On Hell

People have often described hell as an inferno, an inextinguishable fire where the damned toil eternally to pay a debt accrued during their time on earth. But if hell is the embodiment of our greatest fears and pains, why should it be represented by fire?

The mere presence of light, even among unbearable pain, would imply hope—certainty, even. We would have the comfort of knowing what comes next, even if it means enduring misery for the rest of time. But hell is supposed to be a place where no hope remains, where terror abounds, and uncertainty permeates. In hell, one is paralyzed by fear, unable to take a step in any direction. It’s not a blazing inferno but rather a place as frigid and desolate as the dark side of the moon.

Humans built society to fend off this very experience. We’ve cultivated fire, built torches and gas lamps, and later harnessed electricity to light our homes, towns, and cities. We’ve evolved to conduct our business in daylight and built solid walls to keep us safe and warm once the light disappears from the sky.

These innovations have made our lives comfortable, predictable, and safe from the high-tier threats most animals face daily. Our greatest achievements have allowed us to follow patterns that keep us out of danger, crafting identities that justify our way of living—"Someone like me would never do that."

But this comfort comes at a cost. Even in childhood, we live a sanitized, risk-free, watered-down existence that is supremely rare in the animal kingdom. Our conquest over darkness—and with it, the unknown—has made our minds dull and our bodies soft.

Still, many of us will encounter cold hell on earth. People die miserable and lonely deaths. Whole communities remain isolated from the riches enjoyed by the privileged. Diseases ravage our minds and bodies.

Despite a privileged upbringing, I too have experienced this complete darkness—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Who among us hasn’t? It’s a paradoxical experience: rare, moving, undeniably eerie. One expects light but is deprived of its embrace. It’s the opposite of Annie’s famous ballad. It feels desolate. Comrades may stand beside you, but so too may your enemy. So you refrain from reaching out, not knowing whose hand might clasp yours. In complete darkness, one’s bones vibrate with a primal fear—darkness signals danger. It immediately ushers in an unpredictable future, where death may be lurking just steps away.

Despite our best efforts, we will never completely eliminate the chaos hiding in the shadows. The second law of thermodynamics supports this—we trend toward disorder. It’s impossible to live a life strictly bound to light, routine, and identity. These structures will be tested, albeit rarely for some. And as we expel darkness from our cities, towns, homes, and minds, we’ve forgotten how to confront it. We fall with the slightest push, revealing how unprepared we are for a future that may disrupt our best-laid plans.

I’ve argued with friends and loved ones over this approach to living. Some choose to focus only on the lightest parts of life, not out of ignorance of its counterpart’s existence, but as a conscious choice to deal with problems if—and when—they arise. But they always do, don’t they?

I’ve been told I live as if waiting for the other shoe to drop—that in times of joy and prosperity, I don’t allow myself to fully enjoy the moment. This observation is, in many ways, accurate. It’s how I’ve chosen to navigate my time here. It seems irresponsible to ignore the basic truths of life: after dawn comes high noon, and after dusk, nighttime falls. Why is it virtuous to build a life that can only be enjoyed in the daylight?

Darkness brings uncertainty, and uncertainty is my greatest fear. Fear, in turn, is the architect of identity. I’ve designed myself so that its presence cannot shake my foundation. Like buildings in earthquake zones, I will remain standing when tremors strike. This resilience comes with costs I’ve deemed worthwhile. I’d rather be strong in tragedy than overly joyous in my accomplishments. I’d rather face terror with a battered body than retreat to a life of vapid comforts. I choose to be prepared for chaos and keep my emotions tempered in the moments between its visits. This way, whether joy, chaos, sorrow, or opportunity enters my life, I can respond with clarity, without emotion as a senior advisor.

The person described above may seem cold, dark, like someone you’d avoid at a social gathering. I resent this characterization, even as I acknowledge it myself. But being a student of reality doesn’t have to be antithetical to experiencing joy. Watching the evening news and learning of tragedy doesn’t have to shatter a worldview. Sadness can coexist with happiness. And perhaps this is the crux of my identity. On earth, we experience neither heaven nor hell. We live in the space between, where happiness and sadness are complementary forces, sometimes existing in the same moment.

The Harlot

It was a frigid morning. Gravel crunched beneath my boots, each step fracturing the earth’s crust. As a boy, I imagined my first time would be indoors, shaped by the countless movies where the stars did it in some basement of a nondescript building. But there I stood, a gangly teen buzzing with energy, alone in the desert as Mother Nature shook off her slumber. My eyes had opened hours before daylight, the anticipation of the morning’s events proving stronger than the steaming cup of coffee on the bench beside me.

I watched the sun gently kiss the desert’s surface, bringing the vibrant greens of cacti and palos verdes to life. The violet sky faded to copper as my eyes tracked it from west to east. Autumn slapped my skin, using the wind as a whip while I waited for night’s defeat. The sun, my savior, began its offensive against the autumn moon’s frigid clutches. I longed for the warm embrace of summer’s UV rays. My skin had already shed its armor, leaving behind pigmented dots on my dermis.

The early morning was devoid of urban sounds. An occasional “pop” rattled the air, but silence otherwise ruled the desert. The rustle of a jackrabbit scampering into bushes or a horned lizard emerging to bask in the early glow heightened my anticipation. I watched another man, sitting at a table, holding her in his arms. He caressed her, then slowly walked away. The familiar taste of smoke wafted through my nostrils, settling on my tongue. It lacked the savory character of burning mesquite I had grown up inhaling at campfires and barbecues. This bite was tinged with a foreign flavor, slightly metallic, like blood, awakening animal instincts I hadn’t known I possessed.

I turned my head to look at her, the object of my lustful desires, resting on an old wooden table so frail it seemed it would splinter under the slightest shift of weight. She sat alone, gleaming in the virgin sun, beckoning me closer as smoke spilled from her mouth—a signal that she had concluded her time with the client before me. Her bare skin was smooth as obsidian, save for the divots and scars emblematic of her long career in the business of sin.

Beretta, as she was known by the stamp on her posterior, faced away from me, staring down a cleared strip of desert. Here, on this barren land, so many boys had become men. There were no velvety linens or supple leather couches—just dirt, gravel, and the old wooden table. These accommodations would have to do. This business couldn’t be conducted in the densely packed corridors of the city without drawing unwanted attention.

She wouldn’t look at me, but I couldn’t peel my eyes from her flesh. I promised myself I wouldn’t take it personally. In truth, I thought it best never to see her face. I had heard stories of her ability to devour one’s soul with a single glance. She was dangerous, powerful, sleeker than I had imagined, and undeniably attractive. She was easy to fall in love with. I divorced her beauty from the nefarious service she provided society, admiring the former and condoning the latter.

Childhood warnings about strangers had long been forgotten. These rules crumbled the moment her intoxicating perfume first filled my lungs. My hands trembled as I walked toward her. I didn’t care that others had lined up behind me, waiting eagerly for their turn. I knew they would watch, feeding a voyeuristic desire buried in their dull lives back home. When emotions take hold of a man, the bonds of privacy in civil society break and fall to the floor.

The fire in my core grew wilder as I stepped nearer. Flames seared my throat. My heart beat like a war drum, thumping rhythmically as I marched toward her. When I reached the old wooden table, I stopped and took a deep breath, letting oxygen smother my nerves.

I reached out and picked her up. She continued to stare away from me, unblinking, emotionless. She was a professional. To her, this was just a transaction. To me, it was a celebration of my transition out of boyhood. My right hand slid along her body. She was cold, as if arctic water flowed within her, but I knew that at my command, she could turn the temperature skyward, shooting fireballs from her mouth that would burn anything that touched her. A lone finger rested on the trigger, and with a sadistic grin, I yanked her backward. She screamed loudly, dancing in my hands as I squeezed her again and again. After several bouts, we both came to rest. She was spent, and so was I, exhilarated by the ride we’d just taken. She rested against the old wooden table, sending a drag of silky gray smoke into the atmosphere. I backed away, a slight smile creeping across my face. My life had shifted, subtly but profoundly. I was humbled by the power I had witnessed.

She’s still there, in that strip of desert. She’s in your city, too, working the corners in the depths of the night. She patrols those alleyways you’re told not to traverse. Some men, unashamed, hug her in public, holding her against their hip, taunting those who stare in disbelief. You might keep her in your home. The truth is, Beretta is a harlot, a nine-millimeter goddess, both a destroyer and a maker of men. It’s impossible to forget the moment one first learns of her power, the first time one pulls the trigger and watches a hole appear in the center of a target downrange.

Some use her for sport, some for entertainment. Some for protection, and some for profession. Some fall to their knees and worship her as a savior, while others make it their mission to eradicate her presence from the earth. Many shrines praising her have been erected in the houses of ordinary men, and far more gravestones and obelisks pepper the land—a bleak reminder of her potential. She has bitten men and women of all ages. But despite one’s beliefs about her utility in our world, we all know who she is, what she represents, and the power she commands. We all pray never to look her in the eye, though too many fail to shield themselves from her stare.

The Lone Tree

There was a tree standing alone in a once vast and lively forest. The blanket of pine needles had been replaced with charred splinters and spent coals. Chipmunks no longer scampered across her limbs, tickling her bark and sending joyful shivers down her trunk. Now, sap leaked from her core, dripping the sticky substance slowly to the forest floor—if you could even call what remained a forest.

The tree was middle-aged and conspicuously tall. Her friends used to say she could shake hands with the clouds, that she could extend a limb and scratch the stratosphere. When she was younger, the idea of slipping away from her world and entering a new one seemed exciting. She had spent her whole life surrounded by other trees, staring at the pearly white puffs in the sky, hoping one day to escape her mundane life and embrace their peaceful clutches.

Nowadays, though, she could hardly stand the sight of a single cloud. When skies turned grey, she would lean toward the ground, bending her trunk to the point just before it would break, cowering as if to protect herself from a violent blow. She would shake on these days, her leaves jangling like a prisoner’s chains. She prayed for the sun to destroy those she once hoped would be her friends. She howled among the wind, writhing forward and backward, side to side. Sometimes, she rocked so violently that a small limb or two would snap from her trunk, producing a pain that matched the hell within her mind. Now she hated the clouds, for they reminded her of the grey and black plumes of smoke that once tormented her home and turned her family to ash.

Three summers ago, the forest was ravaged by a fire. The blaze killed everything in its path—her mother, father, brother, sister, and friends. Each day, she relived the terror. First, there was an exodus of critters. Then, the grey smoke began blowing across their leaves, making it tough to breathe. The smoke grew darker and darker until she could not see the tree standing next to her. She could not even see her own limbs extending from her trunk. The temperature in the forest began to rise until, suddenly, a wall of copper flames poured across them from the sky. The fire devoured everything. She watched her friends wither away as the flames ferociously feasted on their flesh. They fell to the floor, snapping at the trunk. She watched the life disappear. When the flames sprinted away from their home, she was covered in obsidian soot. She had been stripped of most of her leaves, but her limbs and flesh were healthy. Her abnormal height had saved her from being devoured.

The tree thought she was the last living thing in the forest. Somehow, she survived when nobody else did. She felt guilty, unsure of what she had done to earn the blessing of life that was stripped from her family and friends. She promised she would never forget them and never open her heart to another as long as she stood. What a fool she had been in her youth. Only a naive child would endeavor to slip her roots and escape the forest. Only a fool would forget their family in favor of living among strangers. Why had she so desperately wanted to live among the clouds?

For months after the fire, nothing but brittle grey skeletons littered the forest floor beside her. Later that year, a few grasses, mosses, and lichens moved into the forest. They introduced themselves, but the tree said nothing. She overheard them talking about what a terrible neighbor she was—how inhospitable she was, and how disgusting her scars were. Eventually, they stopped trying to speak to her. She did not mind. If she never spoke another word to another soul, she would be just fine. The fire had taken from her the desire to ever share herself with another. She closed herself to the environment, taking in the minimum amount of water and sunlight needed to survive.

For her age—just 200 years old—she was not very healthy. Since the fire, her limbs had begun falling from her trunk with regularity, and her leaves frequently shriveled and shed. Her roots had shrunk. Once, she was a towering, strong tree, able to weather any storm. Now, a monsoon could send her wobbling, her roots shifting as they tried to brace themselves. She was beginning to nurture an infection of bark beetles, too. They drained her of nutrients and left her skin brittle, flaking from her flesh at the gentlest touch. The ravens avoided landing on her limbs, and the squirrels that had returned found homes elsewhere.

For several months, she suffered silently. The forest was growing again, though she was still the only tree in sight. One day, she heard the bushes screaming.

“Fungus! Ew! Get away! Get away!” they shouted as they danced and wiggled on the floor, hoping to avoid the creature spreading below the soil.

The tree heard the mosses singing a schoolyard rhyme: “Fungus! Fungus! Smelly as can be! Fungus! Fungus! Grow away from me!”

The cries drifted closer and closer. As each plant clamored and ridiculed the fungus, it inched nearer. The tree mustered a deep breath, anticipating the pest’s arrival. The fungus bumped into her roots, clumsily.

“Sorry about that! I gotta be more careful!” the fungus said, voice light and friendly.

“Watch where you’re going,” the tree replied coldly, doing her best to make her desire to be alone clear.

“I’m Cory. What’s your name?” the fungus asked, undeterred.

“Connie,” the tree answered, reluctantly indulging him. “Now, please leave me alone. I do not wish to speak to you ever again.”

“Oh…” Cory slumped in the soil, retracting his fibrous hyphae. “I just wanted to—”

“I don’t care what you want. I want to be alone. Go away,” Connie snapped. She stiffened her posture, causing bark to shake loose from her trunk and scatter to the forest floor.

“Well, I don’t know why you’d want that,” Cory said softly. “Being alone is just… so lonely.”

Connie stood silent, refusing to respond. For several minutes, Cory remained at her feet, waiting patiently.

He extended his hyphae to gently touch Connie’s roots and said, “Well, I’ll be here. We don’t have to talk now, but I’d like to be your friend one day.”

Several months passed, and Cory stayed by her side, never uttering another word. On hot days, he never retreated for the shade. When it rained, Cory wrapped himself around her to keep her warm. His touch reminded Connie of when her father used to extend a branch to hers during particularly intense storms. It put her at ease, knowing someone else was there. She hadn’t felt that in years.

Connie bowed her trunk, looking to the floor, and beckoned Cory.

“Yes, Connie?” Cory replied dutifully.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you standing by my side? I don’t even know you.”

“You’ve let the beetles take your flesh. You’ve let the sun wrinkle your leaves. Your roots have shriveled. You are too beautiful, with too much to offer the forest, to be allowed to die like this.

“I’ve been watching you your whole life. I remember when you stared at the clouds with passion and zeal. I watched you open yourself up to house squirrels and birds. You used to tell the little trees not to worry when a storm was coming. But for the last two years, you’ve said nothing. You’ve opened yourself to nobody. You’ve lived only for yourself.

“What am I supposed to do? I lost everything I love.” Connie was fighting back tears.

“Open yourself up to love and friendship. Take a risk. Open your roots to me and allow me to embrace you.”

“But you’re a fungus. Fungi eat things. You’re just going to kill me from the inside out!”

“You trust nobody. You’re killing yourself anyway. If I were to do as you say, you’d reach that end much more quickly. If you open yourself to another, as you have in the past, you might find that fungi are less dangerous than our forest brothers and sisters make us out to be. But the choice is yours. I cannot bring my wisdom to your roots unless you open them to me.”

Connie felt nervous. What little leaves she had left stood at attention. She knew in her gut that Cory was right. She wanted to feel love again. She wanted a friend. She sensed something genuine within Cory. He spoke like her father. He hugged like her mother. He was clumsy like her brother. Cory somehow embodied all the best characteristics of the life she once knew. She felt their presence within him. Unsure of what would follow, she gave Cory  approval to extend himself to her roots.

Cory’s hyphae reached into her cells, embracing her body. Immediately, Connie felt energy flow into her system. Nutrients she thought had been decimated by the fire surged through her. Her flesh began to thicken. Her bark produced resin that expelled the bark beetles from her trunk. Water flowed to her leaves, and her branches stiffened with new life.

“What have you done?” Connie was astounded. She hadn’t felt this good in years. “How did you do this so quickly?”

“Most people never even notice me, but I am everywhere. I’ve touched every part of this forest. I’ve learned from every encounter and absorbed wisdom, knowledge, and vitality through my interaction with those who populate this forest. Most of the time, they don’t even know I am there. I listen, and silently offer whatever resources I can. When I flow within something, it becomes stronger, taking from me the resources I’ve accumulated over a lifetime of growth in this forest. 

“I watched you lose everything you had. I cried deeply when your family burned, and I spent the last three years taking every remnant of their life, and holding it within me, hoping one day you’d be open to receiving it. I saw you cracking at your trunk, your bark withering in the sunlight, and I had to come to you. 

“I want you to know that as long as I live, I’ll never leave you. When you pass, I shall pass too. Within me, and therefore within you, is the love of your family. You will never be alone. You will never stand alone again.”

Connie felt that Cory was telling the truth. She could feel the her family living within her. She felt a loving warmth, the kind she used to bask in while staring at the clouds. As she looked around her, she noticed that new trees were beginning to sprout from the forest floor. 

“You have new brothers and sisters coming! Will you open your heart to them? Will you promise never to ignore their love?”

Connie smiled and nodded, noting how in her youth she thought the heavens would be her savior. The truth, though, is that her savior was at her feet, living beside her for her entire life. She promised herself to never ignore the gifts that the earth presented her ever again. 

She looked to the sky again and saw three pearly clouds. 

“Hello, friends.” She said, remembering those youthful daydreams from her childhood. She reached a branch skyward, admired their presence, let the sun’s rays bathe her flesh in golden light. She knew, now,  that the clouds would always be outside of her reach. But rather than sorrow, she felt relief. With Cory beneath her she knew that she was exactly where she belonged. She’d never be alone again.