Katherine Watson worked as a paid intern for the local government of the seventeenth city of Hell. Katherine was sent to Hell because, according to the sentence given upon her arrival, her favorite pizza topping was pineapple.

When Katherine entered Hell she assumed it would be organized in circles, like out of Dante's [i]Inferno[/i], but much to her surprise it wasn't entirely different from how life was on Earth. Hell was in itself a sort of country, divided into cities, each city divided into precincts, and so on. Katherine was sent to the seventeenth city, called Newark by some and Glasgow by others, and, being a recent college graduate in her previous life, she sought to make a better use of her time than getting shit-faced at campus parties and eating pineapple-topped pizza like a scoundrel. So she decided to get involved in politics, and to work for whatever body of government that would take her.

This was a mistake.

Without so much as ever seeing the mayor of the seventeenth city in person, Katherine applied for a paid internship, and was accepted with ease. She made an appointment with the big man himself, and was to meet him in his office at 6:30 for a post-acceptance interview; as it turned out, getting the position in the first place was the [i]easy[/i] part.

In the seventeenth city there stood hundreds of buildings, pretty much all of them identical structures with extremely bland architecture, but the skyscraper that housed the local administration was like a massive rock-hard cock of bureaucracy that pierced the heavens; it was the closest thing the city had to a sun. The skyscraper was three-hundred stories tall, and Katherine had to walk through every single one of those stories. Elevators were reserved for high-ranking officials, and of course those who were almost morally qualified enough to ascend to purgatory. The trip was exhaustive to the extreme; Katherine spent nearly four hours climbing the many flights of stairs, fueled purely by pitch-black coffee (cream and sugar were not allowed in Hell) and the will to make her way in the world.

Naturally the mayor's office was on the top floor.

Eventually Katherine reached the top and entered the waiting room, and, seeing the gargantuan door that led to the mayor's office, tried to open it. 

It was locked.

"Um," said Katherine, eyeing the secretary who seemed to playing with marbles on his desk. "The door's locked."

The secretary raised his gaze to meet Katherine's; he was a sort of Vincent Price-looking fellow, and already he appeared impatient. "Ah," he said. "Are you here for for an appointment?"

"I'm here for an interview with the mayor. I was scheduled for 6:30?"

The secretary flipped through a thick spiral notebook in the slowest fashion possible. "K. Watson?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You're on-time," he said. "But you can't see the mayor right now."

Katherine felt her face screw up. "But I'm scheduled to meet him very soon."

"Yes, and you can't. The mayor is a very busy man, and sometimes these things fall through at the last minute."

"I don't..." Katherine thought about what could've happened. "Did an emergency come about?"

"The mayor invited some higher-ups from a rather important auto-manufacturing company for a protracted game of mini-golf as a last-second affair."

"A game of mini-golf?"

"Yes," said the secretary. "It's very important."

"But I thought you said the mayor was busy?" Katherine didn't know what to make of the situation.

"The mayor [i]is[/i] busy," said the secretary, sounding annoyed. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait."

Not wanting to fight over it, Katherine took a seat next to an elderly fellow who had apparently arrived before her. The man was dressed in solemn Catholic garb, and was obviously a clergyman.

Looking at Katherine and smiling, the priest said, "First time?"

"Oh," murmured Katherine, not wondering why a priest would be in Hell. "Yes, it's my first time here."

"Being punctual is a bad habit," said the priest. "I've been the mayor's spiritual adviser for eons now and I still fall for it myself!"

Katherine thought about why the fuck the mayor of the seventeenth city of Hell would need a spiritual adviser. "How long have you been waiting here?' she asked with genuine curiosity.

"Well, if the clock is right," said the priest, "I'd say three days and counting!"

It was at this moment that Katherine felt like slashing her wrists, or caving in her own skull with a blunt object.