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Section 2 Entry 0001. Date: 2003 September 01 Monday.
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Today a new fish showed up at work, a guy by the name of Rumsfeld. So of course I wondered if he was THE Rumsfeld, but he's not. That's one of the things which annoy me about Hell: you never get to meet any really famous people. I don't know why. Maybe it's just statistics, you know, they're thin on the ground. Famous people, I mean.
Anyway, it turns out that our Rumsfeld is just some toenail doctor (he told me the technical name from this, but I've forgotten it) from Apasplat, which is in North Dakota, a place which I think I can hazily locate on the map, maybe, but then again maybe not.
The Big Boss asked me to show Rumsfeld around on account of the fact that he'd been assigned to the cubicle right next to mine, Cubicle E3-772-KY11, the one with all the bloodstains.
Anyway, we're walking to the cubicle, and Rumsfeld is looking around with these really big goggling eyes, taking it all in, when someone from overhead says "Hi!" Rumsfeld looks up, squawks, flails his arms around and then falls over.
"Are you all right?" I said.
Rumsfeld couldn't speak. He was pointing upwards, jabbing upwards with his finger, speechless. I glanced upwards, but there was nothing up there but Harry.
"Have you heard the one about the nun, the penguin and the Dali Lama?" asked Harry.
I didn't bother replying. Whatever's been done to Harry, he no longer makes sense. You get the joke without the punchline or the punchline without the joke, that kind of thing. Consequently, nobody bothers talking with him any more.
"Would you get up?" I said to Rumsfeld, who, annoyingly, was still lying on the floor.
"But he's - he's - "
I was too tired to explain, and perhaps that's why I did what I did. I kicked Rumsfeld in the ribs. Quite hard. Immediately I'd done it, I was shocked at myself. I quailed, looking around, expecting the Big Boss to come roaring down on me and tear off a leg, or something like that. But nothing happened, except that Rumsfeld got to his feet.
"Come on," I said.
Astonishingly, at that point, Rumsfeld started to cry. The tears just came blubbering out of him.
"Oh, do get a grip!" I said, intensely annoyed.
But it just got worse from then on, and it lasted all day, adding teeth to the saying (I don't know who said this, but it's true) that Hell is other people.
Section 2 Entry 0002. Date: 2003 September 02 Tuesday.
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This morning I was hard at work, making good progress on sorting out the mess that Borbatif made of the Caliban Acquisitions business, when my thought processes were interrupted by the most astonishing screaming coming from the cubicle next door. Next door, of course, is Cubicle E3-772-KY11, now inhabited by the new fish, Rumsfeld.
I decided to ignore the screaming - if you went running to see what was going on every time someone screamed, you'd never get any work done - but it just went on and on and on. There was a hysterical edge to it, like a woman screaming at the sight of a large cockroach or something like that.
Finally, exasperated, I went to see what was going on. I found that Rumsfeld had been bailed up in his cubicle by a nebber demon, one of the bright-red infant-sized ones, complete with pointy pitchfork. The nebber demon was jabbing at him with the pitchfork, and it had done serious damage. Rumsfeld was bleeding in maybe three dozen places.
Anyway, I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall off the wall and sprayed the nebber demon. It shrieked and fled, dropping its pitchfork. I scooped up the pitchfork.
"Let me give you a hint," I said. "If someone starts jabbing you with a pitchfork, don't just stand there! You got to do something!"
I expected a coherent response, but, instead, Rumsfeld started blubbering again. He spent the rest of the day sitting in his cubicle weeping and moaning. If he carries on like that, he won't meet his Effort Quotas, and then he'll really be in trouble.
The good thing about Hell - and the place does have its good points, don't get me wrong - is that there's no compulsion to succeed at anything. In fact, it's pretty much out and out impossible to succeed, particularly if you're working with software which crashes as often as ours does, presenting you with the Red Screen of Death fifty times a day.
But you do have to make an effort. Otherwise you're in trouble. And I mean big trouble. Like Harry, still embedded in the ceiling fifty years after the Big Boss kicked him up there, stuck there with barbed wire snakes sawing their way in and out of his body.
On the way home, I dropped by at Kamikaze and sold the pitchfork to Doctor Fantasy, the heroin addict who runs the Trashed News junkshop. There's a souvenir market for that kind of thing, don't ask me why.
Section 2 Entry 0003. Date: 2003 September 03 Wednesday.
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"You're torturing me!" said Rumsfeld.
This at lunchtime, at the cafeteria. I looked at him in astonishment. I'd been making a special effort to be nice to the guy, to help him adjust to the situation. And now he was accusing me of - of torture? It didn't make sense.
"What are you on about?" I asked.
"This!" he said, pointing to the gloopy bowl of off-white slush sitting in front of him. "You told me this was food! It's vomit!"
"It's tofu," I said. "It's a highly nutritious food made from soy beans. Millions of Japanese people eat it and love it. Hitler had plans to feed the German army with it."
Having said that, I started to suspect that I'd misspoken. Hitler's plans, if I remember correctly, involved natto, a particularly vile substance - decayed soy beans dripping with the gelatinous strands of their self-destruction.
However, it really makes no difference. Whether we're talking tofu or natto, this stuff is supremely healthy.
"It's good for you," I said brutally. "Stop whining and eat up."
Section 2 Entry 0004. Date: 2003 September 04 Thursday.
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"Do you get paid extra for tormenting me?" asked Rumsfeld today.
This attack came with no warning, out of nowhere. And I found it hard to handle, because, as I see it, he's the one who's tormenting me, him with his endless screaming and wailing and all the rest of it.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
This was in the cafeteria, at breakfast. Because of a big rush on a special no-warning project, the Wormways One Rectification Project, the Big Boss had forced us to work right through the night. No going home, no sleep, and so there we were at 0630, eating a nutritious breakfast of cold raw worms and sawdust (the sawdust is a valuable source of extra roughage).
And, actually, I was feeling pretty good with myself, because for once we'd succeeded. We'd taken that Wormways One Rectification Project and we'd eaten it alive, so to speak, and I was basking in a warm glow of satisfaction, right up until the moment when Rumsfeld started yammering in my face.
"You're always on at me," said Rumsfeld. "Like that timesheet stuff."
"Well, if you don't account for your time, you get in trouble, and your demerits are our demerits. You screw up badly enough, you could put the whole department in trouble."
This is a bit of an exaggeration. Even so. We're supposed to account for our time in ten-minute increments, and, if we don't, there are Consequences. I was only doing Rumsfeld a favor by pushing him to get his paperwork in order.
"I bet you've done something horrible," said Rumsfeld. "I bet that's why you're in Hell. I bet you're a - a child molester or something."
This made me uneasy. Of course, we're not in a jail, so the world doesn't run according to jailhouse conventions. Even so. I remember, all too clearly, how, just the other day, I kicked Rumsfeld. I never imagined it was possible to do that. Certainly I never imagined that it was possible to do it and yet get away with it.
The good news is that I do seem to have gotten away with it. The bad news is that, if I can kick Rumsfeld and get away with it, then it logically follows that other people can kick me. And I don't like the direction Rumsfeld's nasty little mind is starting to work in.
"I don't know why I'm in hell," I said. "Nobody does."
"You're kidding," said Rumsfeld.
"You're not going to tell me you know why you're here," I say.
"Yes, I know exactly why I'm here," said Rumsfeld. "I was an arsonist. I used to shoot people's pets. With an airgun. It was, like, a hobby of mine."
"Well, nice for you," I said.
"What do you mean, nice?" said Rumsfeld, looking at me, all glowering paranoid suspicion.
"Nice that you know why you're here," I said. "Most people don't have a clue."
"I'm going to find out why you're here," said Rumsfeld. "And, once I know, everyone else is going to know, too."
"Empty threat," I said. "It's not possible to find out."
Section 2 Entry 0005. Date: 2003 September 05 Friday.
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Bad news. I got an e-mail from the Big Boss. It just said "For your information," and there was an attachment. I ran the virus scanner on the attachment and then, rather gingerly, I opened it.
Turned out to be a copy of an application filed by one Jason Murgatroyd Rumsfeld of Cubicle E3-772-KY11. He's gone and filed an application using form PP-2279, which turns out to be an Application for Informational Indulgence Concerning the Incarcerative Rationale Respecting a Designated Denizen of Hell.
And which denizen has Rumsfeld designated? Why, me.
I thought of returning the favor. But that would get me involved in a war of forms. And once thing I've learnt is this: as bad as Hell is, if you don't keep your free will in check then you can make it a whole lot worse for yourself.
Anyway. I don't know how long Rumsfeld will take to get what he wants. Maybe forever. (Years and years ago, I filled in an application asking for permission to keep a pet. I didn't get too ambitious - all I wanted was a small cockroach - but I never got a response on it.)
But, whether Rumsfeld does or does not get an answer, the bad news is that he's evidently made up his mind to make my own little corner of Hell just as hot as it possibly can be.
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