i was able to dig up the Canto that i wrote along with 2 comrades back in high school. enjoy. more on hell to come, too.
The Magic School Bus
by Dante Brandley, Dante Lanet, Dante Oliver
Midway along the journey through the semester,
our esteemed teacher took us on a voyage-
a field trip to the dark depths of the universe , where the ring rounded the rosie.
We anxiously took our seats on the school bus
not knowing what lay ahead,
only that it would be different from where we came.
Our teacher explained that we were in for the wildest ride of our lives,
when we inquired where we were going,
she only smiled knowingly and replied thus:
“We are headed for a place were the nightmares never end,
and the mind determines reality with a pocket full of posie.”
We looked at each other, shrugged to ourselves and thought, “She must be kidding.”
The ride started out smoothly enough, but the students soon became uncomfortable
as they looked out the window and saw a huge sign
that stated in large red and orange letters “HELL: Population ___”
Immediately to the right, a population counter was spinning so rapidly,
no slow motion camera could have aided in
counting the number of souls being added to Hell each second.
We finally realized where we were a little freaked out.
Our teacher was so OK with it, we figured she had quacked out
or that the thick smoke had gotten to her.
The bus screeched to an abrupt halt, and a fancily clad devil handed the driver a ticket
with directions to our parking place in the day visitor’s section,
and informed us that we could get it validated at the “Devil in a Blue Dress Café.”
We continued in a parking lot that was only a few car spaces large, most were reserved
for different people, many of whom drove up adorned in black clothes
with pentagrams and goat heads scattered like polka dots over the filmy fabric.
After stopping for a cup of killer mochas at the café, we made our way to a garden of sorts
in the reality that we made up, it was composed of dead rose bushes,
shriveled stalks of yarrow and thyme, yet in between,
Baneberry, star-of-Bethlehem, false hellebore, and scrub oak,
climbing bittersweet, kalmia, celandine, and wisteria,
all thrived in the poisonous soil and ashes.
Our beautiful teacher decided to pluck a flower of the blooming vine,
she stuck it behind her ear, and was surprised to see the
petals turned brown, curled, and fell off in the foul smelling wind.
Our eyes followed the wind, and it seemed to carry us.
We found ourselves in a vast desert.
There were coffins in long rows for as far as the eyes could see.
We were greeted by one John Doe, who, upon our arrival,
informed us that there would be an autograph session after the tour,
not to take any pictures of him without his permission,
and that if we wanted an interview, we would have to wait
a couple more years till his press secretary arrived.
He gave us a tour guide’s welcome to Hell and warned us
that we should keep our hands at our sides, not to talk with any ghosts
we didn’t know, and to remain seated until the tour cars (ironically
enough shaped like school desks) had come to a full and complete stop.
No one paid much attention to him
and Mr. Doe became more and more animated.
He wanted to know why no one seemed to recognize him.
And then he remembered- he was in Hell for sins he had committed,
namely, thinking everybody should know and love him,
for after all, he was a famous and important person, n’est pas?
The ride started without warning, and our esteemed guide laughed and announced that our first
stop would be the unpunished criminals. We heard the baying of hounds
in the distance. We soon saw them.
These fiendish beasts were composed of the stuff only nightmares are made of.
Their fangs were bloody from recent kills and dripped with foam. Their
eye sockets contained no eyeballs, and they had coats that shone like obsidian.
They were the size of small hippopotami (hippopotamus pl.), yet they ran with the speed of
the hellish wind which reeked like an old carton of eggnog.
Occasionally, a shade would dart out and run frantically away, towards
the horizon. We watched in fascination as they would clear all sorts of obstacles,
almost like a steeplechase, dodging, ducking, and jumping over barriers.
Immediately behind them were police, urging the hounds on in pursuit.
No matter how fast the prisoner would run, the hounds would catch him,
and would drag him back, sobbing over his misfortune. One particular shade
was so terrified of the hellish hounds, he would stumble over the line,
only to crawl back over at the barking of a small dog,
resembling a Doberman, but several times smaller.
One of us called out to him in a taunting manner
He weakly glanced up at us, and made it known that he had been
initiated into a gang, and had been forced to steal against his will.
He had not been caught, but his conscience buried him in an avalanche of guilt.
He pointed out to us one shade that ran particularly well, and always made it farther
than the others before being caught. His life was of a juicy nature- he had murdered his wife
and her friend, yet had not been convicted, though the evidence against it was overwhelming.
The desks shot off again as the pathetic shade tried to make his way,
only to hear the warning bark of a puppy, and cried out in terror as he scampered back.
We traveled at a brisk pace, into a building, where the walls were pale
And screams of agony echoed through the empty halls. Many of the students who had laughed
earlier at the comic sight of the chase, began groaning at the blood dripping
out from underneath curtains, which shaded some miserable sight from our eyes.
Cries of, “Breath!” and “Push” were rampant, and we found ourselves in the paternity ward
of a hospital. La Maze breathing instructors angrily yelled out instructions.
Fathers that had passed out were given “CPR,” a swift blow to the abdomen.
Few babies were heard, though. And the ones that did make any noise soon stopped, dead.
Mr. Doe explained that the fathers in eternal labor were those
who had impregnated a woman on earth, and had abandoned her.
The babies they gave birth to were crack babies, who would soon die after being born and reborn.
These were the drug-dealers that had introduced cocaine and dope
to children; they were eternal suffering withdrawal.
Each of the students was beginning to understand the horrors of the underworld.
All conversation in the cars had stopped long ago,
Until we entered a corridor walled in with mirrors.
However, at the sight of ourselves, we began to scream, for the mirrors showed not the outside,
but what was really on our hearts. The vain and conceited were forced to
march up and down the hallways, and the mirrors distorted and stretched
their images so that no one could consider the reflections to be of human origin.
They fainted, and a devil would wake them up to a mirror.
They shut their eyes and immediately the light around them would grow dim.
They would believe that they had somehow escaped their punishment,
and would open their eyes to see if it was true.
And then their eyes would be opened again, and they would be once again
inflicted with the horrible truth that they would never see themselves again.
The rest of the passage is but a fading memory to us now,
is it that we choose not to face our worst fears, that this, may be our fate?
That one should be tortured in ways to justly punish his crimes?
We returned to our school bus, unsteady, knees trembling like a frail leaf in
a cold winter’s wind.
And each one of us wondered, with what could we stop ourselves,
how can we be saved from this nightmare, before
the twig snaps.
And we all fall down…
