Afterworld Blues

By George K. George

I write this in Hell, so I apologize that my composition skills are not what they were when I was alive. This is just a recreational reprieve from editing Hell’s newsletter this week. Yes, Hell with its trillions of souls has but a mere weekly newsletter of one single-sided page. The Devil says the damned masses have no right to complain for more reading material. They did, after all, get themselves signed up for eternal punishment somehow. I signed myself up for it quite literally.

Composing the first chapter of what was going to be my first novel, I became interrupted... Allow me to back up. It’s apparent that my ability to timeline a story, even this true one, is impaired now.

On the surface, as we call the life before damnation, I was an aspiring writer. It was at the bar I religiously attended that I met the man, or rather beast, which changed my life, or rather death.

By candlelight at my usual booth I began my first draft. Sipping scotch and soda and lighting Marlboro after Marlboro, I was certain I’d be there until three, pen flaming all the while. But soon, my hand became paralyzed. Not only did I have not a clue as what word came next, but also not a clue as to how to proceed at all.

I searched the bar with my eyes. I came to this place to receive the feeling few other atmospheres can provide. The visages of relaxation and enjoyment of life by the common man gave me energy to write. Most nights my writing would come alive, but this night I was suddenly feeling off. Perhaps the bartender had made my drink too strong, thus my mind was sluggish.

It was at this moment of speculation that the stranger appeared across from me in the booth. His wide blue eyes were the first of his features of which I took note. They looked as though they might escape their sockets if there weren’t indeed nerve bundles holding them back from behind. A haircut that in this light could be mistaken for a helmet was made more reminiscent of such by two pointed chinstrap sideburns. All of this was jet black, greased and feathered. He appeared well kempt, odd, but professional. However, his entrance was rather peculiar, for he proceeded only to spin the ashtray round and round with his pinky while looking intently at it and making no eye contact with me.

“Welcome to my booth,” I said. He looked rather startled, but I was later to find out that this is the most ancient facial expression to convey evil. We met in a stare, his lips pursed as though he were about to say “who,” “what,” “where,” or “why.”

He did not, however. He flicked his eyes about and licked his lips, after which he introduced himself more accurately than I believed at first. “Hello, I am the Devil,” he said.

“Which Devil?” I asked, “Are you the Devil that appears when you speak of him, because I do not even know your name.”

He looked confused just then, which I suppose would be to say he was looking startled in another way. Perhaps the Devil was beaming with utmost evil.

“What is all of this pens and paper?” he asked.

“I’m trying rather fruitlessly to write a novel,” I replied.

“So, you’re having a problem?” and he went back to looking startled. But, after I filled the air with a patient pause he began to look confused again.

“...Yes,” I replied.

He removed the cocktail napkin from under my drink while saying, “Then, please let me help you.”

I took a deep breath and said to him, “Well, if you can get my main character from New York to San Francisco in an adventurous, twisty, romantic kind of way while conveying a lot of truth and things the reader can relate to, I’m really at a point where I don’t care about sole authorship.”

At about the time I was listing the quality components of my proposed novel, the Devil wrote something with my pen on the cocktail napkin.

“Sign on the dotted line, please,” he said. Above the dotted line, crudely written on the napkin were the words, “Deed To Your Soul.” I’ve now seen the Devil’s soul deed collection, and it is a stadium-sized chamber lined with cocktail napkins, scraps of papyrus and birch bark peelings. Apparently he’s been at this since the beginning.

I didn’t have a notion that the bug-eyed, greasy little man sitting across from me might actually be able to dislodge the block in my writing much less change my plans for the afterlife, so to comply with him in jest and play his game seemed harmless. Eager to send him on his way I carefully, so as not to rip the thin napkin with the point of the pen, signed my name in large block letters.

For the first time I saw the Devil smile. Then, as if the seat of his pants were as lubricated as his haircut, he slid out of the booth saying, “See you in Hell!” As he approached the door I heard some of the wickedest maniacal laughter come from this man. The laughter built, relaxed, built higher and peaked. It then continued muffled through the glass storefront after he’d made his exit. Most of the patrons were silenced, except for a few tipsy female regulars who were giggling.

I gathered up my things, giving up for the night and brushing off the encounter. I then headed for my favorite cafeteria-style Mexican restaurant.

Standing in line, I chose the fillings glistening from behind the sneeze guard that I would have liked to combine in a flour tortilla, and I prepared to instruct the burrito assembler accordingly. Finally, it was my turn to speak.

What I said to the teenager behind the tubs of rice and beans scarcely resembled an order, and it took both of us completely off guard. I would expect that a young Mexican immigrant working frontline in a restaurant located in the heart of an American metropolis would understand most any sentence I could throw at him that is related to ordering one of his menu items. Though, what came out of my mouth was far beyond the scope of functional English vernacular in commerce.

It took the cook so off guard that he replied in his native tongue. The words I spoke to him are unknown to me now, having been purged upon my admittance to Hell, but I remember them as being beautiful, eloquent, clever and ever so quotable. I rushed out of Pedro’s, unable to complete my order. Through the exit door of that Burrito Palace I entered a brand new conquerable world.

Quivering at the thought that what I suspected might be true, I tried to be skeptical. I proposed the hypothesis that I may have simply zoned out in the restaurant while waiting in line. I must have quoted something great I’d read recently instead of simply rattling off, “Pintos, cheese, corn salsa, guac, and sour cream.” This hardly seemed likely.

Still in doubt, I came upon a pair of grungy beggars warming themselves beside a fire lit inside a steel drum. The change then became as apparent as if I had several minutes prior swallowed a strong narcotic pill. With poeticism at its pinnacle, I formed a flowing two-sentence description of the despair experienced by those plighted with having to survive on the streets of this city.

The bums got a wonderful kick out of my commentary and didn’t even stop me for money. They shouted in celebration, clinking their brown sack-covered bottles in a toast and drinking heartily to my words. With bottles raised and hands on their hearts they saluted me and followed me with their gaze until I turned the corner.

No famed beatnik could have raised the applause I did at the outdoor produce market I then came upon. I must have stood on that crate of oranges for fifteen minutes delivering truism after allusion after absolutely crafted observation. The shoppers massed around me and cheered in appreciation for my stunning essay. Not nearly out of material, but fearing the crowd was becoming what might be considered by the city’s police force to be a disturbance, I clicked my heels and set off to catch a cab home. Now, I would harness this on paper.

Hailing the taxi was awkward but rewarding to the extreme. As several yellow cars zoomed past I gave brief dissertations on the condition of being a cab driver and the experience of being the cab driven. This word work was, of course, woven with elegant requests for the cabbie to halt the car and pick me up. Entering the cab that did stop, I gave my address with an exceedingly well-put comment on my humble living arrangements. But, the comment lost on this driver. Judging by the amount of Middle Eastern accent in his voice, I doubted he was any more familiar with the complexities of the English language than my friend at the Mexican dive.

From the backseat of that cab I watched the lights and people of the city scroll by the windows. I’d always tried to view each day’s moments through they eyes of an author, but I mostly came up frustrated. Random words unrelated to the scene would muddle my head. Rarely would I be struck by something inspiring of an interesting phrase or premise, and when I was it would be in the most vague way. Oh, but now I needed only point and shoot! Flicking my eyes from billboard to billboard, on one stranger’s bedraggled expression to another’s twenty-thousand lumen smile, the words fell like hailstones into my grasp.

Were these words really great words, or were they somehow blessed by the dark prince? As far as I could tell, there was no hocus-pocus. These words, which captured moments like a movie camera and would go on to construct the soundest plot and subplot lines ever known were really as phenomenal as to say that nothing of its kind had before been composed in recorded history. However, they were not magical words in the literal sense.

I would certainly love to give examples of my abilities, but Satan has erased my mind of all things I produced. And, he has revoked the gift now that I have descended into Hell. Trying to recall any of it is somewhat like trying to remember the name of an actor or actress that you’ve forgotten. I’ve groped for hours to recall my work, but I cannot even bring a title to recollection. The gift and its fruits are now forever out of my reach.

Let us continue. I did not sleep that night. Once I paid the cabbie I rushed upstairs and went straight to work. Within three weeks I had completed the first and final draft of my debut novel. I had no trouble with the highest bidding publisher, but I did have trouble speaking with him in a businesslike tone. The gift rendered me incapable of speaking dryly so as to give the bare information. I eventually hired an agent for these things. I did not need an editor for my prose was flawless.

A second novel was to follow several weeks later, and they quickly became the numbers one and two bestsellers. I cannot recall how many novels were written, but all were published.

I was soon requested for interviews. In auditoriums filled with members of the literary community, quotations of mine were eagerly jotted down and soon joined ranks with those centuries old. During one-on-ones, the interviewer would hunch before me as if lowering his head to a king. He’d pause for five seconds or more, staring in awe after each of my responses.

Like an athlete will push himself or herself to the brink, or how teenagers will make love until lethargic, the pleasure of writing and the cash flow from each book kept me edging closer and closer to burnout. Sometimes skipping three nights’ rest, I’d clatter endlessly on the keyboard. I was hungry to retain the fame I’d gained. For weeks on end I’d eat and sleep only occasionally, spending more than three fourths of the twenty-four hour day writing. The event of finding myself at the keyboard after a blackout came often, but it did not slow me.

My days of writing classics to top classics were numbered, however. Like many greats, I expired at an early age from self-abuse. I’m told by my fan base here in Hell that I was found face down with the number six filling its six hundred and sixty-sixth page on the screen. My nose was pressed into the key and I had collapsed from heart failure. So, I am here.

Perhaps I’ll talk to Satan about distributing this account to the damned masses. I could give a lecture like are usually given by winged creatures that preach on the offenses of the flesh. Who knew I’d have had to come here anyway for the number of times I delved into “bad happy alone time,” as the creatures call it.

My legacy as the greatest author to date was forged, and now I reside with some of the scummiest souls the last several eons have produced. This text will never reach the surface where few would believe the secret behind the marvel anyway. Then again, I was unbelievably marvelous up there.

Oh, once, I was so talented at tying up a story like a filament on a fishing hook. I suppose I can only say I’ve had a hell of a time. God, that’s awful.