“SHADDUP!” the raspy, electronic voice exclaimed. The old woman looked around to see if she could find the voice’s owner. Unexpectedly, she saw no humans. Instead there was an old toad sitting on a half-sinking lily pad. The toad had a small hole in his throat, and near it, clenched in his rough, warty hand, was a small voice box. The toad set down the voice box on a nearby tree stump and picked up a cigarette. He then proceeded to shove the cigarette into the hole in his throat.
“W-W-Who are you?” the old woman asked. The toad took a minute to finish his cigarette. Then he picked up the voice box and put it near the hole in his throat again.
“I’m a toad.” He replied.
“B-B-B-But you talk…” the old woman stated, her voice trailing off as a result of her disbelief.
“Yeah, big friggin’ deal.” the toad snipped. There was an M.U.S. (Moment of Uncomfortable Silence) and then the old woman looked down and received the unwanted reminder that she was in a polluted stream. There were many strange and foreign objects floating in the stream—things she didn’t recognize. She was touching the bottom of the stream, but the bottom didn’t feel hard or rocky like it should have. It felt very soft and mushy. She stared at the muddy, feces-colored water for a second or two and squinted very hard. She could see what she was standing on, and she made the polluted stream just a bit more polluted as she regurgitated whatever she had eaten earlier into the thin liquid strip. What she was standing on was mutilated human bodies.
“Where am I?” her voice shaked fearfully.
“You’re in Hell,” answered the toad.
“Where?” she shakily questioned.
“Hell, woman! Hell! As in, ‘You’re in Hell now you pathetic mortal vermin!”
The old woman paused, started to say something, and paused again. She was trying to make sense of it all.
“I…don’t…believe…” were the words she managed to squirm out of her mouth. Talking became very hard for her from this point on. Forming words for her was just like pushing a handful of slimy maggots out of her mouth. She could do it, but it took some time.
“You don’t believe? You don’t believe what? The fact that you’re in Hell or the fact that your whole life was a waste?” the frog stated, matter-of-factly.
“I…” she stopped again. “You’re wrong. I don’t…believe any of…this.” Anyone sane or insane could tell that what she had just stated was a complete lie by the tone of her voice. Not surprisingly, the toad didn’t buy this load of crap either.
“Let me ask you this.” The toad grunted wisely. “Would you believe me if I told you that you are dead, and I am Satan?”
The old woman’s silence told it all.
“Yeah…you wouldn’t know what to think. Well, it’s about time you decided, because all of it is TRUE!”
There was another M.U.S. The old woman thought about her situation and the absurdness of it all. She decided that this was no sick joke or illusion. Like a mosquito flying into a windshield, guts splattering everywhere, she knew she had to the face the cold, hard wall known to all humans as fact. She really was dead. But why was she dead? Why was she in Hell?
“Let me…ask you a question.” She paused to get the toad’s acceptance. The toad nodded, and she began. “Is there a Heaven?”
“I don’t really believe that’s for you to know,” the toad hastily bubbled with the aid of his voice box. “But why are you so concerned about your life? You’re old. You knew your time was coming any day.”
“But…why am I…here instead of in Heaven?”
“Lady, you don’t even know if there is a Heaven. Hell, to tell you the truth, I don’t even know. I know that I’m here for a reason, though. And you are part of my reason for being here. Now come along.” The toad lowered his short stubby suction-cup-like hands down into the stream, and motioned for the old woman to grasp on. She did, although she almost slipped due to the wet sliminess of them. She got out of the stream and stood up, partially because she was frozen from fear and partially because she didn’t know what the hell to do next.
“Follow me.” The toad ordered as he started to hop along a strange, twisted pathway. The woman followed. They went on for a while until they came upon a strange set of doors. The toad stopped when he got to the door with the crimson number 6 written on it. He leaped up to get to the doorknob level. He grasped tightly to the doorknob, his long back legs flaying uncontrollably in the warm, ash-filled air. Then he thrust his entire body, causing the doorknob to open with a click.
“Can you just push it open a little?” asked the toad, staring directly at the old woman. She did as he asked, and she walked into the room that stood before her. Inside was a table and chair.
“Siddown.” The toad mumbled. The old woman painfully sat in the hard, splinter-ridden chair. The toad stood in the doorway.
“Okay. Uh…enjoy your stay. Heh.” Then he shut the door. As he did, a horribly large quantity of pitch black darkness covered the room. The old woman sat there, thinking about everything. She thought to herself that she must have done something very horrible on earth to be put in this dark emptiness for what seemed like, to her feeble human mind, eternity. She didn’t know anything about herself. She didn’t know anything about any family she might have had. She didn’t even remember her name. She didn’t know if there was a Heaven. The only thing she knew was that there was definitely a Hell, and the punishments it offered were horrid.