Images of hell

          I never would have imagined it would be like this, not Hell. I always imagined fire and brimstone, the smell of burning flesh and sulphur. Demons tearing tortured souls apart like writhing maggots, the heat of fire and the screams of millions echoing with relentless force. I imagined blood stained furnaces that cascaded towards a thrown in which Beelzebub, the size of a sky scraper, would pick broken torsos and torment them before casting them back into the fire to be tortured anew. This is how I imagined it. The reality is much worse. Silence.

          In hell there is nothing. Only silence and darkness, no fire, no brimstone. It would seem that mans spirit can take almost anything, it can adjust to even the most wicked of beatings, the human race adapts. So instead of screams there is silence. Each soul is crouching huddled inches apart but never touching, there is no body heat, no breath, nothing. They are wrapped in a blanket of loneliness. All eyes are closed and all minds are shut off. They are not aware that the company they seek so much is so close. The reason they don’t move or explore is because they are locked away within in a cell. No conventional cell but a cell of their own creating. They force themselves to relive their torments of life in death for an eternity. Somehow they have been feed created the illusion that they will only be here for a short time so instead of fighting they sit waiting for there sentence to be for filled. They go though all they have done wrong, the crimes they have committed. Salvation will never arrive; the time which they await will never arrive as there is no time in hell. So they wait, forever, never willing to stand and touch those next to them, those who can save them.

            The reason I am here is because I have just tried to commit suicide. I took a overdose of anti depressants and although I am not dead I am in a coma. I suppose you could say I am stuck within a near death experience. I do not have long here in hell as the Drs in life are working to heal me and I can already feel myself begin to slowly re-join the world of the living, my body tingles and shudders with the spirit of life. There is a warmth growing within me, heating my soul in this world of ice.
There are no rules in Hell, I am free to come and go as I please. I  am allowed walk amongst the souls, never touching them less they wake, but I can hear there stories. They enter my mind slowly like whispers. Not soft and gentle, but horse and weak as if they have spent too long screaming and are too weak to scream anymore. The voices crawl in to my mind, the horrors they have committed are revealed slowly. It seems obvious why some people are here, murder, adultery and theft all seem so simple. But then I hear the voices of those who felt like they did not achieve in life. That their lives could have gone better and they could have accomplished more. They should have been better wives and husbands or are still waiting for their lost lovers to return. An entire history of people who still carry the burden of there mortal coil and am unable to let go. The screams are over whelming, the sighs of lost youth and hope. It seems obvious to me now, hell is not other people but isolation. It is been trapped in your own mind with no distraction. We send ourselves to hell with the hell we created in life. A hell we create when we cannot let go of the our lost hopes and dreams. There is too much noise for me to handle, I long for my release, for the Drs to save me.


            My legs begin to feel week, I have no concept of how long I have been here but it seems like an eternity. I find a spot that is not occupied by one of the empty souls and crouch down. I quickly begin to feel comfortable as my legs begin to feel rested and I sit and wait for my salvation. If only I hadn’t tried to end my life, the swords and arrows of trouble and adversity do not seem so much when you see the alternative. I try to recap what it was that started all my troubles. If only I could change what had happened; if only I could have stopped her from leaving, if only it had been different. I’ll start at the beginning of the break up and work out a way to fix what had happened. I close my eyes and let my thoughts run through my mind. I think how it could have all been different, and I wait for my salvation. I am lucky as I am not here for long…