Page 334
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Hell is answered with a labor refusal: punishment may come, but service does not automatically pass to Satim.
The page is compact and wry. Divine judgment is separated from allegiance, so even in damnation the speaker keeps a last form of independence. Its humor works because it imagines hell as a workplace one can still refuse.
Titled 'Thus Far,' this six-line epigram lands its whole force on one stubborn distinction: 'If God sends me to hell / That does not mean / that I am going / to go to work / for Satim.' Damnation is accepted as a possible sentence, but allegiance is refused - punishment does not equal service. The deadpan staging of hell as a workplace one can decline is the joke, and the misspelled 'Satim' keeps the defiance plainspoken rather than grand. Source spelling 'Satim' is preserved.