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My Own Personal Devil: Part Five

Postiwyd gan archifCLICarchive o Cenedlaethol - Cyhoeddwyd ar 05/01/2011 am 10:58
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My Own Personal Devil: Anthology

My Own Personal Devil: Part Four

"Because it led to sin? With the whole Eve and the apple thing?"

"No. That was some fallacy created by those in power on Earth to keep subordinates in check. And apparently to try and disparage an entire gender for the rest of time."

I decided to stop trying to help the exiled angel tell the story and remain quiet. "Because free will is His greatest hypocrisy." For the first time I sensed anger in the man opposite me, and his eyes flashed biting cold like a northern wind. "God bestowed free will upon you, and then set out rules for how you could and could not exercise it, thus making it 'free' will in name alone. It was decided that there should be a reward for the souls of those who followed His way of thinking, who worshipped Him and obeyed his word - Heaven became the place of rest for these souls, while the rest were left to inhabit Chora - an empty nothingness."

"So... the good go to Heaven? Is that not fair?" I asked, immediately sensing my foolishness in siding with God while talking to the Devil.

"No, you misunderstand. Those who followed His rules go to Heaven. Those left outside are those who did not follow his rules, and those who stayed neutral, choosing not to worship. It infuriated me! He had abused his power, giving His creations the capacity to choose not to obey Him, and then punishing them for it, letting their supposedly precious souls rot. As instructed, I loved all humans and their souls, and so I could not bear to see these wretches, lifeless and answerless, forsaken. I voiced my concerns to Him."

He broke eye contact with me, and I felt an odd lightness, like a dead leaf fallen from the security of the tree and swept up in the wind. Could I really believe all of this? He was the Devil after all. What if he was tempting me... luring me to choose Hell as my soul's resting place? But he seemed so genuine, increasingly he seemed to be wearing his heart on his sleeve. I wondered if, through admiring human 'flaws', he had taken some of them on.

"What did He say?" At my question Lucifer smirked.

"That His will be done. But that, if I was so concerned for the 'lost souls', I should go and join them. And so I did. I imposed exile upon myself, transferred to Chora, and reinvented that place as one for... the open-minded, the independent thinkers. Those who were not scared or bullied into worshipping something they could never understand."

I didn't know what to say. What could I say that wouldn't sound remarkably stupid given the enormity of what I had heard? I opted for silence over something along the lines of "Wow. I did not know that." He continued through my silence.

"There has never been a war between Heaven and 'Hell', as humans so fondly imagine there should be. However, God feared this when it became clear that the majority of human souls were now being consigned not to an isolated nothingness, but to my lands. So, to ensure 'fairness', we devised this system, whereby we come to recently departed humans and give them their one last choice. They can join me, where believers and non-believers are treated the same, or they can go to Heaven, where if they have not worshipped Him in life, they languish at the bottom of His hierarchy, uncared for."

My Own Personal Devil: The Final Part

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