Alright, so I decided to give this ‘hell crossword’ a shot. Heard people talking about it, how tough it was. Figured, why not? I like a challenge sometimes. Grabbed my pencil, sat down, and unfolded the grid.
First look? Yeah, okay, ‘hell’ seemed about right. The clues were weird. Vague. Lots of wordplay I didn’t immediately get. Spent a good fifteen minutes just staring, maybe filled in one or two really obvious short words. Stuff like ‘ART’ or ‘SEA’. Felt pretty stupid, honestly. Like my brain just wasn’t firing.
Getting Stuck Early
I really hit a wall with the top-left corner. Nothing seemed to fit. The across clues didn’t match the down clues I thought I knew. Lots of erasing happened. My poor eraser was getting a workout. I tried guessing some longer words based on a few letters, but they led nowhere. It felt like every answer was designed to be obscure.
I actually put it down. Walked away, made a sandwich. Cleared my head. Sometimes you just gotta step back, right? Came back to it later that afternoon. Decided to ignore the tricky corner and focus on sections where I had at least one solid answer.
Making Some Progress
That helped a bit. Started working from the bottom up. Found a few answers related to geography and history that I was pretty sure about. Used those as anchors. Slowly, painstakingly, a few more words started to fall into place. It was like chipping away at stone.
- Focused on clues I felt slightly more confident about.
- Used the crossing letters from those answers to guess others.
- Did a lot of ‘what if’ scenarios in my head before writing.
There was this one moment, a breakthrough. A really long answer suddenly clicked after I got a key crosser. It was like a dam breaking. That one answer unlocked like four or five other intersecting words immediately. Felt amazing! Suddenly, I was making real progress, filling in chunks of the grid.
The Final Push
Even with that breakthrough, it was still a slog. Some clues remained stubbornly difficult right to the end. Had to really stretch my brain, think laterally. There were a couple I ended up guessing and just hoping they were right based on the letters fitting.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I penciled in the last letter. Sat back and looked at the finished grid. It wasn’t pretty – lots of eraser marks, some letters written over – but it was done. Every single square filled.
Man, was I drained. But satisfied, too. It really lived up to its name. Glad I stuck with it and finished it. Definitely a mental workout I won’t forget anytime soon. Took way more time and coffee than I expected.
