The Other Girls Series

I used to believe you burn in hell. But now that I’m here, I think it’s the coldest I’ve ever been.

I was barely thirteen when I first heard of this place in all its gory, pointy detail. Still a kid, even if I didn’t feel like it back then. And yet, I was still the oldest one there—not counting the gargoyle-like nuns guarding either end of the pews like the Gestapo, or the yellowed, hollowed priest so ancient he was like a relic unto himself. As he delivered the news of our fiery damnation with the monotone inevitability of a weather forecast, it sometimes seemed like he might just dissolve into dust on the spot.

But as for the other kids—captives, really—their shoes didn’t even graze the ground once they were seated. I can’t imagine they understood half of what was being said to them; they didn’t know enough about the world to even fathom the sins they were being accused of. Not that it mattered. The message still got through loud and clear. Even a five-year-old knows that it hurts to burn.

And burn they would. Because that’s the kicker about the Catholics—the thing I thought was actually pretty rude about it all. Sin isn’t even a choice you make. It’s something you already are, a sort of celestial debt we’re all born into. Not one of us, not even those who were still in the thumb-sucking stage, was inherently worthy of His most lofty standards. This is all thanks to some heritable disease called “Original Sin,” an innate sort of corruption that courses through our blood and stains our souls even as infants, making us too unclean to pass through heaven’s gates.

And all of this because, supposedly, thousands of years ago, somebody ate something God told them not to—and it’s been repeating on humankind ever since. God, as it turns out, is not just the master of creation, but also the master of holding the world’s longest grudge.

Our mission was to work the debt off. Their mission was to make sure we did. Unfortunately, I made a habit of accumulating more debt, not working it off. So here I am.

But as it would turn out, they were wrong about a few things. Especially about this place. Everything was fire with them. Fire this, fire that. But you know what? Not so much as a flame since I’ve been here. Maybe it’s in the back, in some other department I haven’t seen yet? It’s funny, though. Fire, it turns out, is not the worst thing. Fire would, logically, mean some kind of light, and there is a definitive lack of that here.

A lack of everything, really. The priest did talk about darkness, but my former sense of the dark was something that cloaks and hides things. But there’s nothing to hide here. The light isn’t missing. It was just never here in the first place. All those years they had me believing hell was the worst place to be because of what would be here. As it turns out, it’s actually the worst place because of what isn’t.

Speaking of things that aren’t here: how about the vast majority of people? The Catholics left me with the impression this place would be pretty densely populated. The atheists, the heretics with their fake gods, even people who believed in the same God just a little bit differently. That’s a lot of people, isn’t it? And yet, you’re the only other person here. Still, I’m not entirely convinced you’re not just some figment I cooked up as a coping mechanism to keep myself from going totally crazy. Which would be ironic, if you think about it. Because if it’s gotten to the point that I’m hallucinating a Scotsman in the dark, I’m probably past the point of crazy, aren’t I?

“For the last time, I’m not a hallucination. And I’m not Scottish. I’m Irish.”

“Yes, but a hallucination would say just that, wouldn’t they? Well, maybe not the part about being Irish. But definitely the part about not being a hallucination.”

“I don’t know what to tell you except everything I’ve said before.”

“Well, if you’re not a hallucination, then what’s the alternative? Satan?”

“Why is that the alternative?”

“Makes a certain sense, doesn’t it? Who else would you be? We’re in hell, there are only two of us. I know I’m not Satan, so by process of elimination, somebody has to be.”

“I don’t think anybody has to be Satan…”

“Fine. Then you admit you’re a hallucination.”

“This isn’t an either-or situation. There are other options besides hallucination and Satan.”

“Fine. Prove it.”

“That I exist, or that I’m not Satan?”

“Well, let’s start with the existing in general part and go from there.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

“Hmmm….. how about you tell me something I don’t already know?”

“Such as?”

“Well, I don’t know. That’s the point.”

“…..”

“Fine. What about geography? I was always terrible with geography. Like the capital of Armenia. I know it has one, but I have no idea what it is.”

“Yerevan.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“….”

“What?”

“…it’s just... it sounds kind of... made up.”

“Words usually are.”

“All right, fine. Let’s try something else. What about you say something I know I would never say? Something so utterly out of character that I know there’s no way I could be saying it, and it must be someone else.”

“How am I to know what you’d never say?”

“Well, if it’s well out of character, I wouldn’t know. Have a go. Can’t hurt.”

“Very well then. Is giorra cabhair Dé ná an doras.”

“That’s gibberish.”

“It was Irish, actually.”

”Well now I know you’re not real. The Irish speak English.”

“Not always.”

“Great. We’re back in Yemen.”

“Yemen?”

“The capital of Armenia.”

“Yerevan. Yemen is a whole separate country.”

“That’s the point, I don’t know that! I don’t know anything here. I don’t know Yemen from Yerevan, or Irish from gibberish. I can’t test the truth against what I do know anymore than I can test it against what I don’t know. I can’t just take your word for it when it could be my word. I need something solid. I need... evidence.”

“Maybe this isn’t a place and time for evidence, but one for faith.”

“Well, the only thing I’m worse at than geography is faith. Trusting the wrong people is why I’m here in the first place.”

“That’s why most people are down here.”

”Even you?”

”Especially me.”

“Did you used to believe in God?”

“I did. Still do.”

“Even here and now?”

“Especially here. Especially now.”

“I didn’t. Well, not really. I half-arsed it, you know? Kept God for back-pocket emergency prayers, but mostly I didn’t buy into any of it. Truth is, I would have identified as closer to an atheist than a Catholic.”

“If you don’t believe in God, then why are you so certain of Satan?”

“I haven’t met God. What did you say before?”

“When?”

“Before. The gibberish…Irish, I mean. I never did ask what it meant.”

“It is a proverb. It means: God’s help is closer than the door.”

“Well, you sure had me pegged.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d never say anything so churchy and optimistic. Not out there, and certainly not in the bowels of hell.”

“Wait. So if you’re not sure of anything else—of what’s real and what isn’t—can I ask then why you are so certain, above all else, that this is in fact hell?”

“Oh, well, that one’s easy. I remember exactly how I got here. It all started with the night they found my sister in the bin.”







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