Same Same, But Different

Demons Deux

A glitchy curtain of orange fire flicked unnaturally up the walls all the way to the ceiling of a large hot cave of stone. In the middle, slouching where he stood in his magnificently bright red birthday suit from foot to face, the Devil double-took at his second in command Demon Deux.

'Those stinking sausages have done WHAT!?' exclaimed the Devil in his low slippery tone as his sharp red tongue convulsed uncontrollably in his mouth and his gangly red arms waved hysterically in the air. 'This is an outrage! OUTRAGE!!'

'Zhey 'ave trickked us, your devilishness,' repeated Demon Deux sweating under his black double breasted pinstripe suit.

'F...FFFFFRAUD?! I won't stand for it! This doesn't count. It shouldn't! it's not fair.'

'But your devilishness, it's nossing we aven't done in zhe past and zhe results are long declared. If zhe mediators acknowledge zhe foul play zhe very fabric of our society could crumble in moments.'

'Overruled Demon Deux. Overruled,' said the Devil holding his right index finger up in the air in a demand for silence and nonchalantly turning his red nose up in the other direction as he swivelled away from his second in command as if he couldn't bear to look at him. 'Put me on the hotline to God, now. Hotline now I said, hotline now.'

As the Devil continued squawking a red telephone suddenly appeared under his nose. He looked down at it as if he'd forgotten what it was there for. Demon Deux wiggled it a bit trying to prompt his boss.

'Finally!' the Devil puffed snatching it from him. 'Now go and do some admin. Go on, go press some buttons or something. Be useful. Be busy.'

With that the Devil pressed the only button on the phone receiver, which was marked 'G', with the pointy black nail on the end of his long thin red finger.

'Mr God?' said the Devil.

'Mr Devil,' came the reply from the other end of the phone. 'Commiserations on your defeat. You had an entertaining four years but all batshit things must come to an end.'

'END!? END!? Quite the opposite you no-good do-gooder! I know exactly what you did. You call that Christian democracy?! Do you think the good people of Christendom will stand for this when they hear the truth?'

'Oh please Mr Devil.'

'We have proof you know! Really great proof actually. One of your holy technicians has testified and brought evidence to us.'

God stroked his fluffy white beard gently before responding, 'You'll just damage both of us if you do anything with that. Why not just admit defeat and wait another four years?'

'Aha so you admit it!'

'I admit nothing.'

'That's not what I just heard.'

'Now look here Mr Devil. That could achieve nothing in your own favour. If by some anti-miracle this should become a generally accepted truth it would shake the people's belief in our democracy to its very core foundations. Suddenly all my God-fearers and all your Satanists, as well as all the flimsy ones in between, will start to question every single election we've ever had – even the fair ones! They'll begin to see us as a duopoly not a democracy! The scandal could be so bad they all may very well convert to a different politico-religious belief system, or even change their allegiance to those revolutionaries Cain and Abel! Either way, with no followers we'd lose all our power. Surely even someone as anarchic as you doesn't want that?'

'I know. I know,' the Devil insisted defiantly. 'I just don't care. It's about proper morals – you know morals, you heard of them? You should have thought about that before you cheated.'