I, Demon

Call me Beelzebub. I know I am ripping off Isaac Asimov with the title and Herman Melville with the opening, So, sue me. We have a lot of lawyers here. Although we don't get all of the attorneys, we get the ones so cunning in their craft that they earned eternal damnation. I control the Legion of Lawyers, a ruthless bunch whose motto is 'They can't disbar the dead." The four princes of hell do not exist. There is only one and he is the king I am a big guy, but I am not 'the big guy'. That would be Satan. No, not Lucifer. Despite some erroneous translations and television shows, Lucifer is associated with the planet Venus, his name comes from the Latin for morning star or light-bringer. He is really more of a free agent and was once considered a Roman deity. He is much too nice for my taste. The Christians gave Lucifer his undeserved and illegitimate promotion as someone else to fear. There is no need for that, we have plenty for them to fear already I, on the other hand, am a prince of demons, one of the originals cast down with Satan. Hebrews derogatorily suggested my name meant "Lord of the Flies," suggesting I was a piece of shit, but the translations are "Baal of the Exalted House" or the Hebrew "High Lord of the Order of the Fly" (a big deal around here). Note to self—have the Legion of Lawyers sue the estate of William Golding.

Yes, we have a lake of fire, but it is actually more of a pond. The Christians got it wrong again, the "Lake of Fire" is not the entirety of Satan's domain. Satan himself is in charge of the lake. This is probably the reason the lake is small. Even in Gehanna, we can't get water to burn. Just like the Cuyahoga River, it takes a flammable liquid. Said liquid must be replenished regularly and the boss doesn't want to do all the work that would be involved a huge flaming lake. Since he is a majority stockholder in Exxon/Mobil, we have all the fuel we need. Did I mention that I am his BFF and trusted advisor?

The rest of hell— we prefer Gehanna or the "Bad Place", but I will use the terms interchangeably to accommodate simpler minds—is a variety of tortures, confinement, boring talk shows, Trump rallies, and Ikea outlet stores. One of the zones I control is the confinement attractions. I have the usual Iron Maidens, birdcages, and such, but I am proudest of the cells. They are a source of amusement to all demons. We put the recently deceased in the cells and have guards come by periodically to 'check the lock'. We just leave them in the cells until they figure out that the cell door is not locked. We have had some in there for more than a century. What dumbasses! The cells have been filling up lately with anti-vaxxers dying from Covid or gun accidents—one idiot looked to see if the barrel was clean while 'accidentally' pulling the trigger. I have nicknamed him "Cyclops" because he shot himself in the eye. Lucifer claims he doesn't get the joke, but I think he is just being a jerk again. We are taking bets on whether one of these vacuous imbeciles in 'lockup' sets a new record.

Hell is a unitarian institution. We get all the religions down—down is not the correct term, it's more of an ethereal plane—here. We have Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics—they know now!—, the whole gambit. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but the Good Place© is a lot like the TV show, to avoid any copyright infringement we henceforth refer to it as The Other Place. They also don't give a shit about your religion. That is why we don't bother trying to get anyone to renounce or abandon their religion—this is another myth created by Christians and adopted by Muslims. We sure as hell don't care. What matters is how you behave while you are alive. Being an asshole is your ticket to hell. Crashing airplanes into buildings and killing people for any reason will get you to the top of Satan's list. Do you know that Santa is an anagram of Satan? Satan knows if you've been naughty or nice, we have informants everywhere, and so do I. We get every TV evangelist here. They are all greedy assholes without exception. If you don't want to spend eternity here, my advice to you is, "Quit being an asshole, right now, without delay." We don't have a lot of traffic back and forth—once you’re here you remain here. On rare occasions someone will do something to get sent here—that is how most of the top guys got here. That was a long time ago, before Christ was a corporal, as they say.

We don't need much of a recruitment effort. It looks as though the Republican party is going to keep us busy for years to come. The Incoming Souls Department is already making preparations for Trump and Putin. Narcissists, psychopaths and shitheads are always on ISD's radar and those two both won the trifecta.

Chapter Two - Lucifer the light bringer

demon