Dubya and the Devil

Dubya and the Devil

By

Carl Reader

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Carl Reader

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All characters in these stories are purely fictional Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

Inflammatory Preface

A great deluge of dirt and fire and rock crashed through the high, vaulted ceiling of Hell, announcing with a great whoosh the entrance of a new sacred soul. The mass of tumbling debris rushed down toward me in a foul torrent, as though Earth had been cracked in two and reduced to rubble by the new creature entering my domain. In shock, I admitted I never had seen any one soul crash so disastrously through Mother Earth as that new vermillion victim of mine, alight in his flaming blue business suit. This clumsy stranger, already burning and screaming, was swimming through the air in the glowing cavern high up above me in desperation, a trout out of water.

Ow! Ow! I’m in the damned of the imburning place! What happened? Why am I in the damned of the imburning place when I am the best of all possible people types? This can’t be right for me, not my people type, to be in the imburning place! You devils all around should shower me with many flower pretty things, not damn and imburn me to Hell! Ow! Give me flower things!

Rocks and glowing magma were tumbling down with him as he screamed of wishing to be covered in flowers in Hell. I had other plans for him. He had caught my attention immediately with his roaring entrance and hapless stroking of the flaming air and falling debris, his vermillion face with an odd cross-hatched surface contorted in pain. He backstroked through Hell in an absurdly confident way, his chest out, flashing like a tiny comet just entering the sulfurous atmosphere, falling toward his damnation but still swinging his arms and kicking his legs with pride, as though he owned the place and could control his descent into fire.

I am here to save you! he cried out. I am the savior one you have been waiting for one for, all devils! Flower me!

Read the sign! I thundered up at him, annoyed. Abandon all hope, ye who stumble through my ceiling!

I don’t listen to any evil ones, down there, devil. Evil one, be quiet. Sush, you burning eyes. I won’t read your signs even if you wrote them down.

So befuddling was his unusual grammar and odd display of arrogance that I shot a wall of flame up toward him, but he tumbled away in an amazingly well-executed series of back-flips in midair. Looking away, I dismissed him out of hand as just another idiot with gymnastic skills. He was most likely no different from any of the other eternally suffering souls who fell from on high to plague me, or maybe he couldn’t read or hadn’t understood the sign: it was not my problem. I’ve damned all sorts, even idiots and morons and the mentally challenged, all the worst kinds, although I pride myself on never having torn apart a child who wasn’t crying or a pet who wasn’t barking. Mongoloids make me feel no remorse, but they do slow me down, especially as they tumble through the ether above me. All the others are eventually destroyed without mercy, even the self-described saviors of devils. So why pay any special attention to him? I simply ignored him and let him fall toward me after the initial shock of his entrance. He’d be writhing in my clutches soon enough, ripe for butchering and barbecue. His confidence and avoidance skills meant nothing here.

Then came his next shriek, as he cart-wheeled above me.

Yee! I’m in the damned imburning place! I’m imburning to my very chosen one bones! Who made this mistaken mistake? I am the best of types of all peoples!

You’re nothing but a juicy slab of meat now! I shouted at him. Shut up and be barbecued!

This scorched savior didn’t arrest me in my work, since shrieks are so common in Hell and the mental incompetence indicated by his odd speech pattern would prove no exemption from damnation. Soon an arc of flame would rise from my claws up to him and the other myriad falling spirits. There would the sentence of damnation and the usual vengeance inflicted willingly by me, as I tore them all asunder with my claws. Then I’d burn the damned like tiny pieces of meat on the grill of Hell. I reached up for him to inflict such a delicate fate, but once again he bounded away with great dexterity.

Get! Get! Get your claws off me, damnated Devil! You’ve got the wrong guy for imburning! I am bringing Heavenly bliss to all the damnated, damnated one!

I know, I know. They invariably say that, or something like it, though not always so ridiculously. I needed less talk and more burning from him. They always have an excuse for being here, and all are innocent in Hell. I never did anything wrong! From his looks, I suppose this one would plead mental incompetence, that he was misled into evil. The dammed are so predictable. All of them are predictable tumbling down as they burn, as though to the surface of the sun, all little flicks of foul damnation claiming sweet innocence.

Send me up, devil! I’m supposed to go up, up, not down, not down to imburning. I’m not evil-doer like other people types who do evil!

Get down here, little pork chop!

I jabbed up at him with my sharpest claw, but still once again he avoided my thrust with an extraordinary sidestep of the issue. There is no true illumination or solid surface in Hell, only the eerily disembodied sensations of the underworld, illusory sensations, and that great arc of flame shooting up from my fingertips and claws as the souls plummet to me pleading their hopeless cases. They have no recourse, except their pitiful, pointless pleas. I thought even I might be hallucinating, but this soul was no different, despite the fact he was off-color from the normal red and appeared to be severely challenged in the noggin, foolish with his ridiculous flipping and flogging of the air and claims of sainthood. For him there would come only the sizzling blood, the smell of singed hair and ripped frying flesh, always the same, day and night, forever, ad nauseum. It bores me, as a child burning ants with a magnifying glass is bored eventually, but he’d never get used to it, once I managed to catch him. After all, what good is eternal punishment if it is not eternally painful?

Whoa! You won’t get me! Ha! Got away! I’m not stayin’ here with you, you bad and evil devil.

I was glad this new soul at least insisted on playing, as he spun away like a top, although I admit I was confused by his ridiculous talk. He had that different vermillion flame emanating from him as he fell toward me, as opposed to the usual flat red, and he insisted on a zigzag path, as though he was flying confusedly, instead of plummeting straight down. That, too, was an enigma. Most souls dropped like rocks into my clutches. I knew he was trying to avoid me, and I enjoyed the play, giggling at him. Ah, ha. Made you laugh! I made you laugh, devil! I’m good at that! You go ahead, you laugh, devil, but I’ll have the last laugh! That intense vermillion glow, that dumb sputter when he spoke, a kind of coughing and hiccupping: all indicated an unusual objection to Hell and the soul of a jokester, my favorite type of soul, since I was one, too. He flew from side to side across the cavern above me, a spirit without a guidance system, giggling and sizzling. Eventually, he’d be within my grasp, so I just waited, yawning and yukking it up at his antics. I’ve heard and seen it all before. Once damned, always damned. No one could avoid falling into the pit. Even I hadn’t been able to do that.

I’m going up, I’m going upstairs, man. Upstairs! he cried out. Come with me, devils! Heaven take me! No bad and evil one devil is going to get me!

He swam furiously for the gap in Earth above him, but I yawned as he reached for the jagged hole in the earth he had crashed through. I examined the damage he had done to my roof and found it quite extensive. Damaging Hell was a very big sin in itself, but who could fault any of them for wanting to avoid me? I wished he would just give up and be damned, so that I could patch the roof. But how oppressive it must be for him, for all of them, to be in such a new and difficult place. Their eyeballs explode from the soaring heat. Their torn flesh roasts. Their pain, of course, is endless and intolerable. Also, my devils see that their heads are torn off and smashed, their arms popped from the sockets, and their thick torsos and organs are ripped to dancing bits of flesh, as though frying on some surface no longer they can no longer see. That was his fate, and he knew it. It’s all very funny, and as he looked down he seemed to agree it was amusing to cause pain, since he giggled as he flew. Go ahead, laugh, I thought. Once they hit brimstone bottom we let the damned legs run individually away to nowhere for our own amusement, with no one with them, no parts with them, as only the identity of pain keeps the individual together, for it is only their souls that feel pain. We feel joy when they feel pain, and he, too, was laughing at all the sight of all the legs running around to nowhere. The damned burn to cinders of nothingness, for though ripped apart, their souls are still one in pain. All is pain and the individual soul is only pain now, and their pain is the only thing that makes Hell tolerable for us. He would fit right in, although he did not think so.

Up! Up! he kept crying out. I am the chosen good one, not this, not this bad one in the imburning place!

For the moment, I turned my attention away from this special soul, still laughing but so very wearied by him I could not look at him for one more moment, and instead I chopped up and sautéed a more common variety of sinner, a plump and fearful woman with vacant wide eyes, who suffered without complaint.

The Soul of the Matter

My special vermillion savior who was so much smarter and better at flying through the air than me was still trying especially hard to avoid me moments later, despite his glee in looking down upon the sufferings of Hell. I had to giggle at his insistence on holiness which he now proclaimed, and at the endless flapping of his arms and the gymnastics in the air. It would be extremely amusing to dismember him and disabuse him of the notion of his great skills and superiority. Of course, he was too good for me and would not allow it. Ha!

I’m talkin’ to you down there, Lucifer devil! I’m very better than you to be here, too better! Jesus! Listen to me! Save me, Jesus! You made a mistake! I am a holy man! Up! Up to the Heaven place now!

I’d tell you to save your breath if you had any, I shouted up to him. The sooner I fry you and I sauté your soul, the sooner the pain will all be over. So just come on down.

Never! I am of the goodness above, terminal one!

This was a little too much. Resist the devil in vain, for he will always have his due, one way or another. I was exhausted with the endlessness of it, all these burning ants who insist on their divinity, too late, it seems. I turned from my plans of suffering for the clouds of burning souls around me and paid a little more attention to the new vermillion one igniting and falling and fleeing and trying to avoid my clutches. For all this trouble, I’d make him pay with some special pain, a volcanic eruption from inside, perhaps. It’s difficult to be attentive to anything here after all these centuries of sameness, even vermillion souls who claim to be holy and sputter like fools and giggle like devils, but now I was focusing on him. At times like this I wonder why I am still privileged to damn, when I am the worst of sinners. Shouldn’t I have been denied such amusements as capturing new, deluded souls and ripping them to pieces? But, then again, it is a horrible punishment to be bored with the gruesome. I guess that’s what God was thinking when he dictated I do the same awful things over and over, damn and damn and damn, burn and burn and burn, render and tear and render, until it no longer makes any sense. I jabbed up for him when he wasn’t looking, but once again he veered away quickly with a quick side-flip in the air.

Ha! Get away! No claws! No claws! Save me, Jesus! No imburning me, Lucifer, for I am holier than thou!

The new soul who was also holier than me made a circle in the air as I spat fire out at him for daring to mention holiness here. He still avoided me. I’m sure he was wondering why Jesus did not help him when he was oh-so-very special.

Ha! Got away! I showed you! It’s the power of the Lord! Ha! Jesus is in my back pocket like a dog biscuit!

A dog biscuit? Was he for real, was anything real, or the same ridiculous event, repeating itself time and again and again in my mind, this endless work with idiotic sinners? Is it part of my punishment, part of my agony, part of God’s joke on me to deal with fools like this one? I long for something truly new, an epiphany, relief from the endlessness of it. I let myself think this just-arrived spirit might offer some special delight to me, but I suspected he wouldn’t, since who can compete with me for ways to torment helpless humans? Then again, perhaps he could, if my first moments in his company were any indication. Most likely, he’d soon be forgotten, just more stinking burning flesh, yet he thought he was better than me, Lucifer, and probably better than anyone. Only the souls’ pain, which is theirs alone and eternal, is the one thing that I experience as real, the one thing that brings them back to reality, and that is why they must feel damnation. I who preside over their education am numb and unsure of all else but our giggling at the pain of our instruction. I have nothing as my recompense for rebellion against God but this eternal certainty of pain and laughter, this shower of incendiary ants, over and over and over again, and special idiots like this one. Still, my attention was engaged by this fool, since I was growing impatient with his holy and mentally deficient attitude and the fact he wouldn’t give up and let my fun begin.

Hold still! You’re beyond help here. No one can save you here, so you might as well just accept it. You’ll be a little black crunchy spirit soon with wisps of smoke rising into the air around you.

Never! The power of Christ contends thee never to do that!

I stabbed out once more with both claws for the vermillion soul and rained brimstone down upon him from above, hoping to force him down for some new amusements in doing so, but he eluded my parry yet again with an exemplary swan dive and then a reverse flip upward.

See? You forget it! You’ll never get me, you lousy Lucifer thing! Jesus will come for me soon. I know it. Ha! I’m optimistic about that. I am optimistic man with the heart of Jesus in here.

He pointed to his back pocket.

Damn it, I said, as his soul flew off, frustrating me. Hell, with nothing but pain, is a place designed to make you lose your sense of self, as I had done long ago. Why wouldn’t he? How can I believe I am anything more than a fancier of torment, when this is all I do? Why wouldn’t he forget himself and his phony holiness when he was so far beyond help? Am I only a spark to this sort of tinder? He had to realize I was only doing my job. Was I only a nightmare of a soul with no more to me than a flash of fire, butchery and a laugh and a dream, reaching out endlessly for the damned to torment them? Is that all I am, or can ever be? I need more than simply to chase the reluctant damned all over my cave with no satisfaction in my work at the end of my day. He only made me angry.

I’m going up now! Up to Heaven! the soul shouted in hope. I am the best of all possible peoples types!

I lay back, exhausted. I even doubt my own existence because of my repetitive task and idiots like this who resist my fun. It is so depressing, and the root of my mental illness. I am disgusted with the sameness of it. I ask, with nothing else to think about, has the mind of God twisted me to nothing but this farce of burning falling ants and vermillion souls and clutching for the recalcitrant spirits to torment them for amusement in ways I no longer believe in? How sick am I?

Why am I here, Lord? I finally cried out. God, why have you put me here to deal with these flying, burning lunatics who think they are too good for me? I can not bear one more man like this!

Of course there was no answer. I felt a little embarrassed at having asked it. God stopped speaking to me long ago.

Ye-eee! I’m imburning!

Am I crazy? Have I gone mad from the boredom? I watched the soul fluttering around above me and screaming of his imburning and hated him with a hatred that would be repaid, for it burned hotter than hell-fire.

Get them off of me, get these tiny flaming ants off of me! I screamed. Lord, I can not stand it here any longer with fools like this! Find another to imburn him.

Reluctantly and halfheartedly, broken-hearted, I jabbed out again with a claw for the fresh soul, creating a hurricane of wind that would have knocked down a lesser spirit, but his forward somersault was too quick for me. I was still desperate for something new and amusing, some relief. I missed him yet again as a result of his gymnastic prowess. It was so pointless. I had not tried very hard.

Blisime sum, disme dismal. So warum est, locatur existum.

I keep hearing those words echoing over and over again in my mind, and ever and always in the flames surrounding me, like whippoorwills of fire whispering to me, and I strain to remember their meaning, for I think it was God who spoke them to me. I’m even losing my memory in this insanity inflicted on me. I can not remember God’s meaning.

Come here, you damn fool! Please! I yelled to the vermillion soul. I’ll get you anyway, no matter what you do. You’ve entered here, and must now abandon all hope. So abandon all hope! I promise to let you look around a little before I tear you apart and fry you, if you listen to me and just give up.

Never!

As usual, he ignored me after screaming his monosyllabic answer at me. He actually giggled at me after screaming at me. I lay back again and waited, nearly vomiting, utterly disgusted with my job.

Come here! I have something for you. I finally cried out.

Up to Heaven! You’re not fooling me! Ha! No devil has nothing for me!

Then there was an immense flash of light, something like the creation of the world, and yes, it happened, the most incredible thing I have ever seen in Hell happened. How could it be that a miracle, a flash of the immense smile of God, was brought about when this silly soul finally sputtered out, as though out of fuel, and splattered on the floor beside me, spent in his efforts to avoid me, and out of tricks. Light filled the cavern, and the counter on the wall of flame registered my one-trillionth soul damned. He cried out one more word, as though expecting a prize for his milestone damnation. Or was it because he was the one-trillionth soul damned that we had our miracle, our flash of creation? He mumbled one question that made me feel as though I was rising like a hot-air balloon through the intense light. He asked the question that stopped the procession of the damned, that falling of burning ants, and gave me relief, a miraculous question. The flame and smoke cleared above me in a flash at that astonishing query and flash of light, so that for the first time since my damnation I could look high above and see the clear blue of the sky and the endless tall white clouds surrounding Heaven! I could see Heaven! It must have been a miracle brought about by this new soul, that I was allowed a vision of glorious Heaven.

Then there was more to the miracle.

Suddenly, I was rising and he was flying above me pulling me up: I was yanked skyward by the vermillion soul by his strong grip on my horns, as though bull-dogged into the sky. I felt myself flying up, up and fast away, with him tugging me toward Heaven.

Here we go, Devil! We’re gettin’ outa here now, my friend! I told you I would get you out of here!

This miracle was the most astonishing thing I had ever seen, aside from God himself. I was rising toward Heaven in the new soul’s grasp, after had I unashamedly tried to split this sinner in two with my claws and he had yelped out his question. We had rocketed upward as though saved. He yanked and yanked and yanked me by the horns with him from this eternal Hell and its endless stream of sinners and agony and we were flying away toward the glorious light above. I was flying out of Hell and up to Heaven through the clear, cool sky in the brilliant light of God’s smile.

Perhaps his prayer had come true. Or could it be that my damnation was done, my salvation at hand? As quickly as I damned, I was saved, by a mere new soul, one I thought suffered a limited mental capacity but evidently had great powers.

It was a true, and real miracle! And I shook in fear because of it, because God is always present in miracles and God hated me.

But first there was the question he asked, the first word I ever truly had acknowledged as Satan, the damned, as I stuck my claws into him.

The question was: Why?

It was that simple. The soul had asked why he was damned, as though he truly didn’t know. We had risen. I had to chuckle. No other soul had ever asked that question, since God never made a mistake about damning anyone and the sinners knew it. They knew they were guilty, but this vermillion idiot-soul did not, or would not acknowledge it.

This is real cool! Real cool to be flyin’ up to Heaven with the Devil! Ha! I am the best of all possible peoples. I told you so, devil!

Above, the gates of Heaven were swinging open. That question truly had opened the trap of Hell to release me and gave me a passport upward. Only someone like this simple-minded new soul could have thought to ask why he was damned and save us both.

Thank you! I cried out, beside myself. Thank you, my vermillion friend!

For me, the joyous effect of leaving Hell was like smashing through a burning log full of damned souls and watching the embers fly up and up, spectacularly, fireworks all arranged in a new other-worldly order,