For me, it would probably look a lot like heaven.

I’m not quite sure, but the idea of everything I’ve ever wanted just slightly out of reach would drive me crazy.

All the time to write and think, but maybe there another author that already wrote the story beautifully.

Endless sunsets and thunderstorms, but on the horizon where I wasn't.

Coffees and huge open fields for frisbee, but no one to share them with.

Someone who loved me for me, but maybe only the good parts.

Everything you could ever want, but only temporarily or just hovering in front of you. Right beyond your grasp. So no matter how much you tried, no matter how much you wanted something, you could never have it.

Eventually, I'd be lonely. With only the reason I wanted more. And how selfish that would sound. Perhaps I wouldn't know I was in hell, and I'd justify to myself that this was heaven, a perfect utopia. And I should be greatful to be here. And soon I'd be fighting against myself inside my head. Until the only demons around me, were my thoughts.

At the bottom of a sweat drenched chair,

a room dimly lit,

filled with bugs of all kinds.

I cannot escape because

nothing better lies ahead for me,

isolated from peers and friends,

Nothing permanent.

Engaged with Hell

for far too long,

entirely at fault.

Diet for destruction.

And after

full I

cannot help but ask for more

So much uncertainty.

I must calm it.

Stuck in a cycle

with repeated lessons to learn

over and over again

until understanding is discerned

slipping down a spiral

a Gordian knot to unbend

created from your own making

until you finally divine...

to ascend.

Trapped.

No way in,

And no way out.

Without thought

And without color.

Encompassed by

Nothing.

Hell is written in many ways, none of which occur in the bible prior to 450AD. The torment of the eternal conscious (TEC, Google it ) is questioned by reputable Christian scholars.

I believe that Hell comes after death, looking like a bright red car. In more metaphysical terms, Hell is the ultimate branding of our character. How might we understand this?

Pullman says it best when he likened personality to being followed by personal familiars, small animals that change to reflect our character. Should a child feel brave, their animal becomes aggressive and large. Cowardly? A mouse now seems more apt. An adult’s familar in comparison cannot change its shape despite their movements in mood. An adult’s character, like their familiar, becomes fixed in one form.

The finality of character for an adult stems from the proportion of time they have lived.

Time is experiential. One second for a one second baby is its entire experience of life. One minute for a baby of ten minutes is 10% of its life.

But those reference points of time do not increase in perfect proportion. Instead they are expontential. Because one year for a ten year old is 10% of their life, two years for twenty-year-old should be 10% as well. Yet the twenty-year-old experiences their ‘10%’ of life as moving quicker.

Knowing this, what might be the half-way point for an average Western life? Let’s say 80 years old, with no ‘anti-socialist’ health care issues in this example.

Not forty.

Try seven years old.

The experience that comes to define your character for life is mostly lived prior to being seven years old. By that age you will be defined by the bravery or courage you exhibited, the virtue or vice you have embrace. Psychological models in 2020, both Jungian and behaviourist, will confirm this statement, that how you have lived by seven years old will be determine your character for the rest of your days.

Knowing this, it should be clear that Hell is simply the inability to change your character after death. Whatever human consciousness that might live on after death, regardless of whether it has human interests, will suffer the knowledge that it is impossible to change its character, even with those few good deeds committed in later life.

This is where our Western concept of a midlife crisis comes to help us. Most people see a midlife crisis as the mere upgrading to a younger car, and perhaps partner. Yet a profound change, a paradigm shift is our potential miracle. The Catholic confession, the hallucinogenic vision, the all-in Wall Street Bet if that’s your belief - they all grant us that seismic shift that might in one moment define us more than all the discipline of a life well-led before. Only a midlife crisis can change our characters after seven years old and grant us reprieve from the Hellish knowledge of an eternity to be as we have always been.

It is then a shame I cashed my change on that bright red car.

You can’t even imagine real hell. You can’t do that. No one is capable of that. Hell is such a painful place that you will answer with fire for the shameful deeds you have done in this world, for the pictures of naked women (men) you have seen!

You are responsible for every food and bread given to you, for water, for air, for life! A hot pot is waiting for you in hell. There you will be burned up, and you will be tormented. You will die, but you will rise again! You feel a sharp pain!

Don’t you believe me? Are you laughing at me? Laugh, because you don’t believe in these things! I know you are a man of the modern world! But I can convince you! Now think about it!

Why are you helping people? Why? Is it for pleasure and enjoyment, to live in paradise after your death!

So, aren’t there people doing bad things in this world? Criminals, adulterers, prostitutes! Who will punish them? Answer is hell! Why do you rejoice for the good you have done, and not be punished for the sins they have committed? Can you answer that question? No, you can’t answer! Because you don’t want to admit it! But all I say is true! The conclusion is from you ...

Hell is where your hangnail never ends

where the floor is tacks and Legos

where you can never make ammends

where a screen on the wall shows

the things that make you lose friends

Hell is a house with a popcorn ceiling

with a carpeted kitchen and bathroom

with concrete stairs inside, always cracking

with a naked stick meant to be a broom

this is a game of limbo you are losing

Hell has a shed infested with wasps

an infertile garden with more slugs than salt

a dresser with no matching socks

a fridge so rotten that it's assault

and inaccurate time from the frozen clocks

Hell is home to more than just you

your sleep paralysis demon is your new aquaintance

the monsters under the bed and in the closet are there too

they will keep you staring at your memories in a trance

while screeching distorted chants and untying your shoe

Hell is when your phone keeps falling

when the stains on your favorite shirt stay

when late-night homework tears keep rolling

when your mind and body never quite feel okay

this place is where you, a poor sinner, has a calling

In my hell, I am watching reruns of when I said things in life I didn’t mean.

And I am watching as the people I love suffer because of my complacency.

I am watching as my dreams go unfulfilled because I never had the guts to act on them.

And I am watching as my obliviousness pushed important people out of my life.

I am watching as my mental illness made my life on earth a hell on earth.