An excerpt from my short story, Wide is the Gate. The story depicts an unnamed man traversing humanity's different conceptualizations of hell. This excerpt has the man reaching the concept of the physical hell, both in geography and in punishment, where the air itself is malignant and the gravity burdensome.

1. The brown gloom hides the silhouettes of towers that can just as easily be stone and rusted
metal battlements carved out of the city. I cough, smelling charcoal with the ash, the air getting
heavier, pressing down on me, squeezing every joint, a sharp, stabbing burn in my ankles and
knees and shoulders and eyes. Further into it, I see springs of smoke fuming into the brown fog.
It’s warmer. My skin drips and I taste dirty salt at the edges of my mouth. Flames dance in metal
bins on the sides of the street and in the cracks in the ground, torn open and filled with jagged
black stones that burn bright orange. The forms of shacks emerge from the dust, thrown together
sheets of plastic and wood planks leaning against chain link tied with grease stained rags, crusted
over and dried by the heat, it’s so damn hot. I hear voices, other voices, muttering and spitting
through teeth, but can’t make them out, the air is too thick, dense with ash and smoke. I cough
and my eyes burn, wipe them but the ash and dirt and sweat from my arm make it worse.
Sounds of others everywhere, on the other side of the wood plank fence, in the shacks to the
right and up ahead, maybe some in the buildings that close off this place, but I can’t see, just the
light of fires pulsing and drying the sweat on my face and arms—burns my skin, I fall back,
closer to the middle of the pathway.
Never touched it. A tingling boil stays in my arm. I never touched the flame, just looked, but
it burns.
I blink. Ash and salt. Cover my face with a hand like it does something to make it better.
The air, it smelled thicker, more black than a moment ago—a moment before that I remember
back to—and I see myself standing in the middle of the pathway, between the thrown together
wall of wooden planks and the shack closest on my right, a glowing coming from inside
I cough and blink, cough again, a dry ache in my chest, my ribs stabbing into me
Hard to breathe, the air is so thick. The stabbing in my shoulder and elbows cuts deeper,
makes my arm drop
It’s pushing inward at me, the air, squeezing me
Push back against it just to move
Other voices, whispering ones, lying, cursing and flailing, shadows cast on the sides of
cardboard and plastic houses, little ones
Why did you, I hear from somewhere. It’s close, but I don’t see, can’t make out the shapes
of things around me
Closest to me, on the left, I reach for the opening, a doorway without a door, and the
cardboard bends under my weight, not enough to hold me up and I go forward, catch myself with
a quick foot forward but the movement is hard, I’m heavy and the air is heavy, pushing down. I
have to push myself up to get my leg straight and stand up, a hot pounding in my knee, a pinch in
the weak fibers of the kneecap. Everything is hot in here, even harder to breathe, the inside is so
small I can barely move. There’s a smaller fire in here, burning in a hole dug out of the ground. I
squint through the smoke, thicker inside, trapped between the thin walls, and I cough…I see the
shape of someone else, a person lying in the corner. It’s facing the other way, not moving, no rise
and fall of the chest. I can’t get closer, the fire is in the way, and I cough and cough, try to cover
my mouth but my arm won’t lift up that high, it’s all so heavy.
But I see, past the orange light, the side of its face, the mouth hanging open, lips dried and
cracked, a dark blue. Its eye is open, also dry and crusted over with white. I blink, but it doesn’t.
It lies there, and I don’t try saying anything because
Why the fuck did you—
The voice is outside, somewhere outside, and I turn, grunt and hiss, it takes so much effort to
move. I pull myself out of the shack and look around, back the way I came, forward, the way

2. ahead, covered in a blackening fog. I see nothing and no one but shapes hidden by the air,
shambling just beyond where I can see
I go after them, each step concentrated on and fought with. An ache grows when my leg
comes up and I carry it forward, then there’s a thud and vibration when I step down, needles
stabbing up to my waist, before the release. Then another step.
More shacks, others walled off by chain link and plastic sheets. Fires burn, and one of the
bins is on its side, flickering. The cracks in the ground are bigger, deeper, and shadows move
around inside, people down there. Light glows from some of the windows up in the buildings,
and the shapes inside look out, stand and see me, and disappear within
Why the fuck
It’s coming from somewhere, it’s here, I know it. And it sounds familiar. I know that voice.
Other voices again, whispering things, like curses, spitting and yowling like something feral
Hard to see through the sweat and ash. It drips from my lips and chin, down my neck. Steam
comes up from the ground and pushes into me, everything swaying in its waves. I breathe it in,
different than the smoke so I try to
But I cough and hack, bent over, feeling myself being pressed and my knee buckling under
me. The steam smells and tastes of salt, and it burns, my throat
God my throat burns, and I cough, but the burning catches my tongue now and I yank my
arm up, takes everything I have and I hiss through my teeth. I cover my mouth first, then shove
my hand in, grab my tongue and rub the ash onto it, let it cake on. Tastes like sulfur, and I
swallow it to make the burn in my throat go away, but it only gets halfway down and I feel my
chest and whole body heave, flattening me against the air
The ash comes back up, spills over the ground beneath me, steaming after it splatters down.
It takes a moment to gather my strength in my stomach and chest before I have enough to pull
myself up, away from the boiling vomit
Try to see, more shapes of others, some close enough to see but they turn and go. Something
went past me, scurrying along, a haze in the steam and disappearing in the shadow behind me
More voices, louder and calling back and forth. Nothing just spoken, but shouted and cursed
and a scream, someone kicking and screaming, dark dancing shapes stretched across the far wall,
the side of the building there, others pulling one, someone, pulling someone on the ground,
shrinking into the cardboard opening. The screaming stops and crying rises with the steam and
the smoke.
On my left, in the shack, someone tucked away and hidden except for the reflection of light
where its eyes are. Looking, seeing, LAUGHING
up
get up
I start to move, but can’t, the weight is too much, the air too heavy and my lungs burning,
almost fall but something hits me, takes hold. I try to reach but it’s from behind, something there,
it’s holdin—
Yanks me back and I hit the ground, a heavy crash and I hear something pop, squeezing me,
can’t kick or scream, my throat is burnt and dry and
I’m dragging over the ground, things around me, above and to the sides, going past and
something hops over me as the shadows fall, away from the fires and the heat but the burning
comes from inside now, my muscles fighting to move, ripping themselves, and the flesh on my
back scratching and tearing on the rock and glass
you fucking did it

3. you beast
no this isnt
cant i couldnt not me
They’re over me, huffing hot breath
I want to breathe I need to
hitting me, stomping, sticks and rocks and feet and the snap of something long and leather,
the weight of the air throwing it all down on me, knives of heat slashing through me, flesh
splitting open, a coldness pouring out, the crack of bones, screaming inside but only sounds of
my body giving to the beating, a quick snap on my face, my nose bends and fills with liquid,
eyes running red