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You'd think that something so inefficient, infuriating, and unpleasant as office politics and middle management would be firmly in the wheelhouse of Down Below.
But no, after a few decades in Heaven you get pretty familiar with the complete and utter incapacity of angels to do anything creative.
They weren't given free will after all, they were just made to be obedient and full of praise. The ultimate yes-men, yes-women, and yes-faces-of-a-lion-eagle-bull-and-man-things.
God had kind of pitched a fit since his go to guy, Lucifer, had tried to take things over a few millenia back, and had locked himself in his office making beetles ever since.
And Jesus? The heir apparent to the whole shebang did his best to try and fix Daddy's company, but a few centuries of having a bunch of halo-sporting butt-kissers tut-tutting and saying "That's not the way our Father did things..." you'd spend most of your time turning water into wine and appearing on tortillas in Tijuana too.
"Care to explain that again, Mikh'sholel?" I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"I don't see what's so difficult. Here in Heaven we are to take care of all God's creatures, great and small. Surfing didn't exist for the vast majority of history.
No one was using the surf park, and we needed SOMEWHERE to put the piranhas, leeches, sea snakes, and candiru."
I glared at the Angel of the Lord and thought ungodly thoughts, "Well, mankind is here now, and I was hoping to get my surf on without being having all my blood sucked out, my flesh devoured, and a friggin' fish embedded in my dick."
Mick, as we'd taking to calling him... her... it looked at me funny. "You're immortal, your form is merely a mental projection and restores itself to take on your ideal image of yourself quite rapidly."
"It still hurts, though!" I said, moving behind the uncomprehending angel and began to pluck out feathers.
"Ow. Ow. Please stop that. Ow." it said with all the pain and passion of Ben Stein reading the telephone directory.
After the original members of mankind started dying and showing up in Heaven the Big G-man attempted to coax his two creations into getting along better by mixing traits. Mortal men were now immortal and pretty much indestructible. Angels had feelings grafted on in an attempt to get them to empathize.
But they weren't really wired quite right to feel much of anything. So like Mick they didn't really react to pain and treated it as just another sensation.
I was pretty sure the angel was only complaining because she felt like it was the proper, human thing to do.
"Well, Mickey..."
"Mikh'sholel." the angel corrected snippily.
"Since I can't get my surf on I'm going to head downstairs and drop in on your big brother. I'm sure Lucy's got a nice wavy body of water to torment the aquaphobes with."
The angel wrinkled its nose and snorted disgustedly. "Do what you will. But I really wish you people wouldn't encourage my brother and his rebellious friends. He's supposed to be in time out, thinking about the things he's done wrong."
I picked up my board, gave Mickey the finger, and headed for the nearest stairs.
Despite what you may think, Heaven and Hell aren't actually very far apart. It makes for a more effective punishment that way. You can see what you missed out on while suffering for eternity.
And the colossal hooting dickholes in Heaven can organize a picnic on a cloud overlooking the ever-burning lake of fire so they can watch the damned scream and sizzle, allowing them to point, laugh, and stick their tongues out and go neener-neener-neener, I got into Heaven and you didn't.
And not only are those people complete and utter slimy sacks of smegma in the shape of a man, but the food sucks too.
I mean who the fuck thinks butter-drenched vegetables are good picnic food? Limp stalks of greasy asparagus. Yuck.
Satan's actually a pretty decent guy. He's SUPPOSED to be sitting in hell contemplating his failed attempt to overthrow God, but instead he's basically gone "Fine, I'll build my own heaven! With blackjack! And hookers!"
And so it was. The angels tended towards "Eww, sex! Ewwie, ewwie, eww! Put that person who does lots of the sex where I don't have to look at them and think about genitals and bodily fluids!"
So the devil did in fact have all the hookers.
Not to say Hell can't be unpleasant. But the moment you realize that you're just as immortal as the next guy, and that the only reason he's bigger and stronger than you is because you imagine yourself as smaller and weaker, well you don't tend to stay tormented for much longer.
Of course humans being humans some people can be really fucking dim. Some just sit sizzling in the lake of fire not realizing that they can fucking swim to shore and climb out using the handholds that thousands of damned souls have worn into the rock over the ages.
I found the Prince of Darkness in a lush, albeit red, jungle. It was always best to ask politely if you wanted to use something in Hell. If you don't want the fundamentalists wandering in and looking all offended at your game of Dungeons and Dragons you pretty much had to play in the basement.
And one session where you suddenly have a bunch of naked polygamists chained together in an amusing fashion swept through the room on a tide of liquid shit is enough for most people to make sure that the place hasn't already been booked.
So here I was, in the midst of Hell, surfboard in hand, to ask the Lord of Lies if I could use his pool.
He was feeding dog biscuits to a rather happy Gallomimus, a sort of rather ostrich-like dinosaur.
"Huh. I thought dinosaurs were supposed to have feathers." I said, looking over the scaly beast, who was on its back, wriggling happily and having its tummy rubbed.
Lucifer rolled his eyes, "It's frustrating trying to deal with humans sometimes. There are significant factions that think dinosaurs never existed and that to lead people away from God that I planted their bones in the ground."
"Others think that mankind and dinosaurs existed at the same time, thus the origin of dragons."
"But it's those ridiculous angels that are actually sticking false fossils in the ground, making dinosaurs seem feathery instead of scaly."
Apparently I'd stumbled over a sore point.
"And why'd they do that?"
Lucifer grinned, "Because it's only just in the last few centuries that my siblings realized just how cool dinosaurs are and are trying to hop onto the bandwagon. Anything scaly belongs to me, due to the whole serpent incident."
The Lord of Hell gave the creature one last pat on the belly and rose, looking me over. The Prince of Darkness chuckled.
"Candiru in the surf park, eh?"
The dinosaur had enough of not being paid attention to and had gotten to its feet as well, and was nudging its snout against the Prince of Darkness' hand.
"Yup."
"I told them they should just make a new area. We have infinite space, after all, but my siblings aren't known for being creative and started whining about how creation was something that Dad was supposed to do, and there had to be a design committee, and blah blah blah and so on and so forth.
'Oh but we've never used it, Lucifer!' Stupid gits, just because that's the way that things have always been doesn't mean that that's the way things will always be."
The Devil dusted off his hands, "We've got a naval re-enactment going on in the big one, and I've got the medium one reserved for a frat house that stood around and watched a drunk girl drown in the pool. They've got about two hours until the gas leak catches fire. Two of them are down for maintenance and cleaning, and the other one doesn't really do waves.
Sorry to say it looks like you won't be able to get any surfing in until next week. Unless you know, you want a fish embedded in your urethra."
"No thanks."
Lucifer shooed the overly affection dinosaur, "Hey, you know what you could do instead?"
"What?"
"You ever ridden a T-rex before?" the Devil said with a him-ish grin.
I shook my head and smiled, "Well, better to rein in Hell than surf in Heaven, I suppose."
Lucifer groaned, "Ugh. Where did I leave my red hot pokers?"
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