The Devil Takes a Vacation

 

One day, the Devil realized he was very bored.

It was one thing to own hell and know that you were responsible for all the bad in the world in a roundabout way, a trickle-down system. Millions and millions of people enacted his practices of hatred and cruelty and malice upon each other, and it had been very entertaining for a while to watch events unfold. The business with racial purging that cropped up every few hundred years was the Devil’s annual Christmas special, sans the birth of Christ. No one had noticed the inherent evil of the death penalty yet, and the ones that had were getting more creative. Everybody was getting more creative, hedging the system and undermining the traditions, and maybe that was the problem.

Things had progressed beyond the Devil’s system.

He hated the imminent sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him that all this business didn’t really belong to him anymore. People had taken his ideas and run wild. His annual Christmas specials were turning into weeks on end of Frosty the Snowman reruns, one after another, and each episode was worse. Atoms were being split with a disturbingly increasing frequency. The gap between the poor and the rich had reached a ridiculous height. Everything was going so wrong that the Devil was certain things couldn’t be working right.

The Devil suspected sometimes that God was letting him have his way just to be nice or something. The Devil didn’t appreciate it.

He decided to take a vacation.

He decided to take a long drive through Africa. Destruction and starvation followed in his wake, but it hardly made a difference.

It took a few years for his imps and demons to notice the absence of their boss, but eventually they did. They inspected his empty desk for instructions or spare change. After finding nothing but a Canadian penny, which was no good to anyone, they shrugged and got back to their work, expecting that was what the boss expected of them.

When the Devil had traversed Africa, and still did not feel ready to go back to face the office, he drove his car across the ocean floor. The exhaust fumes from the pipes polluted the water, causing the extinction of hundreds of undiscovered species. But because they had never been discovered, no one noticed, and the Devil was left in peace.

By now, the imps and demons were taking turns sitting in the big boss’ chair and doing startlingly accurate imitations of him. Three fallen saints entered Hell and were granted personal audiences with “‘The Devil’ himself.” The imps drew straws, and the winner entertained all three without anyone knowing the difference.

The Devil was slowly using up the oil God had instilled in his creation, causing shortages across the world. But everyone assumed that would have happened eventually anyway, and paid it no mind.

He stopped in Mexico to make a call to Hell, because he felt it might be time to get back to his duties. The phone was answered by a lower imp who was playing ‘The Devil’ that day. When the Devil tried to inquire as to the whereabouts of the real boss, the imp referred him to the demon who had sat in the boss’ chair the day before. Disgusted, the Devil hung up.

During his phone call, five different men had attempted to jack his car and were in a violent dispute over who had prior claim. With a snap of his fingers, the Devil dispelled them to the lowest depths of Hell. A woman thanked him for helping to keep the peace.

The Devil considered going up to Heaven and asking God if this was his idea of a joke. Then he realized that God probably wouldn’t even recognize the difference between ‘The Devil’ and the stupid fake sitting in his chair. Besides, that damn Gabriel could be such an a*s.

He decided to take a long drive through eastern Asia.

He still is.

No one knows the difference.

Author's Note

I'm looking to improve. Please write any criticism that comes to mind.

Reviews

[Amber Nicole]

I am absolutely loving your stories with Satan. I hope you write more.