Butler's Inferno

Abandoned by his righfully exasperated parents at a tender age in a mosquito-infested black spruce bog some 200 miles northwest of Kapuskasing, Ontario, the ragged and filthy not-yet-writer had the incredible good fortune to have been found and saved by a roving band of followers of the Black Pope. The subsequent upbringing of this feral Jesuit child among the independent and rigorous thinkers that fill the ranks of St. Ignatius' heirs resulted in his devoting a considerable amount of time and effort to understanding various symbolic pillars of the theo-sphere.

God? Dealt with by the age of ten. He, she or it is neutral with regards to human affairs.

Heaven? A town square located in a benign climate in which its fortunate (male, in this example) residents saunter smugly about under a luminous blue sky, hands clasped behind their backs, and with one eye covet both their neighbours' wives and the goods that they believe they have secreted away in a safe spot - whilst, with the other, maintaining a strict vigilance to ensure that none of his fellow travelers is on the verge of converting their own envy into ownership of our protagonist's possessions.

Now, fifty-some years following his salvation, the writer has finally come to understand what form hell will take. In point form...

1). The shame, guilt and anxiety ridden sentenced, upon passing through the surly gates, will (once he has summoned up the courage to open his tightly shut eyes) notice that everything seems absolutely normal. No fire, no brimstone, no thunder and no screaming and gnashing of teeth. This state of affairs will last as long as it takes for the sinner to begin to snigger about the fast one he had pulled on fate;

2) Then, at the opportune moment, the sky will fall;

3). It's work done, it will then cease to fall;

4). At this point in the predictable course of events, the dust and ashes of the last judgment finally subsided and quiet calm once again reigning, the damned will arise and begin to shout in a chaotic parody of unison, 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'. This will last for eternity.

Repent, sinners.

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