By Benjamin Davis
Welcome to “What Happened When Frank Died.” In this column, for as long as I’m allowed, I’m going to kill Frank. Like—a lot. Worse, every two weeks, he will then be subjected to a multiverse of afterlives: absurd, funny, brutal, depressing, wild, creepy, heart-wrenching afterlives. Some will be based on existing theories, some on my own demented imaginings. In each, Frank will begin anew, searching, as always, for his lost family in the messy business of the many potential Great Beyonds. Frank (thankfully) does not remember his past-afterlives. Yet, attentive readers who pick up clues along the way will be able to solve the mystery of what happened before Frank died.
Frank died.
His feet went first. Falling. He was falling down, down, down, and stopped right in the middle of a wild orgy. There were couches, cushions, and beanbag chairs all over a mirrored floor. People were all over each other — young, old, fat, fit, wild-haired and crazy-eyed, they were falling from one spot to another, into one another, drooling and sweating.
Frank didn’t move. Someone near his foot moaned and pawed at his thigh. He leaped back and straight into a large fleshy wall. He turned. A man with a monstrous grin stood there. He was at least a foot taller than Frank. His skin was bright red and he had two massive black wings spread out behind him. “Whoa buddy,” he said. “You’re lucky I’m on a break or I might’ve skewered you!”
A few of the orgy participants around them giggled.
“What? What is this?” Frank asked.
The man looked around them like someone taking in an ocean view and said, “This is hell, my man.”
Frank watched as a young man licked the giant red leg of the winged man. The red man reached down and scratched the top of the young man’s head.
“Come, come — you’re new. Sorry, I can’t control where people pop in,” he said. “Here.” He grabbed Frank by the arm, and then they were somewhere else, an elegant room with cozy nooks scooped out of the walls. The red man chose one of them and took a seat. Frank stood in the middle and tried to add things up in his head.
“Go on, ask your questions, you guys always have them.”
“This is hell,” Frank said.
The man nodded. “Not a question, but yes.”
“And you’re…”
“The devil?”
“Yeah.”
“One of them.”
“And I—”
“Yes, you’re in hell.”
“Am I going to be tortured?”
“God no!” The devil laughed. It fell on the walls, returning to Frank as a booming echo. “No, no. See, that’s where you guys all go wrong. Hell is for cool people, man. It isn’t like heaven is for good people and hell is for bad people. Here, come have a seat.” The devil patted the cushy notch beside him and Frank slowly made his way over.
“You see,” The devil began. “A long time ago, we had a little chat with God. You see, a lot of you humans are pretty damn lame, and – well, there needed to be a place for them. Heaven wouldn’t be heaven if all of these goody-two-shoes got there and realized almost everyone gets in. Life is hard, man. We get that, and so did God. So we suggested starting hell as a place for all of the people who really just did the best they could, but weren’t all judgy and lame. We flipped a coin and I got to run hell and God had to stay up there with those lame-os. Want some dust?”
Frank looked around the room and took it all in. He didn’t know quite what to say, so he said, “Okay, then.”
“Here you go,” The Devil said, holding out a tray with a bunch of pink powder on it.
“What?”
“You said you wanted dust?”
Frank held up his hands, “No. No, sorry I was saying okay, as in, okay, got it. I think.”
“You sure? It’s like blow — but like, way better.”
“I’m good,” Frank said.
“Sure,” the devil said, clearly a bit put off. After putting a large amount of dust up his nose, though, he went back to looking at Frank as though they were the best of friends.
“Are there kids in hell?” Frank asked.
“Oh, sure! There is a whole endless amusement park full of them. You’ll get used to navigating this place. Just kinda think where you’d like to be and there you’ll go. The fact you ended up in the orgy fairgrounds is saying something — when was the last time, eh?”
Frank ignored him.
“Eh?”
“Can you tell me if someone is here?”
He raspberried his lips at Frank for a long moment before groaning and saying, “Yeah — yep, right, who?” He looked bored but Frank didn’t care.
“I need to find my wife, Sara Morgan, and my son-”
“Sara, Sara, Sara — yeah, OK — hold on.” The devil closed his eyes. He looked like he was chewing something inside of his brain. And then said, “Hm — that’s funny.” He opened his eyes. “She left.”
“Left?”
“Yeah — gonzo.”
“Where? What about David, is he here?”
“Geez, hold on. Morgan, again? Yeah, alright.” The devil shut his eyes. “Nope,” he said, quicker this time. “Oh, dear, no — not that boy, nope.”
“No, what!”
“No, not here, never was. Looks like your Sara went on after him, too.”
“After him, where?”
The devil’s face went very grave and he said, “Hell Two.”
The panic Frank was feeling came to a screeching halt as he took in what the devil had said.
“Hell Two?”
“Hell Two.”
“Are you serious?”
“Never.”
“Then is there a Hell Two?”
“There is — your boy must’ve done some bad woo-ha-ha to wind up there. You’ll probably be best to forget him my fr-”
“How do I get there?” Frank cut him off.
“You really want to go?”
“I do.”
“We have better orgy pits.”
“I don’t want an orgy pit. I want my family.”
“Okay, okay then.”
The devil plucked a feather out from one of his wings and held it out to Frank.
“That should be heavy enough to get you there.”
Frank took it.
And down he went.
Benjamin Davis has stories & poems in 25+ literary journals like BOOTH, Hobart, Maudlin House. His first book of poems, The King of FU (2018), was such a smashing success it shocked the indie press who printed it into an early grave. He is now working on his first six novels.
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