Lucifer's Guide to Life

Lucifer’s Guide to Life

Stanley Harris

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Stanley Harris

ISBN: 978-1-4507-0663-6

LCN: 95-094008

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Introduction: A Word From Satan’s Pet Writer

My name is Stanley Harris, and I am the writer of this book. Lucifer says it is not strictly so, that technically I am just his possession, a machine, his pet writer—as Lucifer calls me— and all the ideas are his. That may be true, but I am the one who has to do all the work of typing and figuring out how to spell all of Lucifer’s words. Lucifer is not much on spelling; says meaning is more important. Nor does Lucifer have to study grammar or writing, as I do, so I do not make Lucifer sound illiterate. He would kill me. As for sending a copy of Lucifer’s book to the Library of Congress, Lucifer claims that the Library of Congress is hardly worthy enough to have his book among their volumes. When I asked Lucifer if he thought his book needed to be protected by a copyright, he let out a big laugh.

I was writing my first novel, a comedy titled I Was Morgan Fairchild’s Love Slave, when Lucifer got into me. Something about writing my first novel made me a bit crazy—sometimes a lot crazy—and I start hearing the voices of my characters in my mind. On several occasions, I feel the presence of a powerful spirit that threatens me should I even think of not finishing my novel. The voice of my character Morgan Fairchild is so real in my mind that I fall in love with the character, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the living person with the same name, the actress Morgan Fairchild.

I confess to my wife, Laurie, that I went crazy and fell in love with Morgan Fairchild. Laurie insists that it is merely my imagination. She claims I am so involved in writing my novel that I hypnotized myself into thinking that my character Morgan Fairchild is the living Morgan Fairchild. Laurie suggests that it could be that the two pictures of the actress Morgan Fairchild that I taped to the sides of my computer monitor might be contributing to my infatuation. Perhaps staring at pictures of Morgan Fairchild all the time did have something to do with my obsession with her, but my going half nuts was otherwise a genuine accomplishment.

By the time my first novel is about done, I feel like I have been dragging a train up a mountain by my teeth for years and am not sure I can make it over the top. Everything is gone out of me, and finishing the book seems almost impossible. I am so lost in my effort that I am not even sure if the book is really written the way books are supposed to be written. I am afraid to work on it any more. Touching the book’s pages causes demons to jump out at me. For two days I simply sit around my house in a stupor, a madness, wondering who I am and why writing my book is such an obsession.

I wake up the third day in tears, totally lost. Laurie, no one can talk to me, and I think for some reason that I am going to die. For about an hour I sit in my living room feeling dead, looking at my laptop screen, wondering if my book will ever really be a book. Something starts working around in my mind. At first it feels like a bit of heat circling about through my brain. It starts getting stronger, wilder, and before long becomes an inferno. The fire raging in my brain does not hurt me but has the opposite effect. My mind clears up, and I see who I am with more awareness than at any other time in my life. I wonder what has effected my cure.

A deep, intimidating voice booms into my mind and snaps me to attention. Get back to work and finish your dumb book, idiot! the voice demands. I have another project for you, the voice announces.

My entire body heats up and I began to sweat. My fingers go to my keyboard, and I feel as if my fingers have magic in them. The entire living room seems to be filled with a demonic presence. I know almost immediately who it is. No one could miss it. It is Lucifer. I remember him from deep in my madness. I then realize that it was while in my madness that Lucifer must have first possessed me, while my soul was drifting unprotected. I finish my novel completely three days later.

Why Lucifer chose me to write his book is nothing I understand. He always claims it is because I am so stupid, which Lucifer says makes it easy to possess me. I deem it wise not to argue much with Lucifer whether you are smart or stupid. Sometimes when Lucifer wants me to write him something, and I am not in the mood, he gets to railing on about how he is going to kill me or my wife or every relative and friend I have. He gets me all in a sweat, and I go to work. Lucifer does not care if I have the worst of all hangovers in history and am near dead from pneumonia. I have to write when he wishes me to or Lucifer will worry me to death.

Before we get too far away from the subject, I inquire of Lucifer if my first novel will be published. I tell Lucifer how I dreamed that Morgan Fairchild would help me promote my book if I showed her an advantage in it. Yet I also doubt that Morgan Fairchild will agree to read my book or even talk to me about it, her being such a somebody and me such a nobody.

Lucifer scoffs at me and claims my novel is a trivial book compared to his. But he also promises he will drop in on Morgan Fairchild and see if he can convince her to help out a bit. I imagine Morgan Fairchild will eventually decide to cooperate. I doubt Morgan Fairchild will want Lucifer around all the time scaring her guests and heating up her house. Lucifer is fairly adept at getting his way.

You might notice a touch of Sam Clemens—Mark Twain, that is, as most know of him—in some of this writing. Lucifer claims I am not that bright and need help, so he summons up Sam Clemen’s ghost on occasion to give me a hand. Sam likes to show up now and then and put in his two cents worth. He thinks that laptop computers are a miracle and wishes he had one in his day. Sam says that while he was alive he knew Lucifer and that they got to be good friends. Sam tells me Lucifer is really not as mean a rascal as he seems and that I will get to like him once I know him better. I sure hope Sam is right. I guess I do not really mind Lucifer so much, but he sure makes company nervous.

Lucifer once got tired of me and Sam both and claimed we were clods and could not write a good menu for a hamburger joint. So Lucifer calls up the ghost of John Steinbeck, who is haunting Harvard at the time, and puts him to work. Steinbeck goes to tearing around in Lucifer’s writing, adding on all kinds of tiny little details about everything and dropping in a bit of Latin here and there. This gets Lucifer pretty upset. He gets mad at Steinbeck and claims that Steinbeck is the kind of writer who would write an entire library of books about a single ant. Lucifer sends Steinbeck’s ghost back to haunt Harvard and concedes that Sam and I might not be the worst clods in history after all.

I try to keep Lucifer’s temper down in his writing. I tell him he has to lighten things up a bit so he does not scare people. Lucifer simply brushes that off and claims he does not care a flea’s worth whether or not he scares people. He says that people are mostly a bunch of idiots, and he came down here to smarten people up some with his wisdom. Lucifer says people do not have any reason to fear him because he would not waste a minute of hell’s fire on most of them. He says God just made up heaven as a joke to keep boring people entertained, that the good place to be is in hell, because you learn something in hell instead of just sitting around on clouds playing harps. I must admit, when Lucifer gets mad at me and dangles my soul down in hell for a bit, I get smart real fast.

Lucifer is not much on using dirty words or words that only professors know. Lucifer says good writers do not need dirty words, because dirty words are nothing more than a cheap trick to hide the fact that some writers have no real creative abilities. Lucifer insists that writers who use big words that most people do not understand are doing the same thing that writers who use dirty words are doing, acting proud and better than other people to hide the fact of their own ignorance. I try to tell Lucifer that dirty words can be used for good effect in some places, but he calls my theory hogwash and says I must hate children and want them exposed to filth in the language. I do not argue about it any more. Lucifer does use some hard language in his book, but he claims it is language necessary for making a point instead of for spreading trash.

It seems kind of odd, but I know that my mom would be glad that Lucifer does not let me use any dirty words in his book. My mom is a very religious person, and she never uses foul language. Still, I do not think it would be a good idea to tell my mom that Lucifer is possessing me. Lucifer, however, insists he is a little hurt by my callousness, that my mom would like him if she got to know him. Lucifer says he knows of my mom and that she is a good person and should have no fear of him. He says he will not interfere if my mom wants to go to the boring place, to heaven, but promises he will always be glad to welcome her to the good place, to hell.

Sam once complained to Lucifer that no one would credit Sam for helping to write Lucifer’s book because Sam is a ghost. Lucifer reminds Sam that Sam had gotten help from Lucifer in Sam’s time and had never refused it, so he owes Lucifer. But Sam is not finished fussing and tells Lucifer that critics and professors will recognize his writing and call me a plagiarist. This upset me some, and I did not think Mr. Clemens had a right to say that, as Lucifer had blessed me as he had Sam, and it was not any more Sam’s writing than it was mine.

Lucifer threatens to make Sam stay in my body permanently if Sam does not settle down, which Sam