A difficult job description

My name is Lucifer; but I prefer the name Luke (none of us, not even I, got to choose our names originally). There was a time, a few billion earth-years ago, when I was swanning around up there with a bunch of winged luvvies.  And everyone thought it was wonderful; but after a few million years of singing hymns and playing a miniature gold harp it does begin to get on one’s tits.  So it wasn’t the end of the world when a few of us rebel types got kicked out of there.

Once a few planets began to take shape, and creatures with minds and souls started to appear, we were given the job of trying to lure them into temptation.  Not many people know this, but Big Daddy (that’s what we fallen ones call the creator) has a bit of a split personality.  On the one hand he wants everyone to be virtuous, and pray and do good deeds and so on, but on the other hand we ex-angels have to make it as difficult as possible for the praying population.  I have to compile a weekly report of temptations offered by me and my devilish companions, and temptations accepted.  He’s very strict about this – he knows I hate paperwork – and has a lot to say if we don’t meet our targets.  You wouldn’t believe how sarcastic he can be if we haven’t been evil enough.  Sometimes I feel like saying, “You should know that a teaspoon of honey attracts more bees than a barrel-full of vinegar” but I’ve learnt to keep my big trap shut.  It never pays to cheek the boss – you only get more work piled onto your plate, and no thanks for pointing out problems.  (Ja, if I didn’t have such a big yap I wouldn’t be down here in the first place.)

Sometimes this work can be fun though.  The other day I was doing a little tempting on the planet Hoopla.  The idea was to get a miserable bunch of slime dwellers to slink out of their swamp onto dry land and invade a picnic being held by the ruling class of pink people.  After I planted some rude thoughts in their minds the slime-ous duly slithered over to the picnicking pinkous, dripped mud into their drinks, grabbed at their sandwiches and leered at their women.  The pinkous, who are very discreet, tried to ignore them – but it was no use.  The slime-ous were everywhere, fingers in the feta, feelers up the females’ finery, rolling around on the blankets and groaning to the music.

The pinkous went positively puce with apoplexy and indignation.  Then their leader gave a signal and the male pinkous hauled out their super-whammo water pistols, filled them from the pots of boiling water and began firing at the slime-ous.  The slime-ous grabbed the women and used them as shields as they backed off towards the swamp.  The pinkous held their fire, but advanced menacingly towards the slime-ous who are not very good at slithering backwards, especially when they can’t see where they’re going and they’ve got their arms full of wriggling women.

You get the picture; and you’ll just have to take my word for it that many sins were committed that afternoon.

I think Big Daddy was very pleased; but of course we’ll never know for sure.