I didn’t have anything else to say, so there was nothing else to do except finish my platter of bacon and eggs and swallow the last dregs of my coffee. This was the first meal I’d ever been served in Hell, and for all I knew, I’d never get another. These were the only thoughts in my mind as the people at the table began a heated discussion among themselves which I was unable to follow as I did not speak German. Clearly, though, they were talking about me and what I had told them of Hell. They frequently looked and gestured at me, sometimes kindly, sometimes…well, not so much. It was a lively discussion, though. I heard the word Snadexudenrutyur spoken, which I found very impressive. Mainly, I was watching the demons. There were six of them in the room, all standing well away from the table but plainly paying close attention. I wondered if the demons could understand German. As the discussion died down and coalesced into a single conversation between two of the young men, I found that they had all begun to pretty much ignore me. So I just finished my breakfast. When I had cleaned my platter, I decided to take it up front to where the six demons were standing. I dropped my plate, fork, knife and coffee cup on a table beside the brutish looking demon and his five comrades. “Hello, boys,” I said, “Seen Kanz around, by any chance?” “Shut yer pie hole!” screamed the large one at me for the second time that morning in Hell. I just went back to my place at the end of the bench where the young red headed man was eagerly waiting for me. He told me, “Thank you for the information, Sir. I didn’t understand everything you said, but thank you.” “You’re most, welcome, young man,” I told him. “I wish I knew more to tell you, but it seems to be the very nature of Hell to be complex and confusing.” I leaned closer to him. “I would like to ask you some things, though. I know that you folks have been living in the forest and have just been moved to this level of Hell. Naturally, I am curious to hear what you have to tell me about your experiences…” At that moment, I was cut off by the approach of the blonde, athletic looking young man who came up to us abruptly and yelled at the red head, “You will tell him nothing!” There followed a brief exchange in German, and I leaned back and let the two of them talk. Then the blonde man said to me, “How do we know if anything you told us is true? None of us know you; you are a stranger among us. You could have been sent here to tell us any kind of nonsense by the demons! For all we know, you may, in fact, BE a demon!” Well I understood his point well enough, but I still found it insulting. “I ain’t no demon,” I told him in a rather harsh tone of voice. “I’m just as Human as you are. You can take what I had to say as the gospel truth or believe none of it all.” I didn’t like the looks of this pretty boy very much; he had a nasty sneer to his mouth, and I felt an urge to punch him. “And, as a matter of fact,” I told him. “I WAS sent here by a demon with instructions to talk to you. For whatever that’s worth!” The blonde man lurched away from me as if I had struck him. “You ADMIT this!” he shouted at me, pointing his finger. “You ADMIT you are an instrument of the demons!” He really did look very shocked and amazed. He kept that damn finger pointing at me, too. Well, hell. Everybody in the room was looking at me now. “I admit no such thing,” I said in retort. “I am NOT an instrument of the demons. I told you at the beginning some of what I had to say was information given to me by demons. Where else did you think I might get information? This is Hell, boy. I ain’t seen a single newspaper since I got here” “Well”, said the blonde man, rather huffily. “I HEARD you say you have talked with demons. AND been touched by them, and, and, what else…Smiled upon by them?” “All of these things are true,” I told him. “But my point is this…” But I was interrupted by the big brute of a demon who seemed to be in charge of this breakfast room detail. He screamed, “Right! It is now oh eight hundred! Breakfast is over! Back to you cells!” And we all lined up, me at the tail end. The door to the room was opened and we were marched back out into the corridor. As we marched down the stone hall, demons opened doors and shoved Humans back into their cells. I was the last Human in line and so I was the last Human to be shoved into my cell by the demon who had originally roused me at “oh seven hundred” Kanz was waiting for me in my cell, all horns and black robe but without his staff. He was sitting on my three legged stool and very kindly refraining from smiling at me.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:40:14 +0000
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