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...  

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 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.

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?