Doug turned off the frigid water and dried himself with the raggedy towel. He looked at himself in the mirror. For everything he'd been through, he actually looked pretty good. The bags under his eyes were gone, and his skin looked like he just got a facial. He saw his halo above his head for the first time and tried to touch it, but only felt a light warmth as his fingers moved through it. A freshly pressed black suit and tie with a white shirt was in a bag waiting for him. No shoes though, so he hung the shoes he came in with to dry in the washroom and sauntered over to the desk to sit and think.
"So I guess I'm...really dead. That sucks and probably can't change that. Clearly there's some kind of mix-up or I'm on some divine mission from God because I'm an angel in Hell who could probably fight actual fucking demons if I headbutt them or something. Is that why they're being so nice to me? So I don't just start slaughtering them all? No, that's stupid…" Doug sat for a moment and thought about the life he’d left behind. For some reason his first thought was how confused Oscar would be when he hadn’t come back for his sandwich. Mostly Doug was sad to leave his dog hungry. He chuckled to himself. “Guess it’s a good thing I died in public so my family finds out fast and can get to him. Uggg this is going to be rough for Mom and Dad”.
To distract himself from the thoughts, he looked around the room and on his desk and noticed he had a desk phone. Curious, he picked it up and was shocked to hear the sound of a woman’s voice, devoid of all emotion. “Central switching, how may I direct your call?” For a brief moment he thought about asking room service to send him up a bottle of scotch, but didn’t think he should push his luck. "Uhh, sorry, it's my first day and I don't know anyone or understand what I’m really doing here"
"Welcome to Hell buddy” she replied with some sarcasm. “This thing says you report to Minos, patching you through now"
Doug panicked, “wasn’t this guy some kind of big shot? Am I getting on the phone with Satan’s right hand guy right now? Why am I calling him?”
"Minos here," said a gruff voice
"Uhhhh Hello sir, this is Doug… The uhhhh, new Angel"
"Look buddy, you came in a week ahead of schedule, and I'm a busy fucking guy. I don't have time for your damn tour right this second, give me a couple hours to straighten some things out and I'll come by after. If you need something, get an intern. Don't call me for stupid shit.” *click*
Doug sat stunned. "Great, my boss is a dickhead," he muttered.
"Yuup, Minos can be that way, may I direct you to a new line?" came the first voice through the line
"Oh shit please don't tell him I said that, I didn't know you were there! Why are you listening to my calls!?"
"All calls are monitored for security and quality assurance." stated the voice dryly. "Would you like me to connect you to HR to request an intern?"
"I suppose so?" Doug answered. After two rings a bubbly southern female voice answered.
"HR this is Belpha how may I make your day AMAZING!?"
"Hello Belpha, this is Doug, the new Angel"
"Doug!!! So excited to meet you! I am already on my way to your office, see you in a Jiffy!!!!"*click*
Doug hung up the phone to avoid the call switcher and sighed in relief. At least this person seemed normal. “Maybe it was a real decent human who went to hell for a technicality?” He thought to himself. That guy said this floor is for greed, must mean the other floors are for the other deadly sins. What were those? Violence is one, right? probably want to stay off that floor. Then there's sloth… Can you really be lazy enough to go to Hell?? Then there's gluttony....”
*knock knock*
Doug got up and walked over and opened the door, and was greeted by the foulest creature he'd ever seen. Belpha was vaguely human from the waist up, with a slug-like bottom half. She was slimy and bright pink, with large open sores oozing a gray-green pus that gave off a smell of decay. She held two thick binders. Doug gagged and tried to cover it with a cough.
"Gaghuhhhh please come in." Doug choked out as he made his way to his desk.
"Hello Doug, it's so nice to meet you!" Belpha replied in her sing-song voice as she slid into the office. "We are so happy to have you round here, I know most of your duties were covered in your pre-orientation in heaven, I just wanted to meet and greet and have you sign the employee handbook!" Thumping down the large binders in front of Doug. "The top one requires your signature, the bottom is yours to keep for your reference."
Doug nervously pushed back, "Uhhhh I'm no lawyer, but I don't think I should sign anything in Hell without reading it, I don't want to like, sign away my soul"
Belpha cackled "Oh curse your heart you are too funny! We got PLENTY of lawyers wandering the halls in this building but you don't need them honey! This has been the same contract your friends up there been signing since we made it 4500 years ago! Didn't they go over this with you up there?"
"That's another thing, I honestly have no clue why I'm here. I got pushed in front of a train on my way home and now I seem to be the only angel in hell. Did God put me here?" Doug asked. When Doug said ‘God’ Belpha flinched but regained composure and became serious.
"Are you tellen me you an angel that ain't never been to heaven? That don't make a lick o sense. You hit your head when you came in or somthin? Nah ya'll can't get hurt like that... Oh my this ain't right. This ain't right at all, something bad musta happened. You ain't a week early, you're just a soul that got turned round and took a wrong turn in the bardo! Oh Minos is going to have himself a fit over this. Hold on one moment."
Belpha reached up, and touched the side of her head, where there was a crude cybernetic implant grafted onto her slug body. The implant connection points looked infected. "Patch me through to Minos sweetie......Minos it's Belpha, we got ourselves a bit of a situation. This Doug feller ain't the Angel we was expecting. Done got hit by a bus this morning and washed up here an Angel."
"A Train" Doug interjected.
"Bus, train, airplane don't matter how you kicked it! You down here now and you ain't supposed to be." Belpha shot back. "Sorry bout that Minos, what we gunna do? This ain't in the handbook... mmhmm. mmhmm. Yes darlin that's the situation. mmhmmm. alright then I'll wait here and call up the other floor managers." Belpha removed her hand from the device and looked back to Doug. "Alright honey he on his way. You sit tight right now while I make another call right quick. You know what, hand me that receiver there my implants on the frizz." Doug handed Belpha the phone receiver. "Hello darlin this is Belpha, I need you to conference me in with all the other floor managers right now. No sweetie this ain't a Code T37 we've got a full blown Y99, emergency override of any current conversation, thank you for askin......Hello y'all I do apologize for the rude interruption of y'alls conversations but we've got ourselves a bit of a situation that requires level 8 approval protocol. Yes Acedia I said level 8 there ain't no protocol established for this in the handbook, which I'm sorry means you gotta shuffle your fat ass to that elevator and head on up. I'll see y'all soon." Belpha returned the receiver to Doug. "This ain't regular at all and I don't like it.”
Minos walked into the room without knocking. He wasn’t wearing a full suit, just the slacks and white shirt and a loosened tie. He had a leather whip attached to his belt. He was disheveled and even more pissed off than usual. “Time to figure out whose fault this is. I’ll impale them myself.” He said to Belpha. He then looked to Doug with mild disdain. “I need to hear it from you directly. If you’ve changed your mind about the position and are trying to save face that’s one thing, but if you are not a sanctioned representative from Heaven that’s a real problem.”
“I promise you I have no idea what’s going on and I’ve never been to Heaven. Couldn’t we just, like, call them?” Doug said meekly.
“Oh sure I’ll get St. Peter on the hook right away. Heck I’ll be playing golf with St. John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary this afternoon I’ll just ask them!” He sarcastically replied. “Communication with Heaven is a one way street usually, only the big boss has that power down here and he doesn’t like using it. YOU are supposed to come already trained in how to communicate back. Alright, come with us to the conference room”
“Sure, let me just grab my shoes” Doug said as he walked over to the still dripping shoes.
“What size shoe are you?” Minos asked.
“I’m a ten” Doug replied. Minos went out to the cube farm and called for those with a size ten shoe to raise their hands. A man nearby raised his hand. “Get over here soul, trade your shoes with this Angel.” Minos demanded.
Doug felt a twinge of guilt seeing the man being treated like that. “Whoa, hold on I don’t need to take his shoes, these are fine, just a bit wet.”
Minos could sense Doug’s pity. He unhooked his whip, raised it over his head, and with a crack made the whip wrap around the man, which it did four times. Minos closed his eyes. “This man built and ran a charity that purported to raise money for foreign orphanages. Even made it look on public forms that he took home a humble salary. The orphanages didn’t exist. They were all shell companies owned by this man. Millions of dollars swindled from people so he could live a lavish lifestyle. I could easily have sent him to floor two for some less-than-consensual encounters he’s had but he’s more useful here.” Doug still felt bad but reluctantly traded his wet shoes for the dry ones with the man and put them on. The man avoided looking at Doug and stared at the floor during the exchange. As the man started walking back, Minos yelled at him “Put those damn shoes on before you walk on this floor soul, closed-toe shoes are mandatory at ALL TIMES. Alright you two, let’s go.”