The Downsizing of Hell

            Since the Beginning, the vast fiery lakes and freezing wastes of Hell have been ruled over by Lucifer: Lucifer the Light-Bearer, who is called Morningstar, the Son of the Morning, He Who Is Bold In Battle, Ashtar and Dhu-Samani, Iblis, and Shaitan, as well as Ahriman, and Angra Mainyu, known by all as The Father of All Lies, called sometimes The Wanderer, and other times The Despairing One, for he had forever been cast out of the forgiveness and piety of Heaven. For many a millennia this doom untroubled him, and Lucifer reigned unquestioned over all of the fiends of The Black Pit, and the wretched screams of the damned that filled the air of Hell called out his many names, and begged him in vain for mercy.

            Even now it is not known if Lucifer tired of his titles or his weary mantle, or if some business drew him from his dark kingdom, as it was in the days of Job, but whatever the reason, one day the mightiest of the fallen angels could not be found in Hell, not within the evil gulches of Malebolge, nor along the shores of the boiling river of flame that is Phlegethon, nor even within the confines of the dread city of Pandaemonium, where is kept his black basalt throne.

All of which was to say: Lucifer had abandoned Hell.

And the throne of Hell sat empty.

            So long had the rule of Lucifer been the state of things that it was some time before the great Princes and Dukes of Hell became aware that the Lord of Darkness no longer inhabited the place, and it was longer still before any of them dared to claim his ancient crown, thinking perhaps that this was a sort of test of their loyalty, and that they would be struck down for their impudence should they deign to take his place. But at last one of them did, and this was The Lord of the Flying Ones, Beelzebub, who had always been high in Lucifer’s counsel. Convinced at last that his master would not return, he gathered all of the denizens of the fiery pit and declared himself their new master. With that he rose, and the air grew thick with the horrid whir of gossamer wings as his dreadful host swarmed about him, and lo, he sat upon the throne of Hell, and made ready to rule the realm infernal.

            But this was not to be, for Astaroth, Duke of the Forty Legions, deemed that he too was fit for rule, and that he had the might to vex The Lord of Flies, and mounting a great winged beast he took up his whip of serpents in his hand sinister, and led forth his followers into open battle. For sixty days and sixty nights, as there is a reckoning of such things in Hell, demon battled demon, and many were those laid low by Beelzebub’s foul lance, or the deadly breath of Astaroth; In that mad fray fell the Duke Rosier, Stolas the Prince of Owls, and the Marquis Marchosias, whose wings were torn from his body by Belphegor The Disputer before the end. But, at last, the fighting came to a halt. And yet, there was no clear victor, for in the chaos of battle both Beelzebub and Astaroth had been slain.

And the throne of Hell sat empty.

            Asmodeus, The Lord of Wantonness, attempted to use guile rather than force to advance his own claim, suggesting that all of the denizens of Hell should sit in council to crown a successor to Lucifer, while beginning almost immediately to politic amongst the numerous lesser fiends of the Abyss, stirring up their natural resentment of their masters. This ploy failed, however, for before Berith, the Chief Secretary of Hell, could begin to call the roll for a quorum, Asmodeus was beheaded twice by the great Dukes Eligos and Flauros. Asmodeus’ third head immediately rescinded the notion of a democratic solution to the current dilemma, and he slouched off to the icy tarns and freezing winds of Caïna in order to gain some perspective on his current condition.

            Not wishing to share the fate of those who had fallen before them, many of the remaining nobility of Hell denounced their own claim to the black throne, signing legally binding documents to that effect. So it was with Mammon, the Father of Riches, Baël the Soulcrusher, and Belial, whose sobriquet “The Worthless One” did not exactly recommend him for the position anyway.

And the throne of Hell sat empty.

            This sparked a second state of open conflict, as many of the lesser nobility now declared that they, in fact, were the rightful ruler of Hell. Many a fiefdom sprouted up, and for a time there were over a hundred monarchs of the Inferno. But, one by one, each of these petty rulers succumbed to the fate that had befallen Beelzebub and Astaroth, and so perished Apollyon the Destroyer, Decarbia of the Silent Grief, Lamashtu the Screeching One, Orobas the Fell Oracle, Buer the Five-Legged, and a great many others whose efficacy failed to match their reputations.

Had this been a mortal conflict, one might have rightly expected that a victor would eventually rise from the heap of the defeated, but the vagaries of Hell made such an outcome impossible, for each fallen claimant had shackled scores upon scores of fiends to their will, and often powerful demons served a lesser master due to the ancient rules of seniority. To defeat one rival served only to create two dozen more, and so with each claimant slain the boundaries of Hell began to fragment into ever smaller and smaller kingdoms, some of them ruled by daemons and devils so obscure that their names were never recorded in any grimoire written by mortal hand.

“Who in the Abyss is The Whisperer?” the Archon Abraxas groused as he read the latest account of the conflict, his serpentine legs coiling and uncoiling with distaste. When he deemed an answer to his query too long in coming he obliterated one of his imps with his fatal gaze and began to peruse the latest edition of The Atlantic.

And still the throne of Hell sat empty.

By now, the effects of the struggle for power had begun to have a noticeable deleterious effect on the state of the infernal pit. Proper maintenance of the instruments of torture had clearly fallen by the wayside: Flaming wheels went cold from disuse, unkempt Hellhounds wandered the wastes nosing through loose refuse, and regions kept searing cold and hot had become merely tepid. But most distressing of all, the souls of the damned were not being tormented properly. Some sat in lukewarm cauldrons, confused, while others that had previously been thrown about by cyclones of Hellish wind now found themselves merely inconvenienced by a constant light breeze, their greatest dilemma having become the fact that their hair was now impossible to manage. Some souls (very few to be sure,) even began to complain. They had committed evil deeds throughout their life and they expected to be punished. “Is this any way to run an afterlife?” they moaned. “Whatever happened to paying for our sins?” Perhaps reaffirming the old axiom about squeaky wheels and grease, this vocal minority did see their demands occasionally addressed by the establishment. “Thank you,” one soul was reported as saying as the giant black wolf of the Marquis Andras slowly gnawed off his head, “It’s about bloody time.”

            Now, to be certain, the war for Lucifer’s throne was clearly one of the major causes behind the sorry state of Hell, creating all manner of staffing issues as well as engendering a breakdown of the essential infrastructure of the place, but as time went on some fiends noticed another factor at play: The gradual but inexorable abandonment of Hell by its key inhabitants.

Since the dawn of humanity, demons and devils have tempted and bargained with mortals of the earthly realm, promising riches, or power, or earthly pleasures, and receiving in exchange mortal souls and all of the creative powers that came with them. And, it would likely surprise the living to know that for all their might and cunning, the inhabitants of the pit generally lack true creativity, and thus all of the greatest torments and diabolical details of hell have been the product of mortal imagination. But while the task of tempting mortals had once been the work of specialized fiends such as Pazuzu the Locust Lord (who had managed to broker multiple book and movie deals whilst at his work,) now daemons and devils of every stripe began to cross over to the world of the living, seemingly drawn there by a compulsion they themselves did not understand.

            As these defections grew in number a decision was made by the remaining nobility of Hell: Rather than stem the tide and round up the defectors, they themselves would open trade between Hell and the Mortal Realm. And so, by many an ancient spell and pact unnatural, a permanent way was created between the Inferno and the world mundane, and the emissaries of Hell went forth to offer their many services to the living. And though at first this came as a major shock to the world, after a surprisingly brief transition devils were serving as consultants to major firms, labor was being outsourced to imps, and call centers were being staffed by the spirits of the damned. What some had thought to be the End of Days was now casually referred to as ‘The Merger.’

It did not take long for the state of things to escalate, for the great lords of Hell brought with them centuries upon centuries of business acumen, not the least of which was the Golden Lord, Mammon, who founded the first publically traded Infernal Company, Mammon Incorporated (Value as of current market closing: MMN $124.41 USD 1.52 Up 1.4%), but he was soon followed by the demonic founders of Gehenna Group, Baphomet Industries, and Cocytus Amalgamated, whose board of directors gradually negotiated a hostile takeover of TCBY, Baskin-Robbins, and the Cold Stone Creamery corporation, all but cornering the ice cream parlor market in several key regions. (Their subsequent attempts to attain controlling shares in Dairy Queen and Yogen Früz have so far been resisted.) Younger, more tech savvy fiends organized Code Mongers, who specialized in IT consultation, data mining, and generating Bitcoins.

            But, still, the throne of Hell sat empty.

            This continued situation sat poorly with the CEOs and Board of Directors of the Infernal Companies. For, in spite of all their success, Hell remained ungoverned, all of its petty rulers having abandoned it in favor of pursuing the opportunities of the mortal realm. True, they had the resources to rebuild its smoking basalt cities and were gradually restructuring the demonpower to man its fantastic torments, but Hell still lacked a proper administrator and figurehead to keep the fiends of the place in line. Hell lacked a ruler.

            And so, each faction of Hell met in the Swiss city of Zurich to form a think tank on how to seat someone on the black throne without creating the kind of conflict that had led to their current predicament. Over a four-day weekend that coincided with the Sechseläuten spring holiday, a revolutionary idea was put forth by Baël the Soulcrusher, who was now Senior Chairman of the Board of Abaddon, LLC: If Hell could come to Earth, why could Earth not come to Hell?

            After all, Baël opined, it was not as if the groundwork for such a thing were not already partially in place. Over the millennia many a great demon had come to know men and women of the world in the biblical sense, and some of these unions had produced offspring. In point of fact, no sooner had the idea been brought to a vote (13 For, 6 Against, 1 Abstaining,) that Chief Secretary Berith sent forth his swiftest daemons to offer the throne of Hell to a man by the name of Andrew Thorne, whose father (rumored by some to have been Lucifer himself) had been summoned to conceive a child by a coven during the early-1970’s, hoping to spawn the Antichrist.

            To the dismay of both the aging coven and the emissaries of Hell, Mr. Thorne, now forty-four years of age, refused the offer. As it turned out, he had been raised by a warm and caring mother, and lived a highly satisfying life. He had spent a happy adolescence in Westchester County, summered yearly on Martha’s Vineyard, and indulged in leaf peeping during the fall in Vermont. Now happily married with a wife and family (two boys, Michael and Christopher, a daughter, Elizabeth, and a dog named Ginger), Alexander Thorne told the winged fiends, after inviting them in for coffee, that while it was a thoughtful and generous offer, he was quite content with his tenured position at Yale. He then proceeded to offer them each a bit of rum cake to help soften the blow.

            The next candidate was the child of Adramelech, who had long been the Supervisor of Lucifer’s wardrobe before his departure from Hell. Her name was Myranda Sachs, and she appeared to have inherited an eye for fashion from her demonic pedigree, ruthlessly climbing the treacherous ladder of the fashion industry until she had ground every adversary under her couture heels. But when the senior partners of the demonic law firm Verrine, Gressil, & Sonneillon attempted to arrange an initial meeting with her, they were informed by Ms. Sachs’ long suffering secretary that she had retired from the industry, divorced her husband, and was currently traveling the world on a voyage of personal discovery. When asked about her exact location, her secretary informed them that, as of her retirement, she had not yet decided between Italy, India, or Indonesia as a final destination.

            The remaining candidates of this sort were a discouraging lot. For while they all had the proper background, they were hardly suitable candidates to sit on the throne of Hell, being for the most part petty grifters, smalltime nightclub owners, or reality television personalities, most of whom found themselves naturally drawn to the Food Network. None of them held any sway with the U.N., the Vatican, or the governments of any major world power, in spite of the numerous human suspicions to that effect over the previous two thousand years. And so, one by one, the offspring of Hell and Earth were crossed off of the short list.

            And the throne of Hell sat empty.

            Having reached this impasse the attendees of the summit voted for a temporary hiatus, fearing that their continued absence might negatively affect the profits of the next quarter, or foment dissension and scheming amongst their direct underlings. So it was that, upon returning to New York City, the wheels of the private jet of Duke Flauros, now the Vice Chair of Gehenna Group, had barely touched the tarmac of LaGuardia when he began to receive a flurry of emails from the head of the company’s Audit Committee, Steward J. Glassberg.

            As his name might suggest, Mr. Glassberg was not a devil born of the pit, but a corporate accountant who had joined Gehenna Group’s auditing department during the buyout of DataTech Services Affilated. Within a year, his immediate supervisor retired to Anguilla with a generous severance package, and Glassberg was promoted into his current position, mainly due to the fact that none of the demonic staff entirely understood (let alone desired) his job.

            After scanning a few of the emails, Flauros rubbed his temples with clawed fingers and made the call.

            “Mr. Flauros,” a faintly nasal voice answered after only four rings. “I’ve been trying to reach you for some time, sir.”

            “My phone was offline during the flight. Safety regulations.”

At need, of course, Flauros could fly by dark sorcery, but why expend power when you own your own Learjet?

            “Of course, sir,” Glassberg said. “Sir, have you received my emails? I’m afraid we have a serious issue at hand.”

            “I have,” Flauros said, scanning the contents of the first email again with his fiery red eyes.

            “And?” Glassberg asked.

            “And what?”

            “Well . . . How do you wish to proceed, sir?”

            Flauros took a moment before answering. He was, after all, one of the Great Dukes of Hell, and had once had thirty-six legions of demons under his command. He could speak truly of things past, present, and glimpse into the future. He had seen the creation of the world, and had fallen from Heaven with Lucifer and his rebel angels. In his true form he could rip a man’s head from his shoulders as easily as one might stomp on an ant, or engulf him with Hellfire until there was nothing left but cinders.

            But he couldn’t understand the contents of Glassberg’s emails.

            “I’m” Flauros said, swallowing his pride, “Not entirely certain I understand what the, ah, problem is.”

            There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.

            “Well, sir, I’ve been running an internal audit of the last quarter, and I found some disturbing inconsistencies in our accounts that may bring us into non-compliance with the SOX act. Now, I understand that the Board of Directors has been engaging in some deliberate information asymmetry in order to manipulate our value on the NASDAQ, and we’ve been pushing to diversify by expanding into the labor market-”

            “Let me slow you down there, Stu. When did you- Rather, how did you run this internal audit? I understand most of your staff had the weekend off.”

            “Oh,” Glassberg said, “I did it myself, sir. I’ve been in the NY office since Thursday night. Frankly, sir, I don’t entirely trust all of my staff to adhere to the regulatory standards required for efficient risk management, particularly market risk. Certainly, Gehenna Group wouldn’t like to be this year’s AIG.”

            “Indeed,” Flauros said, grinding his teeth as he slid into the back of the company limo that had been sent to pick him up. “So, what is the problem, exactly?”

            “Well, sir, it’s a bit of a complicated matter.”

            “Give me the bullet points.”

            “Well, sir, as you know, in July of 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act in the United States Senate and the Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act in the House of Representatives, was enacted by Congress. SOX, as it is now commonly called, set a whole new set of requirements for the management of publically traded companies, their board of directors and, of course, public accounting firms.”

            “Of course.” Flauros’ grip on his platinum encased iPhone 7 was tightening with every sentence Glassberg uttered.

            “Some of the Act’s provisions also apply to privately held companies, though of course that doesn’t apply to the current situation.” Glassberg chuckled at this briefly.

            “Bullet points, Glassberg, bullet points.”

            “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s important that you understand the severity of the situation. I’m trying to be a brief as I can.”

            “Try harder.”

            “There are eleven sections to the bill. The first concerns the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or PCAOB for short, and is laid out in nine separate parts. Title One establishes-”

            Flauros’ iPhone crumpled like paper in his grip, its screen and hardware shattering with a satisfying crunch. Activating the power window, the Vice Chair of Gehenna Group hurled the ruined mess out of the limo and onto the concourse. They hadn’t even managed to get to Grand Central Parkway.

            Flauros’ personal assistant, the succubus Meridiana, was just beginning to compose a text message to have one of the office gofers make a run to the nearest Apple Store when her own phone began to buzz.

            “Sir,” she said, trembling at bit under the former Duke’s searing gaze, “It’s Steward J. Glassberg. Should I answer?”

            “Text him,” Flauros snarled. “Tell him I want to see him in my office first thing tomorrow.”

            Meridiana nodded and sent a reply. Her phone continued to buzz with incoming text message for several minutes until Flauros finally snapped his fingers and set the thing alight. As a side effect, every Samsung Note within a fifty-mile radius similarly burst into flames.

            Flauros’ wroth was still burning bright as he stepped out of his private elevator and into the foyer of his penthouse apartment, Meridiana supervising the unpacking of his wardrobe as he moved to the kitchen and poured himself a tall glass of scotch. Moving to a window in his expansive living room, he stared out over Central Park and the glimmering lights of the city.

            Glassberg, he fumed, the way that only a demon can, Damn him . . .

            The worst part of it, somehow, was that he strongly suspected that the irritant was right. Glassberg might even have found a loophole or way to shore up any damage that a financial irregularity might have on the company. But by the Inferno . . . Hellish contracts are and always have been brief, expertly worded affairs, that bind their subjects with double meanings and ironic outcomes. But the mortal realm was a place of endless documentation crafted by officious bureaucrats, things that made one’s head spin. All that was bad enough, but to listen to the man . . . Just to listen to him . . .

            For a moment, Flauros’ grip on his glass slipped, and he sloshed scotch worth a hundred dollars onto the hardwood floor.

            Just to listen to the man was torture.

            “Meridiana!” He bellowed, downing the rest of his glass in a single gulp.

            “Yes, sir?” she said, her taloned feet clicking as she hustled into the room with as much speed as a pencil skirt could allow.

            “Get me Chief Secretary Berith on my private line. I’ll take the call in my study . . .”

            The next day, Steward J. Glassberg arrived at the corporate office of Gehenna Group, a modest skyscraper of glass and steel affixed with the stylized ‘GG’ that was the company’s current logo. The demon tasked with meeting him wrinkled his nose at the man’s general appearance. Mr. Glassberg was not what anyone would call a virile man. He slouched ever so slightly, and wore an out of date suit that did not flatter. He had an aquiline nose, wispy hair that was rapidly going gray, and a weak neck, making him look something like a cross between a turtle and vulture.

            After being offered a complimentary bottled water, Mr. Glassberg was led to an elevator that led directly to the top floor of the building. During his ascent, Glassberg asked after the demon’s name (“Succoth-benoth, Director of Human Resources.”) and whether or not he had attended Notre Dame (“No, I received my MBA from Stanford. Before that I attended the desolate hills of Samaria.”)

            Eventually the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal an entirely black chamber, lit only by a single overhead lamp aimed at a central desk, behind which sat the Vice Chair of Gehenna Group.

            “Thank you Succoth-benoth,” Flauros said as Steward Glassberg stepped into the room, a heavy briefcase dangling beside him. “You may leave us.”

            The elevator doors closed heavily.

            Glassberg opened his mouth to speak, but Flauros silenced him with an upraised palm.

            “You will forgive my shortness last night, Mr. Glassberg,” the Vice Chair said. “It was a long overnight and I was feeling a bit of jetlag.”

            “Of course, sir, and I’m sorry for my calls, it’s just that, given the-”

            “Seriousness of the situation,” Flauros said, nodding, “I understand. I merely felt that, given the severity of the issue, it might be best to bring this matter before the entire board of directors before proceeding. And, given your expertise, who better to explain it than you?”

            Glassberg looked about the vast dark room with a quizzical look in his eye.

            “The Board, sir? But . . . Where are they?”

            “Oh, they can see and hear you just fine, Mr. Glassberg. Consider this a conference call.”

            “I see,” Glassberg said, removing his eyeglasses so as to wipe them clean. “That being the case, where would you like me to begin, sir?”

            “Wherever you like,” Flauros said, smiling jaggedly. “All I ask is that you explain the situation to us. Take as long as you like, and leave no detail out. We wouldn’t want to be this year’s AIG, as you said.”

            “No,” Glassberg snorted. “No indeed, sir.”

            “Then explain these, what was the word? Inconsistences?”

            “Inconsistences, yes.”

            “Please, explain the matter at hand. And, again, take as long as you like.”

            Just as Glassberg began to speak, Flauros subtly popped a pair of plugs into his pointed ears, and did his best to appear contemplative as Glassberg’s jaw moved. Occasionally the auditor would produce a document from his briefcase and indicate with it, but mostly the man talked.

            Five hours later, he stopped.

The Vice Chair removed his earplugs.

            “Thank you, Mr. Glassberg,” Flauros said, pressing a button on his desk that would summon the lift. “I’m certain that’s given the board the proper perspective on the matter, and will allow us to proceed appropriately. For the moment, however, we need to conference in private.”

            “Of course, sir,” Glassberg said, fastening shut his briefcase. “I’m just glad to have done due diligence on this matter.”

            Flauros nodded, sagely. The elevator arrived with a ‘ding.’ Glassberg entered, and the doors closed.

            The shroud of darkness covering the room lifted, revealing nineteen ornate leather backed chairs that were arrayed in a circle about the room. On them were seated the greatest of the former nobility of Hell, who were in a sorry state to be seen. Belphegor had not only torn off his own tail, he had also chewed entirely through his arm, which still writhed on the ground beside him. Mammon was weeping tears of blood. On the seat where the Duke Eligos had sat there remained nothing but a smoking bit of ash. Flauros looked at the Duke’s remains pointedly.

            “He broke his non-compete clause about thirty minutes in,” Belial explained, striking at himself reflexively with a scourge made out of scorpions. “He stood up, declared himself the King of Hell and went up like a torch.”

“He had it easy,” Abraxas said. His torso was covered in snakebites from his own legs. His cockerel head lolled about in stupefaction from the venom.

            “So?” Flauros said. “What do you think?”

            “He’s perfect,” Mammon said, wiping away one of the rivulets of blood running down his cheeks with a silk kerchief. “When can he start?”

“Immediately.” Flauros smiled. “I’ve already had the documentation drawn up.”

            “So, the board understands the matter at hand, sir?” Steward Glassberg asked as he sipped down a bit of bottled water. “I hope I was thorough in my repor-”

            “The board is very pleased,” Flauros said, steepling his hands. “Very pleased. And the matter at hand will, of course, be seen to at once. But this considerable, ah, initiative on your part. Well, we at Gehenna Group haven’t seen such a thing for some time, and we, as well as some other like-minded leaders within our industry, feel that your talents are, forgive me for saying so, wasted in your current role within the company.”

            It took Glassberg about five seconds to even register what the Vice Chair had said. Before he could respond, Flauros pressed on:

            “You see, there has been an extremely important position open for quite some time now that requires, well, a certain type of individual . . . and I and my colleagues are all in agreement that you are the right man for the job.”

            “And what is this position?” Glassberg asked.

            “We’d like to make you the Chief Administrative Officer,” Flauros answered, “Of Hell.”

            “Of . . . Hell?”

            “Yes. Of course, you’d have other titles as a part of your job, all of which are purely traditional: Prince of Darkness, Ruler of the Bottomless Pit, The Great Adversary, and so on. But we can discuss that later. For now, we’re wondering whether or not you’d be interested in this once in a lifetime opportunity.”

            Glassberg swallowed a bit of water.

            “Would this effect my pension in any way?” the man finally asked. “Or my health and dental?”

            “Oh, no!” Flauros said. “This won’t effect your 401K at all, and we’ll see to it that you’ll never have to worry about your health coverage again. It’s all been written up in contract, and quite proper, I assure you.”

            “And what would my responsibilities entail, sir?”

            Flauros smiled, his razor sharp teeth glinting beneath the florescent lights.

“We’d merely like you to make Hell more efficient, Mr. Glassberg. Hell’s chief company secretary, Berith, can bring you up to speed on the particulars of how the place operates, but all of the administrative decisions would come directly from you.”

Glassberg fidgeted with the water bottle in his hand before saying, “Sir, I’m flattered of course, but my background is in corporate auditing. Is the Board entirely certain that-”

“We are more than certain, Mr. Glassberg. More than certain. And, I think once you find yourself on the ground floor, so to speak, your skill set will prove more appropriate than you imagine.”

Glassberg removed his glasses, looked at the lenses, put them back on. Flauros’ new iPhone pinged, but he ignored it.

“One last question, sir,” he asked. “Will there be . . . Increased stock options?”

One morning (or was it evening? In Hell it is often difficult to track time) a group of the damned, who had recently been transferred from ironically pushing about great sacks of the wealth they had miserly hoarded during life to cutting out patterns for women’s running shoes, noticed something new: A large framed print had been affixed to the wall of the cavern nearby. It depicted a ring of skydivers, their hands linked, the earth a great distance below them, and beneath this was emblazoned the word: TEAMWORK. Looking about, they noticed another, on which penguins marched beside the sea, one lone penguin walking far ahead of the group. INITIATIVE was the sentiment expressed.

“Oh, Lord, please have mercy,” one of the damned moaned, and was quickly written up for peer review by a mid-level supervisor.

Elsewhere, along the shores of Phlegethon, the souls of the tormented squirmed restlessly as they were being retrained for work in a casual dining chain called Hell’s Kitchen, whose interior was decorated with faux tiffany lamps, brass rails, antique instruments of torture, and the heads of murderers, who would sing an off brand version of ‘Happy Birthday’ to guests upon request.

“Just throw me back into the river of fire,” one of the damned whispered helplessly as the 78-Hour long instructional video began. By the time the relentlessly cheerful narrator was explaining brand awareness, thousands of souls began to scream at the top of their lungs, prompting the instructor to start the video over from the beginning.

Somewhere in the snowy cubicles of Ptolomaea, a demonic team leader subtly turned down the climate control by another degree as she informed the general staff that a ping pong table had been installed in the office lounge (which was, incidentally, under sixteen feet of solid ice,) and that from now on, complimentary frozen yogurt would be served every Monday in order to “improve company morale” and “create a positive work environment.” Shrieks began to fill the air as, one by one, the damned remembered that every day in Hell was a Monday, and they shed tears that froze before they could even leave the sockets of their eyes.

            Within the wretched ditches named Malebolge, the souls of the politically corrupt throughout history were raised from the boiling pitch by demons in order to be interviewed by documentarian Michael Moore, leading to the thought-provoking film, Paved With Good Intentions (Produced by Dog Eat Dog Films and The Weinstein Company, Distribution by Lionsgate.) In the pit where hypocrites were crushed beneath heavy weights and pinned to the ground with stakes, rich tourists from the mortal world were allowed to take selfies with the tormented (#Hypotwits) and, for an extra fee, went on to receive personal fortunes from one of the backwards-headed souls that labored night and day to churn out horoscope columns, theories of numerology, and the deep and abiding wisdom of fortune cookies.

            “Please, make it stop,” one fortune that got past quality control read upon opening, continuing: “Lucky numbers: 8, 34, 6, 19, 40, 33.”

            In a vast call center constantly awash in a foul miasma, one of the damned nervously began to upsell a customer, glancing occasionally backward at the three-headed hellhound slathering behind him.

In a Costco-sized warehouse infested by spiders the size of human hands, a supervisor decided that his staff should count inventory “One more time. Just to be certain.”

“Working hard or hardly working?” a winged devil asked one of the poor unfortunates trapped in the form of a tree that can only speak when it bleeds. “But seriously, you catch Late Night? It was hilarious.”

And from every region of Hell, a great wailing and gnashing of teeth went up, until the Inferno was filled once more with the pitiful cries of the condemned. And to the demons and devils that had lived in Hell for millennia, it sounded louder than ever before.

And on the black throne of Pandemonium, his aching back receiving lumbar support by a cushion affixed with wooden beads, Steward J. Glassberg sat, and reviewed the latest audit of Hell.

            He pushed a button on his intercom and called for Berith to appear before him.

The accounts needed reviewing.