text: Hell’s waiting room was a strange place. Cooper sat on too-hard plastic seats, feeling his skin stick and stretch as he sweated profusely. There was a sign taped to the dilapidated air conditioner in the corner. “BROKE :)” How long had he been waiting? Long enough for the room, once empty and unsettling in its isolation--was he even in the right place?-to be filled to the brim with all manner of people. They squeezed in around him, full of their heat, their stink, their sound. A woman kept interminable time with clicking knitting needles, a staccato that skipped and dropped notes as often as she dropped stitches, leaving a haggard trail of yarn across the room. One mountain of a man sprawled across three seats, mouth open as he snored. The room filled with the smell of rotting onions and week-old tuna. That and the garish kaleidoscope wallpaper that hung and peeled from the walls made Cooper nauseous. He tried not to think about how the smell of fresh vomit would mingle in the environmental miasma. The intercom on the wall crackled, everyone’s head spinning to listen. Whatever came out was completely unintelligible, but from the far end of the room, someone stood and disappeared behind the singular wooden door. Then came the sobs and screams, cut abruptly short. The intercom crackled again. Cooper watched in horror as the scene replayed over and over, the room again approaching empty. While every name called out was indecipherable to him, the owner seemed to have no trouble. Even the mountain roused from his sleep to stomp into the room. His sobs were the hardest to hear. When the room was empty, Cooper felt a new fear. What if he had missed something? What if he *was* in the wrong place? What happens if you broke the rules in Hell? He doubted they would be understanding. When the intercom came to life, he bolted to the door. Inside, there was a small man who stooped over his desk, humming and mumbling to himself as he shuffled papers. “...leg bone's connected to the knee bone...knee bone's connected to the thigh bone...thigh bone's connected to the hip bone**...”** He looked up when the door drifted shut. “You don’t look like a Delores,” he said with a fanged smile. “I’m the last one,” Cooper blurted out. “My name is Cooper? Cooper Marks?” The man made a show of shuffling through the folders on his desk, then shook his head. “Not here. You must be in the wrong place.” If Cooper’s heart was still beating, it would have stopped. He could, however, still feel the cold sweat prickling at his skin. “I-I’m sorry, I thought I went-” The man waved off his apologies. “No matter. You’ll just have to go to waiting room 4719. Unfortunately, you’ll be at the bottom of the list again.” Cooper nodded enthusiastically, not waiting for any further instruction before he turned and bolted out of the room. It led him into a hallway that had been a waiting room before. New goal in mind, he set off to find his assigned place. Of course, that *old* room was not for him. He remembered the twisted faces of the people who waited beside him. They had probably deserved a worse punishment than he did. After the weeks it took to find the room, Cooper was almost beginning to feel confident again. Sure, it was hell, but he hadn’t been *that* bad, right? He opened the door. Inside were familiar plastic seats, familiar tacky wallpaper. And handwriting that he instantly recognized.