However, sometimes it crept up behind me and smacked me on the back of my head. That was when I had an urge to whip up a quick short story, a one-pager, anything, really, just to get it out of my system. And those long, extremely busy four years left me with some quickly drawn shorties that were miraculously spared deletion when my laptop refused to cooperate a couple of years ago.
Below I'm posting one, just for a quick, cheap entertainment of those five people who made it to this point of the post. I hope you like it.
IMPROVING HELL
The Devil
himself looked at Jack and raised his eyebrows. His long, strong tail was
hitting the floor, making annoying sound of something being whipped in silence.
He folded his arms on his chest; this was never a good sign. But, come to think
of it, nothing the Devil did was a good sign. After all, he was evil.
‘Look, I’m
just saying you could improve a few things here. You know, to make it worse. So
please, don’t pull this face at me…’
The Devil
rolled his eyes and looked even scarier than usual.
‘I mean, you
certainly have… people skills, let me put it that way, but you’re lacking good
management here…’
The Devil
moved his body weight from right foot to his left one. Looking closely, one
could see a bit of smoke coming out of his ears. Of course, nobody would look
closely at the Devil, so smoke remained unnoticed.
‘Like that
time you let God beat you in some stupid battle… I’m absolutely sure that it
was only down to a bad-’
‘Enough!’ the Devil
shouted, interrupting Jack. The smoke was now becoming a pure essence of fire.
Even the Devil’s nails started sparkling red and his fangs shone more than
ever.
‘Man, you
really pissed the boss off,’ said a demon standing behind Jack. His ugly face
was right next to Jack’s and demon’s bad breath almost made Jack fall. And, of
course, there was the smell of marihuana. Jack tried it, but passed out and
that’s never a good idea when you’re in Hell. Next day he woke up with a headache
and his trousers stolen. ‘Never, ever mention that battle to the boss. It makes
him feel like a loser.’
‘Well, he did
lose…’ Jack whispered, trying to refrain from breathing. Not that he had to
breathe. When you’re dead you don’t have to do such things, but also, when
you’re dead, you like sticking to old habits. It helped Jack to remain normal
in Hell, despite the lack of traditional toilets.
‘I said:
enough!’
The Devil was
burning brightly now, hardly visible from behind the cloud of smoke. Jack was
slowly getting stoned.
‘Errr…,’ he
said.
The Devil
stopped and smelled the air.
‘The heck with
it,’ he mumbled and reached into his burning pocket, taking out something black
and wrinkled. He winked and it disappeared with a quiet “ping”. Jack felt
slightly better.
‘Ok, now I am
seriously angry with you, you little bastard. You have wasted my time, you have
wasted my patience and now you have wasted my… latest purchase. Argoragh, take
him away from me and keep him there.’
The demon
grabbed Jack’s shoulder and turned him right towards the exit.
‘But-’ Jack
started, but demon hushed him quickly.
‘Don’t push it,
man.’
‘But-,’ Jack
tried again.
‘Seriously,
dude…’
‘But-’
‘Wait!’ the Devil
cried suddenly. ‘Hold on… What’s your name again?’
‘Jack,’ said
Jack.
‘And you were
a lawyer…? Politician? Member of the Big Brother House?’
‘Human Resources
Manager,’ Jack answered proudly, capital letters falling heavily into their
places. He used to love his job.
‘Aye. Slightly
surprising, though… Only lawyers, politicians and fake celebrities manage three
“buts” in a row. Why did you want to see me?’
‘I wanted to
introduce to you my project of improving Hell,’ Jack knew he was being patient.
‘Improving
Hell?’ the Devil raised his eyebrows once again, but this time out of
curiosity. He’d always been good at facial expressions.
‘Yes. I have
prepared this graph here, illustrating the new organisational order. We could all
be based on the rota system…’
‘Very
interesting… We shall talk about it some other time. Now, I have an important
meeting to attend. Arogargh, take Jack here back to the dungeons. I will speak
to him later.’
The
Devil sighed when Jack and Arogargh left, thinking he was getting softer these
days. The little man was quite amusing, though…
He
walked right to the wall and opened his wardrobe. It was hard to control his temper
sometimes. Only this week he’d managed to burn six suits already and it was
only Wednesday. But he couldn’t help himself, especially when people told him
that God beat him. If they only knew…!
He grabbed
another set of clothes and the wardrobe door swung back. He looked at the
perfect blackness of the material, and, satisfied, he transformed quickly: his
tail disappeared, as if his backside sucked it in; his fangs grew smaller and
fitted nicely behind his now pinkish lips; his talons shortened, losing their
sharpness. The Devil, now in a human shape, put on the suit along with a tie
and perfectly shiny shoes, and opened the door, hidden in the chamber’s wall.
He walked into his private office, carefully closing the invisible gate, and sat
comfortably behind his wide desk. Soon after he heard the long expected knock.
‘Come in,
please,’ he answered calmly. The other door opened and a tall man, dressed in an army
uniform, entered the room, and decisively walked through the red carpet,
stopping at the desk.
‘Mr President.’
‘General
Russell.’
‘Our troops have
arrived, Mr President. We will attack tomorrow.’
‘Good,’ said the
Devil and smiled. ‘Thank you. You may leave now, general.’
The man was at
the door when the Devil stopped him.
‘One more
thing, general. Do me a favour and tell my secretary to get me some more of these.’
The
Devil opened the drawer, took out the black, wrinkled object, and threw it to
the man. The general caught it and looked at it: it was a half-burnt pack of
the finest imported cigars.
‘Of course, Mr
President.’
‘Thank you,’
the Devil replied, watching the human leaving his office.
He
then thought of Jack. Improving Hell? But it was perfect!
19th June 2007
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