The young man started the long walk down the seemingly endless flight of stairs into Purgatory. What exactly he had done to deserve this final punishment was quite beyond him. Aside from being an executive in charge of closing down many businesses and making people lose their livelihoods, and having an affair with his daughter, nothing else sinister sprang to mind.
As he neared the bottom of the stairs, he hoped he could make an appeal and get a shot at going the other way. It had worked for him on Earth, and he figured all the judges he had ever encountered were probably down here, so it was worth a try.
He walked into a large hall made of some stone-like material. Flames seemed to spring forth from every corner, casting strange patterns of light and shadow in an unsettling manner. It made him feel slightly nervous, but he realised he was in Purgatory after all. If for some reason he felt elated and joyous, he would probably consider filling out an application for a job rather than trying to get out.
At the other end of the hall was an archway leading into an ominous darkness. Beside the arch was a man. A man of sorts, he corrected himself. The man had 2 arms, eyes, ears and legs, and all the other things you would expect a man to have, but something about the way the man looked and carried himself left you with a feeling of dread and unease. This must be the Devil, the condemned man thought. Seeing nobody else in the hall, and glancing behind him, seeing the staircase vanish into the flames, the man braced himself to appeal to the Devil.
'Welcome, Welcome!' the devil said in an altogether too friendly tone. 'I have been awaiting your arrival! It's altogether pleasant to welcome in a man who has committed some proper sinning, not like the last few thousand souls who have passed through here, all snivelling and whining about how they haven't done anything wrong, and they must have been sent to the wrong place'
At this point, the man abandoned any hope of trying to get the devil to change his mind. Whatever he had done was properly sinful, and there wasn't much chance of it being viewed otherwise. He didn't view it that way, and just before the police came and arrested him and sent his daughter away to a trauma centre, he was commenting on how satisfying this relationship was for him. Obviously, others saw it differently.
'Let me give you a quick tour around our facilities here!' boomed the Devil. 'You're just the kind of man who would appreciate the lengths I have gone to ensure everybody here suffers, and knows just what they did when they were alive to deserve such torment! Come, Come!"
The Devil strode forth into the ominous darkness. The man stood still, unwilling to fall into the damnation awaiting him. He looked around, trying to see if there was any other avenue of escape, when suddenly a pair of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness.
'Well? What are you waiting for? Come, follow me around my humble home. I would advise you not to tarry here much longer, lest a worse fate befall you!'
Given that the man was halfway to Hell, he couldn't off the top of his head think of any worse fate, but given that this was the Devil speaking, he hurried off into the darkness. If there was a candidate for someone who could make your life hell, the Devil was surely the number one choice.
The blackness enveloped the man, but shortly his eyes adjusted, and he found himself in a dimly lit nightclub. On one side, a group of men were ordering drinks from the very well-stocked bar, and around the room, various other groups of men sat at tables and talked and drank. In one corner, a piano was playing, and drpaed over one end of the piano, a tall, curvaceous woman sang.
To call it singing was an understatement. Words flowed out of her mouth like liquid gold, filling the room with intoxicating harmonies. Any man who heard even a minute of this would surely have been swept up into her spell, and be nothing more than putty in her hands. The fact that she looked as lovely as she sang just cemented the deal, in the mans opinion.
Yet nobody looked at her. Nobody even gave her a sideways glance. It was plain to see that she was giving every ounce of herself into her singing, but it seemed all to no avail.
The man looked questioningly at the Devil. "Ah, well, you see. She's here because in her mortal existence, she was a bit like you. She sang her way into the hearts of any man she chose, entrapping their hearts completely. No matter whom she chose - rich, poor, married, divorced, handsome or ugly, they were hers entirely. She ruined marriages, destroyed lives, took money, property - anything she wanted. Now, no matter how hard she tries, nobody will pay her the slightest bit of attention. It doesn't stop her trying, mind you, but she will never succeed."
The man felt an overwhelming surge of pity for the singer. She was just using her talents to get what she wanted, and in light of his own behavior on Earth, he saw no real wrong in that. "Is there any chance that she can -" but was cut off by a glance from the Devil that made him regret he'd bothered asking. "Lets move on now, shall we?" the Devil said. I've got so much more to show you, and you'll appreciate why you need to see it when we're done."
The Devil hastened out of the nightclub, and the man followed, somewhat unwillingly, behind. The light became brighter, to the extent that it appeared they had emerged into sunlight. Suddenly, the man found himself in a office tower, with uniform-looking office workers sitting at uniform-looking desks under a uniform light. Despite this, they were all working frantically, holding two telephones to either ear, entering information into a computer and occasionally scribbling notes down on a pad.
"These are all middle managers and office assistants that during their life handled factory closures, school mergers and benefit cuts with impersonality and detachment. All in the name of efficiency, they said. It must be done, they said. People didn't view their opinions too highly, it seems. But that's not what I came to show you. Follow me."
Again the man felt very sorry for these workers. They were just doing their job - if you wanted to take anger out on someone, take it out on the people who made the decisions, not the ones who carried it out. He walked past row after row of shouting, slamming telephones, cursing at the computers not working and other events that lead to high blood pressure. This was his idea of damnation, he thought. But it seems this wasn't to be his fate.
The man eventually found the Devil in a large, light-filled office. At one end of the room, a large mahogany desk sat, on top of which were several monitors, a large but organised pile of papers, and a couple of telephone handsets. This was nothing out of the ordinary, but upon looking behind the desk, the man drew back in horror.
Behind the desk was another man. Once upon a time, he might have been handsome in a GQ kind of way, but now, he was a shriveled shell. His hair, what remained of it was white and limp. At any moment, it looked as if it might all fall loose. He could see that some attempt had been made to style the hair, but at this point, it was far too late. The man behind the desk was wrinkled and hunched. At some point in time it was obvious that he walked strong and tall, but that time had long passed. Now, the man was bent over, mumbling and shuffling. Whatever he had done in life must have been especially cruel to deserve such a punishment.
"Now, this man here is my standout!" the Devil spoke aloud as if in answer to the unspoken question. "In life, he cottoned on early to the fact that money, when you have enough of it, can solve any problem. Health risks, engineering dangers, product flaws, bad reputations - money could make anything go away. Other people noticed his skill in using money in this way, and anytime anybody had a problem, they got this man and enough money together, and the problem went away. Tobacco companies, aircraft makers, boxing stars, carmakers - they all sought this man when they wanted a problem to not exist. And he delivered. Nothing was too big a concern for him."
"And so, when he came here, we said fine - if that's the way he likes to work, we'll just give him problems. So many problems in fact that as soon as he solves one, he makes three more. He has all the money and resources he needs to solve the problems, it's just that the problems don't stop coming. Forever."
The last word rang with a finality in the room. The man with the Devil felt especially sorry for the sight before him. He felt the punishment far outweighed the crime, and this was totally unnecessary, so much so that he turned to challenge the Devil. Everything he had seen had filled him with sorrow, but this was by far the worst.
"And so we come to what you will be doing in your time here!" boomed the Devil, forestalling any argument. "For what seems like an eternity, I've had to run around making sure that all the people you have seen are suffering in an appropriate manner, and from time to time, I find myself wanting to have a break to get on with more pressing matters. But I just couldn't find someone sinful enough with whom I could trust such matters - who understood what sin really was. But now you're here, the answer is at hand!"
"For the rest of time, you will be going from place to place, watching these people, and making sure their lives are as unpleasant and uncomfortable as possible. Nothing shall escape your attention, and no action on your part will be too intolerable. Does this sound agreeable to you?"
The man, in fact, did not find this at all agreeable. Of all the punishments, this was by far the worst thing he could imagine. He opened his mouth to protest, raised his hand to strike out, but found that he could not. Against his will, he found himself walking out the way he had come, and back toward the nightclub. Try as he might, he could not stop.
"Have a nice time!" the Devil called as the man left. He started chuckling as he went on to doing things that he now had time for. "Although, I get the feeling you probably won't. Oh well..."
The chuckling grew to a booming, echoing rumble.
