If I were forced to pick what the worst thing about Heck is, I’d have to say it’s the morale of the people who live here.

In Hell, the poor tortured people scream and howl and plead and, as exhaustion sets in, suffer in silence. In Heck, however, people whine and gripe and it never stops.

Yeah, I know. This is griping. But I’m in Heck. I’m entitled.

I saw that twitch. I think you’re starting to get it.

Let’s work a little bit more on that contrast. In Haiti, people are so poor that mothers are willing to give their children away to complete strangers on the off-chance someone will feed their babies. That’s Hell. Price of gas has gone up past three-fiddy and that last tank fill-up didn’t leave you with enough in your checking account to pre-order “Metal Gear Solid IV”? That’s Heck.

Brother got blown up by a car-bomb at the market and you’re afraid to go to his funeral because those get blown up, too? Hell. Girlfriend’s cat got into your closet and pissed in your laundry basket again? That’s just Heck, man. You’re sitting at the table next to mine in the Café of the Danged, and because you forgot again, you’re sipping the cappuccino you always order because it sounds better than the latte you actually like, wondering if anyone would notice if you got up to go put a dollop of half-and-half in it….

Do it, if it’ll stop your whining.

I have five jobs. Two of them pay a modest trickle at least once a month. One pays a small but significant lump every six to nine months. One buys me a nice dinner maybe once a year. The last one hasn’t paid a penny yet, but some day.... I work too much and yet I don’t make enough money to eat healthy or exercise, so I’m getting kinda flabby. But. I have a job. I get paid. Sometimes I even get paid to write. I eat. I have enough perspective to know where I am. And, truth to tell, I try not to whine too much.

And yet.

When I listen to news radio in the morning, I catch a tiny portion of my mind hoping for absolutely awful news. Stuff like the last earthquake went all the way to eleven and now there’s a five-hundred-mile-per-hour seven-hundred-foot-tall tsunami doing laps around the planet. Like Israel, Iran, and the USA are involved in a three-way nuclear exchange that has every silo on Earth (that hasn’t rusted shut since 1988) opening. Like someone delivered a briefcaseful of those New Years confetti-poppers stuffed with anthrax to Capitol Hill and no one noticed until they sent all the reps and senators home.

You know. Stuff that says, in effect, “Laszlo, there’s just no point in going to work today. There are much worse things to worry about.”

That little traitorous fun-sized portion of my cranial lasagna wants to crowbar open the door to Hell. Just to stop your goddamn whining.

Because there’s no point to prying open the door to Heaven. If I could shove people through the door to Heaven, that’d be one thing. Instead, though, you’ll just see where you could be if your luck had been better and then you’ll whine louder and longer.

Lemme tell you, the Café of the Danged does indeed have two doors. At least two. There’s no guard on the gates. Never has been.

Walk right on out as soon as you feel you’re ready for something different. If it’ll stop your whining.