My Wife's in Hell

My Wife’s in Hell….

By Edward Pereira

Good night.

One more!

Ok – just one more….

**************

“My wife’s in hell. I’m here to get her out.”

Grrrr, the ogre said. I don’t look at him too closely. Surface details confuse things, distract. You see things you can’t unsee, lose focus on the current goal, and…

“Do I not have your full attention?” the ogre sneers through blood-stained teeth.

“Cookie?” I display an open family size bag of sweetness. I eat one. Slowly.

He takes the bag and lets me pass the front gate. Underpaid—unpaid, actually—and ogres are suckers for cookies.

Details.

***********

I've done this a few times— retrieving souls that have slipped into Hell. Most are here because they've "earned" it. Others end up here on a technicality (the spiritual realm was a huge mess when the Church shut down Limbo), or because of a wizard they owe money to, or a demigod they pissed off at a bar.

I stumbled into the job by accident. Read way too much, learned a ridiculous number of details about the inner workings of the non-mundane, and figured I could make easy money with little work. Turns out there was more work—and more risk—than I'd realized.

I've built a solid retirement fund from these little "trips." Thinking of calling it quits soon. The money's great, but it's a numbers game. Push your luck too far, too many times, and you end up dead—and stuck in Hell.

Steady work, though. You can't lawyer a soul out. Hell doesn’t have an extradition treaty. They don’t have any treaties with anyone.

After the gate there’s a badass warrior type, impossible to defeat – he’s never lost a battle ever, actually - who says you can only pass if you drink water from his tea cup, blah, blah. He starts his speech, six-foot-three looming all over me. It’s a good speech but I’m on a clock so I cut him off.

“May I please drink from your tea cup, master?”

“You’ve done this before.”

I drink the water, bow, and leave him and his disappointment behind. Two more tests left.

********************

Suicides go straight to hell for a while. Hell makes sense as the default. Their souls are in torment and confused. The world is harsh, unforgiving. Suicides can’t perceive or accept anything else.

As above, so below.

How did I miss her sadness, her torment? I’ll have to ask her. After.

Suicides are tortured by demons of their own making for as many years as they have lived. Then they are free to go elsewhere.

I’m not waiting thirty-four years.

*****************************

Test three is a laughably weak riddle posed by a ravenous three-headed dog. Honestly, someone should just feed the poor thing—no need to be cruel. The riddle itself? Something about the "three stages of man."

The dog is relieved when I cut him off, rattle off the answer, and toss him some beef jerky as a bribe.

“Are you going to get in trouble because of me?”

“What can they do to me?” Three sets of sad puppy-dog eyes blink up at me. “I’m in hell. Will you please scratch my ears? I so love that.”

I do. I tell him he’s a good boy. I would stay but I’m on a clock.

I run. Reality begins seeping back in at the edges of my vision—a parking lot, the smell of overcooked burgers. This is where I was parked when the police called and told me what happened.

Wish I had more time. Wish I had paid attention more attention to her. Or maybe it was too much of the wrong attention.

Details.

*************************************

Final test. The big D himself. White suit, no tie, no shoes, inky black blood – ichor actually – crawling down his feet that float off the ground – gross, actually…

“Is this getting too real for you?” Satan sneers.

“You know what I’m here for.” Keep it short, keep it quick. Linger and he gets into your head…

“I’m already there.”

“Ouch.”

“You’ve stolen souls out of my realm before their time was up. More than once. This complicates things. I am a busy entity of primal power. You have my full attention, little man.”

Eeep.

“She’s right behind me. You know the rules. You have five minutes. If she wants to go with you, you’re both free to go.”

“You won’t interfere?”

“I never do.”

I’ll need a few drinks after this, I think.

“You think you’re having drinks today? Four minutes and fifty seconds.”

I almost start an argument over not agreeing to the clock starting – but he’s the master of hell, so why bother with details?

Big D steps aside. She’s there. Scared, angry, trapped.

“Can she see me?” I already know the answer.

“Oh, she can see you,” D says.

She’s pissed at me. Furious at the world. At herself.

I don’t have time for this. I could just break her will and drag her out of here—it’s what I’ve done for every soul I was paid handsomely to "rescue." The longer you linger in Hell, the more likely you are to slip up and lose. And I’ve have even less time than usual. If she were just another client, I’d undermine her just enough to get her moving, then let some poor therapist downstream patch up the insecurity and ego damage.

I could just break her. But this time, I care. And in caring, I lose.

Big D taunts, "Is it hot enough for you?"

"Look at me," I plead.

She does.

"I’m sorry I let you down. But you’re here because you quit on yourself. I didn’t."

"Go away."

"You will leave this place. Hell isn’t forever—that’s the first lie you’ve told yourself. And it’s up to you whether you’re sipping a chocolate malted shake…" (Not even a flicker of joy in her eyes. Bad. No—very bad.) "...in twenty minutes or thirty-four years."

I can see the fast-food parking lot where I chugged the last of my "walk between realms" potion—ten grand a sip, and the shaman who brews it is on vacation. Drank it the second the cops called to say she’d—

"Go away. If I leave—"

If? That’s hope. That’s her seeing a crack in the despair.

"—it won’t be because of you. Don’t flatter yourself."

“Checkmate,” says Big D. “You have two minutes left but even if you had hours, it wouldn’t change things, would it? “

I walk up to her, sit by her side.

“I’ll stay here. Until you’re ready to go.”

“How noble,” says Big D. But he’s nervous, I can tell.

“Lord, you are so stupid,” I say. It really pisses Big D off when you invoke Mr. G around him – really pisses him off, actually – I can see hellfire fill his eyes and I wonder if I have gone too far…

I look back into her eyes and see what I need to see, what I feel bad for seeing but I’m on the clock and why am I not back in the parking lot already?

I see guilt.

The kind that comes when someone you love suffers because of you. It's a cheat - not a solution, might even make things worse. Hell, she might take it as an insult. But I really got to get out of here and I’ll apologize later but I can feel the crawling bead of sweat in the crack of my pants and…

"Enough," Big D whispers. "She's decided to leave. You're free to go. If I ever see you again..."

I’m about to make a joke, but the clock strikes midnight and we are gone.

*************

She sips the double malted. Doesn’t make a joke about empty calories.

“Mellissa,” she realizes.

“Our daughter is fine.”

She feels awful, guilty. I can’t make that go away. So, I feel the space with details.

“The clock’s been reset. What you did in the mundane works has been undone. No lasting physical scars, no crime scene. It’s a one-shot thing, had to bribe a few would-be demi-gods full of themselves - you have no idea…”

“Actually, I do. I know what you do for a living.”

“That’s done. Early retirement. You can only beat the odds so many times. I’m not going to push it anymore.”

“I don’t think - I don’t feel I’m worth all the effort.”

I don’t say anything. It would be a sin to.

“I’ll have to work on that,” she says. “That’s on me.”

(No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. That’s what Budda said to me, the last time he borrowed bus money home.)

I nod.

“But I am grateful for – what’s that smell?”

“It the three headed devil dog from hell that followed me home.”

“You’re joking.”

She looks up. She sees it. Softens at three sets of sad puppy eyes.

“Can we keep them?”

“Get me another milkshake,” she smiled.

“Can we keep him?”

“Wash the damned dogs first.” She kisses me which I hope is a “yes” and I get her another milkshake.

And in that moment of joy, I feel a twinge of uncertainty. I overthink, plan, consider every contingency. There's always a low hum of anxiety playing in the background - it's what keeps me sharp, how I outsmart the world.

But life is good. Damn good. And all of it could vanish overnight. So, keep your guard up. Hold close those you love, and who love you in return. We're all on our own. Alone. Until... despite ourselves, we're not. Confusing? Hell yes. But sweet sometimes too.

That was Wednesday.

********

And now…

Years later, the hellhound is asleep by the fire and my wife is asleep in our bed. But you, my dear granddaughter, are still fighting it. I look down at you, a silly little thing—but already so big—as you finally yawn.

“Ok, no more excuses. Go to sleep, daughter of my daughter, a blessing doubled beyond my imagination. My life is a mess of my own creation but pearls came from all that irritation. “

She yawns. Again. How can something that lovely happen twice in one evening? Be as boring as possible, I guess.

“Off to sleep I say, a very good night to you - and many good mornings to follow - all that I will not see, but that I can happily see from my current shore. And where I will live in your occasional memory forever. Are we good? You’re off to sleep?”

“Yup,” she yawns, not caring, “I don’t understand it all, and some of it sounded dark and dirty – “

“Dirty,” I say, shocked.

“Dirty,” she giggles, “More ponies and moon pies next time. But yeah, I’m good. I’ll go to sleep. Promise.”

“Got your nose, said the ghost, before he vanished.”

“Got your nose,” she murmurs.

And now finally, actually -

Good night.

Edward Pereira (EPereiraNY@gmail.com) is a writer based in Queens, New York. His Nicholl Fellowship Quarterfinalist screenplay was optioned by the director Carlos Avila. He has written a supporting role in an action screenplay that feels tailor made for the ridiculously talented Peter Dinklage—a Nazi-fighting rogue hero who gets the girl in the end. Mr. Dinklage is currently not aware of this.