Heaven, Hell & Room Service

Chapter 2: Getting to Know You

"I can't believe you saw her!" Adam's voice was edged with exasperated annoyance.

"I didn't mean to," Neil assured him, looking uninterestedly down at his bowl of untouched porridge. "It just sorta happened."

"Yeah right!" Adam clearly didn't believe his friend on this one. Truthfully, Neil wasn't sure if he believed himself on this one.

"You gotta admit boyo, it sounds kinda fishy," Tommy the Tooth added from the other side of the table. "Tellin' Adam here not to go and then cruisin' the elevator yourself."

"I wasn't cruising anywhere! I was throwing out cans!"

The Countess Skvirsky piped up. "That's how Dimitri and I first met you know, except it wasn't cans, it was a bag of horse shit."

"Great." Neil said flatly.

"I just don't see why I couldn't have come with you. Loveable geeks make pretty damn good wing men," Adam insisted.

"I didn't need a wing man because I wasn't trying to pick her up! I was throwing out cans!"

I know what you're thinking. Of course he was trying to pick her up, he had blood rushing to select body parts! Right? Well, through the wonder of fiction, we can see what happened for ourselves; so let's flashback to the night before, and watch the encounter for ourselves. Remember, Neil drops cans in recycling, elevator door dings and opens, and...

"Oh, hello," the mystery woman says.

"Hi," is Neil's pathetic response. "Are you moving in here?"

"I suppose so," she answers, her voice is softly sweet. "I'm glad to see we still care about recycling in the Afterlife. "

"Well most don't, but I've always been a big fan of that whole three R's thing.," Neil comes out with next. "Whole three R's thing? Man that was lame!" he said to himself two seconds later.

Despite the lameness, she laughs...a bit. "I'm Emily."

Neil shakes the extended hand. "Neil, nice to meet you."

There was an awkward pause. "Well, I should go and get settled in I guess."

"Right—ya, you probably had a long trip. See ya 'round."

"Bye." She walks away. And that was it. Was Neil flirting? I'll leave you to be the judge. All that Neil knew was that afterwards he felt like a dweeb.

Now back to our present scene, and the introduction of a new character who will carry a significant supporting role from this point on. His name is Hewitt, and he is the activity director of Hell. By way of description I will offer the following three items. He is fantastically over the top, he is as charming as the devil (having learned from the man himself) and he always wears a bright red suit. Oh, and one more thing, he once dated the angel Gabriel, talk about awkward Every morning, he comes by the breakfast room and signs residents up for a wide variety of activities. He then runs said activities with the help of Paco, his lesser demon assistant..

He walks over to the table where Neil, Adam and company are sitting. "Morning all!" he says brightly. They greet him, though not as brightly. "Tonight you can either go to a movie night run by Paco or the always popular satanic sewing with yours truly."

"What's the movie?" Adam asked.

"It's a good one! City of angels, Meg Ryan, Nicholas Cage, you know. The big boss man appreciates the irony."

"I'm in, she is such a fox," Adam mused, a big grin on his face.

"Great to hear! I'll just pass around the clipboard and you can just sign right on up. Please print legibly though guys, Paco and I understand tongues, not hieroglyphics."