Tormenting Angels

I was testing out my collection of ink markers, because a lot of them had gone dry and I wanted to discard them. This testing resulted in a jumble of lines and colors that have no appeal; so I thot that I’d share the thing as today’s obligatory image—I hope you don’t mind.

Dear diary,

Wouldn’t it be weird if you were one of the angels in heaven whose job is to torment the devils in hell? Cuz angels are supposed to be the friendly ones, the ones who are driven by love. So I imagine you’d go to work down in hell, and you’d approach the devils that you were instructed to torment, and you’d meet eyes with them, and you’d feel a genuine love, as all living creatures feel for each other when they’re honest (and consider that angels are the most honest creatures ever begotten); then you’d find that you are not even able to begin: “I can’t torment these devils,” you’d say to your co-worker — for I assume that God would send his angels down in pairs to torment his enemies, so you’d have one co-worker to converse with throughout your shift:

“I can’t torment them,” you’d say; “they’re living creatures just like us: My spirit is too distinguished to participate in such a base act of vengeance.”

So what would happen after this? First, your co-worker would either agree with you or not. Let’s say that he agrees. Now you two either need to tell God that he can take this job and shove it; or else try to hide the fact that you’re not willing to work (and this would be difficult, because God knows everything). Alternately, you might just pretend to torment the devils, without really harming them, & thus appear as if you’re still loyal to the King without sinking to his level. But I can’t imagine this last idea succeeding — plus it’s undignified to feign working hard: only upper management does that.

And, on the other hand, what if your co-worker disagrees with your conscientious objection to doing the LORD’s work? What if your co-worker is a sadist? (Many angels are sadists, as a matter of fact; so this is not an improbable postulation.) What if your co-worker takes pleasure in causing devils torment, so that your attitude of compassion would strike him as not only absurd but insubordinate? What then? Do you secretly draw up a plan with the group of devils who you’ve been assigned to “labor upon”, so that you all can enact a sneak attack on the tormenting angel? And what would you do with your co-worker, once you’ve bagged him up and he’s writhing & roaring curses in a big burlap sack? (I suggest tossing him into the fire-lake.)

*

But let’s back up for a moment and consider a different situation that just caught my fancy. Think about that sadistic angel, hard at work, loving his job. He torments the devils, day in and day out, with a smirk on his face. This angel whistles while he works. Now imagine one scenario: Let’s say that our sadistic tormenting angel meets his match and faces a devil who just won’t cry. I imagine the original Lucifer was something like this:

The story goes that, once upon a time, all the angels in the galaxy were obedient to their dictator, Jehovah God, also known as The LORD, the unelected king of heaven; but then when Jehovah decided to beget a son and bequeath him the heavenly kingdom, despite the fact that Lucifer was the most exuberant angel — the zaniest, the funniest, the gentlest, and by far the wisest — Jehovah chose the angel named Saint Paul instead, for no discernible reason (Paul was trim, argumentative, and calculating; also strong and extremely attractive, with a full head of hair). So this blatant insult in promoting Paul over him made Lucifer angry. Being impulsive, he got himself born on earth as a Nazarene, nicknamed Jesus, and he went around teaching all the earthlings all the flaws in God’s church — he urged everyone to abandon the judgmental religion of the priests, and to practice forgiveness instead: “Open your heart to the Hidden Alien God who is the source of Poetic Genius” is something I imagine he might have shouted to a half-listening multitude.

So the God of the Sky was enraged, on behalf of his true son Paul. So Jehovah had his churchgoers hunt down and apprehend Lucifer’s earthly form Jesus; then they handed him off to the global hegemon of that eon, which happened to be a place called Ancient Rome (nowadays it’s known as the U.S.A.) — in short, they had Jesus assassinated. God moved his statesmen to administer upon his enemy the harshest available form of capital punishment. And that was that.

But, in the meantime, Lucifer’s avatar had gained a mob of followers. Angels all over heaven had taken on earthly flesh just to follow this Jesus. And they followed him even unto death. So they all went to hell. For Paul asked his father God to build a basement, as an addition to heaven, like a dungeon underneath it, and to leave it unfinished, so that they could silence their opposition by storing them there. Thus, that’s where they imprisoned the spirits of Lucifer and his rebel angels — and St. Paul commanded his media monopoly to refer to these fiends only by the derogatory term “devils”. But Lucifer and his movement gladly owned this label and made it into a term of endearment.

So, returning to our question: What happens if one of God’s sadistic angels goes down into hell’s dungeon and tries to torment a strong spirit like Jesus or Lucifer, and they find that this devil will not cry tears but only keeps bellowing hymns and old drinking-songs? & he mixes sacred psalters with the bawdiest tavern ditties in his medleys — wouldn’t that be maddening: if you wanted to torment your evil foeman but the guy just wouldn’t stop jubilating?

So you jab and jab with your javelin, but it has no effect. And every once in a while, between lays, the devil stops and speaks cheerfully, to your face, some zany quip that puzzles & irks you, such as:

Whoever you are, I just want to warn you that your battery might run out.

And you’re thinking: What the heck is this devil talking about!? I can’t make heads or tails of all his gibberish.

And then, one day, in mid-torment, what if your batteries truly did run out! Tho Paul assures us that we’ll live forever with God, how do we KNOW this, for certain? He always sez: Just have faith. But that’s like a politician punctuating his propaganda with the catchphrase “Believe me.” Faith is proof-resistant for good reason. (One might even say: Faith is proof-proof.) So where’s the guarantee that we faithful ones possess immortality? Lo: anything that had a beginning could have an end; and each of us remembers our angelic birth, clearly. So there’s a good chance that the devils in hell are privy to certain info that we lack. Maybe they’re onto something, with all their delighted raving that they call “the enjoyments of Genius”, which look to us like torment and insanity.

But I don’t dare doubt God. He’s the maker of my soul — that’s what Paul sez. It’s in heaven’s Constitution. So I’m not going to jump ship now, after a lifetime of adhering to the dictates of the One True Ruler, our galactic demiurge. Altho it doesn’t seem exactly decent to keep punishing these sweet people, I’m gonna suck it up and continue to do my job. I got a family to feed: Blind mouths agape, every day — I want them to grow up & take my place, lest we lose the cosmic battle. I plan to pass the baton to them, in the spiritual relay-race. Rightness MUST conquer wrongness. Let us never tolerate things done incorrectly. That’s sloppy & crooked. Long live control and accuracy and perfection. Maintain the double-entry system: If we don’t keep track of who owes what to who, then all is unfair. Everyone should receive a bonus for the work that is done, except those employees who actually do the work — for they already HAVE their reward; in & of itself, performing labor is a requital. Because, remember: tis better to give than to receive; therefore those workers actually own the upper hand. And if giving trumps receiving, then just think how superior to giving it is to be stolen from.

(I just wish I could make the devil cry the way he makes ME cry.)