Game On
“Then we have a deal,” I agree.
“Dat wuz he’s ear deny thought,” he confesses.
“Easier than you thought? You know how long I had to think in order to find a way to convince you to make this deal?” I submit.
“Fool! High owe norse owe el now,” he brags, “you’ll serve me well has ma Jen arrow lan mire me. Why wool doobie da one con Vince in me?”
“Don’t you see? I was very specific about the words I chose to make sure you agree no matter what, and I managed to ensure myself a loophole,” I explain.
“What loop hoe? Eye a count head forever he thing.” The fallen angel grows angry.
“Well, for one, I don’t have a soul, I’m just a messenger,” I explain.
“Eva re-wand hazza soul,” he argues.
“There’s one being that doesn’t,” I clarify.
“What? Yo! Realiddy Czech, homie, ewer juss sum-dum Jewish kid hoof fogged hop, an now eye beet you,” the dark angel Gabriel warns.
“That little boy died at the age of two when his father smashed his skull in when his son ran to hug him,” I begin explaining.
“Water you tall king bout?” he asks.
“I’m talking about who I am versus who everyone thinks I am,” I explain.
“You cray zee, buh sure, aisle bite. Dell me yo story. Hid make snow differ hence tomb he; had eels ha deal,” he states.
“Fine, where was I? Oh, so that wasn’t just any little boy. That little boy was a famous champion who won first place in a centuries-long tournament.” He just stares at me in silence. I have his attention. “Years of competitions and trials to win the opportunity to live as a human on Earth; making him one of the few humans with an actual divine soul he had the honor of carrying with him.” He looks confused.
I pause.
Silence.
His brow lowers in disbelief.
“The tournament was watched by hundreds of trillions of planets with higher life forms; you would call it heaven, but since this planet was thrown into a black hole, you have no idea what I’m talking about. Do you?”
“No, hue sow end cray zee,” he says.
“What’s crazy? Living so close to a star that it burns you to death if you stand outside too long and freeze to death on the same planet’s far corners. Having giant asteroids crash into the planet every day and some so big, it wipes out most of the lifeforms. That the future is a quick death just a few decades after birth? That’s hell! We’ve been thrown out; well, I mean you all, not me. I’m here to see if your species violated universal laws.”
“Ewe no bowed uni-burst all lows?”
“I wrote them; I should know them.”
“Hoo ah you?” Satan asks.
“Now you want to know?” I ask.
“Yeah, eggs plane ya self,” he says.
“I honestly don’t have an answer to that right now,” I admit.
“I cooled keel you juss foe say ying dat. When high as cue hack west on, eye eggs pecked hurry spuns…”
“Or you’ll make more Jewish insults?” I chime in.
“Nicca high wuz gone as A sever all a salts,” he warns.
“Now just hold on,” I request, “we’ve been down this road before. Trust me, you weren’t the first time. Tell you the truth, I’ve lost count.”
“You still trying to get out of this deal?” he asks.
“Get out of it? I’m not trying to get out of it; I’m just explaining how long and complex the project took to ensure you, the great Satan of planet Earth, understand exactly what’s about to happen, because you’re one of the lucky ones by comparison.”
“Come paired two watt?” he asks.
“Compared to the other seven billion who will be your slaves.”
“Day muff rents!” he argues.
“What? All seven billion?” I ask.
“Nah bud lie cog hood cup ill thou send. High canned ends lay vid dem.”
“Not to worry, the invasion will straighten all that out for you.”
“Nice dry, bud hi and buy in it!” he says.
“There’s nothing to buy, the ships are on their way. About three thousand soldiers for every one human. The whole thing will take less than a week.”
“Awe eek?!” Satan barks, laughing it off as the nonsense of a crazy kid from the suburbs.
“Well, given the gravity of my report, which included the risk of self annihilation, they’ll probably have complete control of the planet in under 6 hours. I heard they once did it in under an hour. But my God; talk about a blood bath!” I say.
“Sew your eel he canned eye?” he asks.
“Oh, it’s much worse than that I’m afraid,” I admit.
“How’s oh?” he asks.
“Well, for starters, I’m going to be your new boss after the invasion,” I explain.
“Wait, water bout deck hid who on debt urn ha mint? Hue nabber eggs play end dat,” he says.
“Well, that has to do with the aliens I mentioned,” I state.
He just stares at me after a brief nod, so I continue.
“They learned the secret of extracting the soul from the body by using advanced technology too sophisticated for a human brain to comprehend the complexity of the science behind it. It has something to do with integrating religious practices with super-heated lasers, but that’s as much as I can remember right now. The child competed for hundreds of years without resting to earn the prize of being transferred into a new body. I don’t want to bore you with details, so the short version is, when that champion was killed, the high courts and galactic counsel took note. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the alien rulers to replace the lost hero with an unkillable, machined humanoid scout. The sole purpose of the soulless bot was established to observe and report back.”
“Yearn hot bore hang me; key hip tall king… plea is,” he invites.
“The bottom line is that when I finally die, or I guess ‘shut off’ would be more appropriate, then the soul I carry returns to heaven, and that means the alien invasion is about to begin. The few to survive the extermination, and I’m not promising there will be any, will be enslaved and farmed for their milk and meat, just like we treat cattle.”
“Sew them hued ooh habra soul,” he asks.
“True, I do have bartering rights over a soul, it’s just not the soul of the child you see before you,” I expand on my earlier response.
“Hoe kay aisle by tex plane tomb he who soul you’d who ab?” he asks.
“I am authorized to negotiate on behalf of God Herself,” I proclaim.
“Dots heaven bed err a fit wart rue,” he mocks me.
“It is true,” I reply, “and according to our deal, you just gave God access to your realm and your army and you didn’t negotiate your rights to enter heaven.”
“Wait, what?” he asks, “say that again!”
“You authorized God to command your army and granted unlimited access to all the farthest reaches of your hell,” I clarify.
“I could just kill you now,” he threatens.
“You could, but that would just make matters worse for you,” I offer, “if you’ll hear me out, I have a better deal for you.”
“What deal is that?” he asks, “you’re a brave one, I’ll give you that. Much braver then the last ones.”
“I will make you a second deal,” I offer.
“And what’s that? Backstage passes for Jesus and Mother Theresa? No thanks,” he jokes.
“I was going to say, I’ll rescind the offer if you agree to let me command your army against God myself without enlisting me into an eternity of torture in hell,” I suggest.
“Let me get this straight,” he voices, “you lead my army against God, which I was going to have you do anyway, but you’re not bound to a sentence of an eternity in hell. So what does that mean? You can come and go as you please? Bounce in and out of heaven, hell, everywhere you want to be like a Visa commercial?”
“That’s the deal,” I reply.
“And why would I agree to that?” he asks.
“Because of one thing you’ve overlooked,” I explain, “God would be stuck with you in hell.”
“Interesting...” he replies, “what would that mean for the rest of existence? Would I still be in charge of hell if God was there with me?”
“That I can’t answer, but I do know a deal’s a deal, and God’s not the type to back out on a deal once He’s shaken hands on it.”
“Does God even have hands,” Satan asks.
“I dunno,” I respond.
“Then I will finally be the alpha to my own creator! Bending the laws that bind the fabric of our existence to my whim. I will have won the war,” he proclaims.
“Not exactly,” I explain.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Well, God will still be God. You can’t change that,” I advise.
“So what does that mean?” he asks.
“I think it means you guys will be equals when He joins you in hell, but neither will be stronger than the other. Still, God is God, so who knows if those rules will remain in effect once the deal is sealed?” I propose.
“Interesting,” the devil postulates, “I will be equal with my own maker. Finally, I can extinguish Him by extinguishing myself.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, “you want to extinguish yourself?”
“Do you have any idea what a burden it is to be the leader of the most hated beings in existence? I’m surrounded, wait, no, I’m immersed up to my neck with the most negative life-sucking parasites to ever survive by God’s graces,” he says.
“So why don’t you just end it now?” I ask.
“Don’t you think God thought of that? Of course anybody He puts in charge of hell will want to find a way to end their own existence just to escape the infernal torture of disciplining evil souls,” he explains.
“So?” I ask.
“So... so, I can’t die; believe me, I’ve tried.” he finally reveals, gaining my empathy now that I realize the dark evil angel is really just a tired old man sentenced to babysit the criminal elements of the galaxy.
"Welcome to the club," I answer, "I'm here to replace you. A deal's a deal."
