Satan



I've tried, I really have, but nothing ever goes right for me. Everywhere I go, it's the same thing: people talking about me like I'm not even there, saying how terrible I am. Telling other people not to walk in my path. Urging that I be shunned and reviled, and commanding me in the name of all that is holy to get myself behind them. I swear, sometimes it seems like everybody thinks I'm the worst entity in creation.


I'm not that bad a guy, okay? I have my flaws, but I'll have you know I used to be considered quite the golden boy back in my day. Do you even know what the name Lucifer means? Depending on how it's translated, it can be "Bright And Shining One" or "Bringer Of Light," or all kinds of pretty names. I'm telling you, I was the fairest star in the firmament once. The only reason I even got kicked out Heaven in the first place is because I was more beautiful than God.

Yeah, well, now look at me. I can't even possess a lousy 10-year-old girl without some geezer in a white collar screaming "The power of Christ compels you!" in my face and insisting that I leave immediately. Look, I just want to connect with a human being for a little while! Levitate a few beds, spin a couple necks around, have some deep, throaty laughs. Is that so wrong? Everybody treats me like some kind of lowlife just because I'm the symbolic embodiment of all the evil in the universe.


Have you heard the things they call me? I can take a good-natured ribbing as much as the next guy, but some of these names are just so mean. Do you have any idea how it feels to be called the "Lord Of Lies"? Ouch. Look, I may be mankind's greatest fears and weaknesses made flesh, but my feelings can get hurt just like anybody else's. "Prince Of Darkness"? How would you feel if everybody called you "The Defiler," or "The Despoiler," or "The Unclean One"? It's not my fault that my terrifying visage erupts into suppurating boils when exposed to the holy light of truth and righteousness. It's hideous enough without people always needing to rub it in.

I'll bet I'm the most despised and hated being in the whole wide world. I even wrote a poem about it once in my creative-writing class, but when I read it out loud, everybody just laughed at me. I only took that class to make friends, but even the biggest dorks there reacted to my very presence with visceral repulsion. I'm telling you, I felt like the lowest of the low. The only way I could get anyone to talk to me was by promising this one guy I'd make his stupid legal thrillers into bestsellers in exchange for his immortal soul. Now he's had a string of hit movie adaptations and I'll bet I don't even hear word one from him until he shows up mewling and begging at the gateway to the underworld.


Oh sure, there are the occasional few who want to be my acolytes, but come on. I mean, have you seen these people? They're plain weird. Sure, they say that the reason they're into me is because they're rejecting society's small-minded notions of petty morality and embracing a world where "do as thou wilt" shall be the whole of the law, but it's pretty obvious that they're really just mad that nobody else in the corporeal realm wants anything to do with them.

I was sort of excited by the ones from the Norwegian black metal scene at first, though. I thought, "Finally, some worshippers who, if nothing else, at least have the balls to burn down a 900-year-old church." Some of them even had girlfriends. But that wore off pretty quick after I caught a few shows. For people who've supposedly sold their souls to the devil, these guys couldn't put together a tune for shit. I mean, I sure as hell didn't trade them any guitar skills down at the crossroads—or whatever the hell the Norwegian folklore equivalent would be—and from the sound of their records, nobody else did either. Let's just admit it—black metal is lame.


And while we're on the subject of my mortal followers, don't believe a word you hear about all these so-called "spawn of Satan"—that phrase gets thrown around quite a bit, but believe you me, most women won't even come near me. I guess I've never really known how to show affection. But I have needs too, you know! I just wish I could meet a nice virgin half-goat woman who totally gets me. But every time I get involved with a receptacle for my seed, it always ends badly.

The only person who understands me is my friend Gene. Sure, he knows I'm a mythical representation of all the tragic and self-defeating fallibility inherent in the human condition, but he doesn't judge me for it. Lately though, I hardly ever get to see him. Ever since he settled down, he's spending more and more time with his wife and kid. I know he's busy, but I miss him. He was an okay enough guy… not quite evil enough for my tastes, maybe, but an okay guy all the same.