From Hell

I composed this story in its entirety. Any references to legitimate, living, people is strictly coincidental. Please enjoy "From Hell."

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    “The Bullshit of An Epiphany.” This was the title of the last article I wrote before I died. Call it poignant or fucking ironic, I can’t say I agree with either. I guess it just goes to say that our stories really are prewritten. And God (or Satan) decided that I would go out in style. But I have to say, I was wrong.

    If you manage to have an epiphany before you die, you are one lucky son of a bitch. If in the eighty such years the average person exists, they are able to marvel in something magnificent within themselves, I applaud them. The human mind is a glorious thing. It usually fails to see anything beyond the capacity of itself and the sack of flesh it controls. Hence, an epiphany is really overrated. Is it not just a fancy euphemism to explain how you discovered your own importance to this world? If I may humbly say, an epiphany is really the delayed gratification of realizing how insignificant you are in this world. How your life’s goal is to go to Africa and feed the skeletal infants. Or going to a convent to pledge your life to God. In essence, this incredible “epiphany” is a revelation that your life prior to that moment was all completely meaningless.

    Even so, you are still fortunate. To know your life’s purpose prior to your death is admirable.

    Truth is, if I could have had the opportunity, I would have taken it. To not know your life’s true calling is a sad thing. Death. A total bitch if you ask me.

God. How the living hell am I going to make it to dessert?

“So zen, I vent to zee fashion show… and eet vas magnifique!”

If I lost my sense of smell, THAT would be magnifique.

“And zen, zee models and me vent to ze club and vee zanced all night! You vould love eet!”

I’d love eet more if you drank a gallon of Listerine. 

         Every word was like someone stepping on multiple skunks and forcing you to smell their toes. Except it was worse. Because this broad gave you no downtime. No time to inhale before the next whiff. Bleu cheese is rancid on its own, but when nicely curdled with stomach acid and saliva, the choice between searing my nostrils shut and continuing the conversation was a difficult one.

My rich, medium-rare, peppercorn steak wasn’t as appealing as it used to be. I imagined her breath as if it was a barrage of shit shrapnel. Every time she opened her mouth, it was like the Nazis gassed the whole steak with bleu cheesy goodness.

         It’s a shame, because she was really quite attractive prior to the balsamic bleu cheese salad. Marie Bessette was her name. She was the French ambassador’s daughter, brought over here to strengthen her English skills. I was her “tutor,” although our lessons primarily entailed her telling me stories about her home in France and how fantastique her social life was. When she giggled, she showed slightly yellowed teeth-likely due to her long standing smoking addiction (I tried eet once, and like chocolat, I could nevare schtop) - but they strangely complemented her pale skin. She always played with her brown hair, twirling it, giving her mild waves in her long tresses. I actually felt obliged to help her-considering how much I was getting paid-but getting a mere sentence in would be a miracle on any day. Whenever I tried to interrupt her, she gave me a playfully disapproving look, forcing me to close my mouth with her lovely grey eyes. But her tales were amusing for the most part, and her vivacious spirit shone through whenever she opened her mouth. Marie was endearing actually, and I had grown quite fond of her.

         But her stories were just exasperating that night, mostly because of her god-awful breath, but also because I had had a terrible day. At my magazine firm, after years of writing “scathing” editorials about everything from pop culture to war, I finally had enough balls to ask my editor if I could change my focus.

Anatola Barba was the queen of The Torch. She lived and breathed the magazine. Anything that compromised the success of her baby was unacceptable. And judging from the responses that Bryan…and His Mouth received, you could probably imagine her answer.

         So there I was, sucking from the Barba power teat once more. I felt worthless and abused, like the ugly ducking from that old bedtime story. But blaming Anatola was wrong. In fact, she was right when she slapped me across the face and told me that I was being a moron. I was a damn good writer. Maybe a sellout, but my ability to know what the public wanted was uncanny. But I hated it. I hated myself. My entire career was based around being a dick about everything. And for what? Sure, the pay was good, my employee perks were excellent, and I knew everyone who was anyone.

         But I just felt empty. Frankly, if I really wanted to leave The Torch, I could have. And with my relative celebrity, a fiction novel with my name on it couldn’t sell too badly. It wasn’t The Torch or Anatola though. Everyday, I had goaded myself into thinking that my life was good. Happiness, it figured, didn’t come as easily as I had hoped it would.

         Thankfully, Marie said that she was too full for dessert. I didn’t have exact change for the meal, but more waiting would mean more stories, and that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. So I left the money on the table, and I imagine the waiter probably popped a stiffy after seeing the amount of cash sitting there. Marie sashayed beside me, and with her mouth closed, I became infatuated all over again. I contemplated asking her back to my house, but I decided to wait until the next time her breath wasn’t capable of nostril annihilation. I hailed a taxi and gave the lecherous looking driver thirty dollars. I gave Marie a kiss on the cheek.

         “Good night Marie, I’ll see you Sunday morning?”

         “Yes, zee you zen my darling Bryan.” She replied, sounding slightly disappointed.

         “Sleep well Marie.”

         And with that, the taxi sped away and I stood alone on the pavement. The night was cold and moist, and I felt miserable. I thought about calling Marie back and asking her whether she wanted to visit a new bar in town. We would both get drunk to the point that neither of us would care about our respective shortcomings-her pervasive breath and my lack of stamina-and we would have crazy sex in my apartment.

         Alas, I only got as far as the phonebook on my cell before I put it away again. To be honest, I wasn’t really up for sex, mostly because I was totally depressed. My career was a metaphorical shit hole, my love life was non-existent and I was stone sober on a Friday night.

         I decided I could fix the last one. I walked all the way down 32nd Avenue and past Dolphin Boulevard to my favorite liquor haunt. If anything, Hobberston was organized, albeit cultureless and white bred. Drinks were ridiculously expensive at my preferred liquor store however, and I realized that my monumental tip at the restaurant had left me with ten dollars in change. Not enough for even a shot. Although I prided myself on my snooty taste for booze, the alcoholic in me needed to be satiated. I swallowed my pride and followed my urge down to the notoriously raunchy 40th Avenue. Barrages of 25 cent peep shows and massive dildos filled the streets. Finally, I reached 40th Liquor, an incredibly sketchy, but well priced liquor store. A repulsive looking prostitute stood outside the door and she gave me a suggestive wink. My steak, for the second time, felt as if it was going to take the front door out.

    I opened the glass door (appropriately fashioned with two layers of solid steel bars) and walked into the damp smelling shop. The walls were covered with alcohol that didn’t even have English labels, and all of them were under 15 dollars. However, my alcoholism wasn’t going to control me to the point of drinking rat poison, so I was just about to leave when I saw it. A twenty six ounce bottle of Jack Daniels for $8.99. Actually, it was a bottle of Jack Danials, likely a failed counterfeit attempt by a Chinese factory. But it didn’t matter, the label was in English and I wasn’t going to pass up a bottle of $10 booze. I quickly paid and popped the cap off before I even left the joint.

         As we all know, drunkenness creates beauty in otherwise revolting things. So when I had walked out of the store, that previously unsightly prostitute looked like a vision. Well, perhaps not a vision, but enough for my incredibly intoxicated body to cause me to have a strangely satisfying erection. She (or he, I couldn’t really tell) stared at me as my face morphed into ecstasy at the thought of sex (albeit with perhaps a man) and as my pants became a tent. It looked at me with a look of sheer disgust and strutted away. Great. I was just rejected by the ugliest piece of shit ever. Rejection-a growing theme that day- was a fucking downer (literally).

    By the time I had walked across the street, only a smidge of the bottle remained. I had never been so drunk in my life. A park with a surrounding forest lay ahead of me. I stumbled past the jungle gym and the slides and walked into the foliage. I downed the rest of the whiskey and collapsed onto the dewy grass. I was fucking wasted. Everything was spinning and my head felt like it was going to explode. Everything went black.

    I awoke when a dewy leaf fell on my eyes. I expected to have a real bastard of a hangover. But I felt fine. Not even a mild headache. Having that much alcohol should seriously fuck you up. However, it was barely dawn, as I realized that I was completely wasted at 8 the evening before. Only once had I been this close to alcohol-induced death. I was at the annual nightclub bash for The Torch, and I had just broken up with my model girlfriend. She said that I didn’t pay enough attention to her and that I was “self-centered.” When she told me that, I thought, “THAT’S fucking rich. You’re a model, being self-centered is what you’re paid for.” So that night, I drank so much that I vomited all over that wench Anatola Barba. And the next morning, as you may have guessed, every rival magazine had the loveliest picture of me spewing projectiles right at my editor-in-chief. The headlines ranged from, “Nicholson’s Big Mouth Catches Up With Him” to “Idiot Columnist Vomits all Over Me,” the latter of which I owe to my amazing editor-in-chief.

    The hangover the next morning was absolutely awful. I tried everything from yoga to eight Advils and nothing worked. My brain was pulsating for an entire week. So I expected to be in an incredible stupor. But again, nothing. Hell, I didn’t even remember puking at all. I was slowly wiping all of the rotten grass off of myself when the ground began to shake and everything began to spin. It felt like a violent earthquake, but nothing was moving. The leaves were gently swaying in the wind, and the massive trees showed no signs of weakness. I thought my drunkenness was playing a dirty trick on me.

    But all of a sudden, a large chunk of grass was swallowed up into the earth in front of me and a descending staircase appeared. The stone steps descended from the ground into a black oblivion. It could have been a figment of my drunken imagination, but I didn’t care. Shit like this happens, you hide. I crawled away from the deep flight. I heard footsteps. Someone was coming up. Horrified, I hid behind a large bush surrounded by a row of trees. Mr. Jack Danials really fucked me over this time. This was the worse than any hangover. I really regretted going to that sketch liquor store. I was going to die.

The sound of heels hitting cold stone grew louder and louder. My heart felt like it was going to burst from terror.

Thump, CLACK, Thump, CLACK, Thump, CLACK, Thump, CLACK, Thump, CLACK

         It was like a twisted musical. The sound of hearts and heels beating together. After what seemed like a painful eternity, the clacking ceased. I heard the thing land on the wet grass, rustling the short green blades. Whoever, or whatever, had arrived. Slowly, I pushed aside the branches and the various spiders to get a look at the figure. I was first able to see that the figure was remarkably human. Its long, slender legs revealed its female persuasion. She (as it seemed) wore a pair of black boots with eight interlocking buckles on each of them. She started moving again and I carelessly pulled my head back too quickly, rustling the bush branches. I froze in terror. Please, let her be deaf. Please. Please. Please.

    I heard a malevolent giggle that erupted into a vigorous laugh. It was oddly melodious, yet still made my skin feel extraordinarily crass.

“Bryan Nicholson, you silly boy. I know you’re here.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me fuck fuck. She knows my name. This girl appears from the ground and knows my name.

Wait.

The Torch. She probably reads The Torch. But how does she know I’m here?

“Please come out Bryan. I won’t hurt you.”

I was horrified. But hiding merely delayed the inevitable. Slowly, I rose up from the grass and gazed up at the “woman.”

She was a pleasant surprise. She wore a deep sapphire waist length cloak and a pair of tight black pants. A pair of black leather gloves concealed her arms and hands. Slowly, she removed her hood and revealed her face. Her eyes were full and sensual, with long, black eyelashes and startlingly blue eyes.  Her skin was nearly white, like alabaster, accentuating her deep red lips. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but I was incredibly hot for her.

“Hello, Bryan.”

“How do you know my name?” I shouted in a pseudo-brave voice.

“Oh, my dear, I know all those I come for.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bryan darling, don’t you know you’ve died?”

“I’m pretty fucking alive thanks. What are you saying?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough.”

She smiled seductively, revealing two rows of glistening white teeth.

“Look,” I said, “if you’re just looking for a date, I’m not really interested.”

She giggled again, and looked at me with her piercing blue eyes.

“I’m sorry Bryan. I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

She walked towards me, edging me closer towards the hole from which she had appeared from.

“People will look for me! I’m famous here, and they’ll find you!” I felt like the last girl in those slasher flicks that beg before being chopped up.

“They’ll find you Bryan. All of them. Eventually.”

And with a shrill cackle, she thrusted out her hands and shoved me into the hole.  Her evil screeching faded as I plunged into the mammoth, black abyss.

I screamed as the hole above me closed and left me in the darkness.

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The ground appeared and I shut my eyes, expecting to be liquefied. But nothing happened. Slowly I opened my eyes and saw that I was hovering one foot above the ground.

“That’s quite enough Jezebeth.”

A man -who looked oddly familiar- withdrew from the shadows holding his hand out towards me. A familiar cackle emitted from the air as the woman who pushed me in floated above me.

“Why must you always ruin my fun Georgie?”

I looked up at the man and I could barely believe my eyes. I had always idolized this man. In his time, he was a god among men. As he walked towards me, I felt surprisingly star struck. It was Lord George Byron. THE Lord Byron of the Romantic Era, the manwhore poet of the early 1800’s. I even wrote a column about him entitled, “Lord Byron, The Slutty Genius of the Romantics (not like that womanly Shelley).” 

And now, he was standing in front of me. In the fucking underworld.  Fitting really.

“Well, Bryan Nicholson. Welcome. I presume you know me.” I didn’t bother asking how he knew my name. There were more pressing matters at hand.

“Sir Byron of course. But where am I? Hell?”

“Oh no. This isn’t hell. Far too clean.”

I looked around and I had to admit, it didn’t look like hell. It was dank and almost completely dark. The only light emitted from small holes in the high ceiling, but still far below the ground, so the source was questionable. The light illuminated circles on the ground. I bobbed above one of these circles. It had a picture within its center: it depicted an unconscious man with a bottle clutched in his hands.

It was me.

“Wait. So I’m really dead?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“From alcohol poisoning?”

“No,” Byron said to me, “not so glamorous. You were lying facedown in the grass, you vomited and during your slumber, you drowned in your own fluids.”

I imagined the headline, “Nicholson Dies from his Own Mouth.” How classy.

“Sir Byron, why are you here?”

“I guess my womanizing caught up with me,” he lowered to me the ground with his hand, “so I’m forever condemned to living here, in limbo between earth and hell.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“Sadly no. Jezebeth doesn’t usually provide details. You wouldn’t imagine that the devil would anyways.”

“So she’s the devil?”

“Yes, Bryan, she is. I know, you wouldn’t expect the world’s most evil entity to be a woman. Or maybe you would, depending on your perspective. Nevertheless, it’s true.”

So there I was. Speaking with one of my all time idols. In Purgatory.

“I never anticipated her to be so attractive.”

Byron laughed. “It’s merely a disguise, you fool. She is Satan. She can be anything. Her true form is…well…disturbing.”

Jezebeth walked towards the both of us.

“Because I love you so much, Bryan, I will tell you why you’re here.”

    “Go ahead.”

“Those who live their lives without any goodness or righteousness, but rather choose to live a life of frivolity and nothingness, end up here, between hell and earth, like Georgie here,” she smiled, “but people who live lies, well, those are the ones who go further.”

“So the reason why I’m here is because I’ve been living a lie?”

“Well, you did drink yourself to death, but I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t know that you would before. “

“That’s fucking stupid. If I was satisfied with my life, why am I being punished?”

Jezebeth laughed.

“Oh Bryan, don’t lie to me. You weren’t satisfied with your life. You had no identity. You were merely a rich scribe. You spent your life constantly denying yourself. You were manipulating your own soul.”

    I began to respond, but I had no words. She was right. I had accomplished nothing of note in my years on Earth.“Life: As Easy as you Make It.” That article won me the national award for the Best Overall story the year before. It was a fantastic piece of work; I even framed it on my wall. But the sad thing was that I really believed that life was not the bitch everybody made it out to be.

I had become so skilled in the art of lying to myself that, by then, I had thought my delusions to be the truth.

“Bryan, there is no use in denying it now.” Jezebeth said as she walked towards me. “You’re here now, and it’s too late to return.”

“I’m sorry Bryan,” Byron spoke, “she’s right. You won’t ever go back.”

“Be gone Georgie. I am sending him,” said Jezebeth.

“But-”

“BE GONE.”

And slowly, Byron vanished with a sad look in his eyes, staring at me until he was nothing. Jezebeth turned towards me and her white skin shone underneath one of the glowing orbs.

“Bryan, love, I’m going to show you something. Maybe, your opinion will change. You men are… more visual let’s say.”

She removed her cloak and took in a deep breath. All of a sudden, Jezebeth shrieked and howled, as her body seemed to implode. Out of nowhere a fiery blaze ensued from underneath her. Jezebeth moaned shockingly pleasurably as the flesh slowly melted off her body. The stench was rancid, and beneath her flesh was a dark blue raw “skin.” Her temples exploded, spilling gore everywhere, and huge, curved horns grew in place of them. She screamed in ecstasy as her back tore open and a pair of massive bony wings sprouted from her back.  Jezebeth squealed and began to suck on her long, blue fingers as a spiked tail ripped out of her lower back. Her beautiful blue eyes transformed to a horrific burnt orange that continually shed torrents of crimson tears.

         Finally her disgusting transformation was complete. I was so horrified that I just stood there with my mouth agape. And suddenly, without warning, waves of vomit emptied out of my stomach. I closed my eyes, but the smell of cauterizing meat and the sight of the immense gore refused to wretch itself from my mind. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

“Don’t be so squeamish Bryan. You’ll need a thicker skin to survive here.”

“Where? In this dark piss hole? Alone?”

“No. In there.”

The huge gate was made of a brown stone and had horrific carvings of pain, and death all over its façade. The feeling of the gates’ emotional devastation coated the entire room. Each of the sculptures writhed and shrieked in painful screams as the gate’s stone bound them to their fates. Depictions of sins were littered everywhere and the otherworldly creatures cackled in disgusting tones. Human babies wailed for their mothers, as they wondered why the world ejected from their wombs. The damned people condemned to living next to these imps and succubuses cried for their eternal torment.

A man sat on the peak of the gate, watching the suffering. He looked so pained, so horrified at the sights, and so frustrated for his inability to move. He looks as though he is thinking of a way out, but he knows there is no salvation for those below him. The doors gave one last howling, cacophonous scream as they swung open.

         Lying within the gates was a blazing vortex, with charred, mutated arms protruding outwards. Jezebeth looked at me and grabbed my weak body.

She pushed me towards the gates of hell.

“Goodbye Bryan, my darling.”

I neared the abyssal red space, screaming the whole way.

“Goodbye. I’ll be seeing you soon, you handsome man.”

“PLEASE JEZEBETH, PLEASE. I’LL DO ANYTHING!!”

“Oh Bryan, my sweetheart, you’ll have fun here.”

“NO! NO! DON’T TAKE ME!”

Jezebeth neared her face towards me, allowing me to see her terrible, bloody eyes. She opened her mouth and licked my face, searing my skin with her acidic, burning saliva.

“Perhaps you’ll find that you belong here.”

“NO!!!!! JEZEBETH, I’LL BE GOOD! LET ME GO, PLEASE, I’M SORRY!”

“Perhaps Bryan, you will find your life’s true calling.”

My feet approached the flaming gate, singeing my soles and causing an eruption of pain. The arms seized my legs and pulled me in. Again, the putrid smell of burning flesh permeated my nostrils.

“Don’t scream Bryan,” she licked my cheek once more, “nothing you can do will save you.”

The fire reached my ankles, causing blood to spew out of my body like Indian warpaint. I sobbed and sobbed, praying for redemption.

“It’s too late. Your God has forsaken you. You are…” she leaned towards my face and whispered lustfully into my ear, “mine now.”

My torso was enveloped into the gate, immolating everything except my head. I was about to be consumed. And in a completely twisted and disturbing way, I finally understood what it was. “The Realization of The Realization: An Epiphany by Bryan Nicholson.” It would have been my first genuine article ever.

Jezebeth’s disgusting eyes seemed read my mind.

She cackled wickedly and stroked my face with her clawed arms.

“Who knows Bryan? This might just be the epiphany you were looking for.”