. I am such a girl. Then I notice that the insect has tiny human arms, tiny human legs, and wispy platinum hair. It whirls around and is wearing an expression of distant fantasy on its tiny human face. I am all the more stupefied.

Ellen has no interest in the itsy-bitsy fairy and has already started walking again. “Ready to see the first circle?”

“No.”

More of the creatures materialize over the pond, fluttering around aimlessly. Ellen glances at the ethereal cluster as if it was as common as a cold. I begin to ask her to explain the things to me, then gasp as a pinprick stinging attacks my hand. As I lift my arm to examine the pain, a fairy floats up and away, cackling maniacally.

“Careful. They’ll getcha.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I frown, turning to face her. “What are they, anyway?”

“You know those people who are just too boring to exist?” she asks. A few nameless faces pop into my mind, and I smirk. “This is where they go. It’s not really deserving of an actual punishment, so they get turned into fairies.”

I try to make sense of that symbolic retribution, then remember what exactly is going on right now and decide that it would be a waste of brainpower. I turn to face the mammoth wall of the inferno.

The entrance is, surprise surprise, a set of massive double doors with a numeral one nailed into each. Ellen stands directly in front of them and casually waves her hand, and the doors obediently open up. She gives me another reassuring smile, then leads the way into the labyrinth. My déjà vu returns, tugging on my brain.

“The first circle is only a short walk away,” she says, turning to the left without hesitation. At this point, I have lost the will to exercise my disbelieving reluctance.

“What kind of people are there?” I ask her.

She whirls, heads straight for a wall, and somehow passes through. Shock and awe, blah blah blah. I imitate her nervously with my arms outstretched to prevent my nose from smashing into the stones. It turns out there is a subtle opening into another passageway. I am filled with relief that my guide knows exactly what she’s doing.

However, she does not answer my question as we continue. Left turns, right turns, red fish, blue fish. I am passively impatient. Finally, we walk through one last opening and are standing on the top row of a deep amphitheatre full of people. As I recognize a few faces, I fall to my knees with the force of my hysterics.

“Fall Out Boy?!” I choke, giggling like a maniac.

The quartet sits nearby, their heads hanging miserably. I am utterly delighted. Then I notice the other fantastic inhabitants: Hilary Duff, Kevin Federline, Miley Cyrus (or Hannah Montana, I have no idea). I see every horrible grunge core band I have ever heard of, every loathsome nu-metal group. Practically everyone who has received recent radio play is here and they are positively forlorn.

“Circle One: the world’s worst musicians,” Ellen explains.

I am obviously in hell, but I feel like I am secretly in heaven.

We descend the lofty steps, passing each wretched soul that has ever caused my eardrums physical pain. I was not expecting it to get any better, but refer to my track record. The moment we reach the bottom of the theatre, the corners of my lips almost meet in the back of my head. It’s not the Marshall stacks flanking the stage or the presence of gorgeous alpine white Gibson Les Pauls and onyx Fender jazz basses filling me with such evil joy, it’s Chad Kroeger clutching a black acoustic to his chest as if it were his baby. It’s Fred Durst strewn across the floor, his face contorted in agony.

Although I do wonder what is so painful to them, so I ask.

Ellen explains: “On earth, every sound they made was tragic. Now they are completely mute.”

Kroeger glares at us, his soulless eyes full of hatred. He opens his mouth wide, beats the guitar strings fervently. Silence. I can’t rationalize the absence of noise, but it pleases me nonetheless. The jerk gives up, looks away in despair.

Ellen approaches with one of the beautiful ivory Les Pauls and sets it in my hands, an expectant look on her face.

“Play something.”

So I do. The strings are gossamer under my fingers, and the clean melody that swells from the amplifiers sounds far too perfect to have been my doing.Without being told, I assume that the punishment of muteness means these sinners can't even make an aided noise. The availability of such incredible equipment is salt for their wounds.

Fred Durst writhes, banging his fists on the ground, fat veins pulsing in his neck. Tears stream from his bloodshot eyes and his chest heaves with silent sobs. I imagine this was exact reaction of everyone who was foolish enough to try to listen to [I]Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water[/I]. [I]Serves you right[/I], I think.

Ellen takes the guitar from me and jokingly lays it on top of him, then gestures for me to follow her up the other side of the amphitheatre and out of the first circle.


[B]Canto IV: The Fool On The Hill.[/B]

The Labyrinth stretches on forever and ever. Each turn seems to place us back in the exact same walkway, and I feel like we are not really progressing at all. But Ellen perambulates tirelessly, not once hesitating or pausing to think. For a minute I wonder if she just doesn’t want to betray her own confusion.

She tries to make small talk along the way, but ‘m afraid I’m not much of a conversationalist. All I want to do is quote one of her jokes or gush over her personality, which are terrible ideas, so I keep quiet.

Before I can get overly frustrated at the apparent futility of our journey, the walls crumble away, and we come upon a grassy mound.

“Circle Two,” Ellen announces. She continues up and over the mound, which I find overlooks an expansive sea of rolling hills.

Which is totally out of place, but I am becoming immune to surprise.

People are tumbling down the slopes. We simply walk. As we near them I attempt to identify the faces, to determine the folly that landed them here. My stomach whines as I notice that every face is solid flesh from the nose down. Nobody has a mouth. I realize this is an unfortunate complex, but disfigurement of any kind is the stuff of my nightmares. My knees wobble.

Ellen pauses at the top of a high hill and glances around. “So what do you think?”

I am startled as one of the tumblers dashes in front of me, waving her arms over her head and grunting unintelligibly. She is clad in a bejeweled blue gown, glittering uncontrollably in the sunlight, with a dainty diamond tiara atop her coiffed golden hair. Despite my queasiness, I hold back a chuckle at her dramatic make-up: blood-red lipstick shapes a crude grin where the mouth should be, but isn’t. Wrapped around her arm is a black band, a circle of question marks.

“Good morning, Miss South Carolina,” Ellen says. “Are you, like, and such as, today?”

The girl topples over, distraught. I have no idea what is going on.

I follow Ellen over the hills. Every person we pass is wearing the same arm band, staring up at us dejectedly and emitting muffled groans. I gasp as I recognize a group of kids, and though I don’t know their names, I know their English grades. Which are atrocious.

“Tell me what their sin is,” I ask. We approach another set of stone walls, the continuation of the Labyrinth.

“You know them well enough,” she replies. “These are the poster children for ignorance.

“In life, everything they said was horribly misinformed, or just plain stupid. They had every opportunity to learn, to become intelligent human beings, but they ignored it. Here, they have no mouths to express their worthless thoughts.”

Upon re-entering the Labyrinth, a heavy stone door shoots from the wall and closes us in. The sudden seriousness of the situation feels like a shift in barometric pressure.

“They wear their ignorance on their sleeves like a badge,” she sighs, then faces forward.


[B]Canto V: Children.[/B]

Guess what we come upon next:

A DOOR! Two of them, actually, complete with mutant guardsmen. The creatures peek their doggish faces over body-sized shields - one red, one blue - and snicker to themselves, then duck into hiding. Lather, rinse, repeat.

“One of these things just isn’t like the others,” one says, peering out from behind his shield. They have a giggle fit. I am un-amused.

Ellen stands in front of the blue guard, waving her hand for him to step aside. “Alright, enough. Let us through.”

The dogman looks down into his armor and hisses a whisper, then returns.

“I can’t! I don’t have the authority.”

Ellen groans, then faces the red guard. “We would like to go through this door, if you don’t mind.”

He converses with the inside of his shield, just as the first guard did, then says: “Why are ye asking me? I’m not guarding that door, he is!”

I have a desperate urge to rip their halberds out of their paws and, in one fell swoop, put a little sunlight between their heads and their bodies. Before I can act on this desire, a third head appears hanging upside down under the blue guard’s shield, sneering to the best of his canine ability.

“If it’s this door ye be wanting to enter, ye’d best ask me!”

Laugh, laugh, laugh. Ellen grits her teeth: [I]“May we please pass through here?”[/I]

The laughter ceases, and the dog people assume an air of responsibility. The blue guard jabs the ground with his halberd twice, then stands aside as the door behind him rolls into the wall. Ellen looks at me, beckons, [I]after you[/I].

The second I step through the doorway, I am falling once again, with dust and shards of wood swirling around me. I land on my feet and stumble forward in the darkness, falling to my hands.

“I’m sorry!” Ellen shouts from above. I want to say I’m fine, but I am not certain. I hear footsteps behind me, then the room lights up. She extends a hand to assist me, the other clutching a torch.

“I didn’t realize that the staircase wouldn’t be able to withstand your living matter. Are you alright?”

I decide that I am, even though I am suddenly very self-conscious.

As I take in my new surroundings, the word oubliette randomly filters into my mind. The déjà vu is unshakeable. We are in a small, unfurnished cavern, pervaded by a dank, musty odor. Echoes of distant voices bounce off the walls.

Ellen gives me a moment to settle down, then leads the way through a tunnel. The voices swell in volume as we approach the source. The tunnel very shortly opens up into a much larger cave, full of shrieking children.

I stop. I step back. And I would turn and bolt in the opposite direction if Ellen wasn’t in the way.

“I can’t do this!” I insist.

“We have to keep moving forward.”

And then we are in the middle of the shrieking mob. The noise is amplified to an unbearable level, shaking my entire frame, setting fire to my eardrums. The children run in circles, chasing each other, jumping up and down and, to my immobilizing horror, speedily gliding on their hateful Heelies. I want to cry.

“This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” I say through a tightly clenched jaw. “Can we please hurry out of here?”

A brat brusquely skates passed me, runs over a small pebble, and flies into a wall. The intolerable screeching does not cease.

Ellen takes my hand and breaks into a jog, hugging the side of the cavern. The youngins pursue us, their dirty sticky hands poised to grab and tear at us, their maws hanging open hungrily. I prepare to scream bloody murder out of fear, then find myself floating up and away from the wolves. We land safe and sound on a platform a good ten feet up from the danger. I fall to my knees with relief.

Then a different kind of shouting attacks my ears. I reluctantly look towards the source and am nearly flattened when I see at least half of my drama class circled around us, belting the most irritating songs they could possibly think of.

[I]WE GO TOGETHER LIKE RAMA LAMA LAMA LAMA DINGETY DING DA DONG![/I]

My lungs shrivel up, my ribs disintegrate, and my soul prepares to eject itself from my body. Ellen, still clinging to my hand for dear life, yanks me to my feet and practically drags me away from the ring of demons. Their screaming still pelts me like hailstones the size of softballs - I can literally feel bruises forming all over my body. Then we find refuge in another tunnel. For half a second.

“Look out!” Ellen exclaims.

I am thrown against the wall face first. Something huge rolls right through where I had been only a short moment ago, and I turn my head in time to see the detestable black-haired girl, dancing wildly in the tunnel’s opening, get flattened by a massive boulder.

Silence has never been so beautiful.

Ellen and I slide to the ground, panting heavily. She quickly regains her composure as I blink away the post-traumatic tears.

“The third circle is for the most obnoxious people in the world, obviously,” she says, standing up. “That’s why it’s overrun with children.”

Which makes perfect sense, honestly. I can’t help but smile at the thought of there being a circle of hell just for annoying little twerps. And drama class? That is beyond fantastic. But something doesn’t seem right. None of them showed signs of being in pain. They were enjoying themselves. What was their retribution?

She reads my mind again: “The punishment is that they have to stay in each other’s company for all of eternity. That is truly bad enough.”

I decide to just take her word for it. Then I am overcome with immense dread: this circle was more hellish than anything I’ve encountered, and they are supposed to increase in terror as we near the end. How could anything be more frightening than a room full of bloodthirsty children singing songs from [I]Grease[/I]?

There is no time to dwell on the anxiety: Ellen motions for me to follow and strides forth.


[B]Canto VI: Creeps Me Out.[/B]

After ascending a ladder, we climb out of a giant vase and end up on top of the Labyrinth. My heart sinks as the serpentine walls twist in every direction for what looks like miles and miles. A gothic castle rises out of the center, surrounded by a thick black miasma. I can only assume that is the ninth circle. We have such a long way to go.

And Ellen wastes no time. We head down a stair case and jump right back into the maze. And we walk. And we walk. And we walk.

And then we stop.

The stone walls turn into glass, reveal a veritable ecosystem full of bright green shrubbery and vines on the other side. I half-expect to see various fauna prancing about, as if we were passing through a zoo.

I feel like I am being watched.

“Circle Four.”

Still recovering from the horror of the third circle, I move without picking up my feet. My mind is telling me to not look into the terrarium, and I try to obey for my own best interest. But nothing prevents me from seeing the googly eyes peeping out from a bush. I am too tired to scream.

Instead, I stare straight at them, glaring. How dare you look at me, you filthy creep! Go away! He emerges.

“Holy--”

He presses his rotund body against the glass, his tongue darting in and out of his mouth. Oily splotches are left wherever his spotty skin touches. He is wearing a tuxedo.

A tuxedo.

Horror and disgust propel me backwards against the opposite pane of glass, which of course is a mistake. I feel something hit the other side of the window, and without even seeing it I fling myself away. The pale, lanky body slithers, bony fingers twitching with desire. Bright red lips smush against the barrier, opening and closing, revealing his wretched teeth. Oh god, his teeth. I force myself to look away.

These are the perverts that spent so much time stalking one of my closest friends, but even though they never bothered me, I am sickened by their nastiness. I want to take my skin off and put it through a high-powered washing machine.

Ellen is aware of my distress, and she hastens away from the reptilian lurkers. I focus on the exit up ahead, but I catch a glimpse of something sparkly and dazzling, and can’t help but look at it. At this point, surprise is a dull pain in my gut.

Edward Cullen, the heartthrob vampire, the king of creepers, is prostrate on the ground, absorbing and reflecting rays of sunlight. He looks like he rolled around in glitter glue. There is lustful hunger in his dead black eyes as he gapes at me, and I am happy to say I am immune to his stupid supernatural spell.

The instant we return to the stone pathway of the Labyrinth, I explode into uncontainable laughter. Something about the aftertaste of pure fear is absolutely hysterical. Ellen chuckles.

“Those were obviously the creeps,” she says as I strain to calm down. “I can’t really explain why they kinda turn into snakes. It makes them a whole lot creepier.”

My madness slips away, and in its absence I am once again overwhelmed with emotion. I take deep breaths. But the ground comes up to meet me anyway.[/font]

[Claire]

[font=arial]
[B]Canto VII: You Wouldn't Like Me.[/B]

By the time I awaken, Ellen has already lugged me all the way to the outskirts of the fifth circle. I can already hear the anguished shouts. Oh boy!

“You’ve used up all your swoon tokens,” Ellen jokes. “No more fainting, okay?”

“A’ight.”

The walkway turns left, and then widens to allow for the accommodation of the next batch of sinners. I am hoping and praying with all of my heart that they are not as horrifying as the last two circles had been. Then I see them.

The Brain Trust is hanging upside down, their feet bound together by a thick rope and attached to who knows what up in the weird underground sky. A couple of them are spinning around helplessly because of some physics mumbo jumbo that they would certainly be more than happy to explain, regardless of whether or not you care to hear it, if they were in a better position.

Running around below them are armored midgets, wielding staves with some kind of fetal looking sharp-toothed monster attached to the top. The goblins shriek with delight as they apply their demon sticks to the inverted sinners, letting the creatures sink their micro-sized fangs into their skin.

This is fantastic.

“Circle Five,” Ellen says. “Jerks.”

As there is not much else to see, we begin to walk towards the exit. Then I see another hanging man, not much taller than the runts tormenting the others. There is something strangely familiar about his receding hairline, his pointed nose. His ancient, swanky blue army uniform.

Napoleon. Wouldn’t you know it.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to relish his presence. We enter another walkway, this time boxed in by giant hedges, and continue on our voyage.


[B]Canto VIII: Skeptics and True Believers[/B]

Very shortly after leaving the fifth circle, we hike up another flight of stairs and encounter what looks to be an impossibly large cauldron, filled to the brim with a dark brown liquid. I want to say that I can smell the aroma of a delectable vegetable broth, but as I can’t be positive that the bulky chunks floating in the stew are actually vegetables, I am very hesitant to enjoy the scent.

To confirm my suspicions, the liquid begins to bubble, and up from the depths comes a human head. Fortunately, it is still connected to a set of broad shoulders, which are still connected to arms and a stomach and, as far as I can tell, the rest of a perfectly put together body.

Unfortunately, it is Tom Cruise.

“I thought we were done with the jerks?” I ask Ellen, stepping away from the edge of the cauldron. She laughs.

“This circle is for people who would belong with the jerks if they weren’t so severe about it. They became famous for their extreme viewpoints and forced their wacky beliefs on everyone they met.”

Cruise swims after us, his eyes set in anger.

“What do you think of psychiatry?” he shouts, gripping the cauldron with white knuckles. “It’s a Nazi science!”

“Get back in the soup!” Ellen says, nudging his fingers with her shoe.

I experience great relief as we walk around the vat; these sins are not anywhere near as horrible as obnoxiousness or creepiness. Though I completely understand why they are ranked as much worse.

There is a manic looking blonde lady in the center of the stew, clinging to a chunk of potato as if it were a life preserver.

“God said the world is yours!” she shrieks. “Take it! Rape it! It’s yours!”

I know I have heard that before, but where? I focus on the woman and try to recognize her. She continues screaming.

“Invade their countries, kill their leaders, convert them to Christianity! Liberals are driven by Satan and lie constantly! I’m here, I’m not queer, and I’m not going away!”

She sees Ellen and me and turns into a howler monkey, spitting out the most vile, offensive slander I have ever heard. Perhaps I should be enraged, indignant. I am really just perplexed.

Ellen scowls and ignores the hate vomit, then pulls me away from the cauldron. We descend another stair case and return to the hedge maze, though the woman’s outrageous cries are still perfectly audible.

“I can’t figure out who that was,” I say, racking my brain.

“It’s probably better that way.”

I sigh. “Well, now it’s going to bother me. Will you at least explain to me why they were floating in a pot of soup?”

“They liked to ‘stir the pot,’ so to speak. Now they are in a pot, being stirred.”

I suddenly wonder who exactly is in charge of coming up with the punishments for the sinners, because his sense of humor is fabulous. I want to be his friend.

[B]Canto IX: We're All Thieves[/B]

I swear we have been walking for days and days. The weird underground sun floats lazily near the ground, diffusing the sepia sky with a natural red glow. It serves as a reminder that time is somehow still passing, and I feel mild anxiety creeping up on me. How long have I been gone from the real world?

As the sun sinks lower and lower, my apprehension turns to panic. We haven’t even reached the seventh circle yet, and we still have a long way to go before I can depart this hell. And I have school in the morning.

“How much longer is this going to take?” I ask, squinting as we turn back into the bloated sun.

“We’re in the seventh circle now,” she says. Before she can go on, she is tackled to the ground by a man in a light grey suit.

“Sorry!” he stammers, scrambling to his feet. A crinkly piece of beige paper with a diagram of a labyrinth trembles in his hands and he stares at it determinedly. He doesn’t bother to help her up. The man hurries away, glancing up for a second, then hunching over his map again as he disappears.

I blink. “Was that Richard Nixon?”

Ellen nods, brushing the dirt off of her jeans. Another figure rounds the corner, this time a rather short girl dressed head to toe in flamboyant rags. Her wild, mousy hair erupts from a purple and green hound’s-tooth bandana, and a violin is hung around her shoulders like a weapon. I instantly recognize her malicious grin.

“Dolly!” I exclaim, dumbfounded.

“Did a bumbling old president come through here?” she asks, ignoring me. Her eyes show no flash of recognition when she looks at me. I am upset.

“He went that-a-way,” Ellen says, pointing after Nixon. Dolly cackles gleefully and chases after him. I look to Ellen for an explanation.

“That wasn’t really your friend,” she says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Just a doppelganger. “

I try to feel better, but nothing happens. We resume navigating the Labyrinth and quickly come upon another sinner. He is tall and stout, covered in black and white stripes and an oversized fedora. A black cloth mask obscures his eyes, and Chiclet teeth protrude from his upper lip.

The Hamburglar faces us with a glint of starvation in his beady black eyes, squeezing a small box for dear life between his cartoonish hands.

“Please!” he cries, absorbing the box with the folds of his stomach. “Don’t take my Happy Meal!”

I life my hands to show him I don’t want it. In the blink of an eye, a raggedy boy pops out from behind him and easily yanks the box out of the Hamburglar’s grasp, then dashes up the wall with great ease. The Hamburglar lets out an anguished yelp and thrusts himself against the wall, scratching at the stones. The gypsy boy stands there giggling, ripping the box apart to get to the greasy food.

We move on. I have seen enough to know that the sin of this circle is thievery, and I can see the gist of the punishment, but to be completely sure I ask Ellen to confirm my beliefs:

“It isn’t just thieves. There are liars and cheaters here, too. They’ve been allowed to keep their most valuable possessions just so gypsies can steal them, or trick them into trading them for trick maps of the Labyrinth.”

This sheds light on the presence and costume of Dolly’s double: there is a running joke in her circle of friends that she is actually a gypsy. I smirk at the humor. Then, I am moderately astounded when we come upon more of my friends. Sarah stands in the middle of the walkway, holding a cell phone to her ear - uselessly, as I have already determined that Hell offers absolutely no reception. Behind her is sweet, innocent Kayla, decked out in convincing gypsy gear, stealthily removing things from the Vera Bradley bag slung around Sarah’s shoulder.

“Hi,” Sarah says when she notices me. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Kayla turns and leaps over the wall, her arms full of make-up items and electronic devices. The noise catches Sarah’s attention, and Ellen pulls me away as she is distracted.

“She just wanted attention, so she started cheating on every test,” Ellen tells me.

That Sarah. She’s crazy.

We are halted by another set of doors, each bearing a ghoulish brass face with a heavy ring clamped in each mouth. Ellen picks one and knocks three times, and the door magically swings open.

“We’re almost done,” she smiles warmly.


[B]Canto X: Disarm[/B]

Beyond the circle of dishonesty is a dark forest, permeated by the low, lurid light of the evening sun. Ellen cautions me to watch my step, as the debris littered ground could break open into a pit any moment. I swallow nervously, and there is an icky dry substance in the back of my throat.

We progress slowly through the woods, encircled by the relentless singing of crickets. Each step is deliberate, careful, paranoid. It is hopefully all in my mind, but I could swear the misty air is visibly swirling before my eyes, like some kind of hazy kaleidoscope. Then I look at Ellen’s ever pleasant face, I see pure omniscience in her azure eyes, and I am immediately comforted.

For half a second.

My skin shrinks as a creature bursts from behind a tree. Its sinewy limbs sway with a kind of uncertainty, a too big tunic billows around its too small body. I notice shoots of straw poking out from its pointy hat and the holes in its clothing. The scarecrow beams at me with its painted face, black bean eyes displaying no emotion. It leans to the side, unbalanced, and reaches for me with its bean sprout arms.

Ellen slides in between us and flicks her hand at it. “Shoo!”

The painted mouth fizzles into a frown as the thing stumbles backwards. Several more scarecrows bound out from nowhere, all wearing the same patchy black scowl. The first scarecrow goes unnoticed and lays helplessly on his back as the others trample him. Their straw-filled feet get caught on his mass, and they tumble to the ground. I frantically work to remember where I have seen this before.

I then realize that there are even more scarecrows nailed to almost every tree, squirming weakly to get free. Above every head is a wooden sign with messy black lettering; the one nearest me reads “VLAD THE IMPALER.” The rugged creature is nearly indistinguishable from the others, save for two small fangs drawn below his mouth line. I can’t help but grin at this.

“Circle Eight is for those who were ruined by their own unbridled violence,” Ellen states, gripping my shoulders and directing me away from the heap of sinners. “They used their bodies to inflict physical pain on the people around them, so they have been relinquished of them and transformed into scarecrows. Now they can hardly stand upright on their own, those that aren’t stuck to the trees, much less actually hurt anything.”

The free sinners are falling upon each other, pulling on their neighbors’ limp limbs. Without muscles, they only succeeding in knocking themselves over backwards. Ivan the Terrible watches us from a tree, his potato sack skin horribly wrinkled, his lifeless eyes droopy. Next to him, to my great surprise, is Chris Brown, thrashing madly about. I glower at him, embittered by his recent actions which undoubtedly placed him in this circle. I am overcome with the urge to hurl rocks at him, to shove sticks into his cloth body, to tear his straw arms off at their stitches and throw them higher into the tree.

But I don’t. I am better than that.

The forest dissipates as we reach an elevated wall covered in ivy. There is nothing to do but climb. I have little to no upper body strength and scaling the wall is a lot more work than I was interested in doing, so as soon as we reach the top I hurl myself over the edge and lay there, immobile.

I deeply regret lacking the strength to plug my nose with my hand, because the air up here is absolutely putrid. It’s as if all the most offensive odors in the world gathered together in unholy matrimony; it is almost worse than the stench that filled the patio area at school the day the construction crew decided to empty their porta-potties during our lunch hour. I gag at both the memory and the reality.

Ellen forces me up and down a flight of stairs, her own hand covering her face tightly. The smell worsens. At the bottom of the wall is a vile green pond, bubbling with putrescence. There is malodorous fog rising from its surface. And I am ready to die.

We sprint around the foul bog, over a rickety wooden bridge (I ignore my irrational fear of such things and make a speedy crossing), and are soon safe from the horrible smell. I want to ask Ellen what its purpose is, but I find that I honestly don’t care to know. I am just happy to be able to breathe again - I suck in sweet fresh air in massive gulps.

We are now in a junkyard, various trinkets piled high like mountains. The air is thick and dark in a strange way. My heartbeat increases as I realize how close we are to the wicked castle, the ninth and final circle of hell. How close we are to the very end. I don’t know whether I am scared or excited, but I hope to goodness the emotions don’t knock me unconscious again. That would be rather embarrassing.


[B]Canto XI: Mad World[/B]

The miasma thickens, clogging every inch of space with its inky blackness. The trash heaps of the junkyard disappear in the void. I become disoriented by my lack of vision, my ears hum with dizziness. I hear some kind of mechanical racket, the clinking of thick chains. The haze itself seems to be emitting an eerie, unearthly sound, like warbling feedback from an overdriven speaker. The ghostly whistle crescendos as we walk blindly forward, reverberating through my entire torso. My bones are trembling, as if icy cold. However, I can’t determine whether the air around us is warm or cold. It feels stiff and dead. It feels like nothing.

Ellen’s hand closes around mine, and she gives it a supportive squeeze.

“Ready to see the ninth circle?”

No. “I guess I have no choice,” I say, resigned. My lower lip cracks, stings. My esophagus is silly string.

We suddenly step out of the murk and into a quaint city, built out of rocks and bricks. I exhale. My breath is black smoke.

Rough windows frame gaunt faces with sunken eyes, full of hatred as they follow us through the city. We walk by a dilapidated fountain that half-heartedly spits a stream of water into the air. Harsh white light blares down from tall, metal poles, sizzling with the powerful flow of electricity. Beyond the rudimentary houses is a great stone fence capped by a spiral of barbed wire. Nearby, a dog is barking with bloodthirsty rage.

The disconcerting scene has evolved Ellen’s caring touch into the interlocking of arms. Like a child, I fearfully walk as close to her as possible.

A living skeleton dashes across our path and trips, weeping as he falls. Ellen stops, I freeze in place. The emaciated man screams in protest towards the sky, extending his bony arm for protection. His plight is quickly revealed as a gigantic figure lands at his feet, poised to strike with a hefty whip in hand.

I try to swoon. I don’t care. I do not want to see the next frame.

Unfortunately, I remain conscious and flinch as the whip comes down, slicing the man’s already tattered clothes and teasing out a drop of blood. The giant winds up, strikes again. He is a slate colored Hercules with no defining features. His outline is smudgy, as if he were an animated oil painting. On his breast is a small badge, shaped like an arch. A rainbow.

Before I can gape in surprise, Ellen hustles around the attacker, her expression careworn. When we are a good distance away from the violence, my eyes are nearly ejected from my head with the force of my tears. My lungs contract as I sob uncontrollably, pulsing too fast for me to even think about regaining my composure.

“That man was Fred Phelps,” Ellen whispers, nudging me along despite my hysterical condition. She says nothing more.

What providence is this? The final circle of hell, home to homophobes.

The castle appears before us, looming ominously. I don’t want to enter. I have seen enough. The drawbridge lowers itself, and Ellen steers me inside. The room is lit by torches and vacant except for another withered man, hugging his knees at the foot of a staircase. His hair is pure white and sticks up in tufts, as if he had been pulling it out in consternation. I know his face well.

George W. Bush dives out of our way as we head for the stairs, screaming horrifically. He lands with his arms twisted behind his back; a grotesque rag doll. Another tormentor fades in from absolutely nowhere and proceeds to beat the wretch with a broom handle. His badge is the majestic head of a golden lion, muzzle wide open in the middle of a roar.

“What more is there to see?” I wonder, my voice straining with apprehension. “This is a nightmare.”

“It is hell,” Ellen says softly. “We are nearing the end now, there is just one more sinner to see. He is arguably the most horrible person who ever lived.”

A name scrolls across my mind, and I prepare myself to see…

At the top of the staircase is something almost wholly incomprehensible. There is no floor in this room other than the short platform leading away from our staircase. I look at one wall and feel as though I am standing sideways, seeing another staircase construct itself in an impossible direction. Another glance and I am upside down. I am inside out.

Hanging by chains in the center of the paradox is a wretched figure, nearly naked save for a red flag wrapped around his angular hips. His face is distorted in agony as grey giants fly around him, whips lashing in all directions. Despite my substandard eyesight, I can clearly distinguish yellow stars on their chests. Six points. And I don’t even need to see the sinner’s rectangular mustache to understand exactly what is going on.

Ellen explains it to me anyway: “Adolf Hitler, responsible for the death of over nine million people, all different ethnicities, religions, sexual persuasions. All of them seen as inferior because their skin wasn’t as white, their hair wasn’t fair. None of them deserving of the suffering his regime inflicted.”

I re-think my earlier assumption. “So the sin of this circle is intolerance?”

She nods, uncharacteristically somber.

As the gravity begins to set in, the scenery around me shatters like glass, and I am falling once again. Ellen’s arm flies free of my own, and she evaporates into the black void. Terror is a steel talon grabbing my heart, pulling it away to feed its chirping offspring. I have never been so afraid in my life. I have never felt so alone.


I awake with a start, my legs kicking on their own. I am in my bed, surrounded by the ambient red glow of the Christmas lights strung around my window. My senses slowly return: I feel my down comforter lying caddywhompus’d on top of me, I smell vanilla. A distant voice sings: [I]“I‘m coming up only to hold you under.”[/I]

I am home, in my bedroom. I jolt upright, baffled.

“You can’t fool me,” I whisper. “Everyone always wakes up in their own bed. You can’t expect me to believe that I dreamed that whole thing.”

There is no response, other than [I]“Really to late to call, so we wait for morning to wake you…”[/I]

I look around. I am the only person in the room. My computer rumbles in its sleep, sounding absolutely nothing like friendly laughter. The music, though decently emotional, is utterly lifeless, predetermined. I am alone.

[I]“At every occasion, I’ll be ready for the funeral.”[/I]

The lucidity of my memory softens, and the lunacy drains from my agitated brain. I smile to myself. I’m so silly. I stopped overtly believing in magic when I was ten years old. I stopped ready fantasy stories before I was a freshman in high school. I feel absolutely crazy for believing beyond a dream for even a second.

I decide that eating bananas before bed is a bad idea. And as I drop my head back onto my cozy pillow, I am overwhelmed with the desire to watch Labyrinth.

I laugh myself to sleep.

[center]THE END[/center][/font]