Holiday In Hell

A holy Iman dies in peace. He is astounded to be welcomed by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

“Sorry about the no 72 virgins. In this heaven we spend our days in the glory of God, who is non-denominational. You’ll meet the truly blessed evolving into the truly blissed.”

The Iman accepts this heaven in all its goodness, but after a few weeks he goes up to St. Peter and says, “Heaven is great, but all those years on Earth when I was preaching about the horrors of Hell, I was often curious what Hell was actually like.”

“Pretty much as you envisioned it.”

“IS there anyway I can see it?” The Iman was more than slightly bored with the communal utopia of Heaven.

“Of course there is.” St Peter opens the Pearly Gates and points to a set of endless stairs. “You can visit Hell on a one-time visa. Two weeks. Do anything you want. You earned this holiday by all the goodness you create on earth. Get it out of your system and then return to the bosom of the Creator.”

“And I can go now?”

“Anytime you want?” St. Peter walks the Iman to the stairs. He is greeted by doe-eyed houris and escorted to a bar where Jimi Hendrix is playing LITTLE WING. Hitler painting the walls and Marilyn Monroe working upstairs in the Satan a Go Go. It’s great fun and time passes in the blink of an eye. The Iman says goodbye to everyone and climbs the steps to the Pearly Gates.

“So how was it?” St. Peter asks peering down the stairs.

“Not like I expected it.”

“Well, at least you got it out of your system. Back to the eternity of bliss.”

Unfortunately his holiday infected the Iman. He can’t stop thinking about hell. Heaven is all communing with the great oneness. He goes back to St. Peter and asks if there’s a way he could go back to Hell.

“Sure, but if you go you can’t come back.”

The Iman looks over his shoulder at the fleecy clouds and praying angels.

“No problem.”

“See you on Judgment Day.” St. Peter is all smiles like a dealer selling a hot shot and so is the Iman as he walks down the stairs, although this time the houris greet him with pitchforks. Fire laps his legs. His flesh is torn open by the demons.

“St. Peter, this isn’t the Hell I knew. Why’s it so different now.”

St. Peter shouts from the Pearly Gates, “That’s the difference between going someplace on vacation and living there.”

"Emissaries" Reading at MOTHERBOX Friday 5/18/18

Please join us for Emissaries, a night of candlelit readings and the launch of The Enthusiast, a limited-edition press specializing in talismanic bindings at MOTHERBOX on Brooklyn

Friday, May 18, 2018 8PM

MOTHERBOX 405 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205

Hand-bound editions of Vroom-Vroom by Geoffrey Bridgman, Transcriptions by Katherine Finkelstein, Famous for Never by Peter Nolan Smith, Of Flowers and Shadows (or Springtime in the City of the Vital Dead) by Damon Stang, and Lumpy Log, a book of poetry by Clara Lip, will be available after the show.

The Trade Route Of The Orient

From 1956 until 1973 20 Thai baht bought $1.

A flight to Penang on Thai Airway cost about $130US.

I checked Air Asia current ticket fare from Bangkok to Penang and discovered the price is about the same.

Some things never change.

Broadway Junction - Crossroads

Broadway Junction has been Brooklyn's busiest subway station for over a hundred years. Six lines converge in East New York to service the outer-lying neighborhoods of New York's largest and most populous borough; the A, C, J, L, and Z. Most of the station rises above the streets on steel girders.

To the north the Jackie Robinson Parkway runs through miles of cemeteries.

The J train proceeds east to the unsheltered Alabama Avenue station.

The L train heads to stations unknown by most New Yorkers.

Canarsie–Rockaway Parkway is the terminus of the tracks and a trolley once continued south the the Canarsie Pier.

A long time ago.

To the east the L train dives underground on the journey to Manhattan.

The platforms were wintry last week.

But now it's spring.

Even at Broadway Junction.