Free Remembering Hell by Helen Downing

office. So I sit on the curb and look around with
my new eyes. Better said, I guess it would be my old eyes. Everything is back
to orange, and it’s all drab and depressing again. I can no longer see the
beautiful sky or any of the heavenly creatures that fill it. The tears are now
falling silently, but they are still with me.
    This would be the perfect time for
a cigarette. My mind wanders back to that same old thought. This is about the
millionth time I have longed for a smoke since dying. You can’t get smokes in
Hell, and while you can in Heaven, and many do, I absolutely refuse to go back
to smoking. I quit when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, who I
named after Linda but we called her Dinny. Of course, soon after that I was
dying of cancer. And after that, I spent thirty some years in a place where you
constantly feel like your lungs, along with the rest of you, could burst into
flames at any moment. You can see how the whole romance with cigarettes can
lose its luster. And while I am adamant that I will never be a smoker again,
that doesn’t mean that occasionally I miss it. I miss the ritual, the slight
pull when you remove the first cigarette in the pack, the feel of it between
your fingers, the kiss between breath and fire by a single tether between your
lips, the first delicious draw, the feeling inside your body as you fill it with
smoke like the ambient light of a firefly in a jar, and finally the lovely fog
that surrounds you as you exhale. I can practically see the smoke now. No,
wait, I actually can see the smoke. I let my eyes follow the creamy air to its
source.
    Standing in front of me is the
single most fabulous looking man, no…person, I have ever laid eyes on. He is
tall, about six feet one inch, blond hair with gorgeous eyes the color of
wheat. His skin is bronzed by a sun that no longer shines on any of us here.
His T-shirt and blue jeans hang from his body as though he has been created
wearing them. And while his outfit is modest and covers him completely, it
gives enough hints as to the perfect body underneath that I find myself a bit
breathless.
    “I thought I was blind to everyone
from Heaven,” I say, suddenly glad I’m sitting down, afraid my knees would
buckle underneath me if I were standing.
    “And so you are. Cigarette?” His
voice is as beautiful as the mouth from which his words have just escaped. His
accent is English. Posh and very sexy.
    “You can’t be a Hellion. Not with
those clothes, and smokes, and stuff,” I say, like a little know-it-all.
    “If you insist, Ms. Louise
Patterson,” he says with a cool smile that reveals stunningly white teeth, all
perfect and straight.
    “Not fair! How can you get to know
my name if I can’t know yours?”
    “Because of what I understand of
you, Ms. Sweetness and Light, you tend to go more for the mysterious type.”
    Now, I have to say for all the
years I have been dead, in both Heaven and Hell, I have never been hit on. Not
even once. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m unattractive. In fact, in
life I was kind of hot in my own way. I was used to every kind of guy, from the
tight ass banker to the scumbag who was about to mug the tight ass banker on
the street, hitting on me. But in Hell, no one cares to hit on anyone because
sex is not a possibility, and romance is even less of an option. And in Heaven,
no one hits on anyone because, to be honest, as great as sex and dating and
romance is, it has nothing compared to the bliss of Paradise.
    That is why tall, dark, and
mysterious just threw me. Threw me enough that I actually ask, “Did you just
hit on me?” It is out of my mouth before my brain even knows it is about to
leave.
    He throws back his head and laughs
uproariously. What am I, doing stand-up comedy here? Then he takes out a
cigarette, puts it in the front pocket of my denim shirt, and walks away. He
waves without looking back, as if he knows that I am staring at him walk away.
    “Great. I’ve