When one travels with the pilgrim Dante through the Inferno as a part of his (Divine) Comedia, one finds a varied terrain with various tortures intended to suit the seriousness of the sin. Indeed, Judas Iscariot along with Brutus & Cassius (assassins of Caesar) are consumed by Satan, who remains encased in a frozen lake at the very pit of hell. This provided a very different image of hell than what I'd grown up with, which as simply a vast pit of fire. But Nature is finding a preference for raging fires as our fitting punishment for our mistreatment of her. Witness the fires in California and now in Australia. I have difficulty imagining (resistance, no doubt) what these particular hells must be like, but Man Booker prize-winning novelist Richard Flanagan, an Australian, provides a useful description:
"The images of the fires are a cross between “Mad Max” and “On the Beach”: thousands driven onto beaches in a dull orange hazie, crowded tableaux of people and animals almost medieval in their strange muteness — half-Bruegel, half-Bosch, ringed by fire, survivors’ faces hidden behind masks and swimming goggles. Day turns to night as smoke extinguishes all light in the horrifying minutes before the red glow announces the imminence of the inferno. Flames leaping 200 feet into the air. Fire tornadoes. Terrified children at the helm of dinghies, piloting away from the flames, refugees in their own country."
Flanagan also finds some gallows humor at the scene. We humans can find humor almost anywhere, even in the midst of hell. I suspect to the extent that we can't laugh--or at least chuckle--at our plight, we're not human. Really, do you know anyone who doesn't occasionally laugh? Well, yes, HIM; he only smirks & that is to express dominance, not shared human folly.
Flanagan:
"The bookstore in the fire-ravaged village of Cobargo, New South Wales, has a new sign outside: “Post-Apocalyptic Fiction has been moved to Current Affairs.”"
