Demon Honey Smugglers

Hell Ain't So Bad

All things considered, Hell has been getting a bad rap from the humans for centuries.

It's just a place, you know. Just like Earth, it was formed from the swirling bits of random matter that made up the infant universe. Bits of stuff combined to make bigger bits of stuff. A few supernovas later and demons found themselves walking on the surface of Hell.

Since the universe has a big sense of humor (so big, you could call it infinite), it made demons and humans remarkably similar. Demons look like humans and act like humans. They dread Monday morning and can't wait for the weekend to arrive.

Ok, so Demons don't measure time exactly the same way humans do; Hell spins slower than Earth so a "day" for them is longer than a human day. Hell orbits it's sun a bit faster than Earth, so their concept of "weeks" and "years" is a bit different. But, hey, Monday morning is universally dreaded no matter where you call home.

Except Mondays for demons are agonizingly longer than for humans.

The day-to-day life of a demon is pretty much like yours. They set their alarm clocks at night, hit the snooze in the morning, mow their lawns on weekends, drink too much at company parties and post embarrassing things on social media. However, since their metabolisms run far higher than humans, they're able to do all of these things much faster. They can do most things super fast, in fact.

Which just makes the long Monday thing just that much harder to deal with. The universe must still be giggling about that.

The bits of stuff that were mashed together to form Hell and it's solar system were just a smidgen different than the bits that made up Earth. Subtle differences that you would most likely notice should you visit there.

Setting foot on Hell, your first impression would be that it stunk.

Yes, Hell stinks. Their atmosphere has a different mix of trace elements than Earth. That's where the whole fire and brimstone propaganda came from. If you need to get an idea of what it smells like, light one of those strike anywhere matches and take a good whiff.

Disclaimer - do not insert lit match into your nasal cavity; do not bring lit match into any surface of your dermis; do this experiment under the supervision of a sober, responsible adult.

Crap, just forget about the whole match thing and just believe Hell stinks.

Anyway, one Monday afternoon that seemed to go on forever, an undergraduate assistant in a quantum physics lab was fighting a hellacious hangover and put the wrong element in a particle accelerator and went off to make hundreds of copies of her bare ass by sitting on the copier.

When she came back with one hundred prints of her best feature, she was alarmed to find a cluster of physicists around her workstation. The physicists were excited and jabbering in the language of physicists and sharing physicist high fives.

Several things happened that incredibly long Monday afternoon. First, a new element named Assinium was discovered. This element, when bombarded with Theta radiation, created a wormhole to a distant, bland-smelling world. Second, the smutty assistant was fired when the stack of butt photocopies fell out of her hands while celebrating the discovery of Assinium. Third, each of the physicists kept at least one copy of the butt pictures for, uh, further study.

Fourth, of course, was the start of a program to explore the bland world on the other side of the wormhole.

Except for having a sterile odor, the other world was suitable for supporting demonkind. Well, there was the presence of iron on this world, which demons are universally and fatally allergic to. This fact was disclosed in the fine print of the brochures of travel agents selling vacation packages to Earth.

So, Earth became the travel destination of choice for demons. The sky was an amazing shade of blue, the weeks were longer (which really mattered when you were vacationing on Hell time) and the natives were friendly.

Oh boy, were the natives friendly!

Due to their spicy scent and exotic nature, humans found the demon visitors to be irresistible. Which suited the demons just fine, because they found the pleasures of humans and Earth to be irresistible, as well.

It was a win/win for everyone.

The satisfactory exchange went on for hundreds of years and a comfortable synergy was found between the two peoples. The demons brought money, jewels and shared their advanced technology and science, while humans shared their.... well, this is a PG story, so we really can't go into what the humans shared. Let's just say the demons went home with big smiles on their faces, ok?

One more thing, demons have more teeth than humans. For the most part, their teeth are narrower and sharper than ours. And with more teeth in their heads, it gives them great big smiles that humans find irresistible. However, very few demon dentists retire with all ten fingers intact.

Now that we've covered demon dentata, let's turn our attention back to Hell/Earth relations, which were getting along fantastically well.

That is, until a demon named Lucifer took things a bit too far with the sister of a Cardinal in the early Catholic church. He said some things in the heat of passion, made some promises he couldn't keep and then slipped back to Hell while the young woman slept.

She woke up the next morning alone and cried her eyes out when she found that she had been taken advantage of by a suave, sophisticated demon. Her family was furious about this and word of the deed quickly reached the ear of her brother in the clergy.

Something had to be done about this, so he proceeded to do something about it.

Long story short; demons were vilified and made to be enemies of mankind. Lucifer, in particular, was not only named as a conspirator, he was made "prince" of all things evil. (In fact, that particular demon wasn't even named "Lucifer". Demons often traveled to earth under assumed names; it's kind of like modern humans going to Vegas. His name was Barph and he was a lower-level manager at a waste processing firm and was awarded his Earth vacation by impressing his superiors. Upon his return to Hell, he died in an unfortunate brochure recycling incident and had his ashes scattered in a landfill.)

During the Inquisition, demons and those that welcomed the off-worlders were scourged from Earth. The gifts of science and technology they brought with them were branded evil and suppressed. The wealth the demons had deposited on earth was seized by the church to fund anti-demon propaganda and other unsavory things.

The demons that escaped the Inquisition fled from earth and swore never to return.

Since all of this was bad for tourism, Assinium became just another symbol on the demon's periodic table and several travel agencies went out of business.

The last known example of the fateful photocopy of the assistant's ass is on display at the particle accelerator museum. Copies can be purchased at the gift shop, but are also available at many porn sites.

Often, while gazing through old family vacation photos taken on Earth, demons wonder if they will ever be able to return there. People's smiles seemed to be much bigger in those days and Monday mornings were just a tad bit easier.

And the Universe just keeps giggling.