Read Online Awake in Hell by Helen Downing - Free Book Online Page B

morning. I even smile and wave at the folks that I pass
on the street, who naturally shoot invisible daggers into my midriff with their
evil stares.
    Besides
the jumpsuit, I’m thinking that this could be a whole new start for me down
here — making the best of a shitty situation, as it were. Well, in reality, the
shittiest situation ever. But still, a new start with a new job, with clothes
that can be mildly tolerated if not necessarily catwalk material. And I get to
be out and about.  I get a change of scenery, always miserable, but
changing, right?
    So,
feeling as optimistic as one could under my circumstances, I round the corner
to the trash collection company. TCC for short. The smell hits me before I even
get within eyesight of the place, and all my optimism is drowned in an ocean of
noxious fumes. It’s a clinging, sticky kind of stink. The kind you know is
going to take refuge inside your nose and start screaming ‘Sanctuary!’ Sort of
like Quasimodo every time you attempt to sniff or blow it out. It’s the kind of
smell that is usually hard-wired into your gag reflex. But of course, down here
there really isn’t a clear path from your digestive tract to the street, what
with being a construct and all, so I get kind of green around the gills, but
never actually boot.
    I
stumble into the building marked with the Trash Collection Company logo hoping
for some relief. But I just find that in an enclosed space, even the enormous
office complex that is TCC, the stench is more concentrated. I don’t know
whether to breathe from my mouth, and risk somehow tasting this Hellish smell,
or just say ‘fuck it’ and stop breathing altogether. I mean, what’s the worst
that could happen? Breathing has got to be optional in the afterlife right? So
I give it a try and actually hold my breath. When I start to feel lightheaded
and lose all peripheral vision, I surrender and take a deep breath, followed by
a strange choking noise from the fact that my throat is actually closing to
keep the odor out. Damn all of us and our illusion of life!
    I
stumble over to the reception desk and can barely speak. The girl behind the
desk should be named Anti-Gabby, since she’s the diametric opposite of Gabby in Deedy’s office. Instead of floating around passing
out coffee and making a girl feel better with a single touch, this girl is
rooted to a chair, filing nails that are now sharpened points at the end of her
fingers. She’s chomping on gum and looks at me with an expression that is the
perfect blend of boredom, torment, and disgust. How awful it must be for her to
work in this malodorous environment. I flashback on a movie I saw once, where
the characters were exiled to a bog of stench. The guard there had no idea how
bad it was, since he’d been there so long. It was like his nostrils had burned
away the smell. Even though the movie was a fantasy, and it didn’t take place
on earth, it obviously also didn’t take place in Hell. Here, I don’t think
anyone gets used to anything. That’s part of the whole “damnation” thing,
right? I mean, how many people do you know right now who are stuck in a life, a
marriage, a place, or just a state of being that makes you think, ‘If that were
me, I’d have already run a hot bath and opened up a packet of razor blades.’
Yet, they go on... because it is the life they’ve gotten used to, and they
can’t imagine anything better. How would it be if in Hell we all became
complacent or even content?  That would hardly be a punishment. And we are
here to be punished, to be sure. For time endless.
    Anyway,
working here has done nothing for Anti-Gabby’s disposition, which was not that
great in the first place, being as she was sentenced to the aforementioned,
eternal damnation. She can’t have been pleased when she got into her closet
this morning, considering her pants suit is made of a quite porous, muslin
dyed, pukey green color and highlighted with dark
brown spots, that could