Damned

Suffice it to say that, until recently, I had felt quite satisfied and successful with my own invention. Each of us chooses our personal route—to be sporty or snarky or smart—with the lifelong confidence that one can possess only as a small child.

However, in light of the truth: that I did not die of a marijuana overdose... nor did Goran reveal himself as my romantic ideal... my schemes have brought nothing except heartache to my family... Thus, it would follow that I am not so smart. And with that, my entire concept of self is undermined.

Even now, I hesitate to use words such as eschew and convey and weltschmerz, so thoroughly is my faith in myself shaken. The actual nature of my death reveals me to be an idiot, no longer a Bright Young Thing, but instead a deluded, pretentious poseur. Not brilliant, but an impostor who would craft my own illusory reality out of a handful of impressive words. Such vocabulary props served as my eye shadow, my breast implants, my physical coordination, my confidence. These words: erudite and insidious and obfuscate, served as my crutches.

Perhaps it's better to recognize this degree of personal fallacy while still young, rather than lose one's fixed sense of self in middle age as beauty and youth fade, or strength and agility fail. It might be worse to cling to sarcasm and contempt until one finds herself isolated, loathed by all her peers. Nevertheless, this extreme form of psychological course correction still feels... devastating.

With that crisis fully realized, I retrace my route, returning to the cell where I first arrived in Hell. My arms swinging, the diamond ring which Archer gave me, the finger ring, flashes heavy and stolen. No longer can I present myself as an authority on being dead, so I retreat to my enclosure of filthy bars, the comfort provided inside a lock, the rust and grime scratched by the pointed safety pin of a dead punk rocker. Doomed within their own cells, my neighbors slump, gripping their heads between their hands, so long frozen and catatonic in attitudes of self-pity that spiderwebs envelop them. Or they pace, punching the air and babbling.

No, it's not too late for me to devote myself to being funny or artsy, energetically flopping my body around on some gymnastics mats or painting moody masterpieces; however, having failed at my initial strategy, I'll never again have such faith in a single identity. Whether I channel my future into being the sporty girl or stoner girl, the smiling cover on a Wheaties cereal box, or an absinthe-guzzling auteur, that new persona will always feel as phony and put-on as plastic fingernails or a rub-on tattoo. The rest of my afterlife, I'll feel as counterfeit as Babette's Manolo Blahniks.

Nearby, oblivious souls sprawl within their cages, so sunken in their shock and resignation they fail to shoo the houseflies that crawl along their soiled arms. These flies freely roam across their smudged cheeks and foreheads. Black flies, fat as raisins, walk across the glassy surface of people's staring, dazed eyes. Unnoticed, these houseflies wander into slack, open mouths, then emerge from nostrils.

Behind their own jail bars, other condemned souls tear at their hair. Enraged souls, they rend and shred their own togas and vestments, ripping their ermine robes, their shrouds and silk gowns and tweed Savile Row suits. Some of them, Roman senators and Japanese shoguns, dead and damned to Hell since long before I was even born. These tormented wail. Their specks of raving slobber mist the fetid air. Their sweat runs in rivulets down their foreheads and cheeks, glowing orange in the ambient Hellish firelight. The denizens of Hades, they flail and cower, shake fists at the flaming sky, pound their heads into the iron bars until their blood blinds them. Others claw at their own countenances, raking their skin raw, scratching out their own eyes. Their broken, hoarse voices keening. In adjacent cells... in cages beyond cages... trapped, they stretch to the burning horizon in every direction. Countless billions of men and women yammer, despairing, shouting their names and status as kings or taxpayers or persecuted minorities or rightful property owners. In this, the cacophony of Hell, the history of humanity fractures into individual protest. They demand their birthrights. They insist on their righteous innocence as Christians or Muslims or Jews. As philanthropists or physicians. Do-gooders or martyrs or movie stars or political activists.

In Hell, it's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us.

In the distance, following the same route on which I've so recently returned, a bright blue spark floats. The spot of bright blue, vivid against the contrasting blaze of orange and red fire, the blue nimbus bobs along, edging between faraway cages and their shrieking occupants. The blue speck passes the dead presidents gnashing their teeth, ignores the forgotten emperors and potentates. This blue spot disappears behind heaps of rusted cages, vanishing behind crowds of lunatic former popes, obscured behind the iron hives of imprisoned, sobbing deposed shamans and city fathers and exiled, scowling tribesmen, only to appear a little more blue, a little larger, closer, a moment later. In this manner, the bright blue object zigzags, coming nearer, navigating the labyrinth of despair and frustration. The bright blue, lost within clouds of flies. The blue, cloaked in occasional pockets of dense, dark smoke. Still, it emerges, larger, closer, until the blue becomes hair, a dyed-blue Mohawk haircut atop an otherwise shaved head. The head bobs, perched upon the shoulders of a black leather motorcycle jacket, supported and borne along by two legs clad in denim jeans, and two feet shod in black boots. With each step, the boots clank with bicycle chains which are looped about the ankles. The punk-rock kid, Archer, approaches my cell.

Clamped under one leather-clad arm, Archer carries a brown manila envelope. His hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans, the envelope pinned between his elbow and his hip, Archer tosses his pimpled chin in my direction and says, 'Hey.”

Archer throws a look at the people who surround us, sunk in their addictions and righteousness and lust. Each person cut off, isolated from any future, any new possibility, withdrawn and isolated within the shell of their past life. Archer shakes his head and says, 'Don't you be like these losers...'

He doesn't understand. The truth is I'm prepubescent and dead and incredibly naive and stupid—and I'm consigned to Hell, forever.

Archer looks directly into my face and says, 'Your eyes look all red... is your psoriasis getting worse?'

And I'm a liar. I tell him, 'I don't actually have psoriasis.'

Archer says, 'Have you been crying?'

And I'm such a big liar that I say, 'No.'

Not that being damned is entirely my fault. In my own defense, my dad always told me that the Devil was disposable diapers.

'Death is a long process,' Archer says. 'Your body is just the first part of you that croaks.' Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. 'All people ever see is how the body dies,' Archer says. 'That Helen Gurley Brown only studied the first seven stages of us kicking the bucket.'

I ask, 'Helen Gurley Brown?'

'You know,' Archer says, 'denial, bargaining, anger, depression...'

He means Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross.

'See,' Archer says, and he smiles. 'You are smart... smarter than me.'

The truth is, Archer tells me, you stay in Hell until you forgive yourself. 'You fucked up. Game over,' he says, 'so just relax.'

The good news is that I'm not some fictional character trapped in a printed book, like Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist; for me anything is now possible. I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful.

Archer shrugs and says, 'Little Maddy Spencer is dead... now maybe it's time for you to get on with the adventure of your existence.' As he shrugs, the envelope slips from under his arm and drifts to the stony ground. The manila envelope. The brown paper is stamped Confidential in red block letters.

I ask, 'What's that?'

Stooping to retrieve the fallen envelope, Archer says, 'This?' He says, 'Here's the results of the salvation test you took.' A dark crescent of dirt shows beneath each of his fingernails. Scattered across his face, the galaxy of pimples glow different shades of red.

By 'salvation test' Archer refers to that weird polygraph test, the lie-detector setup where the demon asked my opinion about abortion and same-sex marriage. Meaning: the determination of whether I should be in Heaven or Hell, possibly even my permission to return to life on earth. Reaching spontaneously, compulsively for the envelope, I say, 'Give it.' The diamond ring, the one Archer stole and gave to me, the stone flashes around one finger of my