ALLOW ME TO set the record straight: I was never in Hell. Never been there—not even for a visit. It’s true that I did terrible things while I was alive. I was a murderer, a thief, an adulterer, and above all, a liar. But God’s grace reaches all people, and His providence embraces all. Though unworthy, I was judged worthy. Pardoned. Justified. Redeemed. Ransomed.
Unaware of this, Dante Alighieri (God love him!) condemned me to his fictional Inferno, and there have I dwelt ever since, writhing in fictional flame for centuries. And I’m not the only one. Poor Pope Celestine V—Saint Celestine!—also languishes in Dante’s Hell, to say nothing of the billions of souls trapped in his fictional Limbo. Sure, it’s only fiction. Fictional suffering. A fictional Odysseus writhes and gnashes his teeth amid fictional flames. Mere fiction. But flames nonetheless. You can see how it might bother me.
It doesn’t. Nothing bothers me now. Nonetheless, you can see how it might. And so you will understand my eagerness to free my fictional self, and all those blameless others condemned by Dante’s clerical error. Getting us out will take some work, but I can have a bit of fun while I’m at it. After all, I too am a teller of tales. If Dante’s imagination can imprison me, surely my own imagination will break me out.