Thread: 11-05-06 | Your Version of Hell

It's LM time, and I'm once again running it. This LM was inspired by a joke:

A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.

She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.

“Oh my,” said the writer. “Let me see heaven now.”

A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.

“Wait a minute,” cried the writer. “This is just as bad as hell!”

“Oh no, it’s not,” replied an unseen voice. “Here, your work gets published.”




The round is short and simple: Your version of hell. Poetry or prose, both under 500 words. Also, judges are eligible, so everyone can enter but me.

Judges are:

Pawn
Journyman
Hawke
TsuTseQ
Chris Miller
and me, of course

The aim for this one is mostly humor. Long or short, make the judges smile, laugh, or both.


The contest will close at 11pm on the 19th. Judging will take place from the 20th to the 26th, and scores will be announced on the 27th. I've switched my clock to Central time zone so it will go according to that time.

Thank you to everyone who participates and to the judges.

Disclaimer: I like my poetry like I like my women...wordy and full of unnecessary description.

One-Sided Discussions with Lucifer

Words: 371

He winks; his undulating eyelids resemble the shellof a clam, and a pearl resides within;
each choreographed movement pirouettes him across the sunken land of a parched Michigan…
he tells me this used to be my earthly residence, while assisting me in my determined hobble home.
“Have I told you the meaning of life?” he asks, as cloven hooves click tattoos on the cobblestones.

We pass through the sunken streets, where the acres of mangroves’ vertical roots are palisades,
so large and overgrown --- it is necessary to gather oxygen remnants from the sky: it’s marmalade,
with iron oxide clouds that part to allow the passage of polychromic meteors ---
are they missiles?

“Humans sometimes expose themselves to the corrosive religions.” His voice is high as a whistle.
“They cut themselves with Occam’s razor; they eat with Hume’s Fork; drink blackberry Merlot.
And yet still believe that a religion they claim to follow will save them from the –err…below?
It’s rather interesting so see how hive minds work. Don’t honor thy parents, inject hormones
directly into their veins as teenagers, don’t even go along with the Sabbath...just stay home!”

I stare at him and his rhapsodic reveries. His cloven hooves make the cobblestones gurgle;
His clam-eyes revolve in their sockets in exasperation; he paces about in agitated circles…
“Be yourself!” says the Tempter, sighing and stretching his double-jointed arms upward,
and the dream-spectrum meteors twinkle in response, sharply adjusting to depart southern.

“How chaotic the Universe is. The Earth isn’t round. We are heliocentric. Humans are stupid.
Do you know the number of true believers actually exists, all the clueless excluded?
I can count them one hand (though I do have extra fingers). Tell me that isn’t all outrageous.
They sit in their own self-created state of ignorance, easily escaped by flipping through Biblical pages.”

He sits, flexible legs twisting into a pretzeled half-lotus.
"Come, sit here, I hope you’ll join me.
We have until Krishna or Jesus or Quetzalcoatl or whoever appears. I have a thousand stories.
And they’re all concerning how much I hate people.”

Oh God.
Save me from this hell.

The Tortuous Plane Of Torture (And The Tortured Souls Who Live There)

Word Count: 498


Genesis 1:1 – “On the first day, God created the heavens and the earth.”


You know how the rest goes, naked guy screws up as a result of his misguided trust for a naked chick and her talking serpent; tale as old as time. God is a smart guy though. In fact, God is so smart that He knows exactly what you’re going to do before you even think of doing it. For God, this is very convenient because it allows Him to get all His work done before the weekend.

So of course, God knew what Adam and Eve were going to do as well as their children, their children’s children and so on. Knowing this, God also took the liberty of creating a plane of torture for all those that didn’t like Him, which, come to mention it, seems a bit unbecoming of a deity of His standard.

Despite what you may think of your neighborhood, this place that He created is the most terrible place in this or any other existence. He began with the land: barren, no grass, not even a dash of foliage to be protected by hippies with nothing else better to do. No parks for picnicking with your sweetheart, nor a single grassy knoll to rest upon and read the latest copy of Readers Digest on your lunch break. There is water, but to even dip your foot in while wearing steal toe boots would prove to be very unwise. It’s highly acidic, you see, and in many areas is so firm that small creatures have been seen walking clean across its surface, though they do not make it very far.

He also created creatures to live there and give the land some order, however primitive they may be. They actually appear very similar to you and I; they are carbon-based bipeds that also breathe oxygen, though their lungs have been specially developed to take in air from the highly noxious fumes that surround their kingdom. They are boorish creatures, the worst really. Even to each other they show little respect nor do they regard any life in general with any respect. They spend their days yelling vile obscenities while riding upon great metal beasts with breath even more toxic than the air and water combined.

When God was finished making this terrible place, all the angels gathered round to see what their Creator had made and they were both shocked and appalled.

“Lord, how could you even make a place as horrible as this!” asked one angel.

“Surely, no mortal man could ever offend you greatly enough to be banished to this world!” remarked another.

“It is with great regret that I have created such an abomination, but it’s what must be done.”

The angels bowed their heads in sovereign understanding and stood in silence for a moment before another angel asked meekly, “What do you call this place Lord?”

With a deep sigh, God said, “I call it ‘New Jersey’”.

Guess I'm not feeling funny this week. 494 words excluding title(s).


Instrumental Conditioning

Or, Different Solutions to the Same Problem



There is no music in Hell.

Make no mistake, there are sounds, instruments, notes- but notes that alone are sweet always meet in the airs of Hades at odd angles and jangle together tonelessly. The effect is such that Bach and Mozart on the piano, Stradivarius on one of his own violins, and Pan himself on the flute could produce nothing more than a screeching, messy ensemble.

There is no art in Hell.

No thought can be expressed outside of the mind and last- no record of a thought or a reproduction of something one has seen lasts beyond the paint touching the canvas. It is hard even to make a pencil from the Inferno; it is meaningless to do so as the graphite and lead will form itself only to meaningless scribbles.

There is no poetry in Hell.

The expression of thought can be made only simply, and to think of anything more sweet-sounding than a shopping list is to have one’s head filled with buzzing flies and wailing sirens and to be assaulted on all sensory fronts by a Cimmerian darkness that confounds any further twist of tongue and lay of syllable.

There is no cookery in Hell.

Each bite of food tastes the exact same as the previous morsel; hunger is never a problem but no fond-remembered childhood treat can be relived or shared. Nothing except the regular flavour and odour of nothing in particular can be shared at a meal time.

There are no stories in Hell.

To tell a story is to find yourself cast into a depth of confusion and eddying time that removes all semblance of plot, all degree of meaning, and all morals. Your listeners cannot follow you, cannot understand you, and cannot care for what you have to say.

There is no way in Hell to reach out to others, no way to touch soul to soul with another human and share what is inside you with them. They are always there, all around you, and you can never touch them or show them what you feel. You are all together and couldn’t be farther apart. Above it all rests the Devil himself, and although he is disfigured from being cast out of the Presence, he knows in himself that he has done what he must to save those as he can.

In Heaven, there is no music and no art and no poetry and no cookery; there is only God; and He is such that none that have seen Him can ever think to produce something beautiful again. All in Heaven are in awe of Him, eternally and inescapably. There is no thought and no freedom and no change. God does this knowing that He must always keep us from suffering.

In between are we thin few, and we reach out as best we can to mix and share and learn, and sometimes we instead hurt and hate and anger. It’s the human condition.

I am an Athiest.
...
...
I find this highly offending.

Here is my entry:

:HELL:

"Johnny, is dead." Malkovitch stood over the open grave just as the workers began to fill it in. The skin over his knuckles was stretched tight, and the beaded sweat on his forehead stung like needles being thrust into his head. Turning around, he thrust his fist into Lucy's gut. Her knees buckled, and she feel to the dewy grass, clutching her insides. It wasn't enough to wipe the grin off her face, though, and she smiled as Malkovitch stormed away from the grave. "Johnny, my friend, is in hell." Lucy raised her head to the grey sky and gave a screeching cackle. She fell to the ground, rolling in the dirt as she laughed and laughed at poor Johhny's misfortune, until her usually clean clothes were covered in mud and filth. Then she stood up and walked away.

Johnny woke up chained to a black, tar-covered fence surrounded by three scantily clad women. Still drowsy, he gurgled something along the lines of, "Sorry, I don't like women." The first girl giggled quietly and whispered something to her beautiful comrades. She had long, raven-dark hair and a slightly upturned nose, not to mention beautiful, almond shaped eyes. The other two were similarly gorgeous. In fact, as Johnny's head cleared, he found himself looking more and more at them.

"Damn... I'd go straight for you."

"Really? Mister person-san, do you know where you are?"

"Um... no."

"Why, in hell, silly!" Again, the girl let forth her gentle, bubbling laugh, and then pointed abroad. Johnny followed her finger, and let out a gasp when he saw a million men cutting each other apart.

"Sweeeet meeesuuus..."

"You no believe in Jesus, Mister Person-san?"

"Oh, no. I was an athiest in life." Johhny replied, growing increasingly unnerved. This isn't at all what he pictured the after life to be like. He was chained to a fence covered in bubbling tar; it scorched his skin. Other newcomers were chained further down the fence, and older, more sadistic people were in a giant pit with roaring flames, where they were forced to dance barefoot in a sea of broken shards of glass. "This is precisely why I grew to hate god..." Johnny mumbled to the beautiful girl, but upon turning his head, he saw that she turned into a bat.

The second girl grabbed the bat and smacked Johhny upside the head with it. Then she did it again, and again, and AGAIN! "Johhny go home! Bend over, Mr. Person-san!" The bat seemed to speak. Which scared everyone so much that all the demons in hell turned into bats as well. The demons flew away in a flurry screeching, forming a massive cloud of black specks. Johhnny didn't notice though, he was busy getting frakked with a bat.

"You see battlestar galactica, Mr. Person san!" The third japanese girl asked.

"No..nononmuhmuh I donsee nuthin..." Johhny managed to garble out.

"Ohh... too bad." This went on for quite sometime. Supposedly, the Japanese girls we're anti gaylord activists in their lives. However, a million years later, a cyborg girl came down from the black swirly thing in the sky(hell's kitchen), and landed, chained up, to the tar-covered fence.

Johnny, scarred from a million years of abuse, managed to look over at the cyborg, and gasped through broken teeth. Wham! Another swing of the bat cracked his neck. Then, on the rebound, he whispered:

"lucy...?" Lucy looked over at Johnny, tears in her eyes, and promptly nodded. "What happened? Shouldn't you be in heaven?" Lucy shook her head, and ponted to the sky, then mouthed the words:

"Malkovitch..." Demons descended, and Johhnny finally understood...

Malkovitch was a Catholic Priest.

:end:

My Hell

One day, Cody died.

He appeared somewhere unfamiliar. Looking around, he saw an empty room surrounding him, and a sign labeled "Hell" behind him.

If you don't understand why that is Hell, you have no soul.



38 words, including the title.

497 words. Who says that you have to die to go to hell...?

Getting It Done

It was Sunday, reputed to be a slow day, and I already had the first line of my poem in my head…

“Your flowery prose
sits on the windowsill
in the pot you meant
for me…”

…And then, the last stanza…

“…This one is going bowling.”

But who would take that line seriously? Bowling? Where was the eloquence, the style, in choosing sweaty shoes and cheap beer over—

“MAMA!”

I groaned as my kids screamed in unison.

“Daddy, can you please help them?”

I came up with a new last stanza.

“…This one is out doing binary…”

…And left the third stanza with a feeling of loathing as I looked up.

“Mama! Look what brother did!”

Desperation to complete my poem congealed with the need to scream, because my two other creations dripped with pepto-pink ooze.

I herded them towards the tub promptly dropping my notebook in a puddle of olfactory misery.

My bathroom was a Picasso-pink nightmare; an unholy union of hygiene products covered white, textured walls.

Trapped between urgencies, I loaded the tub, filled a bucket, picked up my book.

I had to fix that third stanza.

So, I scrubbed.

The tub turned to mud, the bucket cement, and though I managed a new stanza, the second morphed during the process into a single word.

Version three screamed ‘Feminazi’.

“We don’t like the bath now, mama. You need to take us out, right now.”

“Daddy—could you--?” But there was no answer.

I dried my kids, and resolved to take a break.

I logged on to my favorite site, and uploaded my newest, less than pink, baby.

“Honey!” My errant husband called. “The walls are dripping!”

“In a minute!” I yelled, staring at what I had posted.

I still wasn’t fucking happy.

I changed the second stanza back into a two liner, brought back the line about bowling because—well, how the hell does ANY one ride binary?

I returned to the battle of the bath.

“Mama,” my son rushed me “Hot coco for Riker!”

“In a minute, hon, I---aaaaahhhh!”

He backed me into the toilet.

Daddy had left the seat up.

Now, not only was my ass big, but it was wet as well.

I made stanza two about poetry planted in a shitter, loaded it onto the forum, and SWORE to leave it alone by putting it in my sexy lingerie drawer.

I scrubbed the walls and thought about labor.

I ran back to my drawer, and changed stanza three. Again.

“Mama…”

I couldn’t get the damn thing DONE!

And Sunday, my only real day off, my day to write, was over…
***
Two days later, my husband fumed over the computer.

“Trouble, baby?”

“This goddamn report.” Daddy fumed at the screen. “Its not working. It’s just not getting done!”

Poor baby.

I noticed he was now using the same notebook as I had Sunday.

“Ahhhh daddy—“ I sighed, patted his shoulder, and smiled.

“Welcome to Hell…”

Off Topic:

very nice...

Not especially long, but I feel complete and the images give the picture asked for. 192 words


Satan What Are You Doing Now?

God from His beautiful heaven looked into the pits of hell. There he saw Satan, the beautiful angel, trying to build something out of souls. In his booming voice God asked this question. “Satan, what are you doing now”? “Hello God” Satan replied, “I’m building another mansion.” Again; God in His booming voice asked, “Why”?

Then the answer came in a humble tone, “Well, God, Your Son told man of all your mansions and promised a place for all who believe”. “True,” replied the heavenly Master. Well, I’m not a carpenter like He, I can’t read a blueprint or hammer a nail. So for all those souls your disciples told not to sit the fence, I am making them a home from my worshippers’ souls because all I have to do is tie them in knots. I’m building them like a fence to make them feel at home.”

God laughed his indulgent laugh. “Well, I see you still have not learned. A fence sitter is always falling off sooner or later, Satan, and fences always need mending”.

“AH, HELL,” came Satan’s reply from hell’s molten darkness.

Wow, lots of good stuff in here. Really funny stuff too. I like the athiest version of hell, especially this part

"This is precisely why I grew to hate god.

Off Topic:

oh wyndy... lol.... and really. puh-lese. big ass my ass.

The maze of annoyance. words:108
Lisa started walking through the maze.She wasn't sure why she was walking through maze ,she just was.Every now ,and then someone would pillsberry dough boy her scare her, and steal her writing notebook.Also, when ever she stopped before the next corner go through torture once more,she would get writers block.It was torture.Her sides hurt from running from scary stuff,her feet hurt from walking,her stomach hurt from pillsburry,she had a headache from writers block,and she just wanted to grab a warm fuzzy thing ,and cuddle.It wasn't likely to happen.

WORD COUNT: 163

Am I dead?

Yes.

I must be.

I was shot.

I thought I was a psycho.

This kid was flippin' crazy.

Shot all the cheerleaders. That wasn't such a loss.

I just wish he'd left me alone. I gave him that respect.

It's cold. I hate the cold. I'm not wearing a jacket, or any shoes, either.

The whole room's white. White is so boring! Why couldn't it be purple and black, all mystic and daunting-like?

Did I make it to heaven? Do I care?

No, probably. No to both those things.

I'm surrounded by those stupid cheerleaders, and they're still exactly the same.

They won't stop gossiping and giggling and if they were corporeal I'd kick their anorexic...

Oh, no, you've got to be kidding. Anything but this! ANYTHING!

They gave me pom-poms! And a uniform!

Suddenly I'm spelling out words and doing slutty choreography, and I can't stop even though I want to!

I guess I should've prayed more or something.

Okay I'm retracting mine, I guess I need to read more closely, definitely not humor.

Dear Gabe,

You wouldn’t believe this place. It isn’t like the bible describes it. The heat is more tropical than it is flaming. There is even a slight breeze that blows through the palms and makes a soft howling sound. It can be annoying when a person, or whatever I am now, is trying to get some sleep, but I have an eternity right? The truth is, I thought this place was great until I figured out what was really going on. So I was a hooker, apparently God thought I had a sex addiction, and maybe that has some truth to it, but what business is it of His? You know what He did? There are men everywhere. Naked men, for that matter, and the worst part is…they're all gay. Yes, all gay men, all the time. Not even bisexual men. Pure, 100%, "you look good in pink, brother", gay. After I found that out, the hard way of course, I thought to myself, let’s get drunk and have a pity party. So I went in search of some nice, strong vodka. You know what I found? A cross dresser whose stage name was Ms.Vodka. But alcohol? Yeah right. If I was a man, I would have been more than alright, because he…she…whatever, she was hot. So, I’m frustrated, horny and wishing more than ever that there was a bottle of something alcoholic laying around. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I get this crazy chocolate craving, and I ask every person that passes if they know where I can get a Milky Way. Does anyone have an answer for me? One very naked man told me there was no chocolate here. If he wasn’t already dead, I would have killed him. I’m sitting here writing to you on a palm leaf with a piece of charcoal I found in one of the burning pits around here. Yeah, the bible wasn’t completely wrong but the pits are more like bomb fires than anything. The hell of it all, is that that there are no marshmallows, no chocolate and no alcohol. The worst part is, that there are no straight penises around here, because, boy could I use a good roll in the hay about now. Although I’m horny, don’t get your hopes up about us. I’m dead, and even so, if it wasn’t for the money, I wouldn’t have touched you with a ten foot pole. Speaking of money, you owe me a lot of it, even though you’re the one who killed me and landed my ass in this penis free zone. You know, I really don’t think this is heaven. A nymphomaniac in a land of gay men was never my idea of heaven. Anyway, I have to go, Derek is bitching about his broken nail. I have to fix it before eternity crumbles in around him.


Love,

Me


P.S. I had VD when I slept with you, so good luck with that. Have a nice time scratching.