NYT prompts 20020306

It was a dark day in hell. The recently damned gathered on fiery sofas in a flaming living room in Satan's realm. Abdul Alkalimat, former director of Africana Studies at Toledo University in Ohio had only that day been condemned to eternal damnation, after eating an ill-advised, artery-stopping breakfast of chicken fried steak. Nevertheless, he was still in control of the mental prowess that made him feel so clever and pleased with himself through all those years of faculty meetings. He turned his keenly observant mind to the people sharing the room with him. There was a man, wearing a nametag, apparently an artifact from a recently attended conference. The name tag said: "Jason Bram, Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

This put Abdul at ease. On his other side there was a middle-aged woman whom he recognized at Matilda Walzer, author of a recent bestselling book about the history of political mistakes, and again Abdul felt a sense of ease, feeling himself to be, even in hell, amongst his intellectual peers. "This collection [of the damned] is far and above the mother lode," he said.

Jason Bram was less optimistic. He saw the two humanities buffs around him as an insult to his hard-nosed economic background. He spoke slowly, but with an authority not easily wielded by those outside of top financial circles. "If you're going to have something revised up," he said, "that's the one [group] you want [to have revised, given that you'll be spending eternity in hell with them,]" he said.

Ms. Walzer broke in: "You see why we wrote the book," she said. "Otherwise we'd explode," she said, looking askance at the steady walls of flame surrounding them on all sides. "I once spoke to a spokeswoman, from the headquarters of a political alliance that I am not at liberty to divulge," she continued, her eyes darting nervously from side to side, "and, frankly, that source was more than direct."

Abdul leaned over to Jason in a friendly, almost conspiratorial manner. "I remember this from her book," he said. Jason looked at him and leaned away, wondering what book he meant.

" I asked hard questions, I can tell you," Ms. Walzer continued. "And I got tough answers: 'No. The French did not tip off anyone,' that's what I was told. And by god, I believe it." Ms. Walzer gulped, realizing the futility of her reference to god, given her current situation, and opted to end her conversation, close her eyes, and feel the heat of the flames around her seeping into the skin of her face.