Satan's Rude Awakening
December 11, 2001
by mellowin man

Satan was sitting directly across from me, sitting atop a large wicker basket, and eyeing me contemptuously. I was so sick of this guy. "I never see you at the bars anymore, Johnny," his voice slithered across the floor.

"Shut up, you miserable demon, you know that's not my name," I neatly spit several feet.

"Miserable demon?" his face puckered, then released, "I'll give you a miserable demon, you mortal scum!"

"You don't scare me anymore, Beelzebub," I laughed, "there are far more frightening things than you."

He puffed himself up to the ceiling, his shoulders growing eight and a half feet wide.

"Scarier than LUCIFER?" he roared, shaking the walls of the room.

"Yes," I replied, somewhat meekly, but with steadfast resolve.

"WHAT, PRAY TELL, COULD POSSIBLY BE MORE HORRIFYING THAN I?" he screamed, the vein on his forehead pulsing rapidly.

"Well, first of all, there's John Ashcroft plundering the Constitution, and using wartime as an excuse to eliminate certain Civil Rights, for example the very right to due process that makes America free in the first place..."

The Devil looked concerned.

"Can he do that?" Satan was obviously impressed.

"Well, he has," I answered, wishing it weren't true.

"Positively devious," Satan mused. "I should like to get to know this Mr. Ashcroft better."

"I figured he was one of yours!" I said confidently.

"No, not yet, not yet..." Satan's voice trailed off into the distance.

He murmured unintelligibly, and all I caught was "shows much promise..."

He turned, suddenly, and stared into my eyes.

"OK, I'll give you that one, but you said there were many things! What else is more frightening than the Dark Lord?" and then he added, "You foolish mortal!"

"Congress using the terrorist attacks to push for more tax breaks for the super rich?"

He nodded, blankly. I sensed the Prince of Darkness was getting a little queasy.

"Bush sealing Presidential records forever, and Ari Fleischer saying it's to make them more accessible?"

"Very Orwellian," the Devil remarked, realizing too late just how cliched that was. He snapped his fingers in disgust, and fire shot out from them.

"TV talking heads saying it's all perfectly sensible, and you're unpatriotic if you don't go along with it?"

He was clutching his stomach just a little, and I pretended not to notice. I was almost ready for the kill.

"The American People buying it all?" I almost stuttered, as Satan had turned pale, which is really something to see, believe me.

I leaned in real close, his fiery breath very nearly burning my eyebrows off.

"How about," I said slowly, and carefully, "the premise that the current people in power stole an election, so that they could get more money for themselves, and their friends in big oil, while also protecting themselves and their cronies, thus preserving the legacy of Reagan/Bush forever, even going so far as to use the war on terrorism as an excuse to set the whole thing up?"

Satan was quiet, and looked a little frightened, for the first time since I'd known him.

"And what if I told you, just hypothetically," I paused for dramatic effect, "that the very people who are wiping out the Taliban were associated with people who had recently given those same Taliban VIP treatment on their Texas ranches?"

"Stop it, stop it," the devil cried, "you're going too fast for even Mephisto!"

He wiped the hot lava sweat from his brow, and grimaced, baring his sick, disgusting fangs.

"How could all this be happening in America?" he asked, puzzled. "If these types of things were going on, the press would be all over it, the lousy do-gooders."

"Say, you have been out of touch for awhile, haven't you," I whistled.

"What"s that supposed to mean?" he looked hurt. He looked off into the distance for a moment, and said, "Screw it, I got things to do."

"What kinds of things?" I asked, worried just a little.

"It sounds like I'm needed in Washington. Looks like we might have another Third Reich!"

"Oh man," I grumbled, "you'd think the Lord Master of Hell would be a bit more original than that!"

He flipped me the bird, and replied, "I calls 'em like I sees 'em," and made a half hearted attempt at a comical Nazi salute. He stuck out his slimy, forked tongue, saluting me with a Hellish raspberry, and disappeared in a cloud of acrid smoke, as he tends to do.

I figured it would be quite some time before he bothered me again.