The Riddle
by Peter Gervai, 1996

* The original was posted on Hungarian FidoNet echomail 
  area "pletyo.hun" and "question.pvt", 1996-07-29 19:40
  
The anecdotal Fidonetter was reading his newest Gossipy mail
(thatwas his favourite pastime anyway) when the suddenly the
world became pitch black. ("I was flamed[1] too much and the 
moderator slapped me hard", he thought.)

But when he got his consciousness back again he found himself
in a small round room, the walls were covered by rock textures[2],
and on each side was a door looking exactly the same, and before
each of the doors there was a sprite[3] of a large guard. 
Our hero was warmed up to debate when a low, evil, sardonic 
voice, which appeared to come fom every part of the room, said:

"Welcome dear stranger! I was bored so I prepared this riddle for 
you and I hope you'll like it. One of these doors lead to Hell,
where they will roast you on slow fire if you choose to open it;
the other door leads you back to your computer and you can go on 
with your reading. 

"One of the guards always say the truth, the other always lies.
You can ask only one question from one of the guards then you have
to choose a door. Good luck!" and after an evil laugh the silence
fell again.

The Fidonetter grinned wildly and pertly strolled to the guard 
which looked less like an idiot. (The other was wearing police
uniform.) He leaned to the guard and asked,

"So you guard! If I would ask the other guard, where his door leads,
what would he answered?"

The guard was visibly used all his mental power while our hero was
picking his nails with oblivious smile. Then the guard seemingly
reached a conclusion and said:

"Him would saying, that his door lead you to your room!", said happily.

"Oh really.", said nonchalantly our hero and pushed the sprite away with
"now you go away just nicely", and opened the door with a smile.

The red hot heat was slapped him and however he tried to close the door
it was broken from the hinges and the burning, hellish wind sucked him
into the blackish red darkness. For a moment his horrible scream was
audible until the crackling of the fire covered it.

The guard at the other door shaked his head and asked,

"So I guess you didn't know which door lead where either, did you?"

			-- 2015.10.19