Most of us know how Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll a stone to the top of a hill, only to see it roll back down again. Albert Camus in his book The Myth of Sisyphus even tells us why. He was a rebel who needed to be punished. Camus is basically right, but while he refers to him as “Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious,” he also tells us that he somehow managed to put death in chains and escape from hell. I assure you, Sisyphus never did either. Before landing in hell, Sisyphus failed at just about everything he tried. He even failed at being a failure, or to be more specific, he never asked himself what being a failure really meant. This is the story about how Sisyphus fucked around and found out.

Sisyphus did have a promising start. The eldest son of upper-lower-middle-class parents, he was such a bright, good looking, obedient boy, that after he entered puberty, that most beautiful time in a young man’s life when his beard is just beginning to grow, but doesn’t need to be shaved every day, his mother got him a job as cup bearer for Zeus, not Zeus the Greek god, of course, but an important local dignitary nevertheless. At first everything went well. Sisyphus made his way around the feast carefully bearing skins of fine Samian wine filling the cups of admiring women and men alike. Zeus was in fact so pleased with his job he did that he didn’t even mind when the young man sampled some of the best vintage for himself. But after the feast was over and Sisyphus accompanied Zeus back to his chambers to attend to his bath and robes, he was shocked to discover the old fellow completely naked, his disturbingly large penis rock hard, beckoning him to bend over and spread his legs. “You did a fine job son,” Zeus said. “Now comes time for the fun part.” Sisyphus was not only shocked and outraged by the proposal, he beat the old man within an inch of his life, and walked back home to his mother.

“What do you think a cup bearer does?” she said, “I thought you understood it went with the job. You really have to read between the lines of that Ganymede story.”

The next thing Sisyphus failed at was being a shepherd. To be fair, he was probably overeducated for the job. Too much Shakespeare, Virgil and Christopher Marlow had convinced him that the life of a shepherd was all about strolling through green pastures, and piping the occasional tune to whatever lusty shepherd lass came his way. He never quite understood that being a shepherd was hard work, tedious dirty labor where you spent the day in damp, rainy weather, shearing wool, digging ditches, putting up fences and shoveling poop. The first month on the job Sisyphus failed to bring the herd inside the protective fence and lost three prize lambs, not to wolves, but a bobcat and a pair of especially vicious, and hungry, racoons. He was so bad at shearing, he almost always ruined all the wool he was supposed to gather for the day. The last thing he was assigned to do before they finally lost patience and fired him was put up 50 feet of barbed wire, an easy job that was almost impossible to screw up, but screw it up he did, getting caught wrapping him up in a half finished length of fence, and calling for help so pathetically that Duke, the owner’s Australian Shepherd, who loved everybody, came over and bit him.

Sisyphus also failed at being a hoplite, a potter, a sculptor, and a blacksmith. After his mother kicked him out of the house, he enjoyed a briefly successful career as a traveling Sophist, but he severely underestimated a renowned philosopher who challenged him to a debate — how could you take a man seriously who lived in an old wine barrel and masturbated in public — and lost so badly nobody would ever pay him for lessons again. He went back home and begged his mother to take him back. She agreed he could sleep in the basement while he got back on his feet. Of course he never did. He fell into the world of casual labor and short term temps jobs that few people ever climb out of successfully. As long as his mother was doing well, never having had a “real job” didn’t bother him. He began to embrace failure, the idea that being a loser meant being a rebel. The only reason he was still living in his mother’s basement, he flattered himself, was because he hadn’t “sold out.” Sisyphus decided that the worse his life got, the more it freed him, that the lower you sunk in mainstream society the more you could speak you mind without fear of consequences, the more you could act like yourself without following convention. He was happy. He could troll the Internet all day, grab something his mother had left over in the refrigerator, watch a little TV, then go to bed.

When his mother’s health began to decline, however, he began to worry. He began to wonder if he had been lying to himself, if perhaps the opposite was true, that he had accepted his mother’s domination as the cost of not having to work, and that all the future really held for him was a lifetime of slavery. It turned out to be something even worse, much worse.

After his mother died, and he and his three brothers split what was left of the estate, Sisyphus found himself with a job or a place to live. A sense of panic set in. For years he had worked to avoid getting stuck in a job or a career, assiduously seeking out cracks in a society he very badly wanted to escape. Now in a fit of white knuckled terror, he realized that fitting into the society he had worked so hard to avoid was the only way he could survive. As he searched for some, any way, to earn his keep, Sisyphus found himself alone in the desert begging for water. Even if by some miracle he managed to find an oasis, and even if he had something to trade, there probably wasn’t enough water for the people already there. Every job he saw advertised was something he had already tried and failed. Cup bearer, shepherd, hoplite, potter, sculptor, blacksmith, is that all anybody in the world did? The senior positions appropriate to a man of his age were even more ridiculous. King of Sparta, Athenian naval commander, Stand Up Philosopher, High Altitude Juniper Bush Attendant, Cretan Labyrinth Runner, Theban Fleece Gatherer, he barely knew what half the positions even required, let alone had the work history or recommendations to secure an interview.

Then, just as he was contemplating suicide, Sisyphus noticed the ad in the local paper. He cried out with relief. I can do that, he said to himself as he read the job requirements. I can absolutely do that.

“Rock pushers” the notice began. “The gods need you. Do you have a passion for getting things done? When someone asks you to do a job, do you ask why, or do you ask how fast they need it completed? If you think you’ve got what it takes to push rocks for the gods, if you think you’re the right man for the job, contact us at the ACE Institute today. Immortality nice to have but not strictly required.”

Sisyphus was so happy about his new job he didn’t even apply right away. Instead he took a few days off to sit back and enjoy the new life ahead of him. All he had to do was push a rock up a hill, then watch it roll back down. There were no supervisors, no local grandees who expected you to service them after the feast, no sheepdogs or half crazy cynics to get in your way. There was just you and the rock, a simple job, an honest, straightforward task, and a clear goal to work for. On top of the hill, you would undoubtedly get a short break before running back down, and starting it all over again. There would probably be beer, wine Rakija, loaves, and fishes, a nutritious snack for the hard working, boulder pushing proletarian. Eventually, he thought, he would build muscles and increase his cardiovascular capability. After all, he was getting paid to exercise all day. He looked at his pot, belly, man breasts, and love handles. In a few months they would all be gone. He could go out to the ceremonial grape crushing and Pythagorean Angles and Wine Dances and maybe even meet a nice girl. Why hadn’t he thought of being a rock pusher before? Why hadn’t his mother suggested it?

The next week Sisyphus showed up at the ACE (Associated Compassionate End) Institute to apply for the job as “Rock Pusher.” For a few moments the receptionist looked confused before she realized exactly what he was talking about. “Oh you mean the job as Junior Boulder Intern,” she said, looking at his thinning hairline while handing him a pen and clipboard full of forms, and indicating he should wait in the room to her right. “We usually don’t take men your age. But I suppose they might work something out inside. Step inside please sir,” she added opening the door and gesturing to the ACE waiting room.

Sisyphus stepped inside the ACE waiting room. For a moment he was shocked, so shocked he even thought of that old line from Dante’s Inferno that had made such an impression on T.S. Eliot. “I had not thought death had undone so many.” There were thousands of men, perhaps tens of thousands, all with the same clipboard and pen, all waiting for the “initial evaluation.” Did they really need so many Junior Boulder Interns? The initial evaluation was exactly what he thought. It was just a multiple-choice psych examination to determine whether or not he was crazy or retarded, and of course it was simple. I’m a loser and an incel, Sisyphus said to himself. But thank the gods I’m not crazy or retarded. He had filled out so many of them over the past few weeks, he could do it in his sleep. After he handed his clipboard to the ACE Attendant, he was given a glass of wine and a complimentary ACE Cookie and told to relax. There would be a slight wait before anybody could see him. But not to worry. Eventually everybody got processed. Rest in Power Sisyphus.

Sisyphus woke up on a long, rolling hill. He had gotten the job. It was not what he had expected. It didn’t look like ancient Greece at all, but the New Jersey Meadowlands. The ground wasn’t smooth or covered with grass, but gutted, full of rocks, soaked with acid rain, littered with debris, metal, concrete, glass. There was a rancid stench in the air. The sun was nowhere to be seen. On the top of the hill he could see the sign. “Welcome to the land of shadows.” Even worse, he wasn’t alone. Everybody from the ACE antechamber had gotten the same job as he had. He also noticed people from the past, the same people he had previously tried, and failed to establish a career with. There was Zeus the local grandee and homosexual rapist, Duke the angry sheepdog, the crazy philosopher who had ruined his career as a sophist, and worst of all his mother. A pained, embarrassed expression came over his face when she saw him. “I always knew you would end up here,” it seemed to say. “My son. My beautiful baby son. Just like his father.”

Sisyphus tried to ignore his mother when his Probationary Boulder Handling Supervisor took him aside and explained to him that he would have a trial run up the hill.

“I’m Hades,” he said. “Call me HD for short, and let’s not use that tired, patriarchal old label supervisor. Ever since we instituted our new DEI program I’ve simply been a Lead Rock Pushing Intern.”

HD beckoned Sisyphus to grab his rock and follow him up the hill. The rock was far heavier than Sisyphus had anticipated, so heavy he could barely move it a few feet ahead without having to stop for a brief rest. Is this hell, Sisyphus whispered to himself. Surely this must be hell.

“Take your time,” HD said. “We have all the time in the world. But this is why we usually send men your age right to the pit. It never makes much sense to torment them with the idea they might get a few loops up and down Mount Futility before being sent on to their final destination.”

“My God,” Sisyphus said. “This is heavy.”

“Take your time,” HD said. “We have all the time in the world.”

It was days before Sisyphus finally made it to the top of Mount Futility. His clothes were torn. His legs were cut to ribbons by the debris along the way. He could barely breath. The only thing that had kept him going was the complimentary beer, grapes, loaves and fishes he believed would be waiting for him at the top of the hill, an idea that only seemed to confuse HD, who seemed to know everything else. Of course when Sisyphus finally got to the top of Mt. Futility, there was no beer, or complimentary loaves and fishes. Instead there was an iron gate with the words “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here,” which looked out over a lake of fire, tens of thousands of feet above ground. Sisyphus noticed a group of Lead Rock Pushing Interns standing around looking bored, waiting for their next assignment. A more senior level executive, a tall, red faced, awful giant of a man who looked a bit like Nikola Jokić, if Nikola Jokić had the face of a man and the body of a horse, instructed the Lead Rock Pushing Interns what to do with the the new hires. Most were simply pushed over the side into the lake of flames. Every once in awhile, a young, strong soul was shown a boulder, which was then rolled back down the hill. He was assigned a new Lead Rock Pushing Intern and told he would be given a second “opportunity.”

“Horse master,” HD said, bowing. “This is Sisyphus.”

“Do we give him another round?” the tall, awful, half man, half horse said.

“No,” HD said, barely able to restrain his laughter. “Not even close.”

“Assume the position,” the horse master said, opening the iron gate and instructing Sisyphus to bend over and face the lake of flames. “Remove your trousers.”

“Zeus,” he added to an elderly man, totally naked and brandishing a gigantic erection. Sisyphus will stand on the edge of the gate bent over to reveal the crack between his legs. You may do with him as you please. As long as he maintains his position, he will be allowed to remain at the gates of his final destination. He may of course jump into the lake of fire at any time. But if he is strong and determined, he might even last the rest of the afternoon. Are you ready Zeus?”

“Now comes the fun part,” Zeus said, stroking his penis, then letting out a cry of disappointment as Sisyphus jumped into the flames. “Fucking wimp.”