No Exit

<p class="has-drop-cap" value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">The poster wall said: " It's hard to remember that your original intent was to drain the swamp when you are ass deep in alligators." The poster hung on the bare wall in my supervisor's office. Again, I sat opposite her as she face-palmed frustration with me. Somehow I knew that this was wrong. she hadn't been my supervisor since before I went to grad school. But a pinch on my wrist told me that this hallucination was not only <a href="https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2020/10/22/vivid/">vivid </a>visually but fully tactile too. I decided to play along and see where it went. "OK. What did I do this time?" she glared at me and said nothing. She hadn't been a bad boss despite the real need to put a snotty twenty-five-year-old in place every week. So the glare was a dead give that this was…wait, <em>dead</em> giveaway? Hell! Well, yes, maybe. It couldn't be heaven, could it? Strange Heaven. Into this scene, pranced Joltin' Joe, another boss from later on. " Great, I've been waiting for you…" he then proceeded to rip me several new ones in the manner that he had perfected.The poster wall said: ” It’s hard to remember that your original intent was to drain the swamp when you are ass deep in alligators.” The poster hung on the bare wall in my supervisor’s office. Again, I sat opposite her as she face-palmed frustration with me. Somehow I knew that this was wrong. she hadn’t been my supervisor since before I went to grad school. But a pinch on my wrist told me that this hallucination was not only vivid visually but fully tactile too. I decided to play along and see where it went. “OK. What did I do this time?” she glared at me and said nothing. She hadn’t been a bad boss despite the real need to put a snotty twenty-five-year-old in place every week. So the glare was a dead give that this was…wait, dead giveaway? Hell! Well, yes, maybe. It couldn’t be heaven, could it? Strange Heaven. Into this scene, pranced Joltin’ Joe, another boss from later on. ” Great, I’ve been waiting for you…” he then proceeded to rip me several new ones in the manner that he had perfected.

The door opened. What was next? My former father in law the Cap’n, my ex-wife, the old landlord, or the dog that terrorized me at ten?

Instead, a gentleman in a three-piece suit walked in, glancing first at a clipboard and then at me: “Carreras, Louis – you’re not due to arrive for another ten years- OK, all of you back to your hells. The assignment here doesn’t start till then. In the background, I heard my old landlord screaming as a dog growled.

“OK, Carreras, you can go back to sleep now. Your demons will keep until the due date.” The scene faded, and gray turns to blue as I become aware of the sky outside of my window. A hell where your tormentors were all former nemesis? No Exit?