The story goes: Isaac Newton first thought of the theory of gravity when an apple fell on his head. My story is similar, though I made no such discovery. My story begins on a simple day, not too cool, and not too hot. I sat beneath a shady tree for an afternoon siesta—book in hand. I was just starting to doze off when I was awakened by a soft thud to my right—an apple. It seemed odd to me that I hadn't noticed the fact that the tree I sat under was an apple tree, but I took it as a blessing and devoured the apple gladly…
It isn't long before I wake up in a jolt. I look around to realize my surroundings have changed. I'm on a bench in a city—a city I don't recognize. I stand up, mortified. I walk to the edge of the sidewalk and look around. There are Massachusetts license plates everywhere. A Starbucks across the street. A McDonald's about a block away. I still don't recognize where I am until I turn around to see the gigantic hotel in front of which I awoke. "The Tipton", reads a green canopy. I fearlessly walk up the steps where a nice Hispanic man greets me.
"Hola, señor, my name ees Esteban Julio Ricardo Montoya de la Rosa Ramírez," he greets me with a short bow of his upper torso. I smile and nod as I wait for him to continue. A few horribly silent seconds pass before he speaks again, "How can I help you today?" I hesitate, unsure how to respond.
"I just got here, do you think you could show me around?"
"Of course, señor," he smiles and opens the door for me. I look around in awe as I enter. It's The Tipton, the real, actual Tipton.
"It seems my boss is busy at the moment, señor. Stay here and I will find you someone to show you around." I look behind the desk to see a short African American man—Mr. Mosby. Seriously? Mr. Mosby? I stare in awe and disbelief as I slowly come to the realization that everyone around me was a Disney character.
I saw Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Mitch Russo, and plenty of people I recognize but don't know the name of. My amazement was interrupted by Mr. Mosby raising his voice at the check-in desk.
"PLEASE, ma'am. Calm down and take a seat. We're having a lot of traffic recently, what with Disney acquiring Lucasfilms, and all." He motions to a dining room, and sure enough, I see Ewoks and Jedis and Storm Troopers standing around, waiting for God knows what.
"But you don't understand, I'M NOT EVEN FROM A DISNEY MOVIE!" the woman at the desk is obviously not happy.
"I'm terribly sorry, miss, but I cannot help you right now. Please have a seat."
The woman grunts and sighs all at the same time out of frustration. She turns around and walks past me. I recognize her immediately—Anastasia. I turn back and start to approach the desk when I feel a slight tugging on my pant leg. I look down to see a small, familiar hornbill at my side—Zazu, from The Lion King.
"Good afternoon, I am Zazu, your personal majordomo, at your service," he says royally as he bows, his wings tucked dramatically in front and behind him. "How can I be of assistance to you today?"
"I'm not… really sure… how I got here. Or how to get out. What even is this place?"
"Why, this is the Tipton, the finest hotel in Boston. Otherwise known as Limbo, the sort of neutral ground of the afterlife."
"The afterlife? But what—" I turn around towards the front door. The city has disappeared into a shroud of mist. Nothing is recognizable. "Why am I here? I don't belong here. I'm not dead or—or even a Disney character?"
"Well, that seems to be a problem, then. A mistake on our part. Terribly sorry."
"So I've noticed. But I don't really care where I am, how do I get home?"
"That… would be a more complicated answer. You see, there is no way home."
"What?" I cry, so loudly that the bird jumps back in fear.
"I mean, no practical way… of course there always is…" he trails off.
"There always is… what?"
He looks over his shoulder at a block door—faded and beaten up. He gulps.
"The stairs."
"Listen, I don't care what I have to do, I'd just really like to get out of here. I can hear the music playing from the other room and I swear to God, if I hear 'It's a Small World' one more time—"
"No worries," he interrupts, "I'll get this sorted out immediately." He flies off to the desk and whispers something into Mr. Mosby's ear. His polite smile drops, and Zazu points towards me. They both look at me, and then towards the door. Mr. Mosby pulls a king ring out and holds it in front of Zazu.
I can hear him from where I stand, "Please, no, anything but that!" But Mr. Mosby is unmoved. Defeated, Zazu comes back, keys in his beak, and begins to escort me towards the stairs.
We pass a hallway, in which I can clearly see an elevator.
"Why don't we just use that?" I ask, pointing towards it.
"Have you ever heard of the Twilight Zone, sir?" he says, fumbling with the keys. Vague, distant memories enter my mind as I hear a faint, horrid screaming emerge from that hallway.
"A bit of help, please," he says, holding out one key, "opposable thumbs are the bane of my existence, I swear."
I unlock the door and push it open—it is warm and damp and musty. It feels and smells like someone set fire to a library in a rain forest. It is dark, illuminated solely by the bright red light of a sign that says,
"Welcome, foolish mortals, to Walt Disney's Hell."
"Hell?" I ask, as the door slams behind me.
"Ah, yes, Disney Hell. I should have mentioned it before, but, seeing as the door is closed already, there's no choice in turning back."
Appalled and terrified as I am, there's no use arguing with it. I follow him down the dark, dirty stair case.
"Hold on to that keyring, it will come in handy," he advises me, perched on the handrail. "Do you mind if I perch on your shoulder? It would be much harder to get separated," he says, and I welcome him reluctantly. The stairs stop suddenly, and through the darkness I can just barely see the outline of a doorknob.
"This is it, the first floor of hell."
I step in. It is dark, but light enough to see, and what I do see, I see plenty of. In fact, I'm seeing double—no, quadruple—the whole room is a gigantic mirror maze.
"This is where they put those who are too vain for their own good." I take a step in, and hear a crunch under my shoe. "Ah, yes, I'd recommend keeping your shoes on for this one, a bit of glass on the floor." Sure enough, the ground is covered in shards of glass. I look up to see someone off in the distance. I squint, trying to see through the dark.
"Take out the keyring, there's a flashlight on it."
I do as he says, and illuminate the person—or, llama, rather—in front of me. I recognize him as Kuzco, from the Emperor's New Groove. He crawls around on the floor, looking at himself in the mirrors. On his back is a large object; it's hard to make out what it is exactly, but it is obviously heavy.
"They were full of themselves in life, and now they've nothing to look at but themselves," he pauses, shaking his head. "There's a laser pointer on there also. It should help us through here."
On the way out, we pass a few more people—Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, moaning endlessly, whining and complaining, and the Queen from Snow White. I suppose she was not the fairest of them all. We reach a door finally. I open the door with a key, careful to lock it behind me, and continue down the stairs.
When we come to the second floor, the room looks fairly normal. It is well lit, well decorated, and completely empty. Opposite the door is the same elevator I saw in the lobby.
"Was that it?" I ask Zazu, hopeful and optimistic.
"Oh no, sire, that was just the beginning."
"Did you just call me sire?"
"Sorry, sir, force of habit."
"So, what exactly is this room?"
"This is the second floor of hell. For those who envied others in life, and let it consume them."
"But… there's no one here?"
"Wait for it." He says, listening intently. Sure enough, a minute or so later, the same bloodcurdling screams I heard earlier erupt from across the room, approaching slowly, then quickly, then ending in a deafening crash.
My eyes widen. "What was that?"
"It was the elevator. The Tower of Terror. It takes them all the way to the top. All the way up to heaven. The doors open, letting them get just a mere glimpse of the paradise they could have had, and then… they fall." I let this sink in for a short while.
"Who's in there?" I ask finally.
"Drizella and Anastasia Tremaine, to name a few. Cinderella's evil stepsisters."
"I see." We stand there in uncomfortable silence as the elevator starts back up again.
"Well now, shall we?" He points a wing to the door.
We move down the stairs to the next floor. I open the door, and a knife comes flying towards me. I dodge it, and stare at the one who threw it. I don't recognize him. He stares back at me, and it is only then that I realize it has no eyes.
"That is a demon, a blind demon. And this is the third floor of hell. Thieves. Take a good look around."
There are characters all around, chained to the wall. The demon throws the knives at them, sometimes hitting, but usually missing.
"They stole in their lifetime, perhaps it was for the thrill of it, and perhaps it was for other reasons. But this is where they go." I look around at the characters for ones that I recognize.
"But, Aladdin. He only stole because he needed to, he was starving! And… and Robin Hood, didn't he steal from the rich to give to the poor?"
"Yes, all true. All very unfortunate. But I don't make the rules. Anyway, we should probably get going. It's easiest to go through the middle, and stay low."
As we descend the next flight of stairs, I hear a noise. It's almost indiscernible at first: it sounds human, then inhuman, then familiar, and then unfamiliar. But it is most certainly yelling and screaming.
"Now, I must warn you. This next floor might be a bit… bloody. This is where the greedy people go. I think the rest can vouch for itself."
I open the door reluctantly. The roaring of screams is painfully loud. I survey the room first, noticing a grid pattern, with many little pits in the ground. I stand over one and look in. I shine the flashlight to see infinite spots of black and white. I look closer, and I see red. Blood red. For just a second, the sea of black and white breaks, and a desperate Cruella DeVille bursts to the top, gasping for air, and looking into my eyes pleading for me to help her. I realize what is happening now—those spots are Dalmatians. And they are eating her alive.
I quickly move on to the next pit, where I see Captain Hook being gnawed on by an alligator. I feel my stomach turn, and I walk on to another to quench my curious mind. This time, I don't recognize the person, but he is being pushed around and gored by angry deer with large, intimidating racks.
"Who is that?" I ask Zazu, who is looking disdainfully down into the pit.
"No one really knows his name for sure, but he is informally known as simply Man. He killed Bambi's mother."
I shake my head in shame and walk way from the pits. I'd seen enough. I was done.
"How much farther do we have?" I ask as I unlock the door.
"We're already halfway there."
I groan as we continue down the stairs.
"This next room, I'm afraid, is impassable. So the stairs simply continue."
"Why is that?"
"Because it is endless fire and suffering. Those who lusted in life. Their hearts burned unjustly, so now their bodies do as well. You'll probably know Maid Marian, and of course Jasmine."
"They? Lust?"
"Jasmine seduced Jafar. And Maid Marian was practically a prostitute! She offered a kiss from her as a prize for a contest. If that's not indecency, then I don't know what is."
I decide not to argue. I can feel the heat coming from the door as I pass by, and I hear a familiar voice from inside.
"OH, MY GOD! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"
Judge Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I shake my head. No sympathy from me.
"I should probably warn you now, the next layer we go into, whatever you do, do not make eye contact." I nod in confusion, but keep my eyes low as I enter the door.
In the center of the room lie two near identical snakes.
"Sir Hiss, henchman of Prince John. And Kaa, from the Jungle Book."
They are tied together near their tails, and at each end the room sits a single mouse.
"They misused their powers in life—their power of hypnotism—and now, their power over each other, or lack thereof, will cause their ultimate suffering."
They both wriggle towards their respective ends of the room, forever in a game of tug of war with no winner.
I step over them and walk by, hoping they don't notice me.
As I come to the bottom of the next flight of stairs, I hear a loud scream.
"OFF WITH HER HEAD!"
"Oh, no," I say aloud as I open the door.
Just as I suspected, the Queen of Hearts sat in the middle of the room. But something was different. She had like, three hundred heads.
"What." I said aloud, all of her heads stopped and stared at me.
"Her wrath knew no end while she lived. And now, neither does her suffering. She's like a hydra—cut one head off, two grow in its place. I imagine that must get excruciatingly tiring for the executioner."
"OFF WITH HIS HEAD," scream three hundred heads, with one single head pointing at me. I decide now would be a good time to run. I make it through the door and out before anyone can catch me. Out of breath, I ask, "Are we there yet?"
"In fact, yes," says Zazu, "The next is the very last level."
I open the door, preparing for something absolutely terrifying. But I walk into the room, and it seems just like a perfectly normal underworld at the bottom of a hotel.
"…I don't get it," I saw, looking around the cave-like room.
"You'll see."
I look around harder and notice two pelts on the ground. One is a cinnamon brown lion's skin, the other… seems disturbingly human.
"I told Scar he would make an excellent throw rug one day. Little did I know how true that would become. Too bad he decided to betray his entire family, or maybe he would have been better off."
I hear the grinding of stone against stone, and the cave door opens. Hades walks in, his fiery blue scalp lighting up the room.
"Oh, well hello there! I didn't know I would be having visitors, or I would have washed my hair!" He says sarcastically, running his fingers through nothing. And wiping his dirty sandals on his throw rugs.
"Well that's preposterous," says Zazu, suddenly realizing to whom exactly he is speaking.
"But, we have a request to make…" he continues anxiously, "you see, this… young man, was mistakenly brought to our afterlife."
"I see," Hades says, "and what do you want me to do about it? Poof him back? What do I get out of it?"
"You just got a new throw rug, I don't see what more you could want."
"What, that old thing? That's old news already. I want something more… exotic. Like a hornbill headdress."
"Absolutely not!"
"Fine! Fine, just take my services for granted, as always. No one ever just comes down here to say hello."
"Well let me tell you, it is not a pleasant experience to come down here in the first place."
"Well good, I don't want you down here anyway if you're going to be so negative." Zazu starts getting flustered, so I decide to cut in.
"Could I please just get home now?"
Hades lets out a long, dramatic sigh. "Fiiiiiiiine. I suppose I could do that." He snaps his fingers and two doors open across the room from us, one showing the lobby, the other showing my darling beloved tree.
"Thank you, we'll be on our way now." Zazu says as he pushes me towards the doors.
"Fine, whatever," Hades mopes melodramatically.
"That's it?" I ask in a whisper.
"Let's hope so," replies Zazu.
We pass by the two throw rugs, and I still can't figure out what the one is, other than Scar.
"Uh, Zazu," I say, "Who exactly is that other … rug?"
"Oh, that's Cole Sprouse."
"What? Why?"
"He betrayed his entire fan base by using them for a social experiment. My goodness, sir, don't you go on the Internet?"
I stop in my tracks, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Anyway, I ought to go now, enjoy your life, don't take it for granted!" He flies off into the lobby, and the door closes behind him. I walk carefully into the other door.
"Don't let the door hit you on the way out," Hades says to me facetiously. I open my mouth to say something, but I decide against it and hop through quickly.
And then I woke up, under my tree. Was that whole thing some Alice in Wonderland experience? Or was I just tripping out like Lewis Carroll after eating a fermented apple? The world may never know…