Jack and his compatriots steel themselves for what’s ahead: the deepest pit of Heck, where the worst and gravest of sinners are eternally tortured. The place from whence Jack must rescue a soul to aid him in his quest.

But, when they get there, they’re pleasantly surprised. It just looks like a bar. Some lit EDM beats are playing in the background. The stench of beer can be detected everywhere. And …

Oh.

There are many sensuous, scantily - clad succubi gyrating atop the tables. It’s not just a bar, it’s a strip club!

“Woah.” says Keagan. “I’m not normally down bad for the forces of darkness, but I am a man …”

Jack sees two people he knew in life: Jimmy Wales and his old pal David McGee. Both of them are sitting at a table, ogling a particularly voluptuous succubus with short brown hair.

“Yo, Dave, Jimmy, why is this circle of Heck so fun? Isn’t it supposed to be like for the worst of the worst?”

“Oh, hey Jack,’ I say, taking my eyes of off my favored succubus for a second. “Well, this circle of Heck sucked for a long time. The archangel Samael was ordered to torture truly grave sinners, like rapists and NIMBYs. But, Sammael had a soft heart, and he couldn’t find it within himself to devise horrific tortures. But, after Uriel loaned him The Apocalypse of Peter and the Quran, he realized that humans were far more sadistic than he was, so he decided to base this circle on human depictions of Heck.

This was a really good bet for a long time – it used to be horrible here! People were eternally forced to drink boiling water, little children were trapped in scorching ovens, there was something about a girl being painted blue …

“But, then the Enlightenment happened, and more people began to realize all this was evil balderdash, so Heck needed a makeover in the popular imagination. C.S. Lewis was up for the job, and he claimed that Heck was just voluntary separation from God. He published a book about this in 1945, and it became quite popular. This became the dominant picture of Heck in 10% of churches per decade. And, when they became a majority, the only thing keeping people here was their own free will.

“Fortunately, that meant old Sammie needed to invent a reason for people to stay! What kind of idiot would stay in Heck just for the Heck of it? So, after sleeping on it, good angel hired some succubi to make this circle more appealing. After all, everyone in Heck is down bad and there ain’t no sex in Heaven. All of the men happily took Samael up on his offer, but many of the women only agreed after considerable pleading and conversion therapy.

“Philip, calculate what year that happened!”

“Wait, before I have to do the math on that,” begins Philip, who apparently became rather knowledgable about theology while in Limbo, “how do Christians who believe in annihilationism or purgatorial universalism, like Arnobius and St. Gregory of Nyssa, fit into this calculation of yours?”

“See,” I respond, “it’s not about what theology people hold, it’s about how Heck is described in popular culture.”

“Oh okay,” Jack says, “but I gotta ask, why are you here and how’d you get here? I know Jimmy was a terrible person and I beat the snot out of him. But Dave, you’re a normal guy who writes stupid jokes and thinks Heroes 4 is a decent game. What did you do to deserve this?” Suddenly, he gasps with horror, “You didn’t become an NIMBY, did you!?”

“No, no! Not even I could sink to that level of depravity!” I respond. “It all started when I stopped sending Hayden superchats and supporting him on OnlyFans. He didn’t take to that nicely and threw me into a meat grinder. But that didn’t kill me. I only died because, when Philip got into a car crash, a beer bottle flew out of his hand and through his open window, eventually making contact with my head and killing me instantly. Thankfully, the night before that, I’d joined Pastor Jim’s Bible Church of East Pensacola. So, I got saved! But, they ain’t got no sex in Heaven, and they do have it down here. So, I occasionally mosey on down to the low places for a little, uh, bling bling.”

“Oh…okay…” responds Jack, wishing he hadn’t asked. “Well, either way, I’m getting a burning in my bosom which is telling me that Jimmy Wales is the guy I was supposed to save from Heck for my quest, so he’s coming with us. You wanna come, Dave?”

“Yeah, sure. They probably have sex in the mortal realm too.”

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