Hell

I've been thinking about Hell lately. I have this book, you see, I'm writing, have written, am rewriting when I should be working on other manuscripts--but I can't help myself. What can I say? Lucy is a tempting guy.

Elizabeth and Luc get into a philosophic debate about what hell is really like. I'd really like to use this scene, as goofy as it is. (And it is. It's very soap opera-like and angsty, but I still like it. Probably because she has the last word. I love it when my heroines have the last word.)

“Oh, are you going to save me now? Are we getting philosophic?” Lucifer asked, swirling his Miller light as Elizabeth watched him with her knowing eyes. What was it about those eyes? “How’s this for philosophy, Lizzie: 'To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.'” He took another swig of beer. “You shouldn’t fear to live or love.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “Is that your problem?”

“Problem? I don’t have a problem. You’re the one who won’t step out of her big brown box and give me a chance.”

She gave another slow smile. “I wasn’t here drinking to fix the problems of my love life. You were. I’m just here to drink beer. You’re the one who wanted to be ‘saved.’ Get philosophic,” she mocked out the last work with each syllable. She leaned across the table and looked him squarely in the eyes. “If you want to be saved, you’re going to have to ask. Just like everyone else.”

She stood, picking up her beer and finishing it off, then clunking the bottle on the table. “It’s been nice, Luc. Call me again any time you want to be broody and discuss philosophy.”

“Sounded like a sermon to me.”

“That wasn’t even the beginning of a sermon, Luc. Sermons make me think of brimstone and fire preachers who are more interested in making you more scared than happy. We should fear hell because the devil is there; because it is evil, everyone will be evil; and you’ll burn forever. But you don’t go to heaven because you’re scared of fire.”

She looked at him intently, her eyes like blue fire. “But I know exactly what hell would be like. It isn’t hot, or cold, or miserable in the human ways. It’s miserable in the soul ways. It’s where everyday you wake up and realize you are separated forever from the one person who loved you most—and you will never see him again. You will never feel his breath on your cheek when he tells you he loves you; you will never know the warmth of his embrace as he wraps you in love.

And the worst thing of all, is that every day you’ll remember it a little less, what it was like to be loved, until you think you just imagined it all. It never existed but in the dreams that wake you to the emptiness. You won’t even be able to recall his face—and that’s when you’ll be the most frightened. Because if you can’t even remember him, what if he can’t remember you either? You exist for no one, until you don’t even remember yourself who you were. Hell is not fire; hell is without love, an eternity without meaning.”

She turned a half-smile at him. “How is that for maudlin drunken philosophy? Or you still thinking I’m here to save you? I have news for you—I’m not. I have no interest in a missionary position.”

What do you think Hell is like? Do you think you'll be there? And if you are, what do you plan on doing when you get there?