Maria's Inferno: Canto III

Note: I'm not sure whether to include the last three stanzas. And the whole "hell being brief" thing is stupid, I know, but I couldn't bring myself to damn anyone forever. :-)

There was a gate, gleaming like the dawn

though night had not surrendered

and the sun had long been gone.

Before it, like embers

of a dying blaze

stood translucent souls- some I remembered

from my life. All were a distant haze

unlike me. And all were wailing

repenting for the errors of their ways.

"Here ends smooth sailing,"

Anne grimly pronounced

and I felt my own face paling.

"This is where punishments are announced,"

my guide explained, "for these are the truly dead

and their sins they have not yet renounced.

See how they are filled with dread

and unlike you, move like ghosts.

This is so their lives may be read

by the one who stands at the judgement post.

This veil of mortal essence lifted

allows him to see through lies and boasts

and then each soul is sifted

according to what is owed him most.

Very rarely, some are gifted

and first go to meet the Heav'nly Host,

but usually each soul must be purged

and is sent, fleetingly, into Hell to roast."

"So then from Hell every soul must emerge?"

I inquired, filled with light relief.

"Yes," said Anne. "But now I urge

we move along, past all this grief

for I have duties to complete

and hope this time in Hell be brief."

We tried to be discreet,

but souls still stared with hollow eyes

which one cannot help but meet.

One soul I noted with surprise

carried every single feature

of someone I recognized.

my tenth grade English teacher.

"How?? She has not yet died!"

I asked Anne, beseeched her.

"Your eyes have not lied

my friend. But time does not drift in the same way

as it flows on the outside

where night is night and day is day."