An approaching boulder; from within, a babel of voices. As it nears it becomes translucent; visible now inside are the faces of sad, unattractive girls dressed in their ball gowns hoping for the best but discarded once again, overworked secretaries, angry exterminators, jilted girlfriends, terrified kindergarten kids, ashamed mothers, angry ex-teachers, elderly husbands, frustrated piano teachers, and May brides. Along with the anguished faces are bodies – desiccating slugs, doomed gophers, misshapen iguanas and tortured frogs. In the ball is every slight or insult or hurt, every person harmed, every sin committed and every poor warped animal tormented wrapped. “All you had to do was practise, ” my ex-piano teacher wails.
The chorus amplifies and hands reach out to grasp at me and so I push the rock, which begins to spin faster and faster, moving down the passage as it turns. Added to the cacophony now is a howl from the other side of the rock. The voices continue. “Help!” yells the solitary voice from the other side of the stone.
“Tell somebody who cares!” I yell as one angry face after another accuses:
“Give Michael the help he needs!”
“Dance with me!”
“Listen to me.”
“Make my cell phone work!”
“Sharpen the saw! Work harder, not faster! Think outside the box!”
“Write a speech that makes our lives meaningful!”
“Love us! Love us! Love us!”
And the ball twirls ever more wildly, voices adding to the howl, more and more hands, teeth and claws reaching out. I push harder but am trapped in the mouth of an iguana bursting from the surface, rolling me to the other side, where I lose my leather and insignia as I do, becoming again my younger self, terrified. As I scream, the rock flies out of the maze, over a cliff and with my own momentum intact, so do I, my Goebbels/Voelot guide now in dress and fetching cap laughing as she soars away, carried into the distance under an umbrella. I continue my infinite fall before landing back in Hell’s anteroom. Now a lamb, I fall into line behind others of my damned-soul kind as we move up a ramp. At the top my demon guide floats down, adding the form of an Old MacDonald hayseed, and stands at the end, sparks flying from the end of his once-again baton. As I approach, he touches the sparking tip to my forehead, the shock sending me to the circle of murder and mayhem.