A CONVERSATION HEARD IN THE NETHER WORLD

What if hell's a real place reserved not for sinners but, as it suggests in biblical texts, for non-believers?

In the swirling mists of a freezing Hell two shimmering souls almost collided before one gripped the other by an insubstantial shoulder and shook him gently.

"I reckon I recognise you! Isn't your name Hitler? Adolf Hitler?"

"So what? Who are you? There's something familiar - I don't know what"¦

"Me? Oh, you wouldn't want to know me, not with your perfectly understandable philosophy regarding superior races and the like!"

"Einstein! That's who you are! That clever bloke with loads of weird ideas about space and time and stuff like that!"

"That's me!"

"What are you doing in Hell, then, Albert? And isn't it a bit cold here for the promised raging fires and sulphurous fumes and stuff like that? I was led to believe I wouldn't even need my y-fronts down here, and yet it's colder than ice and my gonads are shrivelling before my eyes!"

"So it was a lie was it, Adolf? You said gonads so you must have two!"

"Of course I have, and anyone who says anything to the contrary is a foul lying b***h of a Jew-boy!"

"Careful, old man, you can't use language like that down here! This is Hell, this is, and everyone who's anyone is down here, and everyone who isn't anyone, come to think of it.”

"So I believe. It's odd, that's what it is. How come you're here? They reckon you were a pretty decent enough bloke in life? And, crikey, isn't that Pope something or other over there? Him with the bemused frown and pointy hat?"

"Pope John-Paul? Didn't last long, did he, up on Earth? Yes, that's him, all right. Plays a fair game of whist when he can be bothered to stop praying. Praying's not all that popular down here. The big chief up stairs doesn't like it."

"I thought Popes were the kind of good guys who ends up in Heaven, not down here with mass murderers and genocide freaks like moustachioed old me!"

"Didn't you know, Adolf? Hell's the place non-believers go to. It says so in more scriptures than you could shake a cocked hat at! If you don't believe in God then you're condemned to an eternity down here. It's why the place was built in the first place and, quite honestly, it could do with a bit of refurbishment.”

"I know. I've visited gas chambers with more comfortable fixtures."

"You and your gas chambers, Adolf! You're a card, you are!"

"The king of spades!"¦

"Or the queen, I've heard!"

"That was a foul reprehensible lie too! But you were telling me. Why are all these good guys here? I've seen a dozen popes in the last half hour, a couple of really decent Imams and I'm sure I caught an eyeful of Se-quo-yah of the Cherokee people."

"That's an easy one to answer! All the good guys are here as well as all the bad guys because everyone's here! Nobody believes in every god there ever was, and if you don't believe in god then you come to Hell. As I said, it's why it was built in the first place: for non-believers, and everyone, absolutely everyone, is a non-believer of quite a few religions. Atheists don't believe in any, which is tough on them down here!"

"Oh. And the blasted cold, Albert? How come a place that was supposed to be steamy at the very least is so very cold?"

"Oh that, Adolf. It's all the construction work going on. The big guy upstairs reckons there's an ever-increasing supply of souls on their way due to population explosions up in the land of the living, so preparations are being made for a gigantic influx next time there's a really delicious pandemic. At the moment there's plenty of space to spare, so the pressure's dropped, so it's getting cooler. But when the crowds roll up..."

"It's not the place I expected, Albert, and that's a fact."

"You'll get used to it, Adolf. If it teaches you nothing else it'll teach you that being an egotistic mass murderer with a penchant for genocide isn't the worst thing you could have done in life."

"You what?"

The other soul shook ever so slightly as it grinned in the mist and shadows of the Netherworld.

"You might have been a banker!" he whispered, and prepared to disappear in a puff of glee.

"Not me!"

"Or even worse, a millionaire politician with a penchant for cruelty!" he added, finally laughing his way to nowhere.

Reviews

[SquinklaPsyOps]

Masterfully crafted, your style of language is powerful and compelling.

[Peter Rogerson]

I very much appreciate your observation.