AN EPIC VOYAGE TO THE UNDERWORLD

          I don’t like to brag about my worldly travels – I find it makes most people feel uncultured and ignorant when they hear me speak of such things, which makes them lash out their misplaced anger towards me – but I will reluctantly recount to you about one particularly interesting voyage of mine. A long time ago, somehow or other, I found myself on the far western horizon where the sun meets the sea.

          To clarify for any ignorant readers who might not know, this is where the Underworld lies – on the edge of the world. Normally no living soul could travel to such a place, but I, being a world-renowned genius, managed to find my way there through various means. But I am not like those before me – the poor fools (or brave heroes, depending on who you ask) who attempted to travel to the afterlife while still alive. It never ended well for them, unsurprisingly, since it was a place meant only for the dead. But I was not so foolish. I had a plan.

          I arrived just as the sun was setting, and I had to act quickly because this would be the only time to enter the Underworld. You see, there is a large gate that leads to the Underworld, and the Sun and the Moon stand constant guard over it. During the day, when the Sun is performing its duties, the Moon stands guard. When the Moon performs its duties at night, the Sun takes its place. But at dusk, when both stand guard, the gate is opened; it is only through their combined strength that they are able to open the gate. This was my only chance to enter.

          I had brought with me the skin of a bear and the clothes of a dead man. Placing the bearskin entirely over me – ugh, including my head and face – I then put on the dead man’s clothes. To be honest, I didn’t think it would actually work – I thought the Sun and Moon would be smarter than that, but they just let me traipse on through the gate and into the Underworld. This was the farthest anyone had made it in their search for the afterlife, and I was now in uncharted territory. So, despite the fact that I just walked off the edge of the earth, I was really surprised when I fell.

          I plummeted straight down an endless waterfall for what seemed like days. It wasn’t painful – in fact, it was actually quite peaceful. When I finally landed on solid ground, I found myself on a huge rocky outcropping in the middle of the waterfall. It was a little over one mile wide, with water cascading down on both sides, and about 50 miles long (I couldn’t be sure though, because I never did reach the end). The water continued to cascade over the sides all the way down the length of the landing, trapping thousands of souls along with myself.

          I later realized that this was just the first of many Stones in the afterlife. They were called this because each served as a steppingstone in the soul’s journey through death. As I wandered this first Stone, I saw all kinds of souls – both the blessed and the damned – each receiving their own personalized reward or punishment.

          I saw one soul frolicking through marijuana forests before bathing in rivers of wine and eating chocolate truffles from the nearby vines. I saw another reliving their fondest childhood memories and spending time with their long departed loved ones – only figments of their imagination, since their real family had traveled far deeper into the Underworld by that point, but they couldn’t tell the difference and were happy. I saw souls rolling in mountains of mashed potatoes, dancing to lively music, floating on clouds, and climbing trees to pick vodka-infused apples and rum-infused oranges. I even saw beasts with two, four, ten and a hundred backs (though I’d rather not have seen them). These people were enjoying rewards for the good deeds in their lives; but right beside them were those being punished for their harmful and heinous acts in life.

          The souls of the damned were tortured or sentenced to hard labor depending on the degree of their sins. I saw those who, in life, never lifted a hand to help anyone but themselves – they waited hand and foot on the blessed souls. They worked tirelessly and endlessly, chained and unable to disobey an order from one of the blessed. Sometimes, the blessed souls ordered them to simply throw a large rock over a wall, retrieve it and throw it over to the other side again. This type of purposeless labor is crueler than any other, and is often saved for those the blessed knew in life.

          Those who did malicious acts – purposefully harming others by robbery, violence and murder – were inflicted by those same actions in the afterlife. I saw one soul who was caught and executed within the same week as his murder victim; now, he was repeatedly slain by the one he killed. I saw thieves, politicians, nobility and mobsters all in similar conditions: there were too many horrific tortures to recount, so all I will tell you is that each involved gold in one form or another.

          I witnessed all these things only within the first Stone, for I dared not to venture any farther into the Underworld. But after talking with many different souls, and seeing a few fall back into the endless waterfall, I realized none of these rewards or punishments were permanent. Apparently, each soul is given an allotted time on each Stone, depending on the cruelty of their crime or the holiness of their good deed. When a soul finished their time, they moved onto the next Stone. However, if a damned soul had not genuinely repented by the time their sentence ended, they would remain on that Stone until they did.

          In this way every dead soul traveled through the Underworld. Someone who lived a virtuous and caring life spent their afterlife in bliss, while someone who lived a sadistic and selfish life spent it in torment and suffering. However, the Stones are not the only impermanent aspect of the afterlife – the Underworld itself is impermanent! Once a soul travels through every Stone, the waterfall dumps them back out into the world, fresh and reborn.

          I know all this sounds ridiculous and many of you probably won’t believe me. You may say, “What a strange and preposterous story, the man must be mad!” Well, dear sir, you would be wrong – dead wrong! For these are in fact the ramblings of a mad woman. So you would be very foolish not to listen.