A Dream: Bowels of Hell

So the dreamer dreamed:

There are anterooms in this world which to man, that is living man, are invisible, the places of spirits who’ve not settled. Such is one at the mouth of Hell which heated by that rising, toxic smoke of eternally consumed flesh is called Reason. And so it is that souls, before entering Hell—are they then damned, or had they hope even at the jaws of Satan?—are sensible of all the facts. There is a hard way presented, the end thereof the desire of all, but immediate to their location is the plummeting darkness, an abyss obscured by that belching smoke. They have no way to know, but hot debate is always found among the sorry few who enter that place called Reason.

And so I dreamed that not one in this room wanted to go down, to fall into that pit below which was so narrowly escaped. They had all been there, been in Hell, and had clawed their way to this sanctuary, this anteroom, this middle place. And a dispute arose, one against a multitude, whether they should go right or left—or so I fill in the disagreement, for the cause was not clear in the dream say that is was of an obvious import, that is it was of no importance at all.

Then it was in the dream that each side, with perfectly clear reason, refuted the other. And all agreed upon the logic, for all were in that place given a perfect faculty of thought, an inexhaustible mind capable of pursuing every idea as far down as reason could take it. And after heated deliberation, both sides agreed that they were wrong; so it was the only compromise possible was made.

Had it been, I thought, that they would just separate, let every man go his own way, then perhaps their fate would have been different.

Yet it was with great clarity my vision showed me what happened next: The floor of that room opened, reality compelled by their reason, and I saw that Hell was a great contorted river of bowels, opened that I might see what awaited these damned souls. They leapt into Hell, sure of their reason, and were absorbed as an infinite swell of little fingers covered them, touching every hidden and intimate crevice of their bodies. And they drowned in the flood of fingers, absorbed into those intestines.

So I dreamed.