Fifty Six : Impervious - Walkies

Impervious

Definition

1 a : not allowing entrance or passage : impenetrable  

b : not capable of being damaged or harmed

2 : not capable of being affected or disturbed

The English language is far from impervious, and, of course, a great many Latinate terms have entered it throughout its history. Impervious is one of the many that broke through in the 17th century. It comes from the Latin impervius, which adds the prefix im- to pervius, meaning "passable" or "penetrable." Pervius—which is also the source of the relatively uncommon English word pervious, meaning "accessible" or "permeable"—comes from per-, meaning "through," and via, meaning "way."

"Welp, that door's definitely impenetrable without the key." I patted the three headed monster dog slumped beside me consolingly. "Sorry Kerby, looks like we won't be able to go for our walk today."

"As well it should be." A voice hissed behind me. I turned to see  the head steward prowling up the walkway towards us, the serpents that made up his hair waving blearily in the early morning sunlight. He might have been a natural early bird but his hair certainly wasn't. He caught me staring and, self consciously, smoothed the snakes down into a more orderly pattern. 

"Ahem." He said. "The guard dog of hell should be guarding the gates of hell - not trying to sneak out of them to go for 'walkies'. 

I scowled. "You can't have him guarding these doors 24/7 365 days a year - it's inhumane! Don't you have work labour laws here?"

The steward (and his hair) gave me a look. "This us hell after all."

"Even so." I insisted, "He'll get sick if he's stuck here with no exercise."

"He gets to chase those the souls of the damned who try to escape - that's plenty of exercise surely."

"That only happens once every other century and you know it. Thanks to all your security measures, most breaks outs get stopped before they've even begun." I clocked the look on his face. 

"That's not a compliment in this situation. I'm telling you Kerby needs more exercise or his health - both physical and mental - will suffer. What kind of employers are you that you don't even look after your employees?"

"Again, I would point out, this is hell after all."

"Kerby isn't a damned soul." I stubbornly continued. "He was born and raised here as a natural resident. Are you saying the residents of hell are to be treated the same as those who are condemned here after committing atrocious acts in their lifetimes? Despite not having done anything wrong and simply living their lives, serving the King of Hell as best they can?

The steward rubbed his eyes, his hair snakes shifting restlessly, and muttered "It;s way too early for this."

"You know I'm right." I said firmly. "The King recruited me himself. What would be the point of hiring me to look after hell's creatures if no one listens to my advice. I was right about the hell bunny's wasn't I? Getting them to maintain their dental health by gnawing on the bones of sinners has kept their fangs under perfect control and now they're no longer complaining of toothache. Please they're getting plenty of vitamins and nutrients from the bones and their fur has never looked glossier."

"Fine, fine." The steward let out a massive sigh. "You can take him for a walk." 

Cerberus bounded to his feet, his tail wagging so hard my hair was blown up around my face.

"But." The steward held up a warning finger. "You absolutely can not take him to the mortal plane. They'll piss themselves silly if they catch sight of him up there and then we'll get no end of complaints from those feathery bastards upstairs." He rubbed his forehead again. "My brain aches just thinking about the whinging we get from them on an average basis - always swanning down here and telling us how to do our jobs and what sinners expect and hitting targets and what not. I mean, I've been doing this job for two thousand years and some wet behind the ears bird brain, who's never even seen a human, let alone judged the weight of their sin, tells me to be more proactive." He muttered to himself.

Clearly, this was a sore point for him. His hair snakes were now fully erect on his head and hissing with some serious venom. It was dripping from their exposed fangs and melting the parts of the sidewalk where it hit.

I stepped back a bit for safety's sake. 

The steward noticed my movement and blinked. He straightened up and petting his snakes soothingly. "My apologies, I got somewhat sidelined in my thoughts."

I shrugged. "No worries at all - I know what a pain in the arse audits can be."

The steward scowled again. Before he could start plotting vengeance on heaven again, I quickly interrupted. 

"So where can I take Kerby for a walk?" I asked hastily. 

"Hmm, the salt plains should be fine - plenty of space there and the souls are stagnant so they shouldn't give you any grief. They're the souls with more minor misdemeanors so they're only imprisoned. They won't be able to interfere with you."

"Ok." I said, somewhat doubtfully. 

"Cerberus will look after you so don't fret." He pointed at a set of stone stairs, carved into the cliff face stretching up above us. "Take the stairs to the fifth floor and then the first tunnel on your right. Keep to the path and down stray and you should come out on the salt plains."

I looked up. It was going to be a heck of a hike. I looked at Kerby. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth and his tail was still wagging ten to the dozen. 

"Come on then boy." I said. 

He was off like a bolt of lightening, already up to the first floor before i had even moved towards the staircase. I started to jog after him, then stopped and ran back to the steward. I dug around in my bag and came up with what I was looking for. I handed it to the steward.

"What's this?" He asked, bemused.

"Coconut oil." I said cheerfully. "It's shedding season soon right? This will help with the dryness. Sorry, I meant to give it to you a lot sooner but I kept forgetting."

I ran back towards the stairs. "See you later!" I shouted back over my shoulder, leaving him staring at the jar of coconut oil in his heads, his snakes looking over his shoulder with interest.

I was right - the stairs were a killer. However, the view at the end of the tunnel was quite spectacular. The salt plains stretched for miles and miles, illuminated by a blood red sun that seemed to be fixed to one point in the sky. Certainly it never moved once while we were there - and neither did the shadows. 

The only thing that broke the unending dusty surface were solitary trees scattered here and there. There were quite a few but whereas in the living world you usually found trees clumped together, here every one stood separately. it looked almost intentional. 

On closer inspection I found out why. They were not, in fact, trees, but rather living people, stretched and fixed into unnatural positions, as if the person torturing them had tried hard to make them imitate lifeless trees. 

These must be the imprisoned souls the steward was telling me about. 

Kerby bounded up to me, his three heads all panting excitedly. the middle head dropped a tree branch in front of me and all looked at me expectantly. 

Except, there were no trees here, were there. 

I picked it up. It looked like a twisted and elongated arm. Glancing up, I could not see which prisoner he had picked it up from. 

Kerby was still looking at me with all twelve eyes giving me the puppy dog look.

Hell was meticulous in its records and judgement. If you were a soul dammed to hell, you deserved to be here. End of. 

I threw the arm as far as i could and Kerby bounded after it joyfully. I smiled. 

Hell, as long as you weren't here to be punished, wasn't that bad a place. I mean, sure, the screaming, howling, yelling, moaning and crying took a little bit of getting used to, but the offices and residential areas of hell were actually quite pleasant and quiet. Demons, again as long as you weren't here to be punished, turned out to be very respectful, polite people as long as you did your job properly and didn't slack off - and were more than willing to lend a hand if you had any trouble or had any questions. My induction week was one of the best and most comprehensive I'd ever had. 

True, I thought the working hours for some quite ridiculous (Kerby being case in point) but these tended to be for the more traditional roles. Those of us with more modern roles stuck to a normal working routine with regulatory scheduled holidays and breaks. Healthcare was also automatically included.

Kerby ran up, returning the now soggy arm to me. I patted him on the left head (I had to keep to a strict rota of head pats otherwise one of them would sulk) and dug about for a dog treat in my pocket. I passed one to each of the heads and he hunkered down, happily chewing on them. 

This certainly wasn't where I had expected to end up after just graduating from veterinary school, But, well....

It wasn't bad. And, I thought to myself looking at the three headed monster dog chewing down on "Mr Mutt's Savory Treats!' in front of me,  it certainly wasn't boring.