the gates of hell are NOT guarded by cereberus

throughout time, legend has taught us that somewhere on this mortal coil exists the portal to hell: those eldritch doorways through which orpheus set out on his quest for eurydice; those which demeter traversed to negotiate with hades for the release of her daughter persephone; and through which our own Lord Jesus Christ passed to do some serious harrowing.

for millennia the location of the opening to abbadon has been a mystery, an occult and damnable secret whispered into the darkness to terrify children and chill the human soul. and though time flows through the ages like the river mnemosyne, no-one has ever found the entrance to the underworld - and lived to tell the tale - though many have sought it, and many have died hideous deaths in the quest for the path to the netherworld... fading from time and memory as a snowflake fades from a frozen window pane bathed in the glow of the spring time sun.

but now, now its location is about to be revealed....because i've found it. and its around the corner from my house.



the gates to hell opened up on tuesday in the Real Canadian Superstore that has been under construction for the last six months not four blocks from my house. and my mother, with that curious perversity that overcomes the elderly as they contemplate their options for a fun afternoon out, decided that she really REALLY wanted to attend the "grand opening".

that satan: what a cunning old bastard. he was giving out balloons, free coffee and chocolate chip cookies, coupons for shoe repair and discounts on newspaper subscriptions as hell opened its doors in my neighbourhood.

way to go, captain howdy, i thought. the balloons are a nice touch, and i like the new uniforms your minions are wearing. sure beats wings and fangs i mused, but even as i stepped through the doors from the parking lot and into hell's floral department (downstairs next to hell's travel agency), a could detect a whiff of sulfur and brimstone hanging in the air. mum said it was from the fresh pavement in the car park, but i knew better.

the whole place reeked of evil...

cleverly disguised as the universe's biggest and most complete shopping center EVER, hell is actually guarded by something called a "movator" - an escalator-type device who's entrance and exit are manned by the creepiest, perkiest zombies ever to be unleashed on this earth, dressed in navy and white hostess outfits that complemented the evil red glow of their eyes and the malodourous smoke seeping from their ears. the living, those of us stupid enough to have sold our souls for the privilege of never again having to shop in two different stores for fresh fruit and power tools, were herded upwards towards hell's produce section on the infernal movator, under the watchful eyes of the dukes and barons of the underworld as (and i love this bit because its absolutely true) selections from the rolling stones "beggar's banquet" blared over the loudspeakers.



i seem to recall from my training in medieval literature that satan's torture's for the eternally dead were vicious, malignant and eternal. the legendary churchman charles spurgeon once wrote: when thou diest thy soul will be tormented alone; . . . but at the day of judgement thy body will join thy soul and thou wilt have twin hells; thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fierce fire, . . . thy body will be, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on; every nerve a string on which the devil shall for ever play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament.

jonathan edwards speaks of men unable to find even a moment of relief in hell (in his sermon on The Future Punishment of the Wicked): "nor will they ever be able to find anything to relieve them in hell. they will never find any resting place there; any secret corner, which will be cooler than the rest, where they may have a little respite, a small abatement of the extremity of their torment. they never will be able to find any cooling stream or fountain, in any part of that world of torment; no, nor so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues. they will find no company to give them any comfort, or do them the least good. they will find no place, where they can remain, and rest, and take breath for one minute: for they will be tormented with fire and brimstone; and they will have no rest day nor night forever and ever."

well, clearly, old scratch is learning. in the modern, polished, waxed and windexed 21st century version of hell, his tortures are far more sublime, insidious and dare is say it? nefarious....

no lake of fire here..... only aisle after aisle of product to tempt and torture humanity as we have not been tempted and tortured since tantalus. forty-three brands of toilet paper, ninety-two kinds of kitchen cleaner, one-hundred-and-thirty-five flavours of ice cream, eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty six kinds of potato chips, frozen pizza and shampoo; unidentifiable vegetables that were clearly grown on mars, housewares, home furnishings, electronics, flowers, a snack aisle, food court, pizza parlour, photography studio, pharmacy, bakery, dry cleaner, optometrist, medical clinic, fitness center, banking facilities and something called a "community room". as far as i could determine, you can get EVERYTHING there but a high colonic, and i only know that because i asked at the pharmacy.

now, into this satanic temple of consumerism filed the living, those that had made a faustian bargain with their satanic overlords, trading their souls for a chance to buy buy two get three free kiwi fruit while it was fresh and in season. no pitchforks and scythes here. no, each of the damned was issued an armoured shopping cart with the optional "random wheel lock" feature and standard intermittent steering, a free double mochaccino and a map of the store. there were no traffic lights, no lane assignments, no-one directing traffic: just fourteen million italian seniors, three hundred and twenty thousand "young families", eighty nine thousand surly teenagers with enough facial piercings to keep the metal detectors screaming at top volume for hours at a time; fourteen hundred screaming babies, fifty-two battery-powered golf cart "shuttles" playing bumper cars in the meat section, ninety six motorized mobility devices, six atvs, three or four of toronto' s finest homeless alcoholics imported just for the occassion, and the undead walking amongst us all handing out flyers and spot-award discount coupons.



satan is cunning indeed.

the only respite a poor soul can claim is to stand for forty five minutes in the checkout line to pay for the priviledge of tasting hell first hand, before being permitted to flee down the movator and into the relative safety of the parking lot to spend the next two hours of their life swimming upstream in the parking lot like salmon spawning, desperate to get out.

no-one that has not experienced this torment can possibly understand the peace and relaxation that comes from returning home, pulling out the dremel took and drilling one's own teeth.....