Chapter 5

Brought To You By Misery Inc.

Jimmy ran into the building and gawked at the sight of the room he had entered.

It was an incredibly spacious, stone-cold gray processing room. An endless system of stainless steel pipes were hung from every corner of the walls and ceiling. There were hundreds of conveyor belts, packed with machine parts, products, and boxes. Dozens of huge fiery red incinerators and molten forges set up throughout the room churned out parts and molds for future miserable products. There were hundreds of monster employees stationed at different parts of the conveyor belts, working as an assembly line; each one doing the same tedious, repetitive, mind-numbing task over and over again. Stir, pour, twist, squeeze, screw, tighten, drill, stamp, package. Stir, pour, twist, squeeze, screw, tighten, drill, stamp, package. Over and over and over again. These workers looked like they were on the brink of sanity.

"Whoa," Jimmy gasped, "what is this place?"

"This is Misery Inc.'s central manufacturing room. Yep, all the magic happens here." The monster pointed to one of the molten forges. "You see a product starts out as molten liquid. We pour some into that products specially designed mold."

Jimmy watched as one of the monsters poured a big batch of liquid from an iron cauldron into a mold. The monster didn't seem to have any gloves on and blew on his hands in agony every time he poured and re-poured.

"Hey, shouldn't that guy be wearing gloves? The lava looks like it's really hurting his hands."

The green monster just shrugged. "I wish kid. Management doesn't take to kindly to workers complaining about safety or fairness. You just learn to live with it."

The monster turned to one of the assembly lines. "You see that one coming out of the mold right there? That's soon going to be one of our newest products: The Misery Inc. Anti-Cool Freezer™. It's going into the assembly process now."

Jimmy stood and stared with fascination. Along the assembly line it went. The first monster it reached twisted and squeezed the molded lump into a hollow, box like shape. The next worker screwed on multiple lug nuts and bolts to keep the box intact. Then holes were drilled around the side of it to place hinges, creating an opening door on the front of the box. Near the end of the assembly a giant pile-driver like machine dropped down and coated the box with a glossy, chrome finish. It also stamped a black symbol on it that looked like an evil, angry eye. The green monster walked over and picked it up.

"And here we go. The finished cooler. When this baby hits the shelves, there's going to be a lot of unhappy customers and melted ice cream."

Jimmy looked confused. "Uh, isn't a cooler supposed to keep things frozen? Why would it melt ice-cream?"

The monster gave Jimmy an irritated expression. "This kid just doesn't get it" He thought. "Look kid, the whole point of Misery Inc. is to spread misery. That means our products are designed not to work properly. Ordinarily a cooler would keep things frozen, but this Misery Inc. one will roast your frozen vegetables, melt your popsicles, and turn your ice into hot water."

Jimmy frowned. "That seems sorta mean. Why would your company want to make people feel bad on purpose?"

The monster resisted slapping his forehead. "Is this kid serious? Does he realize he's in Hell?" He thought, getting pretty annoyed. "I feel for yah kid, really, but this is how it's always been. Ever since Miseryville was founded and Hell became the place where sinners go, there's been a need for creating misery. It's a shame really; a lot of people who come here are actually pretty nice. They just made a few mistakes in life that they couldn't fix. If it were up to me, I'd try to make things a tad brighter, but I'm just the production floor supervisor."

At this point the monster was actually starting to feel pretty guilty about the whole thing. Why did this kid have to go and get him all depressed?

Jimmy's face brightened. "So you're just the supervisor right? That means if I want to help, I should go talk to the big cheese, the boss man, the head honcho, the bigwig, the corporate stiff, the-"

"Alright! I get it!" The monster shouted in annoyance, nearly at the end of his rope. "And I really don't think that's a good idea. The last guy who tried to 'help' make things better didn't make out so well." The green monster pointed to a high balcony overlooking the production room.

Jimmy looked and squinted his eyes. "I don't see anyone there."

"No, no," the monster pointed again; this time slightly higher above the balcony, "see that red tarp hanging like a banner with the company's logo painted on?"

Jimmy turned his head up a bit. "Oh yeah I see it. It looks pretty."

"Yeah well, 3 years ago, that used to be someone's hide. Lucifer decided it would make a much better banner for the room. To boost morale. No one's ever even thought about complaining since."

"Lucifer…? Oh yeah! That funny red guy from the video I saw! Hey, we should go ask him to make things more fun around here. This place is so grey and BORING. And I could even ask him about getting a house."

The monster just stared at Jimmy. "Yeah, maybe you didn't hear me before, but this guy skinned a monster alive just because someone asked him for a 3 minute break once a day. I highly doubt he'll listen to you."

Jimmy smiled. "When in doubt, you should go with your heart… Or is it your gut? I can never remember which."

"I'm pretty sure you should go with your brain, although at this point I'm not even sure you ha- HEY! Where are you going?"

Jimmy had already started running toward the production room's opposite exit, which led to the main lobby of the factory. "Don't worry!" the boy shouted back, "I'll talk to him and straighten everything out. That's a Jimmy guarantee!" And with that, Jimmy was gone.

The monster just stood with a look of concern. "I really hope that kid makes it out of here in one piece." He sighed to himself.