Breathing Life into this Joint
On earth, you always had the benefit of knowing that if life went to shit, you could just end it. Death is the biggest motivator when you're alive. It can make you live life to the fullest, so that when you do die, you don't regret anything. It can make you realize how much you love someone. It can stop you from doing something incredibly stupid. It can be a comforting thought, knowing that you had the control, that you could end it all and not deal with it all day after day after day. In Hell, however, this luxury didn't exist. Humans, the living ones anyways, don't know how great they have it.
The gun was cold and heavy in his hands, yet distantly welcoming. Frank, being overly sentimental, kept his recently deceased patients firearm wrapped in a small towel in the back of his desk drawer. He knew that if he put it to his head and pulled the trigger, all that would occur would be a literally mind-blowing pain, but nothing else. Within a day, the wound would be gone. Even less than that, if you really concentrated on it. There was no way to end it. Un-life would always go on and on.
People on the living-plane think that hell is a place with burning flames, and demons running around impaling people with hot pokers. They think that they are tortured and ripped apart over and over again. All of that was true, but only if you were unfortunate enough to land in the lowest level, the 9th level, Cocytus. Yet, for the most part, the only difference between Earth and Hell is that there is no such thing as death. As you go down the levels, things get more gloomy and depressing. In Dis, the sixth level, it was always cloudy and the sky glows red with heresy. There are no winged demons, there are no eternal flames, nor are there even people being ripped apart in the streets (unless you have the balls to actually travel downtown). This was life, or un-life, in Hell.
---
Frank pulled his suitcase behind him, walking the poorly-lit and nearly empty streets of Dis. His pillow held under one hand, and a bottle of merlot in the other. He trudged on, taking sips of the 100 year old wine he took from the club not too long ago. It was the closest to heaven he would ever get now-a-days.
He finally reaches a building that looked very lucky to still be standing. He handed his bottle of wine, which was almost gone, to some decrepit man sitting in the alley close by.
"Habuwha-? Oh - hehheh t'ank ya!" the old man whistled through the three teeth he had remaining.
---
It took a while to get up all the stairs in such an inebriated state, but Dr. Frank did it. Unfortunately he had to leave the suitcase back two floors down. He could hear the piano seeping through the thin walls. He smiled. Or at least he thinks did. He knocked lightly on the door.
The piano made a very interesting sound, much like someone throwing a cat at it, and then he heard the shuffle of feet approaching.
"For chrissake, do you have any idea what tim -" Teresa angrily flung open the door, only to meet the very drunk, very tired Frank. "Oh! It's you. What's the matter?"
It was a struggle to get out coherently, but he managed. "My...um.. roommate threw me'h out. Doosya thinks I could stays with sh-ou?"
It is about time we gave these characters a bit more depth. Enjoy.
Sorry, teresa, for stealing you for a moment. :D
And I am actually pretty happy at the moment. No idea where the depressed feeling of the story came from.