Step one.

My internship in hell's infirmary began with a familiar face. I recognized him right away as David Duchovny. He looked the same as I remembered him from my earthly life except there was no happiness in his countenance anymore.
There was a vague glimmer of relief, however. He was moving on from his post as courier for Hell's main entrance for incoming patients--for which he was training me--to an unknown fate. In a job where every day is an eternity, any change is a relief.

"Welcome to hell" he stated plainly in his usual deadpan brilliance. There could have been no better actor for the part. His statement would have been funny had I not seen his eyes when he said it. There was absolutely no pride in his salutation. No attempt to impress. No upstaging. No sarcasm. Hell had robbed him of any of those kinds of delicasies.

I couldn't help but question the odds of me, ending up in hell, and the first person I encounter is a famous actor. In a way, I felt a tinge of privilege of being trained by Agent Mulder himself. That feeling would pass as he showed me the ropes of the job he was relinguishing.

We stood in what looked like a basement trash dump. Above, below and to each side were cement walls. There were no windows or doors. Black plastic bags filled to capacity were stacked everywhere except where I was standing. I could see well enough but there was absolutely no evidence of light.

"What's in the bags?" I questioned.

"Don't mind these" David said as he reached and threw a bag from one pile to another. There was no sense of accomplishment in the task.

I was eager to impress my teacher and jumped in right away and began tossing the bags as he had done although I didn't know why he was tossing the bags from one pile to the other. David simply shrugged his shoulders, turned, and dove headfirst into the bags--leaving me wandering what he was thinking. I was certain of three things. He didn't appreciate or unappreciate my gesture. He didn't care anymore. And if I didn't follow him, I would be stuck in this room, alone, forever. Facing that prospect, I jumped into the closing hole between the trash bags where he had just disappeared.

In the blackness, I felt the bags press against me. They were neither warm nor cold. I realized that I really couldn't feel temperature at all. Something in the bags was moving, squirming . I envisoned blood and intestines twisting around inside. With my outstretched hands, I could feel David's feet moving just ahead of me. At first I thought we were crawling towards some unseen exit at the bottom of the bags. Then I realized that it wasn't so much that we were crawling as it was that the bags themselves, in their gyrating motions, were moving us towards something. There was dread without fear at the thought of where we were going.