A Liars Hell

Goes off of Donte's Inferno

A Liars Hell

As we walked into this ring

I felt as if the darkness had left.

The air was humid as if we had just stepped into a hot spring.

 

My guide was an old man, who was charged with theft.

His name was Ubel, after his brother,

and he was the one looking for someone who he once  bereft.

 

Ubel told me to move further

before the falling fire would get us.

The wind picked up and the fire came from the souther.

 

From a far away noise I could hear people cuss,

and when I asked Ubel what hell was ahead

he said, “When we get there the people will discuss

 

their sins to you.” We both became very quiet and

walked along the path. When we got to a hole in the path

Ubel stopped. “Stay here and speak with the people in this pit.”

 

The people screamed profanity as they were whipped

on the back, blood gushing from their wounds. The people holding

the whips were full of anger, and their faces were disgruntled.

 

In the pit I saw someone that seemed familiar, a man. He was

one of the men who had a woman as the punisher.  I had once

known him before, maybe it was from above. “Young man, could

 

 you spare some time cussing and speak to me why you are here?”

He walked over towards me, his head down. The woman still whipping

him but now ever so quickly. As he reached me he said,

 

“What must you know?” Now he lifted his head as I said,

“I want to know what crime you have committed.”

But his reply was, “Only will you understand if the story is told.”

 

I sat down at the edge of the pit and waited for him to start his story.

She whipped him once more and all I could do was flinch.

Then he began his story, “My name is JD, and it all started with a love

 

 for a girl, the woman who is my punisher, and how everything seemed to be

perfect. But the temptation of another woman came. The girl I once loved

 never knew that every day I would spend time with another woman,

 

I would lie to her every day. She believed me each time, and after she would go

to sleep I would leave once again. She never knew that I was with

another at night.” The woman whipped him once again

 

and he screamed in agony, and he continued, “I truly did love her,

but lust and temptation controlled me.  As time went on I continued with

my demise. My love soon woke up and realized I was never there,

 

but when she asked where I was all I could do was lie.”

He paused and waited for the woman to whip him one more time,

by now he expected her to whip him. The blood seeping from

 

his back once again, as he tried to continue his story.

“She continued to let me get away with being with another woman,

and when she would get a reply from me about being gone,

 

my love always knew everything I said was a lie.

One night she realized that the lies were too much.

She found a gun somewhere and she killed me,

 

but before she shot me she asked me

to tell her a lie, and so I did.” Now I understood why he was here.

 It was the lies that he told to his lover.  “What was the last lie you told her?”

I couldn’t help but ask. To this question his face fell again to the ground.

“I told her I loved another woman.”

The woman whipped him one more time, and he walked away.

 

I could see the blood from his back running down his body. So much anger

that woman must have had. I continued on looking through the pit

as I spotted a young woman being whipped by an older man. I asked the

 

woman to come speak with me. She walked towards me but with every

step she took the man followed her, whipping. “What have you done to

be punished in this way?” She started to look up at me but still hid her face

 

as if she was ashamed. “My name is Myrrha, and I am the daughter of king

Cinyras of Cyprus. I had always loved my father and one night I disguised

myself so that I could sleep with him, this went on for days. Each night my

 

nurse would help me sneak in and I would sleep with my father. Each night I

lied to him, and finally he caught me. Once he did find out it was me he

chased me around with a knife, and everything after that was a blur.

 

The last thing I knew I was here, and a man that looked like

my father was whipping me.” The man whipped her again,

and she screamed as red tears ran down her cheek.

 

She turns away and walks towards the spot she once was in,

and as she took one step the punisher whips her once again. He strikes her

with such force that even I felt horrible that she was put in this place.

 

She was so young but I guess age never mattered when you were down here.

I looked around one last time to see if anyone else looked like I

could have known them from above, but no one stood out.

 

I kept on walking around the pit looking at the people

that were being punished for their lies. In that pit there was

 so much pain, either from the punishers or the sinners.

 

As I stood there just looking, I heard footsteps.

Someone’s hand touched my warm skin. I turned and saw Ubel

right behind me. “Did you find the answers you were seeking?”

 

I put my head down towards the pit, just wishing that I could save

just one of them from their pain. Ubel saw this and said, “They were

the ones that put themselves here, through lies. They could have saved

 

themselves when they were above. We must go. There is still plenty more

to see.” As I walked away from the pit I knew that none of them would

see heaven and they would just bleed for every lie they had told, day after day.

 

I had already seen enough here, but this wasn’t the end of our trip.