Lack of Belief

Originally submitted to this writing prompt.

Lack of Belief

When I died I thought that would be it. Blackness. Nil. A complete cessation of experiencing the universe. I did not believe in the afterlife having renounced my religious ties years ago. But instead, I woke up to the smell of rotting flesh and the rising chorus of a thousand screams far in the distance, muffled, as I would soon learn, but a giant wooden double door made of wych elm and adorned with bronze goat heads. The last thing I remembered before dying were the shrieks of a car skidding down the road right into me, as I remained lost in thought about Caleb. Always lost in thought about him. Not even my daily runs could out run those thoughts.

Black marble with slivers of deep crimson veins that pulsed out a faint red aura made up the walls, floors, and ceilings of the room I now sat in, and in front me sat a man with scarlet skin, dressed in a white suit, and eating the rotten corpse of a deceased man. His eyes missing and mouth slacked open, and his torso flayed revealing the inner workings that are usually only reserved for a surgeon’s or mortician’s eyes only. He took a bite with a small trident like fork, picking out a large slab of maggot filled flesh that looked like a lung and shoved it into his face. He closed his eyes and savored it before he finally spoke.

“Doctor Meredith Julia Blackstone, welcome to the afterlife,” the scarlet man said. His voice much lighter than I had expected. Not high pitch, just soft and graceful.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

“Freshly. Luckily for you I don’t like fresh meat,” he gestured towards the half eaten corpse that laid across his desk.

My heart rate raised. I fidgeted in my seat. It occurred to me just how hot this room was. Hotter than any place I had ever been, and I knew the heat well with spending my whole life in the South. Sweat seeped out of my pours.

The man chuckled and shook his head. “I’m just messing with you. I only ever indulge on the corpses of the Irredeemables, and even then only their carcas, imported straight from Earth after having been fermented after a few years. Their souls are in a special place here.”

Hell. That had to be where I was. Perhaps my mother was right. After I told her that I had renounced my religion, she only looked at me in pity and said “then I guess I won’t be seeing you in Heaven.” And that was all. I thought she meant at the time that because I did not believe in an afterlife that she wouldn’t see me in it because I would cease to exist, but now I know she meant I would be in Hell. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t believe in eternal ecstasy or suffering just for a small collection of good or bad decisions one makes in their small sliver of time alive. Not when that existence was nothing more than a blink of an eye in the face of eternity. As a therapist I saw many people in many walks of life who struggled with their own demons. If there was a hell, well, then all of us were going to it, no matter how pious you were. I had helped so many patients battle with their demons. I cared for them from their darkest pitfalls to their highest summits. All except for Caleb.

That was the last talk I had with her. I didn’t see her again until her funeral.

“Is this what I get for not believing?” I asked. “Eternal damnation?”

“Yes,” the man said with a nod. I could only presume him to be the Devil himself now. “But not eternal, and I’d hardly call it damnation, at least in your case, unless you can’t stand the heat. But that shouldn’t be of issue, I mean you survived living in Texas for thirty-seven years. You’ll be able to adapt.”

“Then why am I here?”

“For not believing.”

“I don’t get it. Then why am I not being tortured? Shouldn’t you be stabbing me with a pitchfork and holding my feet over an inferno as I scream? Like those out there?” I pointed at the door behind me, where the chorus continued.

“Oh that,” he laughed. “That’s just background noise. I can’t stand silence. I have my staff pump in old recording of those halcyon days when I did exactly as you said. But things have changed. I was taking out a whole lot of anger over being fired. Last a few thousand years, but I got over it. Once I got it out of my system my old boss and I decided to rebuild bridges. We have a new contract, and new standard operating procedures. That’s where you come in.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I said. “Are you, the Devil, the fallen angel, telling me that you’re running Hell like a business?”

He shook his head. “Not quite, but inspired by one you could say. My ex-boss and I draw a whole lot if inspiration from you humans. Back in the day, before businesses were ever really a thing this place was ran like a kingdom. You people sure a clever at times.”

“So how does this involve me?” Perhaps this was my Hell. I had left my old corporate job to pursue a career in therapy after it had bored me to death after seven years beneath the fluorescence.

“Like I said, you humans are clever. We’re running this place differently now, inspired by your rehab centers. Eternal damnation was never the point. Originally it was for repentance, but my ex-boss and I realized that even after centuries of torture just to have somebody believe in him was counter-productive. Sure they’d be in heaven, but they’d still be haunted by their own demons. And to be frank, the old system of belief was quite egotistical. His son even put him in his place one century. The big man turned a new leaf, put his ego aside. Now we demons are focused on one thing: helping you humans exorcise your own personal demons and believe in your full potential, then you will be free to pass through the Pearly Gates and live out the rest of eternity as a fully realized human.”

I looked a the rotting corpses on the table. “So what’s with the corpse then?”

He shrugged. “Old acquired taste. Like I said, imported from above. If this were the old days then he’d be screaming as I devoured his organs, only to have them regrow for a second round. Like all of you, I’m trying to let go. Eating a corpse is the most humane way to sustain this habit. Like a smoker trying to quit and chewing on nicotine gum.”

“Okay then, what’s my role in all of this?”

“Nobody understands humans like humans. I tried training my demons in counseling, but no matter how much they learned they never could fully grasp it. So we’ve been recruiting from above. Let you therapists excel and have all the time in the world to help those in need. Some demons take longer than a human lifespan to fully rid oneself of, especially when it is cut short like your own.”

Or Caleb’s.

“Once they’re fully actualized,” the Devil continued. “Then we give them an option to go to heaven. Plus it allows you therapists plenty of time to work through your own issues.”

“So you want me to work for you, as a therapist?”

“Only for a few centuries. You record shows you’re pretty well adjusted. You’re free to turn down the offer and go straight to heaven, after a few decades with our therapists of course. I think your mom is up there.”

I sighed. Being a therapist was already exhausting. The thought of leaving it behind forever felt nice. But it was the only thing in my life that gave me meaning anymore. Sitting around and doing nothing felt like my own hell. Seeing patients work through their own problems was a reward unlike non-other to me. And then there was Caleb, maybe I had a second shot here.

“I’ll take the job,” I said, almost surprising myself. “But only if you let me see one man.”

“Oh, who?” His eyebrows raised.

“Caleb Smith.”

The Devil laughed. “We have millions of Caleb Smiths here. It might take millennia to find the man you’re looking for. Are you still sure you want to work here? It would be faster to just see a therapist for a few centuries than to work through all of the Caleb Smiths we have here.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. I didn’t care if I had to work through two million Caleb Smiths to find the who had left the world of the living too soon. Who used to sit on the couch in my office every Wednesday at seven in the evening as I helped him exorcise his own demons.

The Devil stood up and extended a hand. I mimicked him, taking it, not even thinking at how that same hand had been wielding a fork full of rotten flesh just a few minutes ago. “Welcome to your new job.” He grinned. “We’re thrilled to have you here Meredith.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling like I meant it. After we withdrew our hands a question pressed against my mind. “You said my mom was in Heaven right? Did she get a free pass for believing in your ex-boss? Was she right, in a sense?”

He shook his head. “No, she spent some time here. Most people do nowadays. But she worked through her problems and learned to forgive.”

“Then why did you say that I was here for not believing then? Especially if the old ways of repenting are over?”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Please forgive my old habit. ‘For not believing’ was something I used to say all the time. I stopped myself short of what I really meant to say.”

“And that is?”

“For not believing in yourself.”

I took a deep breath. He was right. Thirty-seven years hadn’t been enough to believe. Perhaps a few centuries to work on myself wouldn’t be so bad after all.