The Fall of Hades by Jeffrey Thomas

fresh-flowing. Noticing it once more, he had an odd thought: that maybe in the future he would recall gazing at that red line, as his mind had sought to distance itself from his suffering, just as when he would gaze out the window of the science classroom at the stained green line of moss. Was he even now accruing new poignant memories, that would hold some importance to him later on? That would haunt but bolster him somehow—define him even, if only to himself—in the eternity that he faced?
    Eternity , he thought. Eternity… here . Mortals had wished to live forever, fought and feared death, since the first mortal had drawn breath. But there had been a better reason to fear death than the cessation of life. They should have feared the continuance of life, in the state of immortality.
    Adam turned to watch one of the passing officials as if it might enlighten him on cosmic justice, but none of the Demons seemed able or wont to speak English; this was another development meant to keep Demons from sympathizing with humans. These towering officials with their black cephalopod heads and arthropod-like skeletal bodies were an updated, less anthropomorphic replacement of their predecessors.
    This one swept Adam with its scorching gaze. Yellow eyes with goat-like pupils that glared at him with contempt, with loathing. That judged and condemned him. Damned him, as if the wrathful, vengeful Creator Himself gazed out through those inhuman eyes. But Adam didn’t feel humbled, didn’t feel ashamed. That accusing glare, however brief, only stirred his outrage, and after the Demon had passed he shook his head and muttered, “No…no.”
    Ciara turned to him. “What?”
    “Whatever I did, I don’t deserve this. I don’t. What did you do, Ciara?
    Did you mug and beat to death somebody’s granny? Did you strangle a baby? This isn’t right. It isn’t fair.”
    “I know that. It isn’t fair.”
    “Okay, so I didn’t go to church. Does that in itself make me an unworthy person, who has to suffer until the end of time?”
    “I stopped going to church when I was a kid. Now I wish I kept going!”
    “No, Ciara, fuck that shit. It isn’t right!”
    The Asian man on his other side said, “I’m a Buddhist. Maybe that’s why I’m here.”
    Adam faced him. “And are you sorry you’re a Buddhist?”
    The man hesitated, as if afraid his punishment could become even worse.
    “No,” Adam said, “don’t be sorry. We aren’t wrong. This is wrong.
    This .”
    He wagged his head again, as if it were harder to believe in the rationale behind the punishment they had been sentenced to than to believe in the reality of Hades itself.
    Listening in on their conversation, which wasn’t easy to avoid, packed as they were in the line, a man behind Adam said, “Didn’t we suffer enough in life? I always thought that was Hell, and after life we’d at least be able to rest. If not go to Heaven, at least just disappear.”
    “My wife left me for another man,” Adam said. “I couldn’t keep my house. I couldn’t even keep my dog. And I burned to death in a nuclear war, knowing that my mom and my brother and sister and every innocent child and animal on the face of the Earth was dying horribly at the same time. No…no way.” Wagging his head more violently. “This is enough.
    I’ve had enough. I didn’t go through all that just to end up like this. No.
    No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”
    And with that, Adam began to press past the Asian man to his right, began to squeeze his way out toward the far right edge of the queue.
    “Adam!” Ciara hissed. “What are you doing?”
    “They’ll shoot you,” said the Asian man.
    “Let them,” Adam said. “I’m already dead.”
    The others blocking his way, seeing what he intended, did not try to stop him, perhaps curious to see how far he would take this. They moved aside as much as they could to permit him to pass. And in fact, when Adam reached the edge at last, one