Of all the malicious odours I’ve encountered in hell, the smell of a melting Playstation joypad still ranks as one of the most offensive. I had to admit though; it was fun to watch the little bugger smoking and jerking as it sank into the magma. I was extra pleased with the way I’d managed to get it to spin in the air as it flew towards the lake of fire, and catching the edge of that stalactite had been something of a masterstroke. Of course, I knew without even looking that the judging panel of the damned would rate my effort no higher than a six. But what else could I expect, when my opponent in this Freestyle Peripheral Destruction Derby was none other than the ruler of hell himself?
The logic of the game had occurred to us, as many of the best ideas did, after a few drinks. I can’t remember what game we were playing at the time, but what I do remember was that Satan was losing pretty badly, and grew so frustrated that he threw his joypad at the nearest wall. Nine times out of ten, such a rash action would have yielded little more than some dented plasterwork, but on this occasion we got lucky. With a mighty crack, the joypad literally exploded into its component parts, showering us with a plethora of shiny doohickeys. We both laughed, and shared a moment of realisation – that destroying things in the real world is almost always preferable to destroying things in the virtual world. Plus, the devil generally sucked at video games, but was pretty good at breaking stuff and ruining things, and so only too keen to turn our new discovery into a competitive sport. Thus, Freestyle Peripheral Destruction Derby had been born. The rules were simple – get a shopping trolley full of plastic gaming accessories, find a fixed point to hurl them from, and then get awarded marks depending on how stylish your acts of destruction were. Obviously hell, with its wide variety of natural hazards, leant itself well to the game. As well as the obvious pools of lava and jagged bits of rock, there was always the chance your peripheral would find the jaws of some kind of hellspawn, or perhaps become entangled in whatever fiendish torture device was nearby. The latter was slightly frowned upon by the residents of hell, because if you’re in the middle of torturing some damned soul and you get hit in the face by a Wiimote, it tends to put you off a little. Still, the devil reasoned that if he couldn’t have a little fun at work then what was the point of being the boss in the first place? To reflect this decision, the judging panel had actually started awarding higher marks for hitting torture devices, although of course we’d both stand around looking nonchalant should anyone complain about it. Sometimes the judges would also award bonus points for a particularly convincing ‘who, me?’ expression.
Saturday 21 February 2009
Sunday 8 February 2009
The Devil and Disguises
I glanced through the eyeholes I’d cut in the newspaper, trying to see how the devil was getting on with the girl he’d been chatting to for the last few minutes. Things seemed to be going well for him so far. She was smiling, holding his gaze, and generally seemed to be enjoying their conversation. Satan had an air of confidence about him that I didn’t get to see all that often, so much so that when he made a ‘finger pistol’ motion at the young lady it actually came across as kinda cool rather than irredeemably dorky. I, on the other hand, felt utterly ridiculous. Wearing a long raincoat, oversized glasses without lenses in the frames, and one of those plastic ‘Groucho Marx’ fake noses, I was expecting to be arrested as some form of pervert at any moment. This was made worse by the fact that wearing the fake glasses prohibited the wearing of my real glasses, thus making me leer and squint at anything I wanted to see clearly. In fact, the more I thought about it the more worrying it was – a leering, raincoat clad man wearing an obvious disguise, apparently spying on another man as he talked to girls barley older than eighteen? In my mind, this little scenario was quickly passing through the various mental categories that I’ve come to associate with any contact with the devil. It had started as a Jaunt, then developed into a Caper, quickly passed into being an Escapade, and could at any moment become an Incident. After that, the only stage left was a full blown Fiasco. I cursed myself for agreeing to watch over Satan while he tried to pick up chicks at the shopping mall.
Now, I’m sure you have a couple of questions at this stage, the first of which is probably ‘why the disguise?’ Well, you know the old phrase about the devil taking many forms? While that’s true, he doesn’t do it in quite the way you might imagine. You see, while it is perfectly possible for the devil to accurately mimic any living creature in existence, what rather messes this up is his irrepressible sense of theatre.
On this occasion, for example, he was trying to appear as a handsome man in his early twenties, dressed in that indie style that the young ladies seem so keen on these days. However, rather than changing his physical shape in any way whatsoever, he just decided to put all his effort into the costume. So, his shaggy goat legs had been squeezed into a pair of skinny fit jeans, his winged torso clad in a Klaxons T shirt, and his little horns were covered by an angular, tousled wig. The seams of his Converse trainers visibly strained around the shape of his cloven hooves. Weird thing was, this seemed to actually work. Not one of the young women he’d spoken to today seemed to have batted an eyelid at the fact they were being chatted up by a red skinned, fork tongued, cat eyed, fanged terror. In fact, no matter how ridiculous the disguise, nobody ever seemed to question it. What Lucifer didn’t seem to understand though, was that the same logic didn’t apply to me. When he’d handed me the costume, he explained I was to be a man of mystery, blending into the background seamlessly until he needed me to bail him out of an awkward moment with one of tha ladeez. Instead, I looked like the kind of guy who’d get his house burnt down by torch wielding vigilantes. I sighed, but realised that it was in my interests to help him nonetheless. After all, he needed to fill out the ranks of his diabolical concubine one way or another, and the quicker he could finish that job the quicker I could get him to help me with some wallpaper that needed putting up round at my Nan’s house. You know how it is, one of those jobs that you can do alone but really is so much quicker with two people. As the last unwitting girl disclosed her phone number to Satan, I stared across at the nearby branch of Homebase with envious eyes. Well, I thought I was looking at a branch of Homebase, but without my real glasses on it turned out I was in fact leering at a shop selling women’s lingerie. A fact not lost on the burly mall security guard who’d been monitoring my activities for some time. Needless to say, the devil pretended not to know me as I was forcefully escorted from the premises.
Now, I’m sure you have a couple of questions at this stage, the first of which is probably ‘why the disguise?’ Well, you know the old phrase about the devil taking many forms? While that’s true, he doesn’t do it in quite the way you might imagine. You see, while it is perfectly possible for the devil to accurately mimic any living creature in existence, what rather messes this up is his irrepressible sense of theatre.
On this occasion, for example, he was trying to appear as a handsome man in his early twenties, dressed in that indie style that the young ladies seem so keen on these days. However, rather than changing his physical shape in any way whatsoever, he just decided to put all his effort into the costume. So, his shaggy goat legs had been squeezed into a pair of skinny fit jeans, his winged torso clad in a Klaxons T shirt, and his little horns were covered by an angular, tousled wig. The seams of his Converse trainers visibly strained around the shape of his cloven hooves. Weird thing was, this seemed to actually work. Not one of the young women he’d spoken to today seemed to have batted an eyelid at the fact they were being chatted up by a red skinned, fork tongued, cat eyed, fanged terror. In fact, no matter how ridiculous the disguise, nobody ever seemed to question it. What Lucifer didn’t seem to understand though, was that the same logic didn’t apply to me. When he’d handed me the costume, he explained I was to be a man of mystery, blending into the background seamlessly until he needed me to bail him out of an awkward moment with one of tha ladeez. Instead, I looked like the kind of guy who’d get his house burnt down by torch wielding vigilantes. I sighed, but realised that it was in my interests to help him nonetheless. After all, he needed to fill out the ranks of his diabolical concubine one way or another, and the quicker he could finish that job the quicker I could get him to help me with some wallpaper that needed putting up round at my Nan’s house. You know how it is, one of those jobs that you can do alone but really is so much quicker with two people. As the last unwitting girl disclosed her phone number to Satan, I stared across at the nearby branch of Homebase with envious eyes. Well, I thought I was looking at a branch of Homebase, but without my real glasses on it turned out I was in fact leering at a shop selling women’s lingerie. A fact not lost on the burly mall security guard who’d been monitoring my activities for some time. Needless to say, the devil pretended not to know me as I was forcefully escorted from the premises.
Tuesday 3 February 2009
The Devil and Crying
Sharing a flat is difficult sometimes. For example, my flatmate Steve recently became a godparent to a mutual friend’s child, and as part of the christening ceremony he had to renounce the devil. So now if I want the devil to come round, I have to wait for Steve to go out. Otherwise there's the awkward moment where they see each other and say 'hi' in that really restrained way, while not making proper eye contact. Usually at that point the devil gets upset with me and refuses to grant me any satanic gifts, and instead starts crying and threatening to 'sue my ass'. Like it's somehow my fault.
The devil, in case you didn't know, cries really easily at everything. I mean, the other day he cried because we had no milk and I could only offer him green tea. He could have conjured some milk up with his demonic powers, right? No, apparently not, because it wasn't actually about the lack of milk for normal tea, was it? No, it was because I knew he was coming in advance and 'hadn't bothered' to prepare for his arrival. “So, what are all these dead chickens, slaughtered goats, candles and sigils about, then?” I asked him, casting my arm round the room in a theatrical gesture (and, I might add, slightly burning my expensive new robes on a candle in the process, something El Diablo singularly failed to comment on). This comment, designed to cheer Satan up, in fact just instigated further crying. Then he started apologizing and explaining that it wasn't really my fault and that he'd been under a lot of pressure recently because of the credit crunch.
Like a lot of people, the dark lord has been using the credit crunch as an excuse for all sorts of shit. The other day he tracked muddy hoof prints all through the flat (which I had to clean up quickly to avoid Steve making snide remarks about the devil when he got home). When I commented on the devil's basic lack of hoof cleanliness, he sheepishly explained that due to the credit crunch he couldn't afford to refill the chemical footbaths at the gates of hell any more. “But why the mud, lucifer ?” I asked, “You told me that the road to hell was as parched and dry, and that nothing could grow there. Also, you don't need to physically WALK anywhere, do you? You just sort of turn up in a puff of brimstone”. At this point, the problem became clear - out of habit, the devil was still insisting that anyone entering or exiting hell used the chemical footbaths at the gates. Trouble is, as the chemicals hadn't been changed for months, rather than being filled with that chlorine smelling blue liquid you'd expect to see, the contents now pretty much resembled the soily runoff you find on the floor of a festival portaloo. Rather than keeping hell clean, the chemical footbaths were now serving to make it dirtier - but as the morning star had instigated the footbath system in the first place, he was too proud to stop using them, lest he appear weak in front of the other dark gods like Cthulu or Gozer. And yes, while he could just teleport straight from his throne room to my flat, he felt he had to go via the gates and accompanying footbaths because he wanted to keep an eye on one of the gatekeepers, who he thought had been 'looking at him funny'. At this point, as I sat trying to firm up the hoof prints with a hairdryer for ease of brushing out later, I was quite tempted to point out that this was just another classic case of his oversensitive nature ruling his life and causing trouble for his colleagues. However, I feared that would set him off crying again, so I let the matter drop.
The devil, in case you didn't know, cries really easily at everything. I mean, the other day he cried because we had no milk and I could only offer him green tea. He could have conjured some milk up with his demonic powers, right? No, apparently not, because it wasn't actually about the lack of milk for normal tea, was it? No, it was because I knew he was coming in advance and 'hadn't bothered' to prepare for his arrival. “So, what are all these dead chickens, slaughtered goats, candles and sigils about, then?” I asked him, casting my arm round the room in a theatrical gesture (and, I might add, slightly burning my expensive new robes on a candle in the process, something El Diablo singularly failed to comment on). This comment, designed to cheer Satan up, in fact just instigated further crying. Then he started apologizing and explaining that it wasn't really my fault and that he'd been under a lot of pressure recently because of the credit crunch.
Like a lot of people, the dark lord has been using the credit crunch as an excuse for all sorts of shit. The other day he tracked muddy hoof prints all through the flat (which I had to clean up quickly to avoid Steve making snide remarks about the devil when he got home). When I commented on the devil's basic lack of hoof cleanliness, he sheepishly explained that due to the credit crunch he couldn't afford to refill the chemical footbaths at the gates of hell any more. “But why the mud, lucifer ?” I asked, “You told me that the road to hell was as parched and dry, and that nothing could grow there. Also, you don't need to physically WALK anywhere, do you? You just sort of turn up in a puff of brimstone”. At this point, the problem became clear - out of habit, the devil was still insisting that anyone entering or exiting hell used the chemical footbaths at the gates. Trouble is, as the chemicals hadn't been changed for months, rather than being filled with that chlorine smelling blue liquid you'd expect to see, the contents now pretty much resembled the soily runoff you find on the floor of a festival portaloo. Rather than keeping hell clean, the chemical footbaths were now serving to make it dirtier - but as the morning star had instigated the footbath system in the first place, he was too proud to stop using them, lest he appear weak in front of the other dark gods like Cthulu or Gozer. And yes, while he could just teleport straight from his throne room to my flat, he felt he had to go via the gates and accompanying footbaths because he wanted to keep an eye on one of the gatekeepers, who he thought had been 'looking at him funny'. At this point, as I sat trying to firm up the hoof prints with a hairdryer for ease of brushing out later, I was quite tempted to point out that this was just another classic case of his oversensitive nature ruling his life and causing trouble for his colleagues. However, I feared that would set him off crying again, so I let the matter drop.
The Devil and Restaurants
The dinner had ended badly again. Why do I always let him talk me into this shit? I wondered, sitting in the minicab and once again pushing the devil’s unconscious head from my shoulder. I then chastised myself for being a little harsh. Because in theory, a meal out with Jesus, The Buddha and my good friend Satan should have made for a fun evening.
It had certainly started well enough – we’d settled on a venue easily, without any of the squabbling that usually plagued these outings from the start. Jesus was in the mood for seafood; Buddha said he just fancied “something a bit bland, to be honest” and was there more for the conversation, and the devil was ok with “wherever, as long as it’s cheap”. Thinking back, that should have been the first warning sign that the devil was going to spoil everything again, but at the time I laughed his comment off with a look to the others that I was hoping said something along the lines of ‘that prince of lies, eh? What is he like?’. Later that evening, I repeated the look to myself in the bathroom mirror and discovered it looked rather more like an impression of an elderly sturgeon reaching climax, but at the time I felt I’d nicely defused the first hints of animosity that so often bubbled up when I was hanging with Satan. Anyway, we quickly plumped for a little Thai place that I knew of, on the basis that they did a mean monkfish curry that I thought Jesus would dig, a bland but satisfying omelette for the Buddha, and most importantly a very reasonably priced menu to keep old scratch from moaning. Maybe things would work out ok.
Not so. The thing with the devil is, it’s not really any one big thing he says or does that causes the bickering. As with many socially awkward people, it’s just the little comments, the slightly inappropriate suggestions, that start to really get to you after a while. Within a few minutes of us being seated, he was on his usual form. The wine was what caused the problem. Jesus, Buddha and I were happy to just have a couple of bottles of house red, and initially the morning star agreed as well. Problem was this, though – he kept trying to pressure Jesus into ‘miracling up’ (he actually made air quotes when he used this phrase – so annoying) the house red into a finer vintage. “Sure, we’d only be paying for house red, but you’re good with wine, right? You could make it into something really special, and we’d all be making a little saving”. I caught Buddha’s reaction from across the table - a weary ‘here we go again’ look flickered across his usually jolly face. Jesus politely but firmly reminded Satan that we’d agreed not to use our miraculous powers while out on socials – that sort of thing was fine back in the office, but it was bad form and unprofessional elsewhere. Well, he said ‘we’ out of politeness more than anything, as the group knew I was wholly and unremarkably mortal. Still, they were happy to have me around because I amused them, could hold a conversation, and most importantly knew the devil well enough to keep him in check. Plus, as a staunch atheist (despite the somewhat overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I admit) they felt I bought a sense of impartiality to their nights out. This time though, it was Buddha who stepped in and steered the conversation into more neutral territory. “You know, I read in The Daily Express that most so called wine experts can’t actually tell the difference between a three pound bottle and a fifty pound bottle during blind taste tests”.
I tell you, that was a stroke of genius on Buddha’s part, because it got Jesus and Satan started on how unreliable science was in general, something they both agreed on wholeheartedly. This neatly sidelined the putative wine argument, and left Buddha and I free to discuss last week’s episode of Doctor Who whilst the other two tried to put the world to rights. Once again, I got that odd feeling of hope mixed with anxiety that usually accompanies a lull in the devil’s antics.
Surprise surprise though, it was the bill that sent things irretrievably south. Like on numerous other occasions, the lord of the flies had to go and complicate what should have been a simple transaction. Jesus, Buddha and I all agreed to split the bill evenly, with Jesus being kind enough to cover the whole tip himself. The devil, however, insisted that each diner only paid for what he’d ordered. Nobody wanted an argument, so we quickly relented. Trying our best not to react, we all sat and watched while Satan produced his reading glasses and a small charcoal pencil, and began circling the things he’d ordered on the bill. This was made all the more awkward by the fact that he wasn’t quick when it came to mental arithmetic, and tended to say figures out loud to himself as he plodded along. Worse still, the devil made a point of feigning shock at the prices of each dish he’d eaten, and broadcasting these to the other tables in an unnecessarily theatrical manner. I swear I saw the restaurant proprietor physically flinch upon hearing the words “Three fifty for jasmine rice?”, but the final straw came when the devil, by now very drunk, leaned over to a young couple and told them he hoped they were really enjoying their duck because it was costing them about a pound per forkful. Seeing this, the proprietor marched over and demanded we settle the bill immediately and leave. Again, things could have been bought to a quick end there, but the devil decided he was going to act the martyr. Slapping away our hands whenever we tried to give the wizened Thai any money, he stated that he was going to pay off the meal singlehandedly by working it off, washing pots. Before we could stop him, he’d made for the kitchen, knocking a couple of chairs over with his tail in the process. What happened next is open to debate – it might have been luck, but I suspect intervention on the part of one of my companions. In any case, as soon as Satan set hoof in the kitchen he slipped on a puddle of soapy water, pole axing him and leaving him unconscious on the floor. I used this opportunity to thrust my credit card into the proprietor’s hand, and made a point of staying silent when the card machine announced that the service charge was suddenly a whopping fifty per cent.
It had certainly started well enough – we’d settled on a venue easily, without any of the squabbling that usually plagued these outings from the start. Jesus was in the mood for seafood; Buddha said he just fancied “something a bit bland, to be honest” and was there more for the conversation, and the devil was ok with “wherever, as long as it’s cheap”. Thinking back, that should have been the first warning sign that the devil was going to spoil everything again, but at the time I laughed his comment off with a look to the others that I was hoping said something along the lines of ‘that prince of lies, eh? What is he like?’. Later that evening, I repeated the look to myself in the bathroom mirror and discovered it looked rather more like an impression of an elderly sturgeon reaching climax, but at the time I felt I’d nicely defused the first hints of animosity that so often bubbled up when I was hanging with Satan. Anyway, we quickly plumped for a little Thai place that I knew of, on the basis that they did a mean monkfish curry that I thought Jesus would dig, a bland but satisfying omelette for the Buddha, and most importantly a very reasonably priced menu to keep old scratch from moaning. Maybe things would work out ok.
Not so. The thing with the devil is, it’s not really any one big thing he says or does that causes the bickering. As with many socially awkward people, it’s just the little comments, the slightly inappropriate suggestions, that start to really get to you after a while. Within a few minutes of us being seated, he was on his usual form. The wine was what caused the problem. Jesus, Buddha and I were happy to just have a couple of bottles of house red, and initially the morning star agreed as well. Problem was this, though – he kept trying to pressure Jesus into ‘miracling up’ (he actually made air quotes when he used this phrase – so annoying) the house red into a finer vintage. “Sure, we’d only be paying for house red, but you’re good with wine, right? You could make it into something really special, and we’d all be making a little saving”. I caught Buddha’s reaction from across the table - a weary ‘here we go again’ look flickered across his usually jolly face. Jesus politely but firmly reminded Satan that we’d agreed not to use our miraculous powers while out on socials – that sort of thing was fine back in the office, but it was bad form and unprofessional elsewhere. Well, he said ‘we’ out of politeness more than anything, as the group knew I was wholly and unremarkably mortal. Still, they were happy to have me around because I amused them, could hold a conversation, and most importantly knew the devil well enough to keep him in check. Plus, as a staunch atheist (despite the somewhat overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I admit) they felt I bought a sense of impartiality to their nights out. This time though, it was Buddha who stepped in and steered the conversation into more neutral territory. “You know, I read in The Daily Express that most so called wine experts can’t actually tell the difference between a three pound bottle and a fifty pound bottle during blind taste tests”.
I tell you, that was a stroke of genius on Buddha’s part, because it got Jesus and Satan started on how unreliable science was in general, something they both agreed on wholeheartedly. This neatly sidelined the putative wine argument, and left Buddha and I free to discuss last week’s episode of Doctor Who whilst the other two tried to put the world to rights. Once again, I got that odd feeling of hope mixed with anxiety that usually accompanies a lull in the devil’s antics.
Surprise surprise though, it was the bill that sent things irretrievably south. Like on numerous other occasions, the lord of the flies had to go and complicate what should have been a simple transaction. Jesus, Buddha and I all agreed to split the bill evenly, with Jesus being kind enough to cover the whole tip himself. The devil, however, insisted that each diner only paid for what he’d ordered. Nobody wanted an argument, so we quickly relented. Trying our best not to react, we all sat and watched while Satan produced his reading glasses and a small charcoal pencil, and began circling the things he’d ordered on the bill. This was made all the more awkward by the fact that he wasn’t quick when it came to mental arithmetic, and tended to say figures out loud to himself as he plodded along. Worse still, the devil made a point of feigning shock at the prices of each dish he’d eaten, and broadcasting these to the other tables in an unnecessarily theatrical manner. I swear I saw the restaurant proprietor physically flinch upon hearing the words “Three fifty for jasmine rice?”, but the final straw came when the devil, by now very drunk, leaned over to a young couple and told them he hoped they were really enjoying their duck because it was costing them about a pound per forkful. Seeing this, the proprietor marched over and demanded we settle the bill immediately and leave. Again, things could have been bought to a quick end there, but the devil decided he was going to act the martyr. Slapping away our hands whenever we tried to give the wizened Thai any money, he stated that he was going to pay off the meal singlehandedly by working it off, washing pots. Before we could stop him, he’d made for the kitchen, knocking a couple of chairs over with his tail in the process. What happened next is open to debate – it might have been luck, but I suspect intervention on the part of one of my companions. In any case, as soon as Satan set hoof in the kitchen he slipped on a puddle of soapy water, pole axing him and leaving him unconscious on the floor. I used this opportunity to thrust my credit card into the proprietor’s hand, and made a point of staying silent when the card machine announced that the service charge was suddenly a whopping fifty per cent.
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