Friend Of The Devil

Satan ruled Hell with a malevolent thirst for pain and suffering, visiting the worst horrors imaginable upon all who entered his realm.

Bob was Satan's best friend. Bob defended Satan to anyone who would listen. Just because he had an important job to do, and that job was not all together pleasant, doesn't mean Satan was a bad guy. Don't confuse the uniform with the man. This was one of Bob's favorite sayings.

Those poor souls who suffered a Groundhog's Day repetition of never-ending torments hated Bob even more because he stuck up for Satan.

But that's what friends do.

Dreamland

The lake has an island that has a church on it with fine black cracks etched all over. It’s the place where disaster originated. Everything else has been declared safe for visitors. The sky is an orange I never experienced before. A smell like the rancid diapers of the spawn of Satan crawls through trees. A fox poses in front of a sign that says NO JEWS AND ANIMALS ALLOWED. Joggers, dog walkers, and parents with strollers slow down as they go past. I catch the expression on their faces, mostly a combination of surprise and puzzlement. Sometimes they smile.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of two new poetry collections, The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro-Press, 2020).

Hell

Hell is the worst place you can imagine, because if you could imagine something worse than Hell, than Hell would become that.

When he’d been alive, Edgar had been obsessed with cheese. He’d also been a huge prick and made everyone around him miserable. Now he was being tortured with cheese. He had cheese running through his veins and was repeatedly dropped into a vat of scalding cheese sauce. Even the scent of cheese lingered on his clothes in between dips. They thought of everything.

Edgar's secret consolation was that Satan hated cheese. Even Satan suffered in Hell.

God's Gonna Cut You Down, Version 2

Michael-- the commander of Heaven's armies, the prince of holy light--was the most powerful of God's angels. He was also charged with maintaining God's lawn.

The lawn, fashioned by Satan in a controversial subcontracting arrangement, quickly became known as the infernal grasses. Michael hated that grass. It grew in all manner of wicked ways. It was nothing more than a hateful weed that choked all happiness and serenity out of Heaven. It smothered angels and tripped up the righteous souls of the newly dead.

Michael eventually gave up. "From now on, it will be God's job to cut you down."