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says, "Don't."
Unlocked, the door won't stay shut and swings open. Holding it closed, Leonard
says, "Lock it, quick, before some demon comes along...."
    Already, Archer's blue head is swaggering over to Babette's cell; pin
in hand, he's saying, "Hey, sweet thang, I know a scenic spot overlooking
the west edge of the Sea of Insects that will take your breath away," and
he begins picking her lock.
    Leonard continues to pull on the bars of his cell door, holding it shut.
    My door hangs open. I close my hand into a fist around my new diamond
ring.
    Patterson shouts, "You loser, you couldn't find your way across to
the far side of Shit Lake."
    As he swings open Babette's door, Archer shouts, "Then join us,
jockstrap. Show me."
    Dropping her cosmetics back into her fake Coach bag, Babette says,
"Yeah... if you're brave enough." Pointlessly, she pinches her
already short skirt and lifts the hem as if to prevent it from dragging. Being
a total Miss Harlotty O'Harlot, her legs showing almost to her panty-hose
crotch, Babette steps through her open door, picking her way delicately in her
fake Manulo Blauhniks.
    Leonard stoops to collect his scattered pens. He brushes the bits of
sticky popcorn from his hair.
    Archer swaggers over to Patterson's cell. Holding the safety pin
outside the bars, beyond Patterson's reach. Baiting him, Archer says, "You
up for a little field trip?"
    To get Leonard's attention I tell him my theory about behavior
modification therapies versus plain, old-fashioned exorcisms. How nowadays if
any of my friends, my alive girlfriends, sat in their bedrooms all day throwing
up, the diagnosis would be bulimia. Rather than engage a priest to confront the
girl about her behavior, express love and concern, and evict the occupying
demon, contemporary families engage a behavioral therapist. It's weird to think
that as recently as the 1970s religious leaders were throwing holy water on
adolescent girls with eating disorders.
    My hope really does spring eternal; but, darn it, Leonard isn't
listening.
    By now, Archer has sprung Patterson. Babette joins them and the trio is
already strolling toward the fiery horizon amid screams and swarms of black
houseflies. Patterson offers his hand to steady Babette on her high heels.
Archer sneers, but it might just be the pin lanced through his cheek.
    Even as I continue to talk, expounding on my theory about Xanax
addiction being caused by demonic possession, Leonard of the lovely brown eyes
throws open his cell door and bolts after the vanishing hikers. My last only
new friend in Hell, Leonard's scrambling over the terrain of aged Gummi Bears
and smoldering coal. His head swiveling, on the lookout for possible demons,
he's calling, "Wait!
    Wait up!" Rushing after the fading blue point of Archer's Mohawk
hair.
    When all four of them are almost gone, reduced by distance to mere
rule-breaking dots in the landscape of bubbling poop and discarded Jujubes,
only then do I open my own cell door and take my first forbidden Bass Weejun
steps in their pursuit.

VII.
    Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison. Like so many tourists, we've
embarked on our little walkabout to explore Hell. We take note of the general
topography. We view a few interesting landmarks. And I'm prompted to make a
small confession.
     

     
    The group of us skirted around the margin of the flaky, greasy Dandruff
Desert, where scorching winds as hot as a billion hair dryers blow the scabs of
dead skin into drifts as tall as the Matterhorn. We traipsed past the Great
Plains of Broken Glass. After a fair trek, we stood on a bluff of volcanic
cinders overlooking a vast pale ocean which stretched to the horizon. No wave
or ripple disturbed its opalescent surface: a shade of soiled ivory similar to
the scuffed faux leather of Babette's counterfeit Manolo Blahnik shoes.
    Even as we watch, the viscous tide composed of this off-white ooze
seems to rise and consume a finger's width of the ashy, cindery beach. So thick
is the corrupt