Is it possible to lower the flames a bit, Sir? They’re throwing reflections on the camera lens."
The burning fires of Almighty Hell, so hot they could scorch the sin right out of the most murderous human heart, sunk two feet with the wave of a manicured hand. With just a ring of flames surrounding the set and crew the cameraman was able to get
his angle and the lighting screens were arranged. Though the place was rimmed in fire, it
retained the blackness of a cave. The subject sat quietly in his leather chair and waited.
The cavern was a special place for him, a place of quiet reflection. It was clean,
comparatively comfortable, and without the stench that was a usual part of his day. It was
as welcoming as Hell got.
“Ashley? Are you ready, Sweetheart?”
The director, a pudgy man with a growing bald spot, turned to watch his star leave the make-up artist's chair to navigate her way over the lighting cords. She splayed her hands out, stepping carefully in her four inch Jimmy Choos. Her butter-golden hair was held off her shoulders in a loose chignon that brushed the black leather Cavalli jacket she wore on top of a pink cashmere turtleneck.
“Marvelous. Are you comfortable, dear? Would you like the lumbar cushion?”
“No thank you, Ray.”Ashley settled into her seat . Sound approached and attached a tiny clear mic to the inside of her jacket.
“Let’s prepare to roll, people. Are you ready, Sir? Super. Quiet, everybody! Roll tape. Five-four-three-two-one. Go ahead, Ashley.”
The little red light on the camera flicked on as Ashley gave her lips a final lick before turning towards the lens.
“Good evening, and welcome to “Amazing Lives”. I’m your host, Ashley-Ann
Jensen, and tonight we have a once in a lifetime exclusive. Our guest has been known and
feared, in one form or another in nearly every country and culture that has ever existed.
His career is the second longest in the history of mankind, and although he will admit to
having had a few lean years, he has always been able to resurface with a new, stronger
agenda. He has numerous aliases, but he still prefers to be called by his legal name, so
viewers, may I introduce you to….The Devil.”
The camera went to wide angle, revealing a being very close to a human man seated opposite Ashley. The Devil was of average height and his body was slender. He wore a designer suit of charcoal and a scarlet tie of brushed silk. At his wrists were cufflinks that might have been sapphires if not for the occasional blinking. The face showed a certain experience yet was unlined by advanced age, while the mouth was thin but a healthy pink. His hair was neatly trimmed and a rich chestnut, as was his pencil mustache. His eyes were distinctive as they were unusually large and of such a dark brown that it was impossible to determine if they contained pupils or not. He sat smiling pleasantly at the woman in front of him. He could almost pass for one of us, the director had thought during their first negotiation meeting. He has a continental look, suave like an old-time movie star. Mrs. Telly Viewer wouldn’t click the remote off on this guy. I’m willing to bet my kids that by tomorrow morning every secretary in the country would be talking about The Devil and begging HELLO! Magazine for a write up.
The only possible problem was the tongue, which was stretched long and thin
with a prominent forking on the end. The Devil had a thick Irish brogue, which the
director knew would give some viewers enough trouble deciphering the conversation, but
when he pronounced the letter ‘s’, the tongue would dart out and slap against his upper
lip, making a noticeable “sslmpt” before retreating back in his mouth. The director
thought about asking if there was any way for The Devil to control it, as the sound was
picked up clearly by the sensitive boom, but then decided it would be unfair since he had
never requested any other subject to change for the sake of the camera. He just didn't
know how forgiving viewers were of speech impediments.
“Let’s talk about your beginnings,” Ashley began. “You were an angel in heaven.
Tell me what that was like.”
“Oh, I have to say that I was so surprised and grateful when God chose me as one
of the original angels,” he replied, “Up until that time I had been just one of millions of
souls knocking about, not really doing anything to speak of. Out of nowhere, I received a
summons. I was to see God.”
“He wanted you to work for him?”
“Yes, and as I said, I was so surprised. I couldn’t imagine why I would be among
those chosen.”
Ashley tilted her blonde head. “Why were you? What made you so special?”
The
Devil gave a quick smirk.
“Apparently He saw a spark in me. He told me that I was destined for something
that had never been seen before. That I had an important job ahead of me. Whether He
anticipated the outcome, I’ll never know. We no longer speak.”
“What did you learn from your time in heaven?” Ashley asked.
“Oh, so much, so much. I mean, it was my big break and I wanted to use it to the
fullest. I had hopes of growing with the business and someday being promoted. So I
worked hard learning to judge others and punish or reward accordingly, and that
experience was indispensable. It became the basis for my later work when I struck out on
my own.”
Ashley furrowed her pretty brow and pinched her face into a thoughtful expression.
The effort gave her a moment to remember her next question.
“Now, this has never been clear. You had some sort of falling out with God. What was
that all about?” she probed, leaning her chin lightly into her hand.
“Well,” The Devil sighed, “There were a lot of problems at the time. It was a new
operation then, we were working out the kinks, you see. Learning as we went. The
frustrations were endless. The schedule mix-ups, the policies being changed daily,
individuals swapping assignments to ensure leniency for their relations. It was all so
disorganized that I would find myself wondering if God had really thought the project
through. Actually, the worst part was the ‘in’ squabbling, which was constant. Everyone
second-guessing each other’s decisions. With such a heavy workload, it left us all a little
edgy.”
“So it was an inability to get along with others that led to your departure? You
wanted to be in charge of things, maybe?” Ashley said with a practiced smile that
conveyed “gentle yet firm”.
The Devil shifted in his chair. He had agreed to this interview, he reminded himself,
too late to back out now. He could control his urges, no matter how rude this woman
was. Should have gone with a more credible show, something more serious. Yet
“Amazing Lives” had the biggest weekly audience. The living must be getting thicker,
the Devil thought to himself. The calming words of his yoga instructor trickled through
his mind: “Serenity in through the nose, turmoil out through the mouth.” He performed
his breathing exercise, pulling in air deeply before answering.
“It was a large portion of the reason, but not all. I suppose I felt under-appreciated
after a while. God wasn’t using my ideas and they were very good. Remember the flood?
You know, Noah and his bloody Ark?” The Devil could feel his skin flushing with anger.
The memories of his old workplace still put him in a rotten mood, even all these
millenniums later. ‘Occupational Trauma’ his shrink called it.
“I suggested that the flood should be of urine instead of water. I mean, what comes to mind when you think of a lot of water?” He sat forward menacingly. Ashley tilted her head and offered tentatively, “The seaside?”
“That’s right! Either that or doing your washing, and neither of those things are very frightening, are they? People take their holidays at the sea, they sit in it. Willingly! So would you be surprised to learn that it took weeks for those bloody humans to realize that they were being annihilated? It was just rain. Nobody took any notice of that. All right, I’m not being fair. It was very stormy, thunder and darkness and all that.” He leaned his elbows on his knees in irritation. “It was scary. For rain. But now, picture great sweeping bales of urine falling out of the sky. That would have been a disgusting mess to drown in, I’ll tell you.”
“Right, right,” Ashley Jensen said. She sat back. And waited. Waited for
something to come to her, anything. Anything at all to say. They both sat there saying
nothing and Ashley realized that seconds of dead air were passing and she started to feel
a little sweaty. She wondered if her face looked as frozen as it felt, because at this
moment she began to realize how much she liked movie stars. She was truly interested in
them, and supermodels, and she believed her audience was too. Movie stars knew what
was expected of them- a bit of chatter, a giggle. She hadn't wanted to interview The
Devil. Ray had twisted her arm over it, saying she needed to do some serious stuff once
in a while. Credibility. She wouldn’t have reason to smile much today and Ashley really
like seeing her teeth on camera. After enduring braces, resurfacing and laser bleaching
she finally had the impossibly perfect smile of her childhood fashion doll. Also, The
Devil’s bio had been long and tedious and now he was making her look bad. Like she
couldn’t carry her show.
“Anyway,” The Devil continued, “After about a week of rain, I came undone. I threw
open his door and yelled at God, ‘Why couldn’t we have done it my way? Am I stupid?
Maybe I’m invisible!’” The Devil clenched his thin hands and twisted his body away
from Ashley. “Gobshite”, he muttered, “Buck Eejit”.
The cameraman zoomed in to show the subject’s face was red and his lips pulled
thin over his teeth. The director leaned over and whispered, “Keep the camera off her,” as
the former winner of the Miss Bigglestone beauty pageant and third-runner up in county,
looked as stiff and shiny as a plastic mannequin. Her kohl-smudged eyes were round,
straining in their sockets as she watched the tongue of her guest lashing about. Why is he
angry?, she wondered, he’s on telly. Everybody's happy to be on telly. I shouldn't have let
Ray talk me into this crappy interview, she thought. No clever quips or seductive teasing
to toss in, as it wouldn’t look right to get on well with The Devil. She gave a smile, the
small, mysterious one she like to call “The Mona Lisa”, as she chirped out her next
question.
“So you became your own boss. Tell me about some of your success stories. Who
has worked under your influence?”
The Devil’s black orbs glistened. The greedy businessman, hungry for free
publicity, took over. He crossed his legs and let a modest smile appear on his lips.
“Well, there are the obvious ones, the blights of humanity, the monsters, you know.
Caligula, Attila, the guy who thought up middle-management work retreats. They were
all major players. A lot of people think that the Marquis de Sade was one of my guys, but
he wasn’t. That one was just a lunatic, he was off doing his own thing and I’d get reports
about him. All I could do was laugh. He was a complete nutter,” he chuckled.
“And Hitler?”
“Sure, sure. With Adolph, I developed the closest working relationship I’ve ever
experienced. More of a partnership, really, in that I started with a “to do” list for him and
he just ran with it. He was a wonderful little organizer.”
“But his Nazi regime was eventually crushed. Was that because of some
miscalculations on your part?”
“No! No it wasn’t!” The Devil puffed out his lips at Ashley. She was rude. Rude
and taunting and he didn’t like looking at her. He didn’t care for her over-processed hair
or her drawn-on eyebrows or her staring cow eyes. She was a bony, rude stickwoman and
he hated her. Luckily, he had done some homework of his own.
“Adolph was overpowered when I became distracted with something else. I let my attention slide to that ridiculous morals and ethics business in Hollywood. Just a little something on the side and it wound up costing me. I felt like I had really bished it for him, so I plucked Adolph.”
“What do you mean by ‘plucked’?” Ashley asked.
The Devil’s temple began to pulse. He clenched the arms of his chair and breathed deeply through his nose. Plucked. She thinks she can question me when she doesn’t even know the whole premise of my business?
“Plucking is how I acquire my inventory. My product is souls, so I must pluck a
soul from the targeted living being. The soul is then transported here, to Hell, and
processed according to the severity and volume of evilness contained in said soul. That is
my whole purpose, that is how I make my living, Miss Abigail Eugenia Jezenowicz.”
'Oh, so that's how you want play it', Ashley conveyed with a lift of the brow, a look she called The Downtown Smack. He’d be sorry for taking that tone with her on her own program. He’d be the one looking a git once she was done.
“So you have all the murderers and muggers? Collected all the dirty little bits
down here, have you?” Her most guiltless smile, The Ingenue, appeared on Ashley’s lips
as she waited for his answer. The Devil smiled back, forcing a relaxed pose as he slowly
spoke.
“Yes, all those souls are here. But the majority is made up of less dramatic stuff,
really. People who lied under oath in court, stole exam answers in school. People who
cheat to win.”
“Oh,” Ashley said. She opened her eyes wider and gave him a blank stare, The
Guileless Child. She had spent years in front of a mirror perfecting such an innocent,
vacant look. It got her out of spots plenty of times, and it was slowly occurring to her that
she might be in one now.
“You see, Ashley, I’ll pluck anybody who has done something wrong out of evilness,
no matter how small that evilness is. It may be something that just shows the spark of sin.
Say, for example, that there’s a girl and she wants something badly. To win a beauty
contest, or something equally intellectual, but she has nothing to offer beyond just a
passably pretty face and a body that will widen with age. I might provide the opportunity
to cheat, but it is ultimately the human who decides whether to act on that opportunity. I
could make sure that the prize at this backwoods gala was something important to her. A
train ticket to get her out of the pathetic little town she grew up in would be an interesting
prize for a girl like that. She would want to get to London, where the real action is.”
Ashley found herself trying to push her weight through the back of her chair, wishing
her guest would shut up right now. The heat in the cave had become unbearable, causing
perspiration to bubble up through her sweat-proof make-up. The Devil continued.
“So with very little incentive, this girl might lie on her contest application or
sabotage the more deserving contestants by spreading dirty rumors about open sores and
gender surgery. Then to clinch it, she could show up on the doorstep of a lonely judge, or
even two. That’s the kind of soul I pluck, Ashley. A soul like that belongs here.”
Ashley felt the hot sweat sliding between her shoulder blades. She was frightened,
yet not defeated. Ashley-Ann Jensen was a cagey sort, and when backed into a corner she
tended to come out with claws and teeth snapping. She knew things about life. Her mind
spun through the biggies:
1.Anyone who makes it a point to tell you they are your friend, isn't.
2.Never do it on tape.
3.The one with the most to lose will confess first.
4. Everything has a loophole- That's the one!
“ But you can’t take a soul until someone dies, can you? And only then if the person
doesn’t repent, right? People can ask for forgiveness and be saved from you, can’t they?
That’s an out,” she breathed.
The Devil’s reply was a noncommittal, “Mmm,” as he casually raised his eyes toward
the ceiling.
Out of the corner of her eye Ashley saw the director rolling his arms, the sign to
wrap it up. She was relieved. It had been a difficult day, but she also felt rather satisfied
with herself. She had the goods. She had gotten The Devil to show his hand, and in his
arrogance, he had stumbled. Now she would wriggle right out of his grasp. By tonight she
would be in a church, she would confess to what she had done. She would truly repent
and find some charity for underprivileged starving children to throw a huge wad of cash
at. She could change.
“Our time is up, I’m afraid. Thank you so much for being here,” she said, giving The
Devil her Professional Smile. “You’re amazing.” Turning towards the camera, she added,
“And thank you for joining us. See you next time.”
“And cut,” the director called out. “That’s it. Perfect, Ashley. Really great stuff. Alright, that's it. Let’s go, people.” The lights switched off and cables were reeled in as Ashley and The Devil rose from their seats. She didn’t need anymore from him, and so turned without a word, already on a mental path out the door, to the crew van, which would take her back to the production studio. From there, she would drive her Porsche about London until she spotted a church in a suitably wretched yet photogenic neighborhood. Can anybody just walk in or do you call ahead for an appointment? she wondered.
The Devil knew her tricks, the cheating little tart. He had repressed his urges long enough; by opening her mouth she had offered hope to millions that they could escape The Devil. She was threatening his livelihood. On the other hand, she had also given millions of people sweet, false hope, for the Devil didn’t need to wait for death to snatch the goods and often didn’t. Evil Was Evil, was the Devil’s motto, why wait? Ever so quietly in his glossy wingtips, the Devil padded up behind Ashley and pressed his thumb and index finger into the small of her spine, then jerked his hand back to expose the milky, squirming product that was now his possession.
Ashley was suddenly freezing in the hot cave, as if all her internal organs had
shut down. She shivered, completely unaware that she had been robbed. All she knew
was that she didn’t feel such a rush to find religion at the moment. What she really
wanted now, in the most desperate way, was worldwide fame encompassing an
international talk show, a design label and multiple perfumes. She wanted a line of
organic Thai-inspired soups in the supermarket.. She wanted to record a dance album and
go on MTV Request. She wanted to be photographed with Bono, to befriend Posh.
Ashley-Ann Jensen wanted everything. And she was willing to do anything to get it.