Roll the Goddamn Rock

Roll the Goddamn Rock


The stench of sulfur clawed its way into Joseph Pynchon's nostrils, jolting him awake. His head pounded with the rhythm of a hammer drill, and his tongue felt as if it had been used to clean a public toilet. He squinted through bloodshot eyes at the lurid landscape that unfolded before him--a cliched vista of fire and brimstone, where flames danced like demented sprites on a bed of coals.

"Christ," he groaned, wiping a hand across his face. "Hell's a fucking circus."
The air was thick with smoke and the wails of the damned, raising a racket somehow familiar, it could've been the backdrop of any of his benders. Amongst the writhing figures, one stood out with a toothbrush mustache and a scowl etched deep into his features--Hitler, arguing fervently with a figure sporting tattoos and an impish grin, unmistakably Bon Scott.
"Figures they'd end up here," Pynchon mumbled, rolling onto his side in an attempt to rise.

"Hey, watch it, pal," a businessman ahead of him snapped, straightening the lapels of his charred suit. "We're all in the same boat. Or should I say... inferno?"
"Boat, inferno--it's all bullshit to me," Pynchon retorted, finally managing to get to his feet. He sized up the queue that snaked towards a throne of skulls, where the devil himself presided over the never-ending line of sinners.

Pynchon found himself behind the businessman, who was incessantly checking an imaginary watch, and in front of a catholic priest wringing his hands, mumbling prayers under his breath.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," the priest whispered, not to Pynchon but to some unseen confessor. "This is my punishment."
"Cut the crap, Padre," Pynchon said, the bitterness in his voice cutting through the heat. "You think you got it worse than the rest of us?"
"Every soul here carries their own hell," the priest replied, his eyes downcast. "But redemption is a road paved with good intentions." "Good intentions," the businessman scoffed. "Look where those got us. If I had known, I would've cheated twice as much."
"Cheated?" Pynchon's lips curled into a half-smirk. "That's why you're here? Not very creative, are we?"
"Money is the root of all--"
"Evil, yeah, yeah," Pynchon interrupted. "Heard it before."
He glanced ahead, seeing others plead, bargain, and weep as they approached their judgment. Thoughts swirled in his head like whiskey in a glass, a blend of contempt and resignation. What did he care about punishment or damnation? His life had been a series of hangovers, each one bleeding into the next.
"Name?" a demon barked when it was finally the businessman's turn.
"John D. Rockebottom," the man replied with a false bravado that wilted under the demon's gaze.
"Rockebottom," Pynchon thought, chuckling internally. "How fitting."
"Joseph Pynchon," he announced when it was his time, stepping forward to meet the fate he didn't realize he'd been waiting for all along. The devil, a creature of ostentatious malevolence, lounged upon a throne of writhing souls, each contour of his seat a testament to the eternal suffering he commanded. His eyes, volcanic pits of merciless scrutiny, fixed upon Joseph Pynchon as he approached.
"Joseph Pynchon," the devil mused aloud, tapping a claw against the parchment that seemed to squirm in his grip. Each word dripped with a sardonic relish, "The poet of the downtrodden. A soul pickled in alcohol and marinated in vice."
Pynchon's gaze never wavered, even as hellfire danced in his periphery. He'd been scrutinized before--by editors, critics, lovers--but never by damnation incarnate.
"Your file," the devil continued, leafing through the pages as if they were a menu of torments, "is quite the read. You've lived a life of... let's call it 'passionate disregard.' Frankly, I'm impressed."
"Should I be flattered or worried?" Pynchon grunted, his voice dry as the desert winds that swept through the seedy Kings Cross streets.
The devil chuckled--a sound like boulders grinding against bone--before folding the parchment with a flick of his wrist. "I have the ultimate punishment for you, Mr. Pynchon. One that mirrors the futility of your existence." With a Bowser-like guffaw that reverberated through the cavernous depths, he dismissed Pynchon with a dismissive wave.In an instant, the scenery warped, and Pynchon found himself at the base of a daunting hill, its peak shrouded in a haze of heat and despair. Beside him, a round boulder, unyielding and stoic, waited--an immovable companion in this desolate place.
"Roll it up," a demon snarled, its pitchfork gleaming with an unholy light. The demon's presence was oppressive, a tangible darkness that sought to smother any defiance.
"Roll it yourself," Pynchon spat back, though the retort lacked its usual bite. In this realm, his words felt hollow, stripped of their power.
The demon sneered and thrust the pitchfork into Pynchon's side. Pain, raw and unfiltered, lanced through him, an explosion of agony that played every nerve like a violin string. Pynchon gasped, the sensation more shocking than any hangover he'd ever endured.
"Okay, okay," he grumbled, conceding as much to the pain as to the absurdity of it all. He placed his hands on the boulder, feeling the heat emanating from its surface sear his palms. Inside, a part of him balked at the task, recognizing the mythic punishment for what it was--a bleak joke at his expense.
With a grunt, he pushed, muscles straining against the weight of his sin-made-stone. The boulder budged, rolling forward an inch, then another. Sweat beaded on his brow, mixing with the sulfurous air that filled his lungs."Man, this sux," he thought bitterly, as he fought for every inch. Yet, the irony wasn't lost on him; he'd spent a lifetime pushing against a world that pushed back just as hard.
"Keep moving, writer," the demon prodded, pacing alongside him. Its voice was a rasp, a sandpaper symphony that grated on Pynchon's resolve.
"Story of my fucking life," Pynchon muttered under his breath, the boulder's inertia a cruel mimicry of his own relentless drive to write, to drink, to exist. As he trudged uphill, the weight of the rock mirrored the weight of his own legacy--a burden crafted by his hands, now his to bear in eternity.
The pinnacle was a cruel mistress, her kiss as fleeting as the touch of a ghost. Joseph Pynchon's hands, once instruments for typing out the raw pulp of life, were now gnarled claws clamped around the topmost curve of the boulder. He heaved with a final gasp, shoving the stone onto the flat summit.
"Made it, you son of a bitch," he panted, words rasping from his throat, each syllable a triumph against the infernal climb.
But triumph in hell was as elusive as love in a bottle. With a mocking sneer, the demon sauntered forth, its hoofed feet kicking up embers. "Bravo, poet," it hissed, forked tail whipping through the smoky air. "But did you really think it'd be that easy?"
Before Pynchon could muster a retort, the demon shoved the boulder with an unholy strength. It teetered for a moment, perched on the edge of eternity before succumbing to gravity's indifferent call, tumbling back down the hill it had so laboriously ascended.
"Son of a--" Pynchon's curse cut short as the demon grabbed him by the collar and hurled him after the wayward rock. The descent was a blur of heat and sulfur, a maelstrom of pain and disbelief. He hit the bottom with a thud that knocked the wind out of him.
Sprawled on the scorched earth, Pynchon lay next to the boulder, their reunion a perverse mockery of Sisyphean myth. He coughed, tasted blood, and spat into the ash that blanketed the ground.
"Get up." The demon's voice sliced through his pain-fogged brain. "Roll it back up."
Pynchon lifted his head, squinting at the silhouette against the flames. "No fucking way," he croaked, defiant even as his body screamed in protest.
The pitchfork came down then, sharp tines puncturing skin, searing flesh. He convulsed, a scream wrenching from deep within, echoing off the walls of this damned canyon. "Okay! Okay!" he gasped, agony lending urgency to his capitulation.
"Thought so," the demon sneered, withdrawing the instrument of torment. "Now move."
"Ever the pawn, eh Joe?" Pynchon thought to himself as he staggered to his feet. His mind churned with the futility of it all--the eternal struggle, the relentless push against the immutable force of existence. And yet, he placed his hands on the boulder once more.
"Here we go again," he muttered, pushing against the familiar roughness, the heat searing anew. "Aren't we all just pushing boulders, one way or another?"
The slope loomed ahead, steeper than memory served, the boulder an anchor to his eternal fate. With a grunt, Pynchon leaned into the task, his muscles remembering the dance of despair and defiance, a rhythm as old as time and as fresh as the wounds on his back.
The boulder's weight hadn't changed, but each time Pynchon heaved it upward, his strength seemed to erode, like sand against a relentless tide. Sweat poured from him, sizzling as it hit the scorched earth beneath his feet. He shoved, the boulder inching skyward, a grotesque parody of progress.
"Remember Sisyphus," he grunted to himself, the words rasping from his parched throat. "Condemned for hubris. Just like old Joe here.""Hubris?" The demon cackled from somewhere above. "You think this is about pride?"
"Isn't it?" Pynchon pushed harder, feeling the metaphorical weight now, too.
"Your kind... always looking for meaning. Pathetic." The demon's scorn was palpable even without seeing its leer.
"Meaning..." Pynchon echoed, his thoughts fracturing under the strain. "I wrote about the meaningless... the struggle... and here I am, living it." His laughter joined the demon's, a harmony of madness in their hellish chorus.
"Up, up you go!" The demon's voice was a whip, lashing across the distance between them.
"Ever toiling... ever pointless," Pynchon mused inwardly, the top nearing, his body on the brink of collapse. Yet something willed him onward--something beyond the demon's goading.
"Made it, you son of a bitch," he panted as he crested the hill, the summit offering no triumph, only the certainty of despair.
"Bravo," mocked the demon, before seizing the boulder and sending it crashing down once more. Pynchon followed, hurled by an unseen force, tumbling into oblivion. ***
The shock of cold sweat jolted Pynchon awake, his bedsheets twisted around him like the coils of some infernal serpent. He lay gasping, his breath ragged, the echo of the demon's laughter still taunting his ears.
"Christ," he muttered, peeling the damp fabric from his skin. His hands trembled as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the floorboards cool beneath his feet--a stark contrast to the imagined fires of damnation.
"Need a drink," he said aloud, his voice sounding foreign in the quiet of his apartment. He shambled to the fridge, the metallic clink of bottles a familiar refrain. He popped the cap off with a practiced flick, the sound sharp in the silence.
"Cheers," he whispered to the emptiness, taking a long swig. The beer was tepid, barely registering as he stared out the window at the indifferent expanse of the city. The cars crawled along the streets, people trudging beside them, each engaged in their own never-ending, repetitive, futile tasks.
"Same shit," Pynchon observed, the realization dawning on him with the subtlety of the morning sun piercing through smog. "The boulder... the hill... It's all the same."
He leaned against the window frame, the bottle dangling from his fingers. A laugh bubbled up from within, not quite as maniacal as in his nightmare, but tinged with the same bitter resignation.
"Guess that's the joke, huh?" he said to no one, the cityscape sprawling before him, indifferent to his epiphany. "Roll the rock, Joe. Roll the goddamn rock."