Antehell
In the wee hours of the night, our traveler sits on his bathroom counter. He is trimming his toe nails with a serrated steak knife, despite the fact that he owns multiple sets of nail clippers. The traveler lives alone in a rent-controlled, 2 bedroom house in a nameless suburb. When he signed the lease, he thought he would have a wife and a child within the next 3 years. That was 10 years ago. The traveler has been in the house so long, he figures he may as well not leave.
Watch as he cuts his large toe! Our traveler swears and jumps back. He leans against his mirror. We soon see that this is a bad move, as he breaks the mirror at first contact. The traveler swears again and reverses his movement, leaning away from the shards. This is another bad move. The traveler has leaned too far off of the bathroom counter and falls to the floor.
Everything is black. The traveler cannot see anything. The traveler cannot hear anything. The traveler cannot smell anything. The traveler can taste pork ‘n’ beans, but that’s only because he was eating pork ‘n’ beans out of the can when he was in the bathroom. He has a very bad headache. This was possibly brought on by the pork ‘n’ beans.
“What the hell?” our traveler says.
(He is not one to swear often, but you will see why he does in just one second.)
“Yeah.”
A voice from behind him rings out. The traveler spins around, but still cannot see.
“Who’s there? Where are you? I can’t see!” he says.
“Open your eyes.”
Our traveler opens his eyes and realizes why he couldn’t see before: his eyes were closed. Before him is a very large field with a very large line of people leading to a very large Starbucks. He looks down at the ground to see a steak knife, the very same steak knife he was using to cut his toe nails not 2 minutes ago.
“Oh, my knife.” The traveler says. He bends down to pick up the steak knife when a dark, low scream rumbles like thunder towards him.
“No!” the knife yells, pained like a person losing 8 Ball Pool. The traveler jumps back, startles.
“My toe knife can talk?”
“Obviously.”
Our traveler should be shocked by this revelation, but this is something he has been suspicious of for a while now.
“So, where am I?” the traveler asks.
“Hell.” the knife says.
The traveler is suprised.
“Like, real Hell? H-E- double hockey sticks?”
“No, not real Hell,” the knife says. “That’s a different place. No, this is, um,”
The toe knife pauses, thinking. Our traveler is uncomfortable waiting for a response and begins to kick the pebbles near his feet. His big toe is still bleeding, bleeding all over his bright yellow $1.50 flip flops.
“Oh!” the knife says. “I remember, this is, like, Annoying Pop Culture Opinions Hell!”
The traveler looks up. The knife is now farther away. He did not see the knife move, so he is a little confused. The traveler elects to not ask, because he figures this is a plot device that will be explained later.
“Annoying Pop Culture Opinions Hell?” the traveler says. “That’s oddly specific.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s almost like it was created specifically to satisfy some kind of hateful, grumpy person.”
“Or for an English teacher.”
“Sa-” the knife begins, but is abruptly cut off by a very loud BEEP.
“What was that?” says the traveler.
“Ouch, the author censored me so they wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Our traveler is confused yet again, but again elects not to ask, because he realizes the knife’s statement is an example of foreshadowing.
“So,” the traveler begins. “Why am I here?”
If a steak knife could shrug, this one definitely would.
“If I could shrug,” the knife says, “I would. I have no idea why you’re here. Want a tour?”
The traveler shrugs, an action that the knife cannot do.
“Sure.”
“Okay, look away.”
“Wait, what?”
“Look away! Look away!” the knife screams.
Our traveler obliges. He looks around at the field they’re in. It’s large and pretty. It reminds him of the Windows Bliss wallpaper. It’s gorgeous. The traveler looks back at where the knife was. The knife is gone.
“Over here!” the knife yells. The traveler looks up. The knife is far ahead of him. He starts running so he can catch up, passing by hundreds of people who are all standing in line. The people in the line are not happy about being passed, but they aren’t going to do anything about it except complain under their breath, because that’s the kind of people that stand in these long lines.
The traveler has caught up with the steak knife, and the two of them are now in front of the Starbucks. Our traveler realizes that this is not a normal Starbucks; this one is two stories tall. It also has a massive sign below the Starbucks logo that reads “Welcome to APCO Hell, What Can I Get You?” in bright red letters, but the traveler does not care about this detail.
“Wow,” he says. “I didn’t know they made Starbucks buildings this tall.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda cool, I guess.” The knife says. “Did you notice the sign?”
“Yeah, but I don’t care.”
“Okay.”
The steak knife just sits there.
“So, um.” the traveler says, awkwardly. “How long have you been dead?”
“Do you remember the time you put frozen chicken strips in the oven for too long and they were so hard, you had to use a steak knife to cut through them?”
“Yeah.”
“I died two days after that when you threw me out into the street.”
“The chicken strips didn’t kill you?”
“That was a different steak knife. God, man. Do you think we’re all the same?”
“No, no, no,” the traveler frantically tries to defend himself. “I just forgot, but I could never forget you…” He trails off.
“Paul.” the knife supplies.
“Yeah, Paul. The memory was just foggy.”
Paul seems satisfied.
“Let’s go in. This is the Antehell. Look away.”
Our traveler is starting to understand the rules of the steak knife. Paul. He is going to try and remember Paul’s name. He is probably not going to succeed. The traveler has always had a difficult time with names. He cannot even remember his own name.
“Anti-Hell? Like, the opposite of Hell?” the traveler says as he looks at everything except Paul. He hears the door chime and feels the wind made by the door closing and decides to take this as a sign to follow.
“No, idiot,” Paul says. “It’s like the waiting room. Didn’t you ever read Dante’s Inferno?”
Our traveler thinks back. His class read it in 10th grade. He didn’t go to 10th grade. The traveler had taken a year off school to focus on himself and his growing business (selling Vanilla Ice mix CDs).
“Anyways, this is where people get sorted into one of the nine circles of Hell. Except, they’re not actually shaped like circles.”
“What’re they shaped like?”
“2006 Kia Sorentos.”
“Why do you call them circles, then?”
“It’s meta.”
The traveler looks around the Starbucks. There are no chairs, only tables. There is nothing behind the counter besides two baristas. The taller barista has blue hair, a septum ring, and a rude look on their face. The short barista has long, blond hair and drawn-on eyebrows that do not match. A man approaches the counter. Our traveler watches to see what happens.
“Hi, can I get a, uhh,” the man begins, but is cut off by the tall barista.
“No.”
The man is indignant.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Then beg.” The blond barista says.
“I want a venti iced blonde vanilla latte.”
“Of course you do.” the blond barista says. They nod to the tall barista, who reaches for the comically large lever on the ground. The tall barista strains as they try to pull the lever towards them. The blond barista sighs.
“Move.” they say to the tall barista. The tall barista obliges, and the blond barista takes their spot in front of the lever. With one hand, the blond barista pulls the comically large lever towards themselves until it makes a loud CLACK noise. The floor beneath the man suddenly drops away. The man stands there, floating, until he looks down and sees that there is no floor. As if his position was dependent on whether or not he knew he wasn’t standing on a floor, he falls. The traveler can hear the man scream very loudly, his scream getting quieter as he descends.
“Can I talk to the baristas?” the traveler asks Paul, who is on the floor next to his feet.
“Sure, I don’t care.” Paul says, rather
Our traveler hears a hint of passive aggression in Paul’s voice. He doesn’t know why Paul is mad. Nonetheless, he persists and approaches the counter, his bleeding foot leaving a red trail behind him.
“Hi.” the traveler says.
The blond barista is busy pushing the comically large lever back to its original position. The tall barista looks at the traveler and seems confused. They hesitate before speaking.
“Hi?” the tall barista says. “Why aren’t you in line?”
“I’m not ordering, I just have a question.”
At this point, the blond barista has joined the conversation, equally confused as their coworker.
“You have a question?” the blond begins. “About what? Do you want to know why this Antehell is a Starbucks? Do you wanna know where people go when we pull the lever? Why their coffee order matters? It doesn’t, by the way. We just like to mess with people.”
The tall one interjects.
“Maybe he wants to know about us. I mean, what are we?”
“Demons, Dale.” the blond says. “We’re demons.”
“No, no.” Dale counters. “Management said we can’t call ourselves that, it’s copyrighted.”
Our traveler clears his throat to remind Not-Demon Dale and the blond that he is still there.
“How much do you guys get paid?”
The Not-Demon baristas gawk.
“Paid?” The blond repeats in shock.
“Yeah, recently I’ve begun to feel unsatisfied with my job, and I’m thinking about a fresh start.”
The blond gaped at the traveler and shook their head, as if to shake out the stupor.
“Yeah, no, we’re not paid.” the tall barista says.
“I’m stuck here for all eternity.” the blond says. “All because I didn’t leave a tip.”
“And I’m an intern, so…”
The tall barista sucks their teeth as they trail off. The traveler winces.
“You guys should unionize.”
At that, our traveler turns around and comes back to the table he had been standing next to. He looks around and realizes that Paul is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey! Up here!” Paul’s voice rings out from behind the counter. The traveler returns to the counter and waves at the baristas, who are distracted by someone ordering a grande iced chai latte with oat milk. He glances at the other side of the counter and realizes there are no openings, forcing the traveler to climb over the counter. No one notices this, because they are all busy waiting to enter Hell or being dropped directly into Hell or working for Hell.
Behind the counter, the traveler finds Paul leaning against a cabinet door.
“Hi.” the traveler says, because he is bad at small talk.
“Open this.” Paul says, because he is apparently equally as bad at small talk.
The traveler opens the cabinet to see an empty cabinet.
“Get in.” Paul says. The traveler obliges.
He soon finds that the cabinet has no bottom.