Compulsory military service. That's what it's called during life. Almost everyone has to do it. Well, after death, it's similar. The difference is that service is done either in "Heaven" or in hell. Due to... let's call it "evil deeds" committed by the owner, he was summoned to hell.
"Damn!" he shouted after reading the summons.
Considering its content, the cry wasn't even a millimeter off the mark. It took him two days to prepare everything. He had to organize the Inn's operations for the five days he was supposed to be gone. After all, the Inn had to make money! He appointed the Admiral as his second-in-command because of his military experience. That was the official version, but the unofficial version was that the old Admiral had no legs, and even if he wanted to rob him, he wouldn't get far. The market had its own rules, and friendship undoubtedly had no place among them. Especially if you could be in debt forever...
By evening, he was packed and ready to go... Well, more or less. He'd never been to hell, and had only heard of it from stories. Apparently, it was hot and bright there. Very bright... So the owner put on a straw hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and sunglasses. He thought this outfit would be perfectly appropriate. He caught the night express to hell and even found a place in a sleeping car, which was almost miraculous, considering that for a train with thirty cars, a quarter of the car was sleeping... Those from hell took a truly perverse pleasure in tormenting everyone. In the middle of the night, while the owner was sleeping, a loud knock sounded.
"Who's there?" he asked in a sleepy voice.
"Servant. Can I get you something to eat?" The voice was suspiciously pleasant. However, meals on the train to hell were so sparsely served that it would have been a sin not to try them.
"A toad's eye sandwich, please.
" "No."
"A bunch of rotten radishes?
" "No.
" "Arsenic?" he asked hopefully.
"No.
" "Then I don't want anything..." the owner replied resignedly.
"That's a shame, because everything is included in the ticket price..." said the attendant, then walked away.
As you can see, the joys of hell were already beginning to set in. A moment later, the electricity on the train went out, followed by the heating [although it's hot in hell, it's very, very cold outside it], and once they entered hell, the heating suddenly turned back on, at the maximum possible temperature. Apparently, they didn't care about the recognized standards and rights of the dead.
Everything pointed to the stay being incredibly... enlightening. Contrary to appearances, the dead were very happy to visit Hell. And why? For a very simple reason. Everything here was designed to make life miserable for those spending time here. The Hellstrada—the most popular access to the Devilnet, offered by TP [Hellish Telecommunications]—always didn't work when you wanted to use it, the stores always had four to six cash registers open during peak traffic, and the food you could usually buy there was usually stale. In short, everything resembled life on Earth. Unfortunately, the owner wouldn't have time for all these [dis]pleasures. For the next five days, he would toil hard to complete his mandatory service for the next hundred years. Unfortunately, he didn't yet know how difficult this work would be...
"Your assignment: Block 666, Section C," the imp said in a dispassionate voice, a tone he'd practiced for decades to further exacerbate his stay in Hell.
"WHAT?! Souls condemned to the greatest torment? The owner was horrified.
"Yes—the devil loved this job. The suffering of his fellow men. It was worth everything... Not in vain did he work in the Customer Service Office of a certain large company during his lifetime.
" "But I'm not even trained in this field!
" "Well... so you have about five minutes to catch up. Then your shift starts. And I advise you to hurry, because the bus to that building leaves... A minute ago," he tapped his watch.
Another thing: All buses departed one minute before you arrived at the stop. Or arrived one minute after you decided to walk...
So our brave owner headed for the aforementioned and infamous building. All the worst souls ended up there. You could find dictators, murderers, rapists, literary critics, and film actors there. I probably don't have to mention that this assignment wasn't pleasant. The first to be dealt with was Adolf Hitler, who was sentenced to spend eternity here. The Hell Council deliberated for a long time about the best punishment for him. Finally, they decided that since he was such a loud and unpleasant man in life, after death he should live in... a sunny and beautiful forest.
To make matters worse, Hitler spent his time jumping around in a pink bunny suit and munching on carrots. However, this was his idea, not the Council's...
"Herr medic!" the owner shouted as he entered his small forest. "You want to play chasing a rabbit? The rabbit was bad and deserves punishment..." The owner had no desire to play such a perverse game with Hitler. However, when Hitler hit him in the head with a carrot, Hitler had no choice. He began chasing the hopping Adolf throughout the forest. When he finally caught him, he decided to punish him in the worst possible way. He locked him in a cell with Roosevelt... who had ended up in hell entirely by accident, but due to bureaucracy, he was still waiting for his case to be heard.
It turned out that the Council liked this truly diabolical idea. They even decided to commend the owner for it. So they wrote a form allowing him to submit a request for a commendation. If the winds were favorable, in about a thousand years, the owner would receive his commendation... But unfortunately, there is no wind in hell... And certainly not a favorable wind...
The second person turned out to be the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The latter, in turn, was to continue making critically acclaimed films for all eternity after his death, films that would garner him Oscars and other accolades. It was easy with him. He had no special demands or expectations... As usual, anyway.
After dealing with these two gentlemen, the owner was given a break. And it wasn't a good move at all—he was given a break just when he felt like working. Contrary to appearances, everything in hell is carefully planned, and nothing happens without a specific reason...
He was very, very hot. Hellishly so. For the first time in a long time, when he arrived for his mandatory duty, he decided to show initiative. Admittedly, it was one that would solve his problem and his own, but it was always some initiative, no matter how you look at it... He headed for the building where Temperature Control was located. He decided to cool down the hell a bit, to make it more bearable... But don't think he just entered the building uninterrupted.
"Stop! You have no right to come in here!" – the imp working in the building stopped him.
– I have all the permits. Out of the way! – To sound as credible as possible, he had to try to be extremely terse.
– Sure... show them first.
– I guess you really don't like working here. I'm with TPB to check CFE for compliance with GFT standards regarding TYH and TFF – the owner had no idea what he was talking about. But that didn't matter, because his interlocutor clearly didn't either.
– Um... I... I didn't mean anything bad... You know...
Then he let the owner inside without any major problems. He, in turn, got into the temperature-controlled room without any problems.
He was expecting some complicated equipment, security systems, and all sorts of things that blinked and beeped every now and then. Meanwhile... let's just say the equipment used here was completely beyond the owner's expectations. It's like arranging a date online with someone who fancies themselves a supermodel, only to find out later that they actually were a supermodel... Except this time at a retirement club.
The room was almost completely empty. Except for a single pipe, which was located against the wall opposite the entrance. The pipe had a single tap with a sign that read: To lower the temperature, turn clockwise.
And that's exactly what the owner did. He turned it clockwise. However, the tap must never have been turned clockwise, but very often counterclockwise. And turning it clockwise must have seemed like an incredibly fun activity and a change from everyday life, because once it started turning, it wouldn't stop. The owner grabbed it and stopped it. This one, however, clearly refused to turn left at all costs. In an act of desperation, he committed suicide, meaning... he simply dropped out.
However, the owner, as the owner of the inn, must have had good contacts with people who wanted to commit suicide [if the guest ultimately committed suicide, he certainly wouldn't have paid the bill], so he knew what to do with the tap. He grabbed it from the ground and tried to reinstall it. However, this one clearly had finally grown tired of life, and it fell to pieces. The temperature began to drop rapidly until it reached minus twenty degrees. Hell simply froze over. It lost its charm. It ceased to be hell. And all because of one person...
The owner quickly ran out of the building, because he didn't want to be called the person who upset the balance between the forces of good and evil. Not that he had anything against gaining a little fame... It's just that a gang of lunatics would probably start persecuting him, calling him the new messiah, and since he remembered how the last one ended, he preferred to run... He would gain fame in another way. If there was such a possibility...
Well, he probably didn't even realize what he had done. Hell's authorities used to tell those trying to escape: "We'll let you out when Hell freezes over!"
Well... now it had happened, and everyone had to be released. Of course, they could lie and say it was just rumors spread by those above, but considering that it had started snowing, no one would believe it anyway. And so, thousands of souls who had been released headed for "Heaven." Of course, they could be raptured again before they reached there. And that was precisely what the people who had served their compulsory service were supposed to do.
The owner had been given... Rasputin. However, for the life of him, he didn't know where to find him. Incredible confusion reigned throughout Hell, with souls eager to get to "Heaven" as quickly as possible before they were captured. This caused incredible traffic jams, for which the roads were unprepared. Furthermore, all vehicles moved incredibly slowly due to the fact that there was no sand in Hell to grit the roads. Besides, even if there had been, it wouldn't have been done. It turned out that winter could be more oppressive than the constant heat, and it was decided not to raise the temperature. From then on, Hell would be perpetual frost and blizzards.
Naturally, the older demons began to complain that this was too progressive and would tarnish Hell's image. However, no one listened.
Our hero, on the other hand, set out to find Rasputin. Due to his ward's rather... amorous nature, he began with the trains that carried women to Heaven. His search didn't last long—after just a few minutes, he spotted a rather distinctive, thirty-centimeter-high hat. He headed in that direction. Rasputin was flirting with some Czech stripper who didn't understand him at all. But she was used to foreign guests by now. You had to smile and nod. And when they fell silent, agree with them. So, before long, the two of them headed to the bar. The owner followed them, but he decided that if he approached Rasputin on the street, he might get away. He might have a better chance at the bar. He did so.
He would wait an extra hour until he and the stripper had had a few drinks. Unfortunately, it turned out that Russians were really strong-willed. Nervous and irritated, he went inside.
"You. Go back where you came from," he said to the seated Rasputin. He figured that if he was firm, everything would be alright.
Rasputin stood up. He was about half a meter taller than the owner. Our main character thought for a moment. He grabbed a bottle from the table and hit Rasputin in the head with it. He might have a strong head... But every head is vulnerable to blows from a bottle. He glanced at the label: "Hell's Wine."
"So the alcohol did knock him out after all..." he concluded.
He tried to drag Rasputin outside, but it turned out he was not only large but also heavy. Looking at his unconscious body, he felt an incredible urge to burn him... It made him miss the Inn. But he knew he couldn't do it. Maybe he had survived the freezing of hell, but everything has its limits...
He called a Hell Taxi. They were always driven by a foreigner who didn't speak your language. No matter how many you knew, even if you knew them all, he'd be speaking some other language. Plus, for some reason, Hell was the only place where taxi drivers obeyed traffic laws. In any case, it made the trip take an hour longer. After waking up in the trunk, Rasputin, to the owner's surprise, lay still and wept. The great man was simply afraid of small, dark spaces.
Nevertheless, he managed to return it to its seat, and the rest of his service went rather well. Apart from the problems with Adolf, who convinced Roosevelt that being a bunny and eating carrots was worthwhile.
Upon returning to the Inn, he immediately felt better. He was finally home. The Countess was talking to the Admiral [to say she was talking to him would be a gross understatement], but she spoke loudly enough for a new guest sitting two tables away to hear.
The receptionist, in turn, was talking to the boss about something. It must have been about his dream with the sheep again, because he pulled out a deck of cards and showed it to the boss. The owner walked over and started yelling at them for slacking off. For no reason at all.
It was just nice to be the boss again.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz