Hot Mail 

By Celia Lansing

To: lockwoodm@gmail.com +66600 others 

Subject: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

13 JUNE 2021 7:06 PM 

Dearly Departed, 

Hello, Tiffany Lockwood! We’re so pleased you’ll be joining us on your big day! It’s standard procedure to send you a heads-up before we come to collect your aimlessly wandering soul. My name is Fred, and I’m the lucky individual tasked with sorting through all the paperwork associated with your absolute train wreck of a life. I have assessed every aspect of your mortal being and will, unfortunately for you, be continuing this assessment during your time in Hell. (This is your cue to make a mental note: I do accept any and all bribes.) 

Anyway, before we get into the meat of this email, the real juicy stuff, I’d just like to say that it is an honest-to-God honor that you decided to join our little team down here in Hell. We were so excited when we saw your life’s resume with notable acts such as kicking a woman down the escalator at K-mart, and not to mention that time you poured super glue all over your roommate’s socks. Actions such as these made a big impression in the board meeting when we were hashing out who was going to get you once you were up for grabs, and we’re grateful to have you aboard! 

You may be wondering about how we’ve contacted you! Well, in the event that you’re reading this, which you should be, you’ve realized that between life and death there’s this iffy little in-between moment. That’s where you are right now! You’re undetectable to living humans, and you’ve got whatever you need for the rest of your afterlife on your person. This obviously includes any and all electronic devices required for us to reach out to you. Enjoy this time while it lasts! 

Most souls who reach the depths of despair as quickly as you did (only 23 short years on Earth, wow!) end up in our Hot Damn!™ program. For legal reasons, Hell isn’t allowed to take anyone under 21, so congrats to you for just barely making the cut to join our little family! But what is the Hot Damn!™ program, you ask? The Hot Damn!™ program is a nonexpedited track of intense labor under the guidance and mentorship of a Senior Initiate of the Netherworld (or SIN, for short). You, as well as others in your group, will be sent out to perform menial tasks with varying degrees of painful agony, reporting back to your superior when necessary. How long does this program last, I hear you follow up with? Calculating your necessary years in Hell puts you at a short 420,000,000 cycles of the sun! You’ll be out of here in no time! Can I not, you beg of me? No.  

But what happens after you finish at your Damnation Station and leave the guidance of your SIN, your soul having properly repented? There are two simple tracks you can take from there! You can either stay in the bureaucracy and do your best to climb the ranks, becoming a higher ranking Damned and perhaps even ascending to a managerial position like mine, or you can decide to start fresh again on Earth, soul scrubbed clean until the next time you kick the bucket! Then we can tally up your scores and do this whole thing all over again!  

Anyway, we’re more or less excited to help you discover the rest of your afterlife!  

Best of luck,  

Fred 

heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Official Head Demon of the BAD 

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To: heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Subject: Re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

17 JUNE 2021 4:32 PM 

Fred, 

I’m not quite sure who you are, but I’d like you to know that this isn’t funny. The death of my older sister was absolutely crippling, and I don’t appreciate the casual mockery of my family and the blasé disregard for our feelings. I don’t know who put you up to this, but you should be ashamed of yourself.  

People like you make me sick. 

Sincerely, 

Mary Lockwood 

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To: lockwoodm@gmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

17 JUNE 2021 5:33 PM 

Dear Miss Lockwood, 

I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how to address this. In all my many, many years of working under the Bureau of American Damnation, I’ve never encountered a screw-up quite as horrible as this. It appears our record-keeping demons have made the largest error of their afterlife and mixed up the email on file for your sister with your own. I personally looked it over, and  “lockwoodt@gmail.com” is the email we should have contacted. We will rectify the situation immediately. This one’s on us.  

While words can’t describe the discontent my previous email must have caused you, please know that I am in a similar state of discomfort at being forced to draft out this new email to explain myself and my subordinates.  

My condolences to you and your family for the loss of your sister, 

Fred 

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To: heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

17 JUNE 2021 8:51 PM 

Fred, 

Whoever you are, this needs to stop. Is this Jeff? Are you still pissed at us because Tiffany dumped you at Thanksgiving dinner? It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to keep the façade up anymore; you’ve made your point. Now let me grieve in peace.  

Your email address is dumb, 

Mary Lockwood 

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To: lockwoodm@gmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

18 JUNE 2021 3:00 AM 

Dear Mary Lockwood, 

I assure you, I would never lie to you. Honestly, you weren’t supposed to find out about any of this yet, seeing as according to our records you’re still a living, breathing nineteen-year-old girl, but that’s beside the point. I’ve constructed my coffin, and now it’s time to lie in it.  

I’ve been doing some research into how my predecessor handled situations like this, and I’ve found out that they didn’t, actually! Fun fact, that’s because email didn’t exist when they worked here. However, I did dig up some of our old pamphlets. (You want to talk about some real torture? Try rifling through eight hundred thousand years of musty old paperwork!) Anyway, I’ve attached the PDF formatted documents below.  

SoYouFoundOutHellisReal.pdf 

HowToCopeWithTheUncopeable.pdf 

BeginnersGuideToAfterlifeAttrocities.pdf 

Happy reading, 

Fred 

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To: heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

22 JUNE 2021 2:47 PM 

Fred, 

If this really is all just a joke, it’s got to be the most complicated hassle of a joke ever created. Who writes up 120-page PDFs for a cheap gag? You’ve got a sick sense of humor, I’ll give you that.  

Let’s say for a second that I believe your claim. I believe that you’re a demon from Hell, and I believe that you’re genuinely trying to send my sister an email about the collection of her soul. If you really oversee Hell, or whatever your story is, then you wouldn’t have sent Tiffany there. Sure, she wasn’t the greatest, but she wasn’t a murderer or anything!  

Your PDFs are in desperate need of an editor, 

Mary Lockwood 

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To: lockwoodm@gmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

22 JUNE 2021 9:00 PM 

Dear Mary, 

I want you to know that I never make the final decisions on who comes down here to stay with us after they exhale their last breath. Every day, our representatives meet with representatives from the topside and hash out who gets whose souls based on their actions during their time on Earth. Once they send me the list of names, I run them through the system and let the computer do its thing. Nothing’s personalized anymore, not like it used to be.  

As for your question, Tiffany has been placed into our system for being, to put it lightly, a less than stellar person. Hell takes more than just murderers these days. Your sister made bad choices and accumulated bad credit as a result. We understand that not everyone can cure cancer, but the least she can do is not litter in national parks!   

If it helps you, time moves differently down here. Your sister is well into her years of service, and she’ll be out of here in no time! If anyone would know that, I would. After all, I started out the same way she did.  

Sorry again, 

Fred 

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To: heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

23 JUNE 2021 4:21 PM 

Fred, 

Okay, fine, I believe that you’ve lived a thousand lifetimes down there. The whole nine yards. But why waste your time screwing around with some nobody from Massachusetts? Why waste your time with the emails at all? What if the deceased person doesn’t have an email? Who even checks their email regularly these days?  

Curious, 

Mary 

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To: lockwoodm@gmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

23 JUNE 2021 7:59 PM  

Dear Mary,  

I’m going to preface this by saying that everybody is someone, whether we want to be or not. 

As for your questions, I am delighted to provide some clarity! The Bureau of American Damnation has used email for as long as email has been a viable source of communication with our clients. Of course, different divisions use different methods, but this one has served us quite well for many years now. First, it was messenger pigeons, but none of us are really bird people. We did the whole grim-reaper-coming-to-collect-your-soul thing for a while, but that didn’t work out nearly as well as we had hoped it would. Humanity doesn’t generally take well to strangers in dark cloaks appearing on their doorstep. We upgraded to telegrams when humanity managed to invent that, but we didn’t account for the toll that would take on the budget, and we were told to cut back on spending. We quickly realized we would run into a similar issue with phone calls. Email was just the obvious choice. With the sudden switch to texting, we’ll probably have to upgrade the whole system all over again in a couple of years, but that’s just exhausting to think about right now.  

I will offer you a counter-question, Mary. You’ve spent how many days now exchanging correspondence with me, and for what? If you really think I’m wasting my time over here, why are you wasting yours? I’ve got nothing but time to waste. Yours is slowly running out.  

Awaiting your response, 

Fred 

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To: heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

26 JUNE 2021 1:28 PM 

Dear Fred, 

I wondered that a lot myself, in the beginning. At first, my motivation was nothing more than spite and anger. To be honest, I kind of wanted to punch you in the face, but with words. You were impersonal, crude, and worst of all, your email seemed to mock the death of my older sister.  

I know Tiffany wasn’t anyone special, but she was still the one who sped through our town’s residential zone in her rusty old Honda every day to pick me up from high school. She was still the one who cursed out the other team the loudest during my field hockey games. She was still the one who hunted down information on my ex-boyfriend and told the whole school he wet the bed until he was thirteen when he cheated on me. I know she wasn’t perfect, but she mattered to me. Sometimes it seemed like I was the only one who really felt that. All of that made it so stupidly easy to hate you.  

Now? Well, you’re either the world’s best catfish, or I’ve stumbled across something way bigger than myself, and I don’t think I like either option. You talk about Hell like it’s some horrible, fractured mess of a system, and I don’t feel like my sister is in good hands, regardless of where she ended up. I’m not even sure I believe a Hell could exist, one like you describe or otherwise. Thanks, I guess, for telling me the truth. Or, whatever you want me to think the truth is. It gives me something to think about, if nothing else.  

That said, I’m not even sure that you yourself exist. Maybe I made you up to cope with the death of my sister, and I’ve been spending my time sending emails to an empty address. I’m also not sure if I care about that or not.  

I guess I email you because I’m curious, because I’m confused, and because it’s better than just being left alone with my own thoughts. To be honest, it’s kind of fun. You make for good company. But I don’t think that can continue, at least not like it is right now. I have a life here, and I need to enjoy it while it lasts, or whatever. Woohoo. 

Who knows? Maybe we’ll meet again one day.   

Thank you for everything, 

Mary 

----- 

To: lockwoodm@gmail.com +100666 others 

Subject: Urgent Update on your Condition!  

13 SEPTEMBER 2027 5:30 PM 

Dearly Departed, 

Hello, Mary Lockwood! We’re so pleased you’ll be joining us on your big day! It’s standard procedure to send you a heads-up before we come to collect your aimlessly wandering soul. My name is Fred, and I’m the lucky individual tasked with sorting through all the paperwork associated with your absolute train wreck of a life. I have assessed every aspect of your mortal being and will, unfortunately for you, be continuing this assessment during your time in Hell. (This is your cue to make a mental note: I do accept any and all bribes.) 

Anyway, before we get into the meat of this email, the real juicy stuff, I’d just like to say that it is an honest-to-God honor that you decided to join our little team down here in Hell. We were so excited when we saw your life’s resume, with notable acts such as ghosting a demon from hell. Actions such as these made a big impression in the board meeting when we were hashing out who was going to get you once you were up for grabs, and we’re grateful to have you aboard! 

You may be wondering about how we’ve contacted you! Well, in the event that you’re reading this, which you should be, you’ve realized that between life and death, there’s this iffy little in-between moment. That’s where you are right now! You’re undetectable to living humans, and you’ve got whatever you need for the rest of your afterlife on your person. This obviously includes any and all electronic devices required for us to reach out to you. Enjoy this time while it lasts! 

Most souls who reach the depths of despair as quickly as you did (only 25 short years on Earth, wow!) end up in our Hot Damn!™ program. For legal reasons, Hell isn’t allowed to take anyone under 21, so congrats to you for just barely making the cut to join our little family! But what is the Hot Damn!™ program, you ask? The Hot Damn!™ program is a nonexpedited track of intense labor under the guidance and mentorship of a Senior Initiate of the Netherworld (or SIN, for short). You, as well as others in your group, will be sent out to perform menial tasks with varying degrees of painful agony, reporting back to your superior when necessary. How long does this program last, I hear you follow up with? Calculating your necessary years in Hell puts you at a short we’ll talk about it cycles of the sun! You’ll be out of here in no time! Can I not, you beg of me? No.  

But what happens after you finish at your Damnation Station and leave the guidance of your SIN, your soul having properly repented? There are two simple tracks you can take from there! You can either stay in the bureaucracy and do your best to climb the ranks, becoming a higher ranking Damned and perhaps even ascending to a managerial position like mine, or you can decide to start fresh again on Earth, soul scrubbed clean until the next time you kick the bucket! Then we can tally up your scores and do this whole thing all over again!  

Anyway, we’re more or less excited to help you discover the rest of your afterlife!  

Best of luck,  

Fred 

heademonfred@hotmail.com 

Official Head Demon of the BAD 

P.S. I’ll see you soon. :)