Epitaph

An honest man and a good citizen, he lived beloved by all who knew him and died in friendship with his God. May he rest in peace.

Jeremiah Donovan
Kinsule, County Cork, Ireland
d. February 22, 1861, at 63 years old
Buried in Augusta, Maine

Fall Break 2012

November 2, 2012

I’m kicking myself because I know I should be in bed right now. I have to get up early for church tomorrow, and it’s already past 11. But maybe it’s worth staying up to write about this. We’ll see.

At any rate, I know it’s worth staying up to fold my laundry, because if I don’t my button-down shirts will get wrinkled. So that’s what I was doing, not too long ago, in the doorway of my dorm room. There’s nothing much to do when folding laundry, and I was just getting thoroughly bored when I noticed an unusual sound, as if someone nearby was boiling water. But no one was around to boil water. I wondered if someone had left a faucet on by mistake, so I stood up to go turn it off--but as soon as I crept into the hallway, the sound disappeared. All I could hear was the gentle roaring of the air filters. I was curious now, and unsure if my ears were hallucinating, so I padded softly toward the two rooms next to me. The door on the left was closed, but the one across from it wasn’t. That door stood enigmatically ajar; inside, the blinds were down, the lights were off, the TV was dead, and the beds were empty. But I could still hear something: a new noise this time, like a crude Stone Age wheel crunching clumsily around a maypole. It was eerie—standing at the edge of the bright hallway, listening to the air filters whirring and a perversely unidentifiable sound crawling from uninhabited gloom.

I bent down to listen, and let my eyes adjust to the dark. Aha--the clumsy wheel, if that’s what it was, must have been part of my wingmate’s refrigerator. I stepped out of the room and headed back down the hallway, only to hear the boiling water again as soon as I reached my own doorway. I put my ear to our refrigerator: the water was boiling, if that’s what it was doing, inside. Mystery solved. I finished folding my laundry.

Not too much later, I realized that I was only able to hear those sounds because the wing was so uncannily silent. As a matter of fact, the wing is still uncannily silent. It’s fall break, and most of the campus—including all but two of my wingmates—have flown off to campaign for Romney or to visit family, leaving their rooms vacant and their wings desolate. Both my roommates have gone: Stephen is campaigning in Indiana and Kevin is debating in Vermont. Rather than join them, I have stayed behind to study and rest. (Writing this, I think, falls under the category of resting, although right now, sleeping might be a more effective use of my time. But I can’t break off in the middle now that I’ve started.)

I do need the study time, I suppose—that was the primary argument I used against Stephen’s pleas for me to join a Student Action Team (which team, my roommate scolded, I should have joined if I really wanted to change the world, save the country, and support the causes I believe in). On second thought, I should phrase my words more firmly: I know that I need the study time. I have a Critical Dialogue paper due in class the day after break ends; I have my first research paper due one week after the break, and I only started the research this evening. I also told Stephen that my relatives would very likely invite me to spend the break with them, and at the time that was true. Aunt Alissa invited me to come up yesterday, the day before break started; however, I told her that I had contracted pinkeye and what with copious amounts of sleep (for recovery) and studying, it didn’t seem like this weekend was the best time to see them after all.

So, my fall break is turning out to be somewhat miserable. I’m stuck in an abandoned campus with mucus trickling out of my eye, working on a paper that I should have started a week sooner—and I’m alone. Of course, there are other people around, but it doesn’t feel right to sleep in an empty room with three beds, or walk through the empty hallway of an empty wing. I should be enjoying the solitude (I seek it often enough during the rest of the year) but instead I’m finding it discouraging. It adds to the weight of worry for my health and my schoolwork.

I have been seeking an antidote—some sort of spiritual solution that will buoy me over the crests of my autumn angst. Of course, I know the answers: God is in control, He will provide for me just as He has in the past, and He will give me the strength to be diligent. But somehow, the principles I’ve learned in the past never quite seem to apply to the present day. That’s why I sat down to write—why I’m still writing right now. When I started about an hour ago, I was hoping to find the antidote just by writing about the situation, to discover El Dorado in the clicking of the keyboard. And in some ways, that’s happened. The act of writing this short essay has encouraged me, though I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s because when I start writing, choosing the right words and stringing them together in careful sentences to best communicate my message, I have to acknowledge that God is doing much the same thing with the entire world. Mucus and loneliness are not exceptions.

But as soon as I get up from my computer, my El Dorado is going to crumble into digital dust and blow away with the breeze from my open window. I know this from experience. In reality, nothing much has changed: I still have pinkeye, I still have too much to do, and the wing is still empty. And on top of this, I’m now going to bed about an hour later than I wanted. So what now? Has writing this done me any good at all?

Nothing around me has changed, true. But now I know my task is to remember—to hold on and remember—that God has purposefully put me in this place for the next couple days, and if I pray, He will strengthen me to flourish in it. And if going to bed late is the price of that remembering, then somehow I think it’s worth it.

Two Paragraphs

So, what do you all think of these paragraphs? I wrote them a while ago as the start of a story that I intended to be a reworking of the Faust legend in the context of college. I re-discovered them this afternoon and thought that you all might enjoy them.

-------

Unfortunately for Josiah, the hands of the clock remained stubbornly still. This particular course—Freshman Writing Seminar 101—was one of his least favorites so far, and he had desperately hoped that time would accommodatingly accelerate. Only five minutes? It felt more like an hour.

Professor Herthrab droned on. “Now, a subject always—and this rule has no exceptions—a subject is always followed by a verb.” The professor’s voice grated against Josiah’s ear like a saw cutting through Styrofoam. Josiah had been a competent writer in high school; now, listening to the professor dole out grammatical minutiae in painfully obvious increments, he began to wonder why the Inquisition had not realized more quickly the power of grammatical water boarding. He was not alone: his classmates slumped behind their desks, their faces as expressive as Neanderthal undertakers. Josiah began to wonder how he would survive the rest of the semester.

Surprised By Sadness

When I read Philippians 2:25-30 recently, I was surprised to notice a theme of sadness. Not only had Epaphroditus been distressed (v.26), but also Paul is dealing with multiple layers of sorrow (v.27). In v.28, Paul tells the Philippians that by sending Epaphroditus, he will become less sorrowful: even though Paul's emphasis is certainly on the word "less," the point remains that Paul was still dealing with at least some level of sorrow. The whole situation reminds me of Phil. 1:30, where Paul tells the Philippians that he is suffering and speaks of "the conflict" that is in him. These sections of Philippians reveal that Paul is struggling with pain and suffering on a deep, personal level.

The underlying strata of sadness surprised me because I typically picture Paul as a non-stop happiness machine. There's a reason for this stereotype: in the verse immediately after the sorrowful section, Paul commands the Philippians to "Rejoice in the Lord." (Incidentally, this is what I forgot to do a few days ago, when I was exhausted, too busy, and dealing with a computer breakdown apocalypse.) Obviously, Paul wouldn't tell the Philippians to do something that he himself wasn't doing--and we know from 1:18 and 2:17-18 that Paul is indeed rejoicing. This suggests two things to me.

First, whereas happiness and sorrow are opposites, joy and sorrow can apparently coexist. This seems to imply that there's some sort of difference between joy and happiness, and that superficial bubblyness is not the goal. Second, when I am confronted with days that are full of sorrow, my responsibility is not to deny the pain; rather, it is to rejoice in the Lord. I don't know exactly how you can rejoice in the midst of pain, but I'm pretty sure that it's something we can't do by ourselves. It takes a lot of prayer.

Frankenstein: Is Life an Adventure?

In Western Lit class, we recently finished Mary Shelley's work Frankenstein. The book itself is rather different from the cultural conception: Victor Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, not the monster, and the book focuses on Frankenstein's internal struggles rather than the creature's wickedness. During one somewhat tangential scene in the book, I was struck by what happens when Frankenstein finally tells law enforcement about the monster. The magistrate, understandably, has difficulty believing in the existence of Frankenstein's monster:

I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was a frenzy in my manner, and something…of that haughty fierceness which the martyrs of old are said to have possessed. But to a Genevan magistrate, whose mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of madness. He endeavored to soothe me as a nurse does a child, and reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium.

The magistrate can only tolerate the ordinary; adventure does not fit inside his worldview.

The relationship between Frankenstein’s and the bureaucrat’s view of reality intrigues me. Frankenstein’s view is, of course, the most appealing to my literature-loving soul. Adventure, valor, daring feats of heroism, life-threatening perils, sudden and miraculous salvations—this is the stuff of which life is made. Or is it? The magistrate has a valid point: taken at face value, real life seems to be a prosaic succession of insignificant events, far removed from the romantic idealism of literature. For example, I can testify that I have not recently uncovered the ruins of Atlantis deep within the Mariana Trench, or been kidnapped by a desperate gang of murderers, or discovered a long-lost brother who is really the crown prince of Lichtenstein. Instead, I have sat in my dorm room and studied. Where is the adventure in that?

Let me increase the complexity of the question by incorporating the spiritual dimension. Ephesians 6 tells us of an ever-raging spiritual battle, and battles—especially invisible ones, at that—are quintessentially literary material. Colossians 1 tells us that the world is held together by the work of Christ, in whom God is seeking to reconcile the twisted world to Himself; God’s involvement in the turmoil of creation is a concept that challenges the imagination’s power to comprehend. These are adventures that we know are taking place around us—they belong not only to the realm of fantasy but also to the world of real life. Why, then, does life often seem prosaic?

I have wrestled with this question for a long time, and I’ve always given myself the same answer: adventures are almost never glamorous, and they never seem like adventures to the people inside of them. When we look back from Heaven, I think we will understand better what an incredible adventure the ordinary, God-fearing life truly is. Until then, my challenge is to live my life as a divine adventure, even when the adventure seems hopelessly hidden behind the everyday. If I do not consciously strive to focus on the purpose and adventure that God has placed behind all of life, I may miss the opportunity to participate in the heroic feats of valor that He opens up for me, just as the Genevan magistrate missed the opportunity to participate in Frankenstein’s chase. I know that I miss these opportunities all too often, and I pray that God will develop in me the courage and focus necessary to experience His adventures.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you see (or not) our lives as divine adventures?

The Numbered Wanderings of Mrs. Minivan

I let the keys jingle jauntily as I unlocked the door of my family’s black minivan. I always enjoyed the drive home from work; as an eighteen-year old working his first official summer job in Augusta, Maine, I received a pleasurable feeling of independence from directing some small aspect of my daily destiny. Part of this self-satisfaction stuck to the car itself, which I treated as a benevolent aunt—the kind who always gives the perfect Christmas presents and organizes exclusive, cousin-only outings at family reunions. Despite her questionable brakes and intermittent air conditioning, Mrs. Minivan and I got along well.

This particular day was especially auspicious. Now that work was over, I had been invited to spend some time at a good friend’s house before heading home. The only fly buzzing at the edges of my good mood was that in order to get to my friend’s house, Mrs. Minivan and I would have to take a cumbersome route, driving south on the highway 32 miles before turning east and driving 19 miles. If I avoided the highway and took the back roads, I was convinced that I would not only take the shortest distance between two points (only 40 miles!), but I would also enjoy the residential scenery more than the highway’s repetitive foliage. However, I swatted the fly away with a smile and decided to take the most familiar route. I crawled through the traffic on Augusta’s Western Avenue and turned onto the highway.

                That was my first mistake.

                It wasn’t long after I had pulled onto the highway that I remembered I had no cash for the toll. My wallet was empty, and the car’s coin drawer was devoid of bills. This was unfortunate, I thought, but not the end of the world. The tollbooth sat just off an exit, so I decided to simply bypass the exit and take the next available one. Then I would figure out where I was and how to get to my destination without paying the toll. The sign for my exit ran toward me, and I passed it with a jaunty lift of the eyebrows. Exploring unknown reaches of an unknown highway—this was the spirit of adventure.

                However, just as thunder dampens the spirit of a camping trip, so also the long stretches of highway dampened my adventurous mood. Surely there would be an exit soon, I thought. But the exit never came, and I kept driving until I saw an ominous sign: TOLL PLAZA AHEAD. I had been ambushed; there wasn’t even a benevolent exit to give penniless drivers a chance to escape. I felt the temptation to panic, but instead I rolled down my window and prayed that the attendant would be merciful.  

                “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a dollar for the toll,” I said. “I got on this road by mistake, and—”

                “You have no cash at all?”

                “No,” I responded remorsefully. A red pickup truck came to a stop behind me.

                “Well, do you have a personal check?”

                “No,” I answered.

                The attendant began to look desperate. “You don’t have a personal check at all?”

                “Wait a minute,” I said, as the light began to dawn. I did have my checkbook with me, tucked inside my work bag. But stopping in the middle of a tollbooth to write a check? Well, there was no other way. “Who should I make it out to?” I asked.

                One minute later, Mrs. Minivan exited the tollbooth, much to the relief of the cars behind her. As providence would have it, my effort to escape one toll had led me to a more expensive tollbooth that cost me twenty-five cents extra. And all that for the privilege of driving on a road that was taking me to an unknown destination that probably wasn’t where I wanted to wind up anyway.

That was the other problem. I knew I was going south, which was good, but I had a sinking feeling that I was also going west, which was not good. When I made the ill-advised decision to bypass my exit in favor of adventure, I did so with full knowledge of the signs that said I was going in the direction of Portland, Auburn, and Lewiston, three cities far removed from my destination. Of course, I had expected a friendly exit to appear and convey me to a more desirable location. But as the tollbooth shrunk behind me and the road twisted interminably in front of me, I felt my hope evaporating. I tried to keep my spirits up, but it was a losing battle. By this point I knew that I was going to be hopelessly late, and I could not understand why God had allowed this to happen to my schedule. How could a loving God permit such misery?

At long last, an exit sign sailed over the horizon and I jumped excitedly in my seat like a castaway in sight of rescue. I hadn’t gone all the way to Auburn, thank God, and I knew approximately where I was. True, I had gone far out of my way, but now I was on familiar roads and driving toward a familiar destination. This wasn’t exactly the spirit of unknown adventure, but what mattered now was that I was again in control of my destination. I put my blinker on as Mrs. Minivan turned out of the highway and into freedom.

I was sure that I knew the way to the center of town, but as time progressed the scenery began to look less and less familiar. My cell phone GPS confirmed my direction, though, so I followed its promptings off the main road onto a cross street. From there I turned onto Main Street, and from Main Street onto Edgecomb Road, a quiet neighborhood overhung by trees and interspersed with barns and fields. I passed a horse stable, and the road turned to dirt.  Fifty yards later, I came to a dilapidated set of planks laid over a ravine and stopped.

I didn’t stop because of the condition of the road; I yielded to the other vehicle that was driving over the one-lane bridge. It was a camouflage pickup truck piloted by a grizzled redneck in a battered white t-shirt, who stared strangely at Mrs. Minivan as he passed. His gaze irked me, so I adjusted my collar and pressed my dress shoe onto the gas pedal, certain that the GPS was taking me by a little-known shortcut.

However, sometimes the road less traveled on deserves to remain hidden. Formerly a smooth journey on genial asphalt, my trek on Edgecomb Road immediately devolved into a rustic safari over a ramshackle road filled with rocks, potholes, and mud puddles. Although her effort was noble, Mrs. Minivan was no match for the rough terrain. We plunged into puddles and surged over rocks with skirts lifted high, becoming alternately a pair of synchronized sky divers and exploding popcorn kernels. With each jolt, I imagined the car’s engine tumbling onto the road; indeed, several minutes into our journey down Edgecomb Road, a protruding rock struck the minivan’s underbelly with a sickening crash. In the tumult, I noticed a sign warning me that this was a private road: “Don’t abuse it or you’ll lose it!” In my case, the road was abusing my car rather than the other way around, and my goal was to lose Edgecomb Road as soon as possible. But the road kept going with no end in sight.

After several interminable minutes, Mrs. Minivan squealed to a stop. I was in front of a ginormous mud puddle of uncertain depth that stretched across the entire trail. There was no way to skirt around it; swimming was the only way forward. Mrs. Minivan eyed the foggy depths warily while I pondered my next move. I had heard tales of naïve minivans being mauled by rogue mud puddles, yet my mind urged me forward. The puddle was probably completely benign. This road undoubtedly led me to my destination; I was late and turning around would only exacerbate my tardiness. Most importantly, I had started this trek, and I was going to finish it. I was in control of my destination, and this was the route I had picked.

But as I stared into the gloomy puddle, I realized that I could not risk our family car on a whim. After all, I was not Moses. I put the car in reverse and bumped slowly to a small clearing, then turned the car around. I was defeated. Mrs. Minivan’s outdoor expedition was over.

My former adventurous buoyancy had now completely evaporated. I felt as though I had failed myself, since my efforts to arrest the evening’s downfall had only exacerbated it; I had failed my friend, since I was destined to be at least an hour late to his house; and I had failed my friend’s family, since they were waiting for me to eat dinner. Given the evening’s track record, I doubted that I would even make it to my friend’s house, so I turned off my GPS and called my friend to suggest that it would be better to rendezvous elsewhere. But then his dad came on the line and explained that they still wanted to have me over and didn’t mind postponing dinner if I still wanted to come. The grace that my friend’s dad extended to me in that phone call reversed the downward spiral of my thoughts. I was forgiven. All was not lost after all. I jolted slowly back down Edgecomb Road and onto Main Street; only later did I realize that all that remained was for me to relinquish my pride and forgive myself.

By the time I reached my friend’s house, I was fifty minutes later than expected but only twenty minutes late for dinner. That was okay, though. They laughed as I narrated the evening’s comedy of errors, and I laughed as they shared stories of similar situations. I had a great time: dinner was delicious, the conversation sweet, and the fellowship refreshing. When the night was over, I called my dad to let him know that I was leaving. He enjoyed my story of the evening’s misadventures, and when I was done he coolly instructed me to reopen the coin drawer. I was shocked: when I had first opened the drawer to look for toll money, my mind must have been so fixated on dollar bills that I overlooked the four quarters sitting nonchalantly on the bottom of the drawer. Mrs. Minivan had held enough money for the toll after all.

Inferno

The man at the head of the table glanced at his watch. It was five minutes past eight and there was still one seat empty. It was a comfy seat, too. Most of the other conference rooms only had wooden chairs. I wouldn’t be late to a meeting like this, thought the man, if I knew that I was going to sit in a swivel chair.

He glanced at his watch again. Six minutes late. The people sitting in the other chairs—there were nine chairs altogether, not counting his—were rocking back and forth, quietly making small talk or staring into space. The professor, who was wearing a blue suit jacket and sat on the left side of the table, had arrived ten minutes early. Now he spoke with a hint of irritation: “Are we going to start any time soon?”

The man at the head of the table smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, but we’re still waiting on one person.” He paused momentarily, as though thinking. “But while we’re waiting, we can go ahead and get started with introductions.”

He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, everyone,” he said loudly. “My name is Marco Ghibili, and on behalf of Stargaze Comics I’d like to thank you all for coming out today. I know that you all have busy schedules and we are honored that you’ve agreed to help us with our latest project. As you know—”

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Marco called. The door opened, and a bald man poked his head into the room.

“Is this the meeting of the Comic Book Advisory Board?” he asked.

“It certainly is,” said Marco, flashing his impeccable teeth. “Come on in. You must be Steve Rust.”

Steve shook Marco’s hand and sat down in the empty seat. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got stuck in traffic.”

Marco knew that there was never traffic downtown this early in the morning. “It’s all right—happens to the best of us,” he said. “We were just about to get started with introductions. Why don’t we go around the table—starting with you, Steve—and tell each other our names and what we do for a living.”

Steve’s eyes were bloodshot, and he closed them as soon as he was finished speaking. “I’m Steve Rust,” he said. “I solder fences down at the Mopsley Fence Company.”

Next was Martha McRoach, a young woman with a scarlet blouse and coiffed hair. She worked as a secretary, and so did Doris Smith, the grandmotherly lady in the green hat who sat next to her. Michael Langston, a lanky teenager wearing scuffed-up blue jeans, was still in high school. Regina Philips, with the thin face and neon lipstick, was a lawyer; Kate Finnley, in a battered blue sweater, was quite obviously a housewife. Anthony Guest worked as a chef and still smelled faintly like fish. Spencer Davis was wearing a red T-shirt and worked for E-Z Plumbing, and Jonathan Churchill was the professor in the blue suit coat. And then, of course, there was Marco.

“Great!” Marco said. “It’s good to meet all of you. Well, as you know, Stargaze Comics is planning to launch a new series of comic books based on Dante’s Inferno. Are you all familiar with the Inferno?”

Most people nodded, but Michael shook his head. “We haven’t gotten that far in science class yet,” he said.

“I don’t imagine that you will ever get that far in your science class,” Professor Churchill interjected. “In fact, I would be quite concerned if you did cover Dante’s Inferno in science class, because Dante’s Inferno is a classic work of literature.”

“Well, sorry to offend,” said Michael sarcastically, slouching into his chair and beginning to swivel.

Marco smiled. “Don’t worry—you can’t be expected to know everything. Dante’s Inferno is a poem that describes how Dante took a trip through Hell, looking at all the sinners and their punishments. Of course, all the people that Dante saw in Hell were people from the fourteenth century. Now, what Stargaze is trying to do is to create an updated version of the Inferno that better reflects the mindset of the modern age, and that’s why we’ve called you all here today. We’re looking for your suggestions on who we should put in our version of Hell.”

“What kind of suggestions?” asked Martha. “Anyone we can think of?”

“I’ll leave that up to you,” said Marco. “Throw out any names you want and we’ll take them into consideration. Does anyone else have a question?”

Anthony spoke up. “Yeah—like, how long is this meeting going to last?”

“I don’t think it will keep you more than an hour,” Marco replied. “Anyone else?” The room was silent, save for the creaking of the swivel chairs. Marco pulled out a pen. “Well then, let’s get started. I thought we could go around the table again—you shout out suggestions and I’ll write them down. Let’s start with you, Doris.”

Doris folded her wrinkled hands nervously. “Oh dear,” she said. “I’m afraid that I haven’t thought about this very much. I’m not sure that I know who to say.” She gazed vacantly at the opposite wall.

“We can come back to you if you’d like,” Marco offered, compassionately.

“Would you? I’m sorry to hold you up—I just need more time to think.”

“That’s quite all right,” Marco replied. “What about you, Martha?”

Martha frowned. “Well, there are the obvious people like O. J. Simpson and Charles Manson,” she said. “And Timothy McVeigh and Jim Jones. They definitely belong somewhere in Hell.”

“Excellent,” said Marco. “Now, if you had to rank them on a scale of one to nine, with one being the most lenient punishment and nine being the strictest, where do you think they would belong?”

“Well, what they did was pretty bad,” replied Martha, biting her lip in concentration. “I think I’d probably put them at an eight or nine.”

Marco scribbled on his legal pad. “Thank you, Martha. Doris, have you come up with anything yet?”

Doris, staring intently at the wall, shook her head.

“Then let’s move on to you, Spencer,” said Marco.

Spencer Davis slammed his fist on the table. “President Obama!” he cried. “That thug is bent on destroying America. He’s driving our country into bankruptcy, socialism and moral decay on purpose!”

The table began to murmur. “Hold on, man!” Anthony exclaimed. “You can’t do that to the President. He’s the greatest leader we’ve seen since Roosevelt.”

“My point exactly,” Spencer shot back. “Throw FDR into Hell, too!”

The panel gasped, and Professor Churchill leaned onto the table. “Wait a minute, sir. If we’re throwing inept national leaders into Hell, we need to make room for George Bush. The dunce wasn’t qualified to steer an oil rig, let alone a country.”

“George W. Bush,” Spencer began, “was America’s greatest president since Ronald Reagan!”

“Speaking of Reagan,” said Professor Churchill, “if you want to talk about bankrupting the economy—”

“Actually, I agree with Spencer,” interrupted Kate Finnley. “President Obama really hasn’t been responsible with—”

“Ronald Reagan was—” Spencer shouted.

“Is there any way to make him stop talking?” asked Professor Churchill, pointing at Spencer.

“Hold on, everybody!” Marco was smiling. “There’s no need to get upset; I can barely hear what you’re saying. Regina, what do you think?”

Regina Philips tossed her head. “I find it surprising that no one has mentioned the elephant in the room. Surely Hitler deserves a place in the ninth level of Hell.”

The panel nodded in agreement, except for Spencer, who was still breathing heavily.

“And Stalin,” added Martha. “He killed more people than Hitler.”

“While we’re on the subject of killing,” said Professor Churchill, “I suggest that we add Christopher Columbus, John Smith, and William Bradford to the list. Millions of Native Americans died from slavery and the diseases that they introduced to the Americas.”

Spencer’s eyes bulged. “The Pilgrims are the foundation of our nation! They are heroes!” he bellowed.

“Imperialists, you mean,” the professor corrected.

“Can I make a suggestion?” asked Anthony. “I can’t stand James Dobson. Every time I hear him on the radio it gives me chills.”

“You can’t put Dr. Dobson in Hell!” Kate cried. “He’s the only one preserving some semblance of decency in America. If we’re going to put anybody in Hell, it should be that hussy in charge of Planned Parenthood.”

“Excuse me?” Regina asked incredulously. “Planned Parenthood is an essential provider of women’s health services. I volunteer regularly at my local clinic.”

Kate stared. “How can you murder innocent babies like that?”

Regina’s nostrils flared. “We do not murder babies,” she retorted. “We support a woman’s right to choose.”

“Ladies, please,” interjected Marco, still flashing his impeccable teeth. “We can share our suggestions in a civilized manner, can’t we? Michael, you’ve been quiet so far; do you have anything to add?”

Michael opened his eyes. “Well, I have this really awful English teacher—he’s a real grouch. I’d throw him into Hell if I could.”

Doris leaned onto the table and waved her hand. “I’m ready now,” she said.

“All right—what do you have for us?” asked Marco.

Doris read out of a small notebook. “Well, there’s my next-door neighbor, Sue; she borrowed one of my cake pans last year and never returned it. And my sister—we haven’t spoken for ten years now. Then, of course, there’s that McDonald’s employee who always gives me strawberry ice cream when I order vanilla. I thought of putting my husband in there, too,” she chuckled, “but I didn’t think that would be very nice.” Doris closed the book and looked up at the silent faces around the table. “That’s all I have,” she said.

Marco finished writing. “Thank you, Doris. What about you, Steve?”

Steve was staring into his lap, and he looked up slowly. The dark circles under his eyes made his face seem hollow. “If anyone’s going to Hell,” he said, “I think you should put me in there. I can’t see why I don’t deserve it.”

For a moment, even the swivel chairs were silent.

Professor Churchill glared at Spencer. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know about you, Steve, but there are definitely some other people in this room that I would consider sending to Hell.”

“I take offense at that!” Spencer fumed. “You’re lucky I didn’t bring my rifle to this meeting.”

Kate turned to Regina. “How can you live with yourself after murdering so many babies?”

“And we can’t forget about Mao,” Martha interjected.

“Can we throw Cheney into Hell, too?” inquired Anthony.

“Oh, I forgot,” said Doris. “There’s also my great-aunt—”

An hour passed by, but nobody knew or cared. The comfortable swivel chairs hemmed them in, trapped in an inferno of their own making.