News Anchor: Tonight, Angelica Fulsome gives us a tour of the Devil’s Home on Earth revealing His Evil intimate side. Angelica, what did you find most interesting in the Devil’s House:
Angelica: His collections. They are very large.
News Anchor: He must keep a large staff.
Angelica: Not even one. That’s why they’re interesting.
News Anchor: Alrighty then. Let's get this Dust Devil to market. And now, Part II of Interview With The Devil.
(Camera zooms to an empty lot in Lickskillet, Alabama.)
Angelica: Do you really live here?
The Devil Yes, well this is as good a front door as any. I live everywhere there is motion, something happening.
Angelica: Why Lickskillet?:
The Devil: Nothing happens here. I can relax. Isn’t that what home is for?
Angelica: I see.
The Devil: Do you? Really?
Angelica: You said you were divorced.
The Devil: 45 centuries last Christmas.
Angelica: Who lives with you?
The Devil: No one. I want to relax at home. Kick back and watch some ice hockey. Try not to mind the all-at-onceness of being eternal, at least, locally.
Angelica: Then you do your own cooking, laundry, and house cleaning?
The Devil: No, well, not really. My meals cook and deliver themselves. Reality is extreme take-out. My clothes were made by the creator who made me. They stay clean. My house cleans itself. Brownian motion. Nothing but me stays in one place long enough for dust to collect and even dust stays clear of me. I’m the Devil. I don’t occupy space. I’m nothing in time. Where everything is happening all at once, nothing is too. I never get involved. Time is my home court, not space. In Time, I win every game.
Angelica: You always win in time. Why?
The Devil: Gaps.
Angelica: Huh?
The Devil: (Twisting an invisible door wheel) Try to count silence silently.
Angelica: I can do that.
The Devil: Really? Definitely a six. Cameradude, stay put.
Cameraman freezes in place with camera running.
The Devil:Cameras don’t work in my house. Light doesn’t go there. (to cameraman) I’ll send you some footage close enough for cable. Ok? Ok. (to Angelica) Please, come inside.
(suddenly inside)
Angelica: Where are the fires of Hell, the the…
The Devil: Dammed?
Angelica: Yes
The Devil: I don’t live where I work, sweetie. Too much …emotion. Too… real. And that’s not what I do anyway. Monks made that up freezing in their little rooms barefoot and barebottomed wishing for fire and denying it to themselves to get closer to God. Fire? Too much work. I’m a lazy. Cold is my game. All that time their self-denial of even the basic requirements to stay healthy was bringing them closer to me. Ultimate take-out.
Angelica: How do you know who goes where?
The Devil: In Hell? I told you. Shoe sizes. Push a bit here a bit there it looks organized but it’s really quite random. It’s real torment to be five stuck among a crowd of 2s and 7s. But here, perfect order. 3s, 5s, 7s, 9s, 11s, 13s popping in and out like a swarm of black bees flying toward you. No 8s, 4s, or 6s, though. Don’t need ‘em.
Angelica: No ones?
The Devil: One is me. I’m the major one here or in hell. I’m the Devil. The real genius, I must say, is I don’t have to judge.
Angelica: Judge? You mean judge who are the worst sinners?
The Devil: No. I don’t care about sin. In a universe where a rock the size of Texas can obliterate you at any moment, that human beings worry about The Devil’s opinions of their indiscretions is one of the big jokes. When not playing golf, I watch your history on cable. It’s the best comedy ever. No, I mean I don’t actually pick who is tortured the worst.
Angelica: Who does?
The Devil: You do.
Angelica: How?
The Devil: It’s whoever wears the tightest shoes. You’re a six. You’re feet are a six and a half.
Angelica: Are you the enemy of life?
The Devil: Yes. Life fills the gaps. Then I’m the one in the tight shoes. Would you like to see my collections?
Angelica: I guess.
The Devil: Guess?
Angelica: Certainly.
The Devil: A six. A six.
Angelica: Didn’t you say there are no sixes here?
The Devil: I did. Indeed, I did.
Angelica: Then how…
The Devil: To be with me you must be other than me. All of this is me.
Angelica: I see.
The Devil: Do you really? C’mon then. Let’s go see my soul collection. The first are the unprepareds. They created gaps by thinking about how they would be perceived instead of what they would need to perceive others.
Angelica: The handmaidens who did not remember to bring the oil for their lamps.
The Devil:You know the story.
Angelica: I heard it on the radio driving up here.
The Devil: (looks up with wry smile). Unfair…. the next are the smugs. They create gaps because smugness closes the ears. If you had not listened to the radio, you wouldn’t know the story. And no matter WHO told it (looks up), you wouldn’t hear it.
Angelica: But I did hear it.
The Devil: And you came with me anyway. And here are some of my favorites: fools for fortune.
Angelica: The greedy?
The Devil: Not all. Those who know a fortune is needed for a foolish desire in life and they spend their life getting both. Nothing creates gaps as large as the success of the undeserving. Are you cold?
Angelica: (pulls her sweater) No!
The Devil: Alrighty then. Here are those for whom I have the most dispassion: the Atheists. They are the most complex because they are the unprepared, smug who spend their lives defending the most indefensible of arguments: the negative. These I treasure because they defend me assiduously, give their lives, their emotions, their dreams and ambitions for others to my defense. . I on the other hand, look back uncaring, unwanting, unchanged. I am not moved, yet generation after generation, they send their children into the community of man to defend me.
Angelica: Do you need defending?
The Devil: No. I am impregnable by means of logic. Only gap filling acts can break down the walls of randomness. Something from something for something or nothing if that’s what you have. So for my collection, they are the greatest fools. (The Devil puts one of the collection in his mouth and strips it like a chicken leg.) Hmm… Kung pao. And you are cinnamon.
(Angelica looks at him wide eyed and trembling).
The Devil: Can you count silence silently yet? Breathe.
Angelica: inhales a sharp short breath
The Devil: Would you like to leave? You appear quite cold.
Angelica: Yes.
(fade to news room)
News Anchor: Quite a chilling piece. Angelica, did he say of his collections which he was working on these days?
Angelica: Shoe salesmen.
News Anchor: Alrighty th… (chokes… clears his throat). Chinese. Come back tomorrow night for the final installment of Angelica Fulsome’s Interview with The Devil.
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