SYNOPSIS
Here is a brief section from the dystopian novella ‘Hell’ by Isabel del Rio. The book talks about hell as a major world organization dealing with the obliteration of the human race through wickedness and greed. In other words, it is a metaphor of the current and desperate state of the world. The following excerpt describes the despicable undertakings of those who shamefully work there.
del Rio, I. (2018) Paradise and Hell, Friends of Alice Publishing, London.
“… Apart from fulfilling the duties of your post, you had to prove your loyalty to Hell on a daily basis by doing a single wicked act at the very least. Of course, the more you did, the more adept you became in the ways of Hell, the more you were appreciated. Specific wicked acts were commissioned. You normally had no input as to what the act had to be, although once in a while you could choose what and how to do it –my speciality in Provision of Information had been to appear cynical with projects put to me by subordinates, throwing overboard any good intentions, diminishing their efforts, killing their enthusiasm. Today my wicked act was to speak gruesomely of someone. A simple act really, very basic. Such acts can range from malicious gossip to the top. And I when say top, I mean top. Yes, you got it: shedding of blood and that sort of thing. Yes, inflicting grievous bodily harm, slaying anything that comes your way, organising a massacre, exterminating a whole people. And I am not exaggerating, although such jobs are meant mostly for those in the field and not for us at HQ. You just needed to make a few phone calls to arrange anything from a fully-fledged carnage to putting an end to civilisation as we know it. Committing such acts in the company of others, imbued with team-spirit and a sense of common purpose, as one of their slogans said, was a way of ensuring that you would not feel responsible for such enormities. Up above they were afraid that there was still something within us that might make us want to regret and repent, and that our human nature, however oppressed, would eventually speak up and rebel. But many were cured of any such human traits and had no feelings or hesitations of any sort except those derived from hatred and jealousy and greed. Such inhuman behaviour was rewarded with a diploma explaining all in intricate lettering and with an eighteen-carat solid gold medal engraved with a large “I” for Inhuman, with the acronym “HIH” below that. I always wondered what others would do to me when a wicked act was requested of them. It would be totally unexpected, from the most unsuspecting colleague. And perhaps I might not know when it was done, and certainly not why, or what it was until it became too late. No one questioned any wicked acts; it was not our business to do so. We were simply asked to carry out the deed and were not meant to think about it one way or another. And when at the receiving end, again we said nothing. They knew up above what it was that had to be done. Hell knows best was another of their slogans…”
هذا مقطع قصير من روايتي القصيرة “الجحيم” عن أدب المدينة الفاسدة ( (الدستوبيا). أتحدث فيها عن الجحيم كونه منظمة عالمية ضخمة تسعى نحو محو الإنسان عن طريق الشرّ والطمع.
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