Sequence Six: I'll Yelp You in Hell!

It wasn't horror or fear or anger at the years of his life he would never get to live that flashed through Reggie's mind as the bullet crashed through his skull. It was a hope that as it drilled through his brain, the speeding pellet of lead would allow the pain and pressure of his own thoughts to dissipate, and leave him in peace.

That, alas, was not to be.

The way he died was stupid enough to cap off his wayward and erratic life. Rio; a dark alley in a favela; two hulking shadows screaming incoherently. Were they drunk? Was this a mugging? Was it a rape? Reggie had little time to wonder about it before the crack of the pistol rang out. At that point, it was simply: Wrong place, wrong time. Everything else was beside the point.

Reggie had heard all about the white light and the gathered family and friends who supposedly waited on the other side. He had often wondered, vaguely, whether that was all there was to the so-called Great Beyond: A party, a reunion, a friendly booze-up. For his part, he could easily have skipped all that. He'd never enjoyed the annual family get-togethers that had consumed the third weekend of each and every June during his childhood years. Thanksgiving and Christmas were fine, as far as food and gifts went, but Reggie has always suspected the feasting and the presents were little more than bribery to make up for the misery of having to deal with dotty aunts, cantankerous uncles, and obnoxious cousins. The thought of meeting those same people in one big, unending gala of spectral hobnobbing made him hope for the simple oblivion of zero afterlife.

Well, he thought, surveying the room in which he found himself, I guess I was wrong about that one.

The room wasn't bad, actually. It looked like the lobby of a grand hotel: The floors were marble, the walls a marvel of tastefully blended dark panels, plaster expanses painted slightly off-white and hung with Old Master-ish paintings in heavy, ornate frames, and tall windows that looked out over immaculate lawns and gardens. Two staircases wound gracefully along the room's interior, descending to a common landing that sat atop a broad, red carpeted flight of stairs that looked like something from a movie musical. Potted ferns dotted the lobby here and there, as did sofas, wing-backed chairs, and low tables. Tiffany lamps lent a cheerful golden glow to the room's far corners. Overhead, a gigantic skylight offered a crystal-clear view into a cloudless sky - a sky from high summer, crisp and blue.

Reggie looked around, dreading the sight he knew must be coming: That of his senile Aunt Mabel, the one who had always accosted him with sour-smelling, red-smeared lips. He was pretty sure her slobbery kisses had given him herpes. He still got cold sores in the wintertime thanks to her lack of hygiene. But what truly irritated him even twenty years later wasn't the herpes or the well-remembered need to wipe away her saliva with his shirtsleeves. No, what really burned him was the way Aunt Mabel had made such a fuss over him. How handsome he was! How tall he was getting! How well he was doing in school! All of that, followed by a generous gratuity of a dollar slipped into his hand as Aunt Mabel concluded her paean with the words, "Keep up the good work, Stevie."

Stevie! Who the fuck was Stevie? None of his cousins was named Stevie, but they were all happy to seize upon this mistake of Aunt Mabel's, mocking him as being Stevie Nicks... a boy in name only.

Putzes. Okay, he'd been pretty obviously gay even as a little kid, but they could have let him figure it out for himself instead of ostracizing him for it even before he knew what it was - even, Reggie thought, before he knew it about himself. His cousin Joshua had been the worst of the lot. Big, stupid football player Joshua, who'd been the one to take Reggie into his dad's garage when the reunion took place in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and there coaxed him into trading blowjobs. Reggie had agreed for two overwhelming reasons: One, he was fourteen and horny as all hot and sizzling Hell; and two, he figured that once he and Joshua had sucked each other off Joshua would stop it with the Stevie Nicks cracks and the Powder Puff Girls references and the My Little Pony insinuations. That was not to be: Joshua gobbled him greedily, but then - despite his own status as a certified cocksucker - he had gone on to mock Reggie for being "girly" with just as much enthusiasm as before.

The story had a bad end. When Reggie was 16 and Joshua a senior in high school, Joshua got his neck broken during a game. It happened two weeks before Thanksgiving. That was the year everyone gathered at the house of Joshua's parents. They lived in Racine. It was a subdued gathering. No one made fun of Reggie, and even the annual fistfight between Uncle Calvin and Uncle Andy failed to materialize. It was as though everyone was on their best behavior. To sixteen-year-old Reggie, it all stank of hypocrisy. He couldn't remember any more why he'd thought so at the time -- probably because when he was sixteen, everything struck him as being hypocritical.

Would Joshua be among the others, the throng of the dead Reggie was sure was about to surge up to greet him?

Maybe not. As Reggie took in his surroundings - at first with a quick, wild glance, and then more slowly and methodically, his travel writer's eye taking note of every cornice, every plaster medallion, each piece of furniture - it slowly dawned on him that the horde of relatives wasn't there. In fact, no one was there. That was strange, and little frightening: It seemed an awfully big place just for him, Reggie thought, turning to see whether a crowd might be gathered behind him.

He'd expected to see a grand entrance at his back, but instead there was a continuation of the same large-scale luxury. A long portico edged with red draperies led into another large room - a library, by the look of it, with towering book cases, all of them filled with opulent-looking editions. A writer's desk crouched conspicuously near the center of the room, where sunlight spilled in through more tall glass windows. In fact, here was more of everything: More desks and couches and chairs; more tables and Tiffany lamps; and there! A sideboard with a tea urn and plates of sandwiches and scones, little pots of jam and clotted cream...

Reggie drifted toward the tea urn. Fine china cups were lined up: Elegantly formed, hand-painted, with gold around the rims, each cup set precisely in a matching saucer. Sandwich plates were stacked to the side. Linen napkins, folded with sharp creases, waited to be plucked up. The food looked fresh. A small china pitcher of milk sat next to an identical pitcher of cream. A stack of spoons gleamed with the unmistakable luster of silver, and a silver dish sat heaped with sugar cubes, matching silver tongs in attendance.

Reggie gathered cup, saucer, and spoon, then turned the tea urn's tap. A fragrant wash of steam clouded aloft, and rich hot tea flowed into the cup. The scent of jasmine rose all around him. Reggie, careful not to overfill the cup, turned off the tap and then reached for the milk. He ignored the sugar, gave the tea a stir with the spoon, and set the spoon onto the saucer. Then he turned toward a nearby armchair, where he settled thoughtfully.

"Do try the scones," a voice invited. "They're made with buttermilk and black currants. They are delicious."

Reggie started, his tea sloshing dangerously but somehow staying in its cup. A tall, slender, green eyed man stood nearby, neatly dressed in clothing that somehow fell between casual and suitable for a butler: Dark jacket and trousers, gleaming black shoes, white shirt and a tie that coruscated with a rich, but subdued, swirl of red and gold and blue.

Reggie stared at him, trying to place him. It wasn't Joshua - that was his first conclusion. Then he reassured himself that it wasn't anyone he knew, or had ever seen.

"I apologize," the butler said, stepping forward and producing a napkin with a brisk whisk of his hand. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Reggie accepted the napkin even though he didn't need it. "Thank you," he said automatically. Then he thought to ask, "Where is everybody?"

"What do you mean?" the butler asked.

"Am I the only one?"

"The only... guest?" the butler asked him. "Well, no. But the estate is quite large, and there's plenty of room for everyone."

"And my family?" Reggie asked.

"Are they expected as well? I understood you to be the only new arrival," the butler said.

"No, I mean... the ones who... you know... died before me. Granny. Mom. Joshua."

"I don't know them, but I'm sure I can find out for you," the butler said.

"No - no," Reggie said, raising a hand. "No, that's fine."

"As you wish," the butler said. "I'm only here to see that you're comfortable and answer any questions you might have. But you are free to enjoy your solitude at any time."

"So there are other people, but I don't have to mix with them?" Reggie asked.

"That's right," the butler said.

"And this is the afterlife?" Reggie asked.

"Well, technically, no," the butler said. "Life being the result of metabolic processes, this is technically only a simulacrum of life. It could precede earthly life, or come afterwards, but not everyone who exists in this place has necessarily lived a previous existence in the form of organic intelligence."

"Uh huh," Reggie said. Then: "What?"

"Well, now, sir, think of it. Would it be fair to ask intelligent, self-aware organic beings to accept eternal punishment or reward based on their mostly hard-wired patterns of conduct across a few decades spent in a form of reality defined by its narrow margins of possibility and its quite demanding requirements for physical and psychological survival?"

"I, I, I..." Reggie stammered. Flummoxed, he retreated to his cup of tea for a long sip. Then he said, "I really have no clue."

"Trust me," the butler said. "It wouldn't be a very workable idea."

"But how am I here in the first place?"

"Where else would you go?" the butler asked.

Reggie had no idea how to formulate a response. Finally, he said, "Well... what am I supposed to be doing?"

"Doing, sir? Anything you please. The library is quite extensive, as you can see. If you did feel the need for social intercourse, there are any number of book clubs, mutual interest societies, salons, and other informal groups centered around conversation. There are also more structured activities - an astronomy group, a theater club -- "

"Astronomy? You have astronomy in the afterlife?"

"Of course," the butler said. "The phenomenal world still exists. Why would we not wish to observe it? Often, newcomers take quite a keen interest in politics, but really... given the constraints of time, and the way in which time as it exists on the physical plane fails to mesh well with what you perceive as time here, which isn't actually time at all... well, as an interest, politics is quick to wane. Nothing in the organic sphere endures for long. Entire civilizations come and go in such short order that they make for very poor entertainment, and as you'd soon discern, most of the events defining the experience of organic life comprise the same things over and over again." The butler's voice took on the orotund, exaggerated emphasis of a movie trailer narrator: "Struggle, betrayal, flares of hope that gutter out against oppressive grinding futility," he declaimed. "Frankly, it's the sort of thing that, unless you are participating in it, it's a bore.

"The stars, on the other hand - they exist over the course of so much time, which is to say they exist across so much of the curve of space-time and event causality, that they constitute a significant fraction of the shape of an entire universe," the butler continued. "Even they, of course, have a relatively brief heyday when observed against the entirely of a universe: A brilliant band of energy and activity, light and life that emerges from hot plasma and eager physical forces. That's where the action is at, I grant you, but it's action that usually has no greater meaning. Then the long, dark slide into dark and degeneration comes along, and speaking personally if I were chained to the constraints of time I'd be looking at my watch. Though, it is restful in a certain melancholy way," the butler said, thoughtfully.

But Reggie was stuck on something the butler kept repeating.

"What do you mean, 'organic' life? Human life?"

"Organic life is hardly limited to the human species, sir," the butler said. "There are literally tens of millions of intelligent organic strains of life just in the one universe you're familiar with. Practically next door to your own planet Earth, you have colonies and home worlds of half a dozen species: The Srolta, the Jaddak, the Thrass, the An-kjo-kja, the Gnangt. You won't see any of them here, at least not in their native forms, because you still expect experience to take the shape of the familiar sensory feed, and to constitute familiar activities involving familiar settings and materials."

"Settings? Materials?" Reggie said, feeling that everything that was happening, everything the butter was saying, was over his head.

"You know. Visible light. Gravity. Exchanges of kinetic energy in various physical media."

Reggie didn't know, actually, but he let all that go. Instead, he said, "Look, are there some other human people around here?"

The butler looked surprised. "You desire social contact?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain? Based on your patterns of conduct and your preferences profile, it was our expectation that you would prefer solitude. That, and a good wifi connection."

"Excuse me?"

"Your profession is that of a travel writer," the butler noted. "The part of your profession you most enjoy is being in foreign countries where you do not speak the language and social interaction is limited. The part of your writing process you most enjoy - even more so than composition or research into the historic and artistic contexts of the places you visit - is posting to social media. It was our expectation you would simply wish to carry on with these pleasurable activities."

"Even though all flesh is grass and civilizations come and go?" Reggie said snidely, feeling a burst of irritation come over him.

"One need not reference phenomenological occurrences in order to enjoy simpler pastimes that draw from or replicate aspects of the phenomenological plane," the butler said.

Reggie struggled to parse what the man was talking about. "You mean, if I perch up here in the clouds and look down at the Earth I'm just going to get bored. But if I keep on keeping on with what I already like to do, then I'll be happy?"

"That's more or less what I mean. Though, that being said..." The butler paused.

"Yes?"

"Happiness to an organic entity can take the form of emotion, which is chemically based. It can also take aesthetic form, which is rooted in thought. You can enjoy the activities you are familiar with, and you might even manage to immerse yourself in a recollection of emotions that includes happiness. But in any case, I would only expect your familiar routines to successfully engage you for a few centuries at most. Subjective centuries, I mean - the notion of time that you cling to even in the absence of time as you understood it."

Reggie still had no clue what any of this meant, though he figured it had something to do with the way time and space seemed to exist around him the same as always even though - if he had understood the butler correctly - neither of these things really existed for him any longer. He decided to stick with what he knew.

"Do you mean to say that I can still go online and write travelogues?"

"Yes, of course," the butler said.

"And I can go into the travel apps I like and fire off reviews?"

"By all means."

"And that's because I enjoy writing those reviews so much?" Reggie said.

"Yes, exactly."

"But who will be reading those reviews?" Reggie asked.

"Who read them before?" the butler asked. "Imagined admirers. Anonymous detractors. One or another faceless editor who offered no feedback."

"But this will all be an illusion?" Reggie asked.

The butler fixed him with a look. "All of organic life is an illusion, both for psychological and physical reasons."

Reggie decided not to pursue that. Instead, he said, "Why don't you show me around some? Let me see who else is here?"

***

The tour went on for hours, and it could have gone on longer... much, much longer, the butler assured him... except that Reggie finally had no more stomach for it.

It hadn't taken him long to conclude that he was in Hell.

There had been signs and indications of this from the start, of course. The fact that the rooms were so large and yet he had been alone in them... didn't someone once described Hell as a place characterized by the torments of isolation? That, at least, was something Reggie had avoided by asking to see what others were doing with their eternities. In one section - the spa, the butler explained, acres and acres of hot tubs, cold plunges, mineral baths, salt soaks, and saunas - swimmers strove ceaselessly against currents that held them in the middle of the pool, while sweating men ensconced in plumes of steam grasped empty cups and yearned for cool water.

At least the décor of the spa was as elegant as the lobby and library had been. But as the tour continued, graciousness became scarce and the corridors dark, sinister, and unkempt. In one warren of badly lit tunnels, heavy metal doors confined poor souls who screamed and wailed and banged. These frightening precincts gave way to an even more unsettling wing in which the corridors were more brightly lit and the paint seemed fresher, but there was nothing from behind the doors - no outcries, not even the low rumble of gnashing teeth. Unnerved, Reggie finally asked if he might see what lay behind the door to one such silent room.

"Of course," the butler had said, as though startled at the idea that any place might be off limits.

The butler had opened the door to a random room and, after a moment's hesitation, Reggie had stepped in. The place seemed perfectly well organized, though it was spare; there was a bed, a chair, and a desk without papers, books, or lamp, just a perfectly clean surface. A man sat in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, his face serene. But the man seemed unnaturally still; he gave not the lightest notice to Reggie's intrusion.

"Are you okay?" Reggie asked, taking another step into the room.

The man glanced up. "Yes," he said, not seeming surprised at the interruption. Then he returned to his posture of simply sitting, looking nowhere, as though listening or thinking deep thoughts.

"What..." The man glanced up at Reggie again. "What are you doing, if I may ask?" Reggie inquired.

"I'm waiting," the man said.

Reggie expected him to say more, but the man simply settled back once again into his Zen-like repose.

"Waiting for what?" Reggie ventured to ask.

"My lover," the man said, not bothering to look up this time. "He told me that one day he and I would be together. He told me to wait for him. So - I'm waiting for him. One day he will come to me, and then we'll be together."

It was instantly obvious to Reggie that that was a day that would literally never come. But he didn't challenge the man on this point, Instead, he said, "How long will you give him before you stop waiting?"

Now the man did look up, and for the first time his face registered an expression - a look of contempt. "I'll wait for as long as I have to. What does it matter? If it takes him a thousand years, that's nothing next to forever. And we're going to be together forever." The man's eyes sank away from contact with Reggie's eyes, and his face reverted to blankness.

Reggie backed out of the room in quiet mortification.

Other rooms held similar horrors. A woman on a treadmill wept while eating pastries. The treadmill was equipped with a tabletop, not unlike a treadmill desk, but the desktop held a huge platter of donuts, bear claws, Danishes...

"If I could only lose those last six pounds," the woman sobbed to Reggie.

A man sat in a chair in a room with no other furnishings - not a bed, not a window, not even lino on the floor, just bare concrete. "The bureau was there," he muttered, pointing at an empty corner, "and the chaise lounge there... The buffet was there, and the bench was there..."

His recitation went on and one, and Reggie finally realized that the man was repeating the same two dozen items, his head swiveling and his finger pointing all around the room as he reeled them off, over and over. The man didn't break his litany when Reggie tried to ask what he was doing: Planning how to decorate?

The butler, unprompted, leaned into the room. "He's recalling the parlor of his childhood home," the butler said softly. "The one place he remembers feeling safe and happy."

The warren of rooms became too depressing, and Reggie asked to see something more cheerful - maybe an arboretum. The butler led him to a beautiful garden, a place with flowering trees dotted with red and yellow blossoms, and shrubs that dripped white and yellow petals, and flowerbeds laid out along impeccable brick pathways. There were tables of wrought iron, and steel-framed benches with seats and backs made from slats of handsome hardwoods. In one little nook near a water feature, a man and woman shared a table, espresso cups set before them and a plate of ladyfingers in between.

"No you didn't," the man said.

"It was you," the woman answered.

"No you didn't," the man replied.

"It was you," the woman accused.

"What are they arguing about?" Reggie asked, fascinated by how they simply repeated the same words to each other over and over - identical words, identical inflections.

"Everything," the butler shrugged. "That is the distillation of all their arguments. The same argument they have always had, stripped of needless verbiage."

As the butler led Reggie along the garden path the exchange grew fainter until it was blocked out by laughter - wild, gasping laughter from a man who seemingly had no reason to laugh.

Reggie paused before the man. "What's so funny?" he asked.

The man fell silent. Then: "Nothing," he said.

"Why are you laughing so hard? Are you nuts or something?"

The laughing man's eyes started to brim over. "It's just, if I don't laugh I'll..." Great sobs choked off the rest.

Reggie turned on his heel and began to storm up the path. The butler fell behind. Guided by some impulse that must have been part and parcel of with the spirit world, Reggie wended and wound his way through the garden's many precincts, and then through what seemed to be some sort of vast factory - a crazyland of a factory, with conveyor belts running and workers scrambling, or else workers ignoring the things that glided past them: Chocolates, half-assembled cuckoo clocks, things you wouldn't have imagined were the end result of assembly lines, like oranges, and coiled asps, and geodes.

Reggie kept on, marching past all of it, the butler following behind, until they were back in the library with the tea and the linen napkins and the handsomely appointed furnishings. Reggie threw himself into the armchair he'd sat in before. Unable to bear the sight of the great library, he stared out the window - a window that looked out over a lakefront scene, and the edges of what seemed to be a thick, dark forest. Maybe that would be a good place to find a little goddamned peace. Reggie's headache was back, and he was bitter about it.

The butler followed his gaze to the woods. "I don't know I'd go in there if were you," he said. "Not yet, anyway."

"Is that where the demons are?" Reggie snapped.

"Beg pardon?"

"The demons, the ghouls that will rip my entrails out and feast on them for all time. Or tie me to a stake and then ignite a bonfire to burn me forever while I scream in mindless agony, terrible screams and terrible suffering with no end."

"But - there are no such things here," the butler said.

"So Hell doesn't have a staff of professionally trained demons?" Reggie demanded. "Or are you the demon? Polite and smooth and unruffled while you show a guy scene after scene of misery, futile effort and delusion and... and misery!"

There was an awkward pause.

Then the butler said, "But no one here is miserable. Everyone is doing exactly what they wish to be doing. Everyone is pursuing his or her own deepest dreams and pleasures."

Reggie looked at the butler with a face that grew whiter by the moment as he took in the meaning of what he was being told.

"You see, sir, there is no 'Hell.' What would be the point? If anything, this is Heaven," the butler said.

It seemed there was nothing left for either of them to say after that. The butler lingered for a moment more, and then gave a quick little bow and melted away - he simply seemed to step into the shadows and vanish. Reggie pulled out his electrocodex, which he found nested comfortably in its deep, well-padded thigh pocket, just as always. Checking the signal and the battery level, Reggie saw that both were at full strength. Then he began to tap out his review with swiftly pecking fingers.

Was anyone actually going to read this? Did it matter? Did he care? Had he ever cared? Reggie shoved such thoughts away and focused on each paragraph as he deftly outlined what he'd seen and how graciously it had been presented... or not.

"Good taste that is fiendishly implacable," he muttered, his fingers dancing. "Hugely extensive, professionally maintained grounds. Notoriously helpful service..." On and on the sentences flowed, the words fell into place, each adjective and double-edged superlative a mot juste. At last, Reggie came to the climax. His muttering became sharper and angrier as he assigned the afterlife its rating: "One goddamned star!"

Reggie hesitated for long, long moments... hours?... years?... before hitting POST.