Procrastination

All stanzas follow terza rima style

Though the torments of the gluttons still haunt, my Guide and I continue our descent.
An odd ticking noise resounds in the distance.
I feel a sense of hastiness, yet an urge to slow down rebounds.

Virgil spoke, "These souls of the damned have a conflicting existence.
They are forced to shift their arms around and around
the face of their clock with much resistance,

For they wasted time when on Earth they were bound.
Now they must be permanently productive
To keep time going with every tick and tock of that sound."

I did not even see the souls at first, for the setting was disruptive.
Blurs of blank white and numbers swirled and enveloped Circle three and a half.
I wanted it all to come to a halt, for I too felt like a captive.

Then, I saw the pitiful procrastinators, as they suffer like a slaughtered calf.
They are trapped in countless clocks that never cease to tick.
Pain courses through them all like an overworked staff.

The once lazy lingerers now twist their arms unnaturally, making me sick.
Their fingers point to numbers one through twelve, the black font seeping into their veins.
The souls tire, but keep going, staying rhythmic.

My Guide directed me to a specific clock, foreshadowing upcoming pain.
As the sinner pointed to three o'clock, the clock's twin bells boomed.
The hands' owner cried as his eardrums bled, and I too, wanted the shrill sound to wane.

After a whole minute, the racket had ceased. Then, the sinner's arms ticked and resumed.
Virgil, then, points out another poor soul, too tired to move on.
He paused when he needed to tick, then suddenly a ray of blue zoomed.

The source was Chronos, the keeper of time and beyond.
As I stared at the newly frozen soul, he explains: "They all wasted my gift of time.
They spare time, but I won't spare them. I freeze all whose energy is gone.

I then encase them in hourglasses for their crime,
Only to thaw in scorching sand, trapped in glass."
Chronos then smiled nefariously as the sinner painfully lost his rime.

I myself got chills as these frightening images were burned into my memory.
Yet, Virgil and I still pursued darker darkness, continuing to travel down far.

After listening to Ciacco's political prophecy, Dante and Virgil descend down to Circle 3 and a half. There's a rushed environment of blurs and numbers of a clock, for no time is wasted here. The souls of the procrastinators also wallow here, for they excessively indulged (Circle 3) in free time and greedily wasted it (Circle 4). They are trapped in clocks, their arms forcefully used as hands of a clock. The procrastinators must now work every second of their afterlives When a clock reaches an hour, twin bells sound loudly and painfully. This constantly reminds them that they can no longer rest, they have to stay alert. When a sinner tires and stops, he or she is blasted frozen by Chronos, the keeper of time. This represents how the sinners acted like they had all the time in the world, as if it was frozen. He then traps the soul in an hourglass of burning sand to defrost them. Each second the sinner wasted on earth comes back to punish him or her as grains of scorching sand. Dante keeps these horrifying images in mind and continues his descent with Virgil to the next Circle.

Leandra Lipat, Period 1