Hell in fractured French

Hell, in Fractured French.
Like Alice he had fallen down a hole into a weird world. So this was it, finally had made it, to hell. But it was nothing like he had envisaged, none of that burning in eternal flames; no boiling tar when he asked for a cup of water; none of the Catholic indoctrination of his youth. In fact, strangely what he got was an offer of biscuits and tea and eh...sympathy. No, this was a different kind of hell.
This hell was a group who were talking about their experiences and all in fractured French which he strained to understand. I know it sounds like a gentle kind of hell, like some intermediate language group meeting up as a break from the tedium of knitting and bowls, but the hell was of it was, its subtlety.
For these people, you see, weren’t devils, no, no, they were good solid burghers, some educated, some not, and their horns only appeared when they talked delightedly of this incident or that which had struck them since they last met.
As the self congratulatory reportage of this item they had seen in the newspapers or they had seen on the television rolled out, the hell of it only became apparent when you asked, “How do you know that to be true?” And a more devilish side would show when they indignantly responded, “It was in the papers and on television”.
But being a new boy in hell, unwisely you would persist “...this thing you read about, this latest phenomenon, how do you know it is beautiful?” and you would get baleful looks. “It’s say so here, in this magazine.” “But beauty is a transitory thing, you know Rubinesque women in one century and stick thin models in another...” But the hellish futility of it, as they all smiled sympathetically at this new boy, would make the words die on your lips. ‘And why was all this being conveyed in lousy French?’ you wanted to scream but you knew you couldn’t for this nightmare was ruled over by civilised restraint. You were slow, but you were learning
You see this was a genteel hell, for you were allowed in a very courteous way to bring up what you wanted to say, “You know on the way down here I saw...” but when you would express sympathy for the demonstrators you had seen naively voicing their discontent at Lucifer’s gates, you were immediately pounced on for being a sympathiser with violence, and you knew for all eternity there would not be a recognition that the violence was coming from the other side. It was an awful feeling, just awful, that the violence of silence ruled here.
But come on, enough is enough, you wanted to scream at them all, ‘...all your reportage...on the television...in the newspapers, it is all virtual. Even the bloody language you use is virtual, even you, the subjects you so confidently think you are, it is all virtual.’ But you suppressed your scream because it would have been ridiculous in this genteel place where all they knew and would forever know was the virtual.
So with a mind wrenching clarity it dawned, here you had to play the polite game, the courteous exchange, for it was the only way, you were permitted to ask anything. So you would enquire in that hellishly civil way, “Well...eh what happens here, eh... in hell. You know what do you do with yourselves in the eh... evenings?” You had asked the right question, clever boy, for your polite enquiry brought about a communal glow of self satisfaction.
“Oh, you know, we watch the news on television, just to keep informed, you see, so as we know what is going on. Then most of us have a sherry or two on the balcony and read the newspapers. It’s lovely you see because all of our balconies face the sun.”
“Do they, really?”
And you would think of the occupants of those balconies; billions, trillions of them all facings the sun, all contentedly committing the blasphemy of thinking they could convert the unknown into the comfort of the known. And why is it all in fractured French?
Oh, what a future hell is this to be here for all eternity with human mermaids basking on their verandas in the sun, contentedly thinking they had straddled both worlds.