Chapter 32: Paperwork

In which I am officially dead.

You may have wondered where I've been the past ten days. Well, my hellphone and internet connection has been disabled. The reason: I was dead - from an administrative point of view.

What had happened was the following : After my summons, Inquisition had sent a copy of my death sentence to Demonic Ressources, with the scheduled date of the execution. As the note had arrived after the date, DR had considered me as dead and had issued a death certificate. This is a standard procedure, as things like reprieve or pardon don't exist in hell - theoretically. Copies of the certificate had then be sent to all other concerned authorities, from my superiors over my bank to the hellphone and internet provider. Can you imagine the paperwork it requires to have all this nullified?

My internet connection was, of course, the least of my problems. My bank accounts were frozen, my room declared vacant, my mail was sent back and my ID card was no longer active. As communication by mail or email was not possible, I had to go personally to R&D to have the death certificate nullified. The problem was, to appeal against the certificate, I had to file an administrative appeal. Now, when an infernal authority receives an appeal, first thing they do is to verify the identity of the sender. In this case, the sender was officially dead, so they would not even read the appeal. So, I couldn't appeal the fact that I was officially dead - because I was officially dead.

Plus, the clerks I disputed with were not really cooperative. They saw me, living and talking and rather angry, yet they insisted that I was officially dead. Or that I wasn't who I pretehded to be, as this guy was officially dead. It took me days of discussion and a fortune of bribe money to squeeze a helpful information: The authorities verify if the sender was alife the day he filed the appeal. In consequence, if I backdated the appeal to a date when I was still officially alife, the appeal was not refused.

There was only one date I could put on the appeal which would not lead to an automatical refusal: The very date of my official death. Any date before, and the appeal was considered invalid (as it was written before the document it contested), any date after, and I was considered invalid. Of course, I still had to find a reason why I contested the death certificate. "Here I am, writing to you and feeling fine" was not a valid reason, from an administrative point of view. I had to find a formal defect. Luckily due to my experience in accountance, I found one: The date on the death certificate was written in the order day/month/year, but a year ago, corporate had issued an order that all official papers had to respect the format month/day/year. That was the reason why I considered my death certificate invalid, officially.

And, believe me or not,  it worked. Today I got a letter that I am, for the time being, not dead, until rectification of the formal defect. Of course, this alone does not solve the problem - as soon as they issued a rectified death certificate with day and month written in the correct order, I will have the same problem. But now that I am provisorly alife, I can do the necessary administrative steps to prove to the authorities that I have never been executed, actually. I've still a lot of paperwork before me, but I am out of this deadlock situation.

Plus, I've the net again. Yay !

Chapter 31: Fifth Circle

In which I am a tourist in hell.

I've decided to stay some days down here in 5th. It's an interesting place, at least more interesting than 2nd where I come from.

To set the context, let me first explain the topography of Hell. The "floors" schema I posted earlier is somewhat simplified. Hell reminds, in fact, a giant funnel. The circles of Hell are concentric rings:

Each cercle is deeper than the preceding ones, except 5th and 6th which are almost on the same level, but separated by the Walls of Dis:

The city of Dis is, properly spoken, the 6th Circle and everything below, in other words, the lower hell.  It is extremely hot, that's why it's also called the Burning City. It is surrounded by the river Styx which i crossed when I wrote my last entry.

Since the visit of Dante Alighieri, the circles have been mordernized. In the old time, the wrathful and slothful souls were tortured in the swamp-like water of the Styx. Since then, the river has been canalized and crosses several Torture Centers, not unlike terrestrial purification plants, where souls are tortured in a more industrial manner.

At the opposite side of the Circle, we find the administrative district with contains, among others, the Local Souls Office. Next to the Administrative District are the research facilities, large buildings where thousands of scientist demons research new temptation and torture methods.

The walls of Dis are impressive, huge walls with giant towers, a symbolic stronghold of evil. They haven't been much modernized, as their value is symbolic, and the older a symbol is, the more powerful.

Behind the walls lies the 6th Circle, the Circle where I had been judged and imprisoned. I didn't feel like sightseeing in this zone. It's general impression is that of a city with lots of spires. Dante thought they were minarets, but this is, of course, nonsense - of course there are no mosques in hell, as they are no churches. The spires are, in fact, watchtowers, from which Inquisition watches out - symbolically - for heretics. As you might remember, symbols are important down here in hell.

Alltogether, it's the most interesting and impressive place in Hell I've seen so far. I don't know if a human would consider it "beautiful", as the concept of beauty is still somewhat unclear to me.

I think I'll still stay one or two days before coming back. My superiors won't miss me, they probably think I'm dead. Which would be the case, if it wasn't for my mysterious "friend"...

Chapter 30: Alife!

In which I cross the River of the Dead back to life.

I'm alife! Don't ask me what happened - I've no idea. The guards who came to my cell didn't bring me to the dogs pit, but to the prison door where I was released without any explanation. Maybe it's an intervention of my mysterious "friend" (see  Chapter 25).

I was eager to leave the 6th so I went on my way back. The Fallen Angels who guard the Wall of Dis were no problem, after a short look into my papers they let me go. I'm writing those lines in the ferry boat across the river Styx. Phlegyas, the ferryman, is a quiet guy. I had to wait for the ferry - Phlegyas is much busier that his collegue Charon who plies the Acheron between 1st and Reception Area, as there is no Downway between 5th and 6th. I've no idea how he manages all the traffic all alone.

When I'm on the other side, I just have to get to Styx Terminal to take the Downway upwards towards 2nd. I hope I'll not be sent immediately back to Earth, I need some rest.

Or maybe I could do some sightseeing in fifth - I've never been deeper than 4th in my life. On the other side, sightseeing in Hell can be a dangerous thing... We'll see.

Chapter 29: De profundis

In which I am waiting for becoming dog's food.

One day has passed since my death sentence, but I'm not yet dead. However, it won't take long. In some hours - or minutes, who knows - they will come. Faceless myrmidons who will bring me to the place where I will be devoured by hellhounds. 

 

Being devoured is a common punishment in hell. It's kind of recycling. Depending on who devours you, it may even be a honourful death. But I'm a heretic, no demon would stoop to devoiring me - so I will become hellhound food. What a pathetic end.

 

I hear steps on the floor. They are coming. I guess this will be my last entry.

Chapter 28: In Jail

In which I face an inquisitional court and am punished for my own stupidity.

I'm writing this post from an oubliette somewhere in 6th cercle. The summons yesterday was very short. The inquisitional court consisted of a magistrate - judge and accuser in one person - and two assessors.

 

 

First, the magistrate read the accusation: "Fraternization with humans by promise of favours". From this mmoment on I knew that I was doomed. In a hell trial, the guilt and the judgement are determined from the beginning, the trial is only a demonstration of justice. In this case, the demonstration was very short: One of the assessors read the text of the favour voucher for Divine Light - the name was certainly not an aspect in my favour - then the other assessor allowed me to defend myself. I stuttered something about too short formation as tempter and the necessity of knowing the humans' customs - but after some sentences the magistrate raised the hand to command silence. 

 

Then I made an error. The first assessor said that I'm obviously guilty, but that the sentence will depend on my cooperation. He asked me if I knew a demon who had committed some kind of heresy. The Old Librarian came to my mind - he had helped me without demanding anything in return, which was a severe violation of the principles of hell. Denouncing him would certainly reduce my punishment - the more trouble he gets, the less I suffer. 1st Dogma. 

 

But something happened inside me at this moment. I don't know what, but I heared myself say "No, I don't know any heretic." When I realized what I had said, it was too late - I wanted to correct myself, yell "No, I know someone, the old librarian..." but the magistrate ordered me, again, to remain silent. Too late. Too fucking late. I was doomed.

 

After a minute of silence, the magistrate spoke the sentence: Being devoured alife by hellhounds. The execution will take place within 24 hours. The court was closed.

Chapter 27: Going Down

In which I am in a vertical train.

I have to appear in 6th Circle in some hours, for my summons. I'm writing these lines in the Downway, the infernal transport system. You can imagine it as something between a subway, a rack railway and an elevator:

 

 The downway ends at Styx Terminal in 5th. Everything below 5th Circle belongs to the security zone known as the "City of Dis", it's not accessible by Downway. I will have to cross the river Styx and to enter the gate of the Walls of Dis to get to my summons. I hope the Fallen Angels who guard the gate won't cause any trouble.

Yesterday evening I spoke to the old librarian and told him about my trouble - not that I consider him a friend, but he already helped me before, and I thought he might give me again some useful hints. And he did - don't ask me why. He said my best defense strategy would be to blame my superiors for not preparing me for reality. Corporate requires that a tempter gets at least one year of education before being sent to Earth. It seems that my unprepared mission on Earth was due to some administrative error. The idea is simple: The more trouble I cause to my superiors by denouncing them, the less trouble remains for myself, due to the first Dogma of Hell. 

But he also warned me that a summons by a court of Inquisition is never a piece of cake. Usually the sentence is clear from the beginning, the procedure's purpose is only to justify it. If the Inquisitor in charge wants to punish me, he will do so, no matter what defense I have. 

I'm scared. I'm writing this on my hellphone, but I don't know whether I have access to my blog when I'm inside Dis; And I don't know whether I will ever come out or if I will be devoured or pass the rest of eternity in some torture chamber or oubliette. If I'm unlucky this will be my last post. 

But who knows...  

Intermezzo: Map of Hell

My summons is tomorrow. I'm too nervous to do any research on Earth, let alone to write about it, so I'll post you a map of Hell, more detailed than the one on the right border, like the "you are here" maps you see everywhere down here:

 

Black zones are souls areas, red is administration, green is Inquisition. Departments are usually located in one circle, except "Souls Administration" which has its HQ in 4th, but also a "Local Souls Office" in each circle from 2nd downwards. The LSOs administrate the souls tortured in the different circles, according to their sins. I, for example, worked in LSO of 2nd before becoming a tempter.

You also see various security barriers: Thwo rivers (Acheron and Styx), a security wall, an abyss, and the giant security guards which protect the executive office. I've never been below the Styx, so this will be a premiere tomorrow.  Wish me luck...

Chapter 26: On Cookies

In which we learn why demons are afraid of children.

I just had my first conversation with a human. It didn't go so well. Not that I had already tried to tempt a human - it was rather the other way round..

It was a little girl on a sidewalk in a residential quarter - maybe four, five years old, I dunno. She was playing tea party with her dolls and eating cookies. I had already noticed that dogs, cats and some small children (not all of them) have an uneasy sense of my presence. But when I passed, this girl looked me all of a sudden straight into the eyes and spoke to me:

"Are you an angel?"

 I was confused. What was I supposed to answer? Should I say I'm a demon? Or pretend being an angel? The best was to avoid the question.

"Do I look like an angel ?"

"No. You look funny."

She laughed. There it was: Joy, coming out of nowhere, filling her heart.  I felt nauseous.

"You look sad. Did you fall from Heaven?"

 Should I say "Yes, a long time ago, my kind was kicked out of Heaven" ? Should i say "I'm allergic on  joy"? Or should I say "Listen, child, in some days I've a summons to Infernal Inquisition because demons should not fraternize with humans, like I'm doing right now?"
 No. better to be vague.

"Sort of."

"Do you want a cookie?"

There was it again: Human irrationality. They don't get it - everybody is on his own. Maybe this was the moment to explain to this child that altruism is illogical, an opportunity to plant a grain of infernal logic into a developping soul. I could need a little success, it would make me look better on the summons. It was worth a try.

"Why would you give me a cookie?"

"You look sad. I don't want you to be sad. It makes me sad too. Besides... it's chocolate chips!"

"Listen, girl. The more cookies you give to other people, the less you have for yourself. The more you make others happy, the more you are unhappy. It's an equilibrum. Do you understand?"

 "But... I like making people happy."

  "You can't make everybody happy. It's a question of distribution of resources. You give here, you take there. There are not enough cookies for everyone."

"But we can bake cookies so everybody is happy!"

 I didn't know what to answer. There I was, discussing the First Dogma of Hell with a kid. And, worst of all, I was losing the discussion. I was not good at this. The First Dogma of Hell was not supposed to be questioned - it was the starting point of all considerations. When one assumes that one could bake cookies for everyone, that ressources could simply be created, the whole ideology was shattered. Creation was a heretic concept, the logic of the Enemy, and in contradiction with the first Dogma. One was not supposed to even think about it!

Luckily the kid's mother saved me. She appeared in the door and called "Sophie, dinner is ready!" The girl waved to me - to a demon! - and ran to the house. "Maman, I've seen an angel who was fallen from Heaven. I offered him a cookie, but he didn't want to take it, he thought it would make me sad." - "Of course, chérie, what a kind angel... Now go wash your hands."

I had the impression of having escaped from a furious giant. Never again will I try to discuss with a child - they could crush me. I'm still shivering. And musing about this sentence "bake cookies to make everybody happy" - or rather trying not to muse about. Thoughts like this can get you into serious trouble. I better avoid children in the future.

But I think grown-ups will be much easier to handle.

Chapter 25: On the PO Watchlist

Where I discover that I may have a "friend" deep down in Hell.

I just got a comment on my last blog entry:

Beware. Your blog is being watched by the PO.

A friend

In case you didn't guess it, "PO" means "Political Office". Apparently this blog is on the inquisitional watchlist - a list of supposedly dangerous infernal publications, journals, mail accounts etc. to be monitored.

Now, that's interesting. I didn't know that my little blog was considered dangerous. If I weren't so affraid by the consequences, I would almost feel honoured.

Considering this, I think I know what the summons for "Fraternization" is about: On September 8, I posted a favour voucher - also known as "Thank" - for a certain human nicknamed Divine Light. I doubt that it's the celestial name that caused the trouble, but the act of thanking. It may be considered heresy. For the record, nobody had warned me about it - if you remember, my formation as tempter was quasi non-existent.

Now, I wonder who was the demon who warned me. He (or she) signed "A friend". Now there are no such things as friends in Hell - everybody is on his own. Friendship is certainly heresy down here - a violation of the First Dogma. Furthermore, he knows that I'm on the Watchlist, so he must have a rather deep position to get such information. Somebody in Sixth Circle, if not deeper. A demon who made it this deep would certainly not warn a small demon like me, unless it's in his own interest. Probably I'm just a pawn in his play.

Honestly, I don't know who I'm more afraid of: Inquisition - or my "friend".

Chapter 24: On trouble

In which I get a letter from Inquisition.

Bad news: I've just received a summons to Sixth Circle. The letter informs me that a legal proceeding has been started against me and that I am to appear in C6, room 298812, on next Judasday. It's signed with the most dreaded symbol in Hell, the Sigillium Inquisitionis:

I've never been this deep in hell, and honestly, I don't really feel like this. Especially the Sixth Circle. For those who don't know: The Sixth Circle is the domicile of the Political Office, the inquisitional institution which chases heretics - anyone who deviates from the ideology of hell, by speaking, writing, acting or even thinking. Hell does not tolerate deviationists.

I've no idea what I'm accused of. The letter says "Fraternization with Humans" but I didn't fraternize with anyone in Strasbourg, I did nothing else but staying in the shadow and observing. Maybe it's something I wrote here on this blog? I don't know.


Anyway, I'm in serious trouble.

Chapter 23: On the word "Please"

In which we learn about special offers in the gratitude trade.

A many times I have heard the word "Pleas" coming out of a human's mouth. At first I had no idea what it means, but I think I figured it out. It's closely related to the word "Thanks".

We have learned in Chapter 17 about the exchange "favours against gratitude". But how are those exchanges initiated? Giving random favours to random people may not the most efficient way - you don't know who really needs a favour (and will therefor give you more gratitude). Guessing the favour needs of others might work, but it's not optimal. The best would be to inform others about what favours one actually needs, such that the others can see how to gain maximum gratitude with minimum effort.

It turn out that such a mechanism actually exists. It's called "request" and is often initiated with the word "please". A request is basically... Wait I'll better give you an example:

I observed, for example, a human who "requested" some eggs from her neighbour. She was in need of eggs, so she was ready to pay an elevated gratitude price for. She went to her neighbours door and said something like "Please, can you give me some eggs?"

 

The word "please" indicated that the neighbour would actually do a good bargain when giving eggs - a lot of gratitude per egg. Normally he wouldn't have had the idea of giving eggs to his neighbour - he wouldn't have received any gratitude at all ("Why are you giving me those eggs?"). But now there was this snip, lots of gratitude for some miserable eggs, and he could not resist. So the exchange was made, and everybody was happy. Seemingly a win-win situation. 

 

(For the record, I am aware that win-win situations are impossible, due to the First Dogma of Hell which states that everybody is on his own. I don't want to get in trouble with Inquisition. So someone else must have suffered in this very moment.)

 

So, to resume, a request is basically the fact of offering a high gratitude price for a favour.

Note on BlogReview

My blog got reviewed on a site called Blog Review, yay! I admit that at first, I was somewhat afrait by the name of the guy who runs the blog, "Divine Light". But in fact the blog has nothing to do with The Enemy, it's a very interesting blog with detailed and well-written reviews of other blogs. I got a very positive review:

"Good and matching look, nice and humorous content, original work, these all sounds like 8 out of 10."

I'm not yet sure what "humorous" means, probably some other particularity of humans - it seems to have to do with laughing. But I find out.

(By the way, I tried to write a comment on BlogReview but it didn't work, even though I was logged in - either the "post comment" link didn't work or I did something wrong.)

As for the human called Divine Light, I'm not sure how to react. Was this a favour he did for me? Probably. Maybe I should give him one of those favour vouchers - here it goes:

 

I hope this won't get me into trouble with Infernal Inquisition.

Chapter 22: On Demons

In which we learn that Hello Kitty would be an ideal demon.

Humans usually imagine demons as kind of reddish humanoid with horns, tail and optional dragon wings:

In my very first blog entry, I used the elements "horns" and "tail" for myself to despict what I might look like - if I looked like anything. Of course I don't, I'm a spirit and not detectable for senses like vision.

But let's face it: This image of demons is ridiculous. First, a material creature of the size of a man would never be able to lift of with wings - that's pure mathematics. (If you resize a flying creature by the factor 10, it's weight is multiplied by 1000 but it's wing surface only by 100. So, the bigger a creature is, the more problems it will have to fly with wings.)  

Then the reddish color. The demon is thought to be a predator, a soul hunter. For predators, stealth is key. No predators has an alerting color like red - he wouldn't be able to approach it's prey. So, red demons are pure nonsense. The same holds for the hooves - any prey would hear the predator coming from far.

But the most ridiculous part are the horns. In the animal kingdom, only herbivores have horns (to defend against predators). Did you ever see a predator with horns? Predators may have fangs, claws and such, but horns would only encumber them.

All things considered, the "demon", as humans imagine him, looks not like a predator, he looks rather like an inoffensive herbivore with useless wings. Not really frightening.


If you want to know what an efficient predator looks like, look at cats:

 

If humans were logical beings, depictions of demons would look like this. But if there is one thing I've learned since I'm on earth, it's that humans are anything but logical.

[Inspired by the french blog "Bouletcorp"]

Chapter 21: On the word "Thanks"

Where we learn what gratitude actually is.

I think I got it how this gratitude mecanism works. Remember the exchange "Favour against gratitude" ?

 

After observing many humans doing this kind of exchange, I think I figured it out what gratitude is.It's kind of a currency that has only value between these two humans. Think of it as kind of Favour Voucher:                   

The "1000 Thx" part may actually be misleading: Gratitude has a precise value, a person has usually a very clear idea how much favours he owns another person or vice versa. However, he does not associate any numerical value to it. It's like temperature before invention of the thermometer.

But how do people agree on the amount of gratitude? Well, the gratitude is transmitted by a symbolic expression, usually a variation of the sentence "Thank you". The way this sentence is said gives a hint on the quantity of gratitude - a murmured "Thanx" has not the same "value" as an enthousiastic "Oh thank you so much, you really really helped me!"

People who know each other well often use those vouchers, strangers use rather money. I'm not sure why humans don't use money all the time, it seems much clearer to me and is furthermore transferable. 

 

This favour-against-gratitude trade has actually an emotional side-effect: The giver of the gratitude feels often bad - something between guilt, humiliation and inferiority - and the receiver feels often good. Those feelings come actually not from the Unconsciousness thingy, but from the Annoying Niggler. Sounds familiar? Indeed: The gratitude tranders. When you know about those feelings, the gratitude sale business I wrote about actually makes sense: What the clients want is actually not the gratitude voucher itself - they will probably never use it - but the good feelings that come with. In other words: When giving money to a beggar (that's how humans call gratitude traders), the client buys himself a happy Niggler.

Chapter 20: On Gratitude Trade

Where we meet a gratitude dealer and learn that there is no such thing as "strawberry gratitude".

I still don't know what this gratitude thing is. It seems that it is bound to the person it gives - gratitude received from A can't be used with B - and it seems that it is not quantifiable. (The expression "a thousand thanks" seems to be nothing more than an idiom.)

But there is one thing that contradicts the "bound and unquantifiable" hypothesis: I saw a gratitude dealer. That's right. In the center of the city, sitting on the sidewalk, selling gratitude against cash. Most human dealers have their own "shops", but this one didn't - he couldn't even affort decent cloth. It seems that gratitude dealers are supposed to be poor, don't ask me why. He also had a dog. But it's clearly a dealer, his job is quite similar to the job of an ice-cream seller: People give him money, and the more they give the more merchandise they get. Only that's not ice-cream but gratitude. Which comes, by the way, not in different flavours, so the client's can't choose, say, some strawberry and some vanilla gratitude.

Anyway, this gratitude trader puzzles me: How can you sell something that's not quantifiable? Whatever is sold has a price per quantity, whether it's a number, a weight, a volume, time or whatever. Secondly, when I observed the buyers' thoughts, most clients had no intention to see the dealer again. So, if the gratitude they bought is bound to the dealer, what do they do with it?

As a sidenote, an interesting difference with other dealers was that the buyers didn't buy to satisfy their Unconsciousness Thingy, but their Annoying Niggler. Normally it's the Thingy that makes people buy something (except with a post-card seller on a public place who sold overprized post-cards for handicapped orphelin seal babies or something)

Later the day I paid attention to other people sitting on the street and i discovered, in fact, quite a number of other gratitude dealers. This seems to be a rather popular expression - although it seems to be neither reputable nor profitable. Many of the sellers had dogs - don't ask me why. I even saw saleswomen of a gratitude selling company, women with headscarfs, many of them with children. I don't know whether this is a proper company, but according to their thoughts they seemed to be somewhat organized.

Could anybody explain me this gratitude dealing business?

Chapter 19: On Joy

In which we learn why joy is a problem for hell.

This morning I've seen two children playing on a playground, with their mother looking at them - full of joy. Nobody was hurt in the process, nobody suffered - except me who was somewhat disgusted - there was even no money to pay for the playground. Just three creatures enjoying life. They even started laughing, it hurt my ears.

You won't be surprised to learn that Hell doesn't like joy. Joy is not only an unpleasant experience for a demon, it's a major philosophical problem. Remember the 1st Dogma of Hell which states that no utility can come out of nowhere? Well, joy gives the impression of doing exactly this. In our "liquid" example, it's like liquid materializing randomly here and there, refilling the levels in the tanks:

Note to the censor: i dodn't actually say that the 1st Dogma doesn't hold in this case - I said it gives the impression. Of course, this can't be, it's like a machine creating energy from nothing. This is not pure theory - R&D has tried for centuries to create joy, but in vain. It's possible for us demons to create distractions, pleasure, even ecstasy - but joy? Nope.

But how to explain the phenomenon of joy then?

Some infernal scientists think that joy is "spontaneously teleported utility". The idea is that if joy appears, it must come frome somewhere - someone must be paying or suffering for this.Every occurence of joy is compensated by some "senseless suffering" somewhere else. In layman's terms, every time you are happy, God kills a puppy.

Some other think that joy comes from heaven - but caution, this hypothesis is heresy, and even thinking about it can get a demon into serious trouble with the Policical bureau. And it is, indeed, not possible that all the joy rains down from heaven, otherwise heaven would have a huge utility deficit and "dry out".

The current official doctrine is that joy doesn't really exist. It's a delusion, a kind of mental halluscination, and it damages the human's intelligence. Joyful humans show often irrational, stupid behaviour such as selflessness or worse.

Personally, I stick to the official doctrine (it's not that I had the choice), although there are also arguments for the "God kills a puppy" theory.

Chapter 18: On the 1st Dogma of Hell

In which we learn the meaning of the sentence "Abandon all hope...".

I wonder about the phenomenon of Altruism. I've seen humans helping each other without any obvious payback - only in exchange of the ominous "Thanks". Some humans seem to believe that helping each other can be of benefit for all. They call this a "win-win situation". This is, of course, total nonsense.

The First Dogma of Hell states that everybody is on his own. It can't be otherwise, because one's gain is another one's loss. When someone feels pleasure, someone else is suffering. When someone gains money, someone else loses money; When someone gets promoted, someone else gets fired. In some cases, the total loss may exceed the gain, but never the other way round. There is no such thing as a win-win situation. (There may be, however, a "win-win-lose situation", where two people agree to exploid a third one.)


In more scientific terms, the total utility of an isolated group cannot increase over time - actually, it has the tendency to decrease. (This is related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that the total enthropy - in layman's terms, the chaos - of an isolated system steadily increases.) "Utility", in this context, means anything like money, food, status, luxury, pleasure, property, vital energy and so on.


This principle can be illustrated by a system of tanks, linked by tumes with pumps and valves and filled with a liquid.

 

There may be some loss of liquid over time, but never a gain. When the level in one tank raises, it falls in another one. It would be foolish to think that one can pump the liquid such that the level raises in all tanks. After a certain while, all liquid will be lost.

 

You might wonder why this didn't yet happen to Hell. After thousands of years, why didn't the total utility of Hell fall to minus infinite? Why didn't Hell dry out?

 

The answer is: Hell is not an isolated system. The cattle wagons from Hell Gate bring a steady stream of human souls, with all their remaining hopes and illusions. They are squeezed and crushed like fruits, their hope is pressed out, distilled and transformed into vital energy, refilling thus the total utility of Hell. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" - this sentence describes the very raison d'être of the whole soul industry.   

For me and everybody I know, this is so obvious as 2+2=4. I don't understand why some humans don't get it. Are they so stupid?

 

Or is there something else?

Chapter 17: On Favours

Where we learn that some humans think they receive gifts from Mr. Nobody.

Social interaction - what a complicated thing. I'm far from being able to describe how social interaction works, but "favours" seem to play a central role in society.

What's a favour? Well, a favour is an action (or, more generally, decision) made by a human A, which satisfies two conditions:

1. It has a certain cost for A (in terms of time, effort, money, whatever)
2. It brings a certain benefit for another human B.

Why would a being possibly do something he takes no direct benefit from? Well, I observed some possible reasons. The first two exist also in hell, the others were up to now unknown to me:

Favour exchange
The simplest of all variants. A does a favour to B, and B does a favour to A.


Money
A variant of the former: A does a favour to B, and b gives money to A, which can be exchanged against favours with anybody else.

Biology
Humans sometimes do favours to others because their "unconsciousness thingy" wants it. This usually serves preservation of the human's DNA. A typical example is raising and nourishing children:

A variant are favours done as part of the humans' mating rituals:


Religious ethics
Very popular among religious people. The idea is the following: A does a favour to B, and G does a favour to A in the afterlife, where G is any real or imaginative benevolent supernatural power (usually the Enemy).


Atheist ethics
The same as religious ethics, but without G.


Gratitude
This one is one of the most popular - and for me, the most difficult to understand. It seems to involve some imaginary currency called "gratitude": A does a favour to B, and B gives "gratitude" to A.

I've no idea how this system works, whether or not gratitude from B can be given to another person C (like money), whether or not it is quantifiable etc. I think I have heared the expression "Mille Merci !" (1000 Thanks), but often the precise amount of gratitude is not specified.

I will have to do some research to understand this social mecanism.

Chapter 16: On cars

In which we learn about modern riding animals.

You know what's funny in the modern world? Cars. Not the technical aspect - a car quite a simple construction, compared with a tree or an insect, let alone a mammal. No, what amuses me is that the cars have faces. All of them.

A typical car's front looks more or less like this:


There are two "eyes", one "nose" (usually a company logo) and one "mouth". There are often other elements, but those elements are always present, and always in this arrangement.

The type of the face "defines" the car's character: Feline faces for manoeuvrable cars, canine faces for strong cars, bear faces for large cars, aggressive faces for fast cars, cute faces for small cars... Combinations are, of course, possible: Agressive felines, cute canines...

I wonder whether the humans are aware of this - it seems quite obvious for me. On the other side, nothing can really assumed to be obvious for people who have a tentacle thingy inside their head... Maybe they inconsciently prefer cars which they can "personalize", or they regret the horses and donkeys of the old times. In fact, many humans - in particular males - seem to have feelings for their car not unlike the feelings a rider might have to his mount.

A question to my human readers (if any): Do you agree with me that cars seem to have faces? And if you agree, were you aware of this before reading this post?

Chapter 15: On the Niggler

In which we meet the strange thingy's antagonist.

The human mind is actually even more complicated than I thought. I saw an additional component, an annoying inner critic who comments and criticizes pretty much anything the human does - according to some strange criteria. Let's call it the "Niggler":


The Niggler is kind of an antagonist of the Thingy. The poor mind is under attack from both sides. It's like having two voices inside your head, one always talking about what it wants you to do, and the other one always observing and criticising what you're doing. It must be quite annoying.

The criteria the Niggler applies are not clear to me, they seem to depend on the human - I must find out more about this. Sometimes it seems to have something to do with religious or ethical commandmends, somethings it's something completely different, like "save money", "be successful" or "slenderise". Some people even seem to thing that saving money or being successful is somewhat ethical. Strange.

As a sidenote, I think I remember having read some human psychologists' writings concerning the Thingy, the Mind and the Niggler. If I remember well, they call it the "It", "Ego" and "Über-ego", or something like this. But I'm not quite sure this is the same thing, so let's stick with Thingy, Mind and Niggler.