Dante's Inferno Punishments, Part IV
by Lore Sjöberg

Fortune Tellers
Diviners, oracles, astrologers, myomancers, day traders and people who save their fortune cookie fortunes are doomed to forever walk around with their heads turned backwards, crying tears into their butt-cracks. Dante very specifically specifies that their tears flow between their ass cheeks. Not an image I ever wanted to have poked into my brain, but you have to admire the attention to detail. B

Grafters
Okay, I'm getting really tired of the "buried sinners" motif. Grafters are buried in pitch. And if they try to get out of the pitch, they're torn apart by demons. Come on, Dante! It's only Canto XXI and you're already out of ideas? How about they all have to lick nine-volt batteries while barking their shins on the devil's own walnut coffee table? And they have to wear wet jeans and their ears are being devoured by very angry caterpillars. There's your punishment. D-

Hypocrites
Okay, I'm not sure here whether hypocrisy is a sin in and of itself, or whether it's just that hypocritical murderers are bumped down to a lower level of hell than plain old regular murderers who are completely upfront about their interest in the whole murder thing. At any rate, hypocrites have to walk around -- again with the walking around -- wearing robes which look golden but which are really lead, because, well, if you're not picking up on the irony there I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go. Also, everybody is walking on Caiaphas, presumably because he sang "One thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool" in Jesus Christ Superstar. C

Thieves
The punishment if you're a thief is having snakes tie your hands behind your back. And then sometimes the snakes bite your neck and you burn into ashes and then you arise again from the ashes. And you're naked. Which just goes to show you that one person's eternal ignominious torture is another person's fetish art Web page. B-

Evil Counselors
I just like the idea of Evil Counselors having their own section in Hell. Buncha bad guys from Disney cartoons and bad fantasy literature, clutching their snake staves in their gnarled hands and complaining about how killing all the firstborn males shouldn't be that tough a job, really. Anyhow, they have to spend eternity hidden from sight in flames, which is dull. But the counselors are neat. C-

Next week: Hell's crispy center!