It was the largest circle, by far, and nevertheless, there was not enough space for all the people inside. I dislike people in general, and even more when there are a lot of them, so I was not willing to go there. I started thinking...how did that happen? Maybe it was a mistake, caused by a profile pic with confusing screenshots. Perhaps all my network shares the same IP...
I became my own lawyer and asked for the case to be reopened. She told me to go through a tiny gate with a sign: "Purgatory". There was a small room on the other side. A white table and a chair were all the furniture. Lots of papers and a computer on the table. Calamondin sitting on the chair.
-"How did she get here? She was behind me last I checked. But OK, let's not get distracted...this seems really bureaucratic. Oh God...I hate bureaucracy so much."-I thought.
To my surprise, things were pretty fast. She read two papers and quickly acknowledged: "We were wrong, sorry for the inconvenience. You are unbanned now". I was about to say "Take that, dirty mods!" but I managed to keep my mouth shut. I found a door with the label: "Chess.com/Heaven" and headed there. When I was almost at the doorstep, I hit an invisible barrier. I looked at Calamonding, seething with anger. I asked her what was going on. At this point I could feel everything was slowing down. Only later I realized that a bureaucratic blackhole had formed in one of the papers on the table and it was distorting time around us. But back then, I could not understand why that was happening. So it took us two days to realize that there was some kind of block that still had not been removed. She managed to solve it and then I knew I was finally FREE...
On Saturday 18th, a day that will be remembered as nefasti from now on, this humble, relevant, helpful and nice user was banned from the site. After days of sending messages to no avail, reason finally triumphed and I was welcomed back by a crowd where noblemen, burgeoises and peasants were mixed without distinctions, so great was the delight my presence had caused in their hearts.
However, more than a week after my glorious comeback, I still had not written a thorough, accurate and realistic account of what happened, despite the fact my ego was urging me to do it. But it is high time I told you the story:
At first I was confused and could not understand what was going on. Was the password wrong? That could not possibly be, it is too simple. I looked around, saw my profile page: "closed: abuse". Then I understood I had been banned. I was outside. A cold, lonely place. But things can always get worse. Five minutes later, I started to suffer from chess.com withdrawal syndrome. I was sweating and anxious. Reddit could not help, it was not strong enough. My dopamine levels had not been that low for years. In a desperate effort, I emailed support.
Two days later, I found the spirit of Calamondin, who told me she would lead me on a journey through Hell to see what had happened. There were several circles. In the first one I could read, written in neon lights: "Lust". Inside the circle I saw he-who-shall-not-be-named and his chess dudes. I am still trying to forget the scene. I pointed to them and asked Calamondin: "This has nothing to do with my ban, right?". She admitted that was the wrong circle, and we quickly moved on, relieved that we did not have to see that again.
We kept walking and gave a glance to the other other circles, but we did not stop at anyone. However, I still remember some of them: "Gluttony", where babaji was forced to eat all the spam he had posted; "Pride", where cheater_1 was bragging about...everything; "Wrath", home of many flamers; and "Greed", residence of engine users. "Envy" and "Sloth" were both empty, because all these metaphors are really forced and have little to do with a chess website.
Calamondin could not find the place where I belonged. She looked worried. Suddenly her facial expression drastically changed, and she asserted, convincingly: "The big circle. That is where you must go...the multiaccounters".