The Way Fayer

Pyg led Virgil out of the bathroom and down a hallway off the breakfast room. Oil paintings and old pictures of old-looking people hanging crookedly on plastered walls above peculiar-looking furniture. Soon they were turning up a narrow flight of stairs almost invisible in the dim lighting. On the second floor: a left, a right, stepping into a room, out the other side, and into another hallway. Pyg talked incessantly, explaining things in a way hardly sensible to Virgil. If he was attempting to alleviate any confusion, he was only making it worse. Continuing to quote archaic-sounding literature that Virgil had never read, detailing parts of the manor that Virgil had never seen, and speaking of time before the mansion as if it had never been.

“Funny to be leading you of all people through this hellish place,” said Pyg, snorting. “Not that I mind, in fact I quite like it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you Dante’s guide through the nine circles of hell?” Pyg’s twisted smile sent a chill up Virgil’s spine.

Eyes widening. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“For heaven’s sake, you really should pick up a book or two.”

“You seem to keep forgetting that I just got here.”

Pyg hummed. “I do, don’t I? It feels like I just got here too. Though it’s been several days by now.”

Virgil stopped. “You mean to tell me that you’ve only been here for days?”

“Yes but what has that to do with anything?” he said, slowing his pace. “Nobody seems to tell the difference between an hour or a day, a month or a year—it’s all the same here.”

“Wha-” Virgil shook his head in disbelief. “Are we in hell?”

Pyg halted and turned his eyes away from Virgil. “What?”

“Are we in hell?” Virgil repeated.

Pyg turned to face him again, forcing a smile. “Look, I know you have all kinds of questions, and I’m doing my best to answer them. Truly, I am. But one thing you’ll learn here is that it’s better to ask these questions for amusement rather than clarity.” He paused. “I want you to know that you’re safe to ask me anything, Virgil. It’s just that asking the wrong person can get you into loads of trouble. Understand?”

Virgil stammered. “S-so we are in hell?”

“What?” Pyg said again. “No, no. Of course not—well, I don’t think so anyway. It depends on who you ask.”

Virgil didn’t move.

Pyg approached him and placed a limp hand on his shoulder. A drunken pat for reassurance. “I know how you feel, man. I felt the same way yesterday! You just need a drink and a smoke, that’s all.”

“I just need to go home.”

Pyg frowned. “And where is that?”

Virgil sighed. “I … well … I don’t know.”

“You are home, Virgil! This is where you belong. It takes some getting used to, but it’s not so bad.”

Virgil stared at his shoes, avoiding eye contact.

“The only place we can all agree we are not is heaven,” Pyg laughed. “But even if we are in hell, it can be a great deal of fun, you’ll see.”

Pyg guided him down the remainder of the hallway. The farther it went on, the darker it seemed to get. Walls of dark, musty wood that appeared to grow more and more narrow. The light behind them dying of suffocation. A forgotten memory. The light around them, swimming from lamps in honey-yellow blurs like lightning bugs in molasses, soon fading into nothing. Oppressed by the dark. The light ahead, a beacon of false hope in a night of dreaded disillusionment. Predestined for something unwanted: a future longing to be avoided. And then—

“The ballroom!” cried Pyg.

The light ahead suddenly metamorphosed into melting golden-washed lighting all around them. Spilling over balconies that wrapped around the extremities of the room. Over people and statues impossible to distinguish: statues of flesh and bodies of marble. Reflecting the ecstasy of the foyer, but with more intensity and radiance than ever before Virgil had seen. Dancers once more—free-spirited, carefree, and ubiquitous—though wearing different guises. Delusions of grandeur. Absolute reality. Above, a celestial battle taking place between angels and demons of plaster seeking sovereignty over the lost souls trapped beneath them. Prophets, sybils, and saints; kings, tyrants, and warriors, overseeing the party in despair … and rhapsody.

Pyg approached the bar with Virgil just behind him. It was the only place seemingly available for conversation. A handful of thirsty residents sitting along the side nearest them, the bar itself expanding infinitely into the crowd. The bargoers sat drinking elixirs and their poisons, conversations spilling from lips slick with alcohol and rolling in smoke.

Settling into a free spot, they found next to them a heavy-set man, skin blotched with melanoma, and a gray-white beard stained yellow-brown. On the other side of him, a young man shirtless with rippling muscles. His smile said all that needed to be known about him. And those eyes. Lifeless, nothing-behind-them eyes. Eyes to be taken by curiosity of destruction as if it were a new creation, wishing for fire to lick across the firmament above in eternal entropy.

“What’re you boys having?” Pyg asked.

The heavy-set man turned to the shirtless one, expecting an answer.

The young man knowingly flicked his eyes at Pyg. He was the sharpest drunk you had ever seen. “Sodom’s Mirth. It’s our favorite.”

Pyg chuckled. “A cocktail?”

“Something like that,” the young man’s smile broadened from ear to ear. “We’re in Sodom’s palace, after all.”

“Cheers to that,” Pyg said, turning to the bartender who seemed to materialize out of thin air. “We’ll take two.”

Promptly, two golden goblets slid across the bar sloshing a heavy, matching liquid.

The young man finished what remained of his and nodded at the bartender for another. “So, what brings you fellows here?”

“A good time,” muttered Pyg, already drinking thirstily.

When those lifeless eyes turned to Virgil, something caught in the back of his throat. “And you?”

Virgil coughed. “Umm. I don’t really know where to start.”

“You can start by taking a drink.”

Virgil looked down at the liquid, still moving in circles around the rim of the goblet. A sickening feeling groaned in the pit of his stomach. He sipped. “I’m trying to figure out who the hell I am.”

This time the heavy-set man boomed with laughter, causing Virgil to spill some of his drink. He wiped his lips.

“Aren’t we all?” the man said. “That’s the question of the hour.”

Virgil took another drink.

The man continued, “We all wonder first, and then we forget.”

Next to Virgil, something changed in Pyg’s countenance. “How can you forget to wonder?”

“Because nobody can answer the question,” the man replied.

“Well … of course, I know that. But surely somebody owns the house.”

The young man took his refilled goblet from the bartender, nodding in thanks. “That’s a different question.”

“Is it?” Pyg protested.

He took a swig and licked his lips. “If there is an owner he must certainly be a devil.”

Pyg looked at him incredulously. “What brings you to that conclusion?”

The young man laughed. “We’re all just devils who can only be forced by a stronger devil to act like angels.”

Pyg smiled. “You don’t strike me as an angel.”

The young man put a finger to his temple sarcastically. “Then I guess nobody owns the place.”

For the first time since Virgil had met him, Pyg’s face set like stone. “That or he’s not a devil.”