Hell's Breakroom - Episode Two

A Union Mandated Hell Story

The breakroom hadn’t changed. It never did. The lights flickered with the regularity of a dying conscience, humming in tune with the vending machine’s low, ominous drone. The air smelled of burnt coffee, which was ironic, because the coffee didn’t. The motivational poster peeling at the corners, originally showing the slogan "WHY STOP NOW?" had given way to another, slightly more desperate message beneath: "YOU CAN REST WHEN YOU’RE DEAD... WAIT."

A sulphuric coffee pot bubbled menacingly in the corner, sloshing sludge without being moved in a mildly critical way, as though it thought you could do better.

Screwtop stirred his bottomless coffee, jittery and bitter as ever. Deborah flipped through a magazine as though none of this were Hell, and Kevin, the flaming skeleton, sat silently, radiating existential exhaustion so intense that the air around him was murky and the whole room felt slightly colder.

“Have any of you fully accepted that you’re going to fail the audit again?” he asked.

Kevin laughed, his flames chuckling with him. “I’ve been asked to produce a Quantified Pain Schedule for all of my souls dating back two hundred and seventy-three and a half years. It has to be molecularly accurate and signed in blood by each soul.” He threw up his bony hands. “They only invented that metric last week.”

Screwtop held up a finger. “I was told the Union was arguing against Quantified Pain Quotas because they felt it siphoned the inherent power of the torturer and affected the balance of power within the organisation. I don’t know what that means, but I took it as confirmation that the quotas and forms were ridiculous, so I decided not to do them.”

Right then, a bird crashed into the window perfectly replacing a a drum beat in the back ground jazz, died, and fell away. Kevin and Screwtop looked up just fast enough to see the window turn back into a Starburst screensaver, hiding the lush meadow scene outside. Deborah turned the page in her magazine and raised an eyebrow.

“Damn bird. I know it’s punctual, but I swear noon comes earlier every day. And no, I’m not worried about the audit. You know I just fuck my way through them.”

The couch in the corner huffed jealously.

Bubbles entered through a ventilation duct, clapping thirty-one pairs of tentacles and vibrating with excitement. “Did you get the memo yet? Operations audit, and they’ve picked our sub-department as the sample!” Her excitement grew until she began dripping something bittersweet and rainbow–pearlescent onto the already-stained carpet tiles. “Ooo, I can’t wait to highlight our workplace culture! Is anyone else getting their auditor a gift?”

“I’m going to give mine a head,” Deborah said with a smirk from the dining table.

"You do your other paperwork though don't you ?" Kevin asked.

Screwtop shrugged spilling his drink which smouldered on the floor. "Yeh, but they keep telling me off for not handing them in correctly sorted. The thing is, they never tell me how they want the sorted. I have tried alphabetically, chronologically, existentially, emotionally. What do you use?”

"What do you mean, I thought everyone used the same system. Soul number order, ignoring the first seventy three digits. They wont accept them as sorted though unless they are printed on the correctly coloured paper for that soul number," Kevin explained.

Deborah turned a page. “I hired someone to do mine. Their torture loop was supposed to be asynchronous alphabetising, but I figured… close enough.”

“That’s cruel, even for you,” Screwtop said.

“Hey, I pay them. In drinks. No damned souls get to drink. I get my filing done, extra coffee breaks, and a ‘magically’ emptying chamber pot in my office. They get a softer torture. Everyone wins.”

Suddenly, the door creaked open and a figure shuffled in. Clive, a weary-looking human soul still wearing the tattered remains of his mortal work clothes, looked around with wide, panicked eyes. The six pens in his blazer pocket squeaked and shivered in fear.

“Uh… hi,” he stammered. “Sorry, I... I think I’m lost? I was in a meeting, and now I’m here?”

Screwtop didn’t bother looking up from his coffee. “Yeah, that’ll happen. Congrats, buddy, you’re in Hell. Breakroom’s through the wrong door. Always.”

Clive laughed nervously. “Okay… don’t know how to use that. But seriously, I was in a pre-audit review with upper management and then... poof.”

The room went silent. Even the vending machine held its breath.

“You were in a pre-audit review with upper management?” Kevin said grimly.

Clive nodded, voice trembling. “Yeah. They hired me a couple of decades ago to spearhead their efficiency drive. Halved my years in Hell if I worked for them while I was here. But I don’t remember finishing the meeting. One second I’m staring at a PowerPoint slide that says Our Pain Points Are Literally Pain, next thing I know, I’m here.”

A beat passed. Screwtop, Kevin, and Bubbles slowly turned to look at Deborah. She didn’t so much as glance up, taking a long, deliberate sip of her coffee-ish drink.

Leaning forward, Screwtop whispered to Clive, voice low and urgent. “OK, firstly, your suffering contract is for infinite years. More importantly, I need you to think very carefully. Did anyone in that meeting say the words… Let’s circle back on this?”

Clive’s eyes widened. Then he nodded slowly. “Yeah. Actually. Right before I blacked out.”

A collective groan rippled through the room. Bubbles’ tentacles flopped dramatically onto the table, some completely disconnecting from her body just so they could reach. The unborn inside her started to cry softly.

Kevin shook his skull in pity. “Classic.”

Bubbles’ voice softened, almost sorrowful. “You’ve been sentenced to an eternal follow-up meeting.”

Clive blinked, utterly confused. “Wait. What?”

Screwtop gestured vaguely at the endless expanse of Hell itself. “The meeting never ended, Clive. It’s still happening. You’re just… on your scheduled break.”

The realisation crept over him. He sank into a chair, horrified. “But… they said we’d revisit action items next week.”

Deborah flipped a page, deadpan. “Oh, sweetie. You can’t reach next week until the meeting’s over.”

Clive stared ahead, eyes unfocused, as the vending machine spat out a crumpled sticky note: You’re on mute.

Bubbles nudged him cheerfully with a tentacle, leaving a sticky patch on his worn-out suit. “Well! If it helps, we get a half-day off every thousand years. When’s your next day? How long have you been down here?”

Clive’s voice was hollow. “Forty years. What… what do you even do on a half-day?”

Another awkward silence fell. Kevin glanced at Screwtop. Screwtop glanced at Bubbles. Bubbles looked deeply uncomfortable. Even the coffee pot seemed uncertain.

“We don’t know,” Kevin admitted quietly.

Screwtop, Kevin & Deborah explain to Clive that he gets a half day off every 1000 years

Screwtop gripped his coffee tighter, haunted. “We just… sit in here. Waiting.”

Bubbles’ voice quivered. “It’s not working. Though… it isn’t much better.”

The lo-fi jazz skipped. The walls groaned, one section in the corner peeling to reveal a slightly more depressing shade of mustard beneath. The vending machine flashed a single dreadful word:

SYNCING.

Clive whispered, head in his hands, “I should’ve just let them fire me.”

The demons nodded sagely. The vending machine coughed up a can of Hope, now with added Faith.

Screwtop picked it up, noting its lightness, and placed it on the table next to Clive’s head.

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