Hello and greetings from the centre of the Earth

It is hot down here, so please send us a fan, or some ice cubes. With a molten iron core taking up 90 per cent of the available volume, there is not much room to decorate, or even add a mirror to give the illusion of space--the stark reality of life in Hell. I wouldn’t mind a little distraction, like a garden to putter around in, but that would melt and vapourize within seconds here at 10,000 C. The environment is toxic for most species, except bacterial thermophiles, and the souls of the damned. That lucky bastard Dante isn’t even down here, though he was the architect of the place. Excommunicated for being a Bianco, he never made it to heaven, but I guess somebody took pity on him and allowed him a permanent vacation in Limbo. It’s not what’s on your conscience of course, it’s who you know. I hear Charon takes bribes, and ferries you away to the First Circle if you slip him cigarettes. Dante had friends too, he’s buried in Ravenna, and there’s a monument to him in Santa Croce in Florence. I would settle for First Circle--Lust or something easy like that. But I’m stuck here in the Ninth, listening to the nickel oxidize itself outside my cramped dorm room, and metamorphic rock forming from the intense crush of tectonic shelves. That’s worse than any Treachery I did, but that’s why it’s a living hell, I guess. Though, I would do it all over again if I had the chance. No regrets, except for the eternal distance from Him and His Love. That kind of sucks, but hey, paradise is probably overrated, and at least we get Fox News down here. And did you hear -- Lucifer’s giving Rupert Murdoch an honourary degree at next year’s induction ceremony. Good on ‘im I say. Of course Rupert’s an old alumnus, resurrected to punish North America with When Animals Attack and Bob Saget. Nothing like that to scare folks about the afterlife.