A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck

years. So I
ordered a lamb shank from the kiosk, fashioned a bone knife and
tied it on my arm with a strip of cloth torn from my robe, and
jumped.
    For eons I fell. Every morning I awoke,
plunged the knife into my neck, and awoke the next morning only to
do the same again. Over and over, every day. Sometimes I would stay
awake for an hour or so, but then boredom would set in and I would
use the bone knife again.
    Then came centuries of agonizing thought. I
knew I had not even fallen a light-year yet. I had googols and
googols of light-years to go. There is a despair that goes deeper
than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness, to the seat
of the soul. Could I keep living like this forever? How could I
continue existing in this Hell? And yet there was no choice.
Existence goes on and on here. Finite does not mean much if you
can’t tell any practical difference between it and infinite. Every
morning the despair gripped me, a cold despair that reached inside,
creating a catatonic numbness. There was a vague feeling of
falling, of getting hungry and having a thirst beyond reason, but
it seemed distant. Far away. And for the first time since my
arrival I lost awareness of the passing of days. Of how long I fell
I still have no memory. The unforgettableness of this Hell was
suspended and in this numbing madness I plummeted downward. How
many eons passed I cannot guess. But coming out of this numbness
was slow. I was more like a vegetable than a person – with my
consciousness only a shadow of self-awareness, only a dim sense of
qualia penetrated my mental haze. I ceased to think, to perceive. I
was no more aware of my existence than a snail or even an amoeba
might be.
    Finally, slowly, I gained a measure of
lucidity and decided to end my fall. It took me thirty-two
attempts, but finally I woke up in the familiar halls of the
library. Instinctively, still hoping for some luck, I pulled one of
the books off the shelf – a splash of nonsense of course.
    I turned my attention to the kiosk. I ordered
potatoes and ice cream. Fairly pedestrian fare, but I was
hungry.
    I’m skipping details now – there is little
more of interest to tell, but for the next hundred and forty-four
years I wandered the stacks. I knew at some point I would begin the
fall again, but for a long time I just wanted to find something. I
did find this:
     
    catch trees as windy dots
     
    It was early in the morning when I saw
someone fall past me. I was lonely. So lonely. Of course, this far
down in the library I had met no one, so when I saw the body fall
past me, I leapt over the railing immediately.
    She was not hard to catch. She was tumbling
dead, and I was rocketing down like a bullet – arms held close at
my side in a head-first dive. When, after the short chase, I had
her dead body in my arms, I wept like a baby. She was so beautiful!
Like an angel. All day I stroked her hair and hugged her and wept
with her dead in my arms. She was missing one arm and one leg. She
must have been trying to get back on the stacks. She had a bone
knife tied to her wrist. (Of course – how many design solutions
were there to escape time’s demands in this place?) I used it to
cut strips of cloth from my smock and bound her to me. I secured
her remaining leg to mine, then bound her torso to my waist. I
hoped this would keep us from twisting away from each other when
the hour before dawn stole our consciousness. I even prayed, I
think.
    In the morning we awoke at the same time. She
stared at me for only a second before throwing her arms around me
and holding on tight. I held on and wept with her. She pulled her
head back and looked at me.
    “Are you real?” she asked in wonder.
    I could not answer. I just cried and held her
closer. She responded in kind.
    She tried again. “I’d given up.”
    I could only nod. Then I squeaked out a
feeble “me too.” There was no question what we meant.
    Her name was Wand. Little else mattered. We
did not exchange stories.