I was having a drink out at the Abandon pub the other day, you know, that place out by the crossroads. I was sitting at the east window, the one with the red neon-light sign in it, just nursing my blues with a glass of gin, when I noticed this man over by the bar who was staring over at me. I just ignored him at first, but he kept looking my way with this far-away look, and I was just about to say something to him, just ask him what was wrong, when he preempted me.

"Dante was wrong, you know." he said, just out of the blue like that "It's not advice, it's directions."

I said "Huh?" and then I said "I don't think I know what you're talking about, man."

"The sign." he said and made a gesture to the glowing red sign in the window. "It's directions, it's not advice."

I turned and looked at the sign again, and read it. It was a bit difficult, because it's made to be read from the outside, so I had to read it sort of mirrored. "'Lasciati ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate.' That's Latin, isn't it?" I asked and looked back at the stranger.

"Close. It's Italian. It means 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.' It's a line from the Divine Comedy by Dante. According to him, those words are inscribed over the gates of Hell." He smirked a bit after he said that, as if it was some private joke or something.

I remembered now - we'd read a chapter or two of that thing in high-school. Something about a poet traveling to hell through a volcano or something. "You said he was wrong." I pointed out, somewhat intrigued by the story. It was fun to know what the sign meant and I thought it was rather clever since the bar's named "Abandon" and all.

"Imprecise, at least." the man said and shrugged, "The inscription is in Hebrew, not Italian. Dante probably messed up the translation."

"Oh yeah?" I said and laughed a little, "So what does it really say?"

"'Abandon hope, all ye who seek entrance here.'" he replied, and paused to drink from his cup of coffee.

I thought about that, but to me it just sounded like he was saying the same thing. "I don't get it. What's the difference?"

"Dante thought it was an admonishment - warning people that once they entered hell there were no more hope for them - but it's actually a description of how to enter hell."

"So... you mean, that to be able to go to hell you must first stop hoping?"

"That's about the sum of it."

I thought about it, and it did make a sort of weird sense. "That's a pretty nifty way of seeing it. But where did you find the Hebrew version?"

He replied with a smile that was razor thin. "From the gates of Hell themselves."

I had to laugh and shook my head - his delivery of that line was just so perfect. "Oh, of course. But what were you doing there anyway?"

He gave me a rather caustic look, as if I'd just asked a really stupid question. "I was trying to find a way inside."

There was something in the way he said it that took all the fun out of me, and I realized that I probably shouldn't be prying. But you know me, never can let a sleeping dog lie.

"What for? I mean, why would anyone want to go to hell?"

He made the tiniest shake of his head, as if that wasn't what he had been talking about. "I want to stop hoping. Without hope, hell's as good place to be as any other." he told me, and lifted his cup and took a long sip of the coffee.

There was some sort of twisted logic to what he was saying, but I couldn't quite make heads or tail of it. "I really don't get it. Why would you want to give up hope? I mean, hope is ... damned, it's ..." I sort of trailed off, trying to think of the right word, but he interrupted me.

"Torture." he said, interjecting it at the end of my sentence. "Hope is torture. When your hope never can be, never will be, never shall be fulfilled, then hope is the worst cruelty God ever committed." He was saying this in a very calm, level voice, but he was gripping his cup so hard in his left hand that I half expected it to explode from the force.

"Man... That's tough." I said, because I sort of knew what he was getting at. After Sandra died there was a lot of times when I would realize that I was sitting there hoping that she would walk in the door or that she would be sleeping next to me when I woke up in the morning and stuff like that, even though I knew she was dead. That used to tear me up real bad on the inside, and I got a feeling that this guy had it a lot worse than I ever had it.

He nodded mutely and did this whole conscious relaxing thing. You know, when you can see that the guy is deliberately relaxing his shoulders, then his hands and his arms and starts breathing more slowly. After a bit he said "Yes, it is." and finished the rest of his coffee.

I didn't say anything for a bit, but you know how I am when I've gotten curious about something, and I was pretty curious about this guy by now. "So what's it you want to stop hoping for?"

He didn't reply right away, just stared into the empty cup the way some people stare into their drinks when they're trying to drink themselves away from something. Then he put the cup down, and looked up at me with a really cold, mocking smile and said "Redemption and the grace of God, of course. What else?"

I know I didn't really have any right to pry or anything, but I was still a little annoyed at being brushed off with a stupid answer like that. It had been a straight question and if he didn't want to answer it he could just have said so. So I said, just a little aggressively "Oh yeah? I always though God would forgive everything if you asked."

He put on his jacket with an empty chuckle and said "Not everything. There's one sin the bastard doesn't forgive."

"Yeah? What's that then?"

"Pride." he replied with a small shrug, and then added, "The very first one."

I didn't quite know what to say to that and the guy seemed to have a answer to everything anyway, so I didn't say anything. When I didn't reply, he gave me a thin smile and walked to the door, dragging his left leg a little. He opened the door and looked back over his shoulder, nodded at me and said "See you in hell."

I was going to reply with "I hope not." but after what he'd said about hope earlier, I thought it was best not to, so I just nodded slightly and said "Maybe."