The House of Pain

Welcome to the House of Pain, says a funny looking man. He is holding a vegetable peeler and shaving off bits of the skin around his knuckles. He sweats profusely in agony. Another woman smiles at me, and her mouth is filled with blood. She holds a coffee cup filled with what I thought was ice but I realize is glass. A black man is wearing a steel contraption on his face. He sits down in a chair manned by a man in a pink shirt. He attaches a hook to the pink shirt and pulls on a lever. The black man smiles at me, and, in one terrifying instant, his face is completely torn off. – What pain are you suffering? The man in the pink shirt asks me. – I have no pain, I say, I’m just passing through. – What do you think this is, Dante? The man asks, pulling a small hook out of his wrist and walking toward me.