Shopaholics

Those who spent too much money had

drifted into this level of Hell.

These souls were only concerned with the latest fad.

Nothing seemed well

when these lost shoppers shouted

because they did no like their new perfume's smell.

Their judgements were clouded

by the extreme time spent shopping,

but the tortured souls now pouted.

Their punishments seemed cruel,

but reflected their actions;

selfishness ran rampant on this level.

Virgil bided me: "The gate to this level

is dressed like a Walmart.

The occasion is black as these souls: Black Friday."

I approached the gate and the glass doors slid open.

The door buster signs and sales

littered the walls of this horrid Walmart.

The deceased who used to ignore everything

to line up and wait for sales

were now constantly trampled by an endless

hoard of crazed shopoholics.

The carts rolled over their fingers,

and their faces were mashed into

the linoleum by the feet of angry shoppers.

I said to my guide, "If their intentions were good

too save their families money,

Then why do they suffer

at the hands of what they loved?"

And he to me: "These people were

greedy and did nothing to stop.

They blew off all they knew,

especially for a boutique shop."

As we ventured through the slew

of their blood and dismembered fingers,

I decided it was time to leave and venture through.

---

The sin I chose to depict in my interpretation was obsessive shopping. In this poem, Dante and Virgil find themselves in a new level of Hell: 3.5. This is the appropriate level of Hell for these shopping souls because it is in-between the gluttonous, greedy, and wasteful. The sinners on this level became so involved with bargain hunting and door busters that they shut out everything in their lives, including God. Although their intentions to save money may have been good, they lost the light and blew off their loved ones, leading them on a path straight to Hell. Since obsessive shopping is often associated with Black Friday, these lost souls are eternally stuck in a Walmart on Black Friday, being trampled by angry customers and run over with shopping carts. This reflects the insanity that has occurred on recent Black Fridays, when people have literally been trampled to death because of a sale.

Brendan McGeown, Period 6