By Jim Hagarty
1989
I came tearin’ around a corner recently and was startled to run into the Devil himself. So, for lack of anything better to say, I asked him how his efforts to create a Hell on earth were coming along.
“Not bad, not bad,” he told me, with a sly and wicked grin. “Things are progressing very nicely, I’m happy to say.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, although I did so timidly because I’d never been so close to Pure Evil before. It was frightening.
“Well, as you know,” he replied, “I’ve had a few setbacks over the past few years. Whites and blacks are getting along better. Religions aren’t fighting like they used to. Communist governments are crumbling. People are trying to save the environment.”
“So why the smile?” I wondered.
“Well you see, it suddenly occurred to me not long ago how I could do the most harm to all of humankind.
“And how was that?”
“Well, I realized that in all the wars I’ve started down through the ages, men and women have always fought on the same side. So my success at creating long-term misery has only been temporary. And then it came to me, finally, that what I needed to do was to start a war between men and women. That way, I could pit mother against son, father against daughter, brother against sister and husband against wife. It’s working out beautifully,” said the Devil.
“How so?” I queried.
“Well, I’ve brought things to a point where more and more women hate men and more and more men hate women,” he said.
“How’d you do that?” I asked.
“It was easy. I got them accusing each other of all sorts of things most of them hadn’t done and would never do. Women said men were trying to hurt them and make them slaves. And men said women were trying to take over the world and replace men.”
“But, how is all this creating a Hell?” I begged to know.
“Well, what I’ve done is make men afraid of women and women afraid of men. Where women used to see men as friends and lovers, they now see them as potential brutes, rapists and killers. And where men thought of women as loving companions, they now see them as cold, scheming, unfair and hard.”
“But, do all men and women feel this way?” I enquired.
“No, not at all,” said Lucifer. “And that’s the beauty of my plan. Gradually, I’m getting men fighting with other men over whether they really need to change as women say they must and I’ve gotten women fighting with women over whether or not everything they’ve been accusing men of is true.”
“So, basically, you’re spreading a lot of fear and anger and hatred,” I ventured.
“Hey, that’s my job,” smiled the Devil. “Can I help it if I’m so good at it?”
“I suppose not,” I said. “But tell me, can you let me in on who’s going to win this war in the end?”
He broke into fits of laughter, his venomous body convulsed and contorted with a vicious mirth.
“Nobody wins a war,” he finally said. “Nobody wins a war.”
And he walked away.
Still laughing.
