Remembering Hell Read Free Page A

total sincerity.
I breathe in the aroma of the coffee before taking the first sip.
    Gabby gives me the kind of smile
you give to a child who just asked why the sky is blue. “Because you are
basically asking for a command performance from the Boss for something you
already know how is going to end, sweetie.”
    My eyes start to fill, and I clear
my throat before I begin to speak. “I’m sorry, I really am,” I say, and I mean
it. “I know I’m acting like a spoiled brat, but this is a hill I’m willing to
die on,” I continue. “You know, if I could…die again.” I half-heartedly laugh
at my own joke.
    Gabby opens her arms and brings me
in to her for a warm embrace. While I am enjoying the contact, as well as the
natural healing power of her touch, she looks down at me with an expression
that is so sweet there are no words to describe it in a way that anyone living
would ever understand. There are some breathtakingly beautiful moments you will
just have to wait until the afterlife to comprehend.
    Then the air changes, and I can
feel the excitement. I look up at Gabby and see the sparkle in her eyes that I
know is reflected in mine too. “The Boss is here,” she says.
    Suddenly his booming voice fills
the corridor. “Gabby, if you don’t mind, could you ask Ms. Patterson to come in
here before her poor head explodes?” His humor is evident.
    The sound of Deedy’s voice, rolling
in with that heavy Welsh accent is always soothing to me, no matter how jangled
my nerves may be. Intellectually, I know that he’s not always Welsh, not always
dressed to the nines in the finest suits, not always called Mr. Deedy, not even
always a “he” for that matter. But to me, he is now, and will eternally be Mr.
Deedy, because for whatever reason, that is what I need him to be. For others
he may be older, or younger, or black, or blue, or female. He can create
himself to look like anything, because after all, he created everything and
everyone.
    Yes. It’s true. I get to see God as
a six feet five inches skinny dude with a funny accent and a great wardrobe.
    I practically sprint down the hall
to Deedy’s office. I pause at the door as usual to reflect the first time I
ever came here and stood in front of this door. The first time I ever walked
through it, I was a resident of Hell. Convinced that I deserved an eternity of
suffering, I came here to work for a strange, enigmatic man who, as far as I
knew, owned a temp agency. But this office was the birthplace of my redemption.
This place was where I realized I was forgiven, and it was here where I
discovered I had actually been doing temp jobs for God.
    I walk in like a woman with purpose
and start talking even before I take my usual seat across from his huge desk.
“Okay, so I know you already know why I’m here, and I have been thinking about
this ever since it happened,” I say, my speech already prepared in my head so I
could just lay out my argument with at least a bit of eloquence. “I know she
did something horrific, and I heard her last words, which basically was her
giving herself her own trial and judgment. But her life as a whole—” I cannot
finish because Deedy interrupts me.
    “Hello, Louise!” Deedy says
casually, as though I haven’t said a word yet. He addresses me like two old
friends running into each other on the street. “How long has it been? A few
years since we have been face to face? Although, I must admit, I really do love
our evening chats,” he says with a sly smile.
    I look at him with exasperation. I
did not pray until after I was dead. Is that weird? But since I’d never done it
before, except to kind of fake it when I was a kid in church, I reverted back
to my only research which were movies and television from my childhood. I
started praying every night before bed, on my knees with my fingers interlocked
and my elbows on the mattress. At first I felt silly, like I was talking to
myself, but since I knew for a fact that there was a