Twelve noon.  

I stood next to an off-white plaster rumpled wall, its tiny ridges throwing shadows against the stark fluorescent light overhead. I should have been in class joking with Luigi, enhancing my new found fame.

A hallway stretched out to my left, leading back out into the foyer and daylight. Should be anywhere but here, next to the Door. Thirty centimeters to my right it stood, filling up the hallway with its forbidding presence, dark with age and layered varnish. A carved relief of ivy leaves curled and crawled around the edges before constricting the embossed shield in its center. Tiny, hair-line cracks ran across the surface of the enameled badge, splitting the painted black Bible in half, fracturing the silver sword across it before disappearing into the mountain displayed below. Underneath the mountain scrawled Latin words, like some subterranean creature, unknown and ignored.  My black shoes were scuffed and dusty.

One foot at a time, I rubbed them against the back of my trouser legs. The carpet was the color of dried blood, except for where I stood.

When Luigi told us about them we were amazed. Sure, we had heard the scuttlebutt from others, who had heard from a friend, who had a friend who had seen them. But this was the first time hearing from a witness, and our ears bent forward with the telling while Luigi's stature grew, becoming large and powerful.

I wanted that. To brag that I had seen them, to watch my friends as their eyes grew wide, their mouths dropping to form O's like ours did when Luigi first told us.

The carpet at my feet was bald. I wondered how many boys had stood where I did, scuffing the carpet, dreading the moment when the Door would open.

It was hot. Sweat trickled down my back, staining my crisp white shirt. An itch developed in the small of my back. I remained still. 

Don't scratch, ignore it, I told myself. The sweat crept down my back, like a bloated tick looking for ripe flesh. The image repulsed me and I squirmed, rubbing my back against the rough plaster wall.  Abruptly, the door handle began to turn. I snapped back to a position of attention and stared straight ahead.

They were huge, big and round like melons. Two of them, bouncing and jiggling with every movement of Mrs. Hoffman as she disrobed to take a shower. She was the girls' Physical Education instructor and the wet dream of every boy in school. They must have been as large as two soccer balls. I could even see the blue veins beneath her milky skin as those ponderous globes rolled back and forth.

I must have breathed too hard because she turned toward the window. I had never noticed before but she had the bluest eyes.

The hinges creaked slightly, as if the weight of the Door was almost too much to bear. The Door swung open, unbarring the portal to Gehenna. Standing in the doorway stood the devil, dressed in a three piece suit, a clipboard in one hand, a cane in the other.

"Ah, Mr. Beckley. Enter. You know the routine," he said, motioning toward his desk. "Assume the position."