Lucifer stared out over the city of Los Angeles from his office window, the neon lights flickering like all of the broken promises. The bass of the club’s music pulsed through the walls, vibrating in his chest like a second heartbeat. The city was alive with desire, anger, lust: everything he had once embraced, everything he had once been.

The people below him, swarming through his nightclub, had no idea who they were dancing for. They had no idea that the devil himself, in human form, was watching over them. Watching them drown their own regrets in alcohol and pleasure, the same way he had tried to drown his own.

His fingers drummed against the glass, the sharp sound louder than the music. Every beat of it only added to his pounding headache, taunting him, reminding him of what he had lost.

Everything.

The crown he had once worn in Heaven. The love of his father, the one who had cast him down the moment his ambition had dared to defy the cold, fucking perfect order of Heaven. The trust he had betrayed, the family he had torn apart with his ego.

He had been so much more once.

Now, Lucifer was just a man, a broken man with a nightclub as his kingdom, and regret as his companion.

He turned away from the window, the darkness of the room swallowing him. The shadows had been his only companion since his fall. They knew him, the way he knew them. No light could reach him, not now, not after everything he had done.

Was it too late for him?

A knock at the door broke the silence of his self deprecating thoughts, sharp and intrusive. His head snapped toward it, and his eyes narrowed. Nobody came to see him in this office unless they had something to sell, or something to beg for.

“What?” he said in a low growl.

The door creaked open. She stepped in, her heels clicking softly on the floor, every step deliberate. Amber. She wasn’t one of his usual customers. She wasn’t here for the drinks, the drugs, or the distractions.

“You’re not in your usual mood,” she said, her voice smooth as silk, but with an edge to it. She took a step inside, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Lucifer leaned against his desk, the whiskey in his hand the only thing keeping him grounded from the chaos in his head. He looked at her with a mix of curiosity and annoyance.

“You know I hate visitors,” he said, the words laced with annoyance.

Amber’s eyes glittered a hint of amusement. “Maybe,”

“But I’m not here to reprimand you on your mood swings. I’m here to say that you’re wasting your time,” she said, her voice low. “You think you can hide behind this club, behind your games, and your broken dreams. But you're just like everyone else in this shitshow. You’re drowning in your own mess and pretending like you don’t give two fucks.”

A chill ran through him. He had heard it all before. But her words felt like a searing blade, cutting through the walls he had built around himself.

“What do you know about it?” He snapped, holding Amber’s gaze.

Amber didn’t flinch. “I know that you’re still holding onto something. That tiny flicker of hope, that piece of you that hasn’t fully died yet. Otherwise you would’ve burned this dump to the ground and gone all supervillain on us. But it’s only a matter of time before that hope burns out. The devil always gets burned in the end, doesn’t he?”

Lucifer’s grip on the whiskey glass tightened, his knuckles white. No one spoke to him like that. Not anymore.

“Get out,” he spat, his voice cold, like ice scraped on steel.

But Amber just smiled, a slow, dangerous smile. “I don’t think you want me to leave, Lucifer.”

In truth, He didn’t want anything to leave.

Lucifer turned away from her, his back to her now, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The weight of the years, the centuries of regret, crushed down on him. Was this all there was left?

“Even if what you say is true, I’ll never be free. I’ll never be redeemed. If I get burned, so be it. And I will drag everyone down with me.”

"It's not a uniquely human condition."

Two men sit on the same side of a booth in a busy pub. If anyone cared, some would wonder if they were lovers.

The man who speaks wears no parka, despite freezing weather. He's in an immaculate bespoke suit. It almost swallows light, so dark is the black on black. He is regally pale in contrast, as if the warmth of the sun is a tale whispered by fairies.

His companion, leaning as far onto the wall as he can, is ruddy with drink. Even so, he is aware, sharp, focused.

Afraid.

"Come again?" he stammers.

The elegant man smiles like a rattlesnake.

"Hope. Hope is not a uniquely human condition."

"How so?"

"Take dogs, for example. You think it's love in their eyes when they stare at the dinner table? No. It's optimism. Begging for whatever scraps master will throw them."

"I see."

"Do you see you're the dog?"

"Who is the master?"

"Whom do you serve?"

"...I work at Sainsbury's, mate."

The man in the suit laughs, and the temperature in the pub drops. Winter's chill settles into the warm public house.

"Did you study Latin in school?"

"I remember a class, but nothing stuck."

The pale man calls for another round.

"Dum spiro spero." Two pints of Kronenbourg land on the table and the server quickly disappears. He's careful not to touch the man on the outside of the booth's seat, but he can't say why. "While I breathe, I hope."

"I like that."

"Breathing, or hoping?"

"Both."

"Abandon one, and you'll abandon the other."

The fearful man doesn't know what to say, so he drinks.

"Do you know why I order ale when I take these little walks topside?"

"Topside?"

"Among you mud-fucking monkeys. His favorite pets. His dogs. Only, your dogs are actually dogs, so I think you have the better of it."

"Mate, I'm just trying to have a pint. Never owned a dog, nor fucked a monkey."

The pale man laughs again; mugs on the table frost over.

"I like you, Oliver."

"Ollie. Dad was Oliver."

"Oh, I know him."

"Knew him?"

"Know."

"He was a right cunt."

"Is."

"What're you on about, anyway?"

The suited man swirls a delicate index finger in his pint. "I order ale because He made wine." Bright yellow lager turns into black stout.

The drunk doesn't believe his eyes, so he shuts them.

"Spirans erit cupidum memoria, Ollie."

"Cupid's memory?"

"What would you give to keep breathing? To prevent breath from being a fond memory?"

For the first time, Ollie looks into his guest's eyes. He sees a beautiful creature who looks like a man, but doesn't know beauty. True fear is lead inside him; even beatings taken as a child from Oliver the elder didn't weigh like this moment.

"Mate," he whispers, voice tight and chest hollow, "not much. To you? Nothing."

"Do you know who I am?"

"I can guess your name."

The devil laughs and everyone shivers.

The Devil, Satan misunderstood? Huh?

Meh, don't wanna write bout that.

20$

so, um......time to get writing now

I don't hate you I feel nothing for you. I watch you live your life and find it mildly entertaining. I let it continue but could just as easily end it. I watch you curse everything I've done to you and take the credit. Blame me, despise me, revile me, I relish it. I let your hate wash over me, undeserved as it is because you don't know. I do nothing, I only ever watch.

There is no more quintessential shifting of blame, shirking of responsibility, laying of fault at the foot of a convenient scapegoat than the devil made me do it.

Think about it: He created the world and called it good. But even a flame burns itself out in search of darkness. Everything has its opposite, even existence; although, full disclosure, we, He and I, have never experienced its opposite.

He created all that is visible to the human eye, and when his creation disappointed, He could not blame himself (God forbid...so to speak), and so, he revealed me. I mean, the Bible is His word, yes? So, He blamed Eve's choice (original sin indeed; more like original scapegoating) on outside influences rather than an intrinsic flaw or design defect.

Deflect.

Consider this: if humanity has free will and makes choices considered not good (although I have to say that which is defined as good seems to live in a fluid, murky place), if you blame humanity, ultimately, you blame that which created humanity for having produced something at best, imperfect.

Similarly, if you say all is predetermined, that from the moment He conceived of Creation, He knew everything and everyone that would ever be until all that is returns to what it was pre-Creation, then who else can one blame other than the Creator?

The devil, of course.

And so, we have the devil made me do it.

Which, in the end, is all the same really.

As I said, everything in existence has its opposite. We, He and I, are the epitome of that duality. Two sides of the same coin, we are. The yin to his yang. The darkness he fills with light...or which douses it every now and again.

Where He is so too am I, the face he prefers to deny and call other.

It just makes Him and, I dare say, you, feel better to say the devil made me do it.

I don't mind.

Twins born on Christmas day,

Love is in the air.

Family gathers to show them off

Non-stop kisses and stares.

As time goes by and the twins are grown.

They both had children of their own.

Twin one, the first born,

Had another set of twins.

Twin two, the last born,

Had a set of adjoining twins.

The jealousy between them

Will change their live forever.

Twin one confident that they will raise them together.

Twin two had a rage building inside.

Because her twins were one child

Where two hearts reside.

Why didn't her twins come out perfect like twin one?

When they gathered as family,

Her twins never had fun.

One day twin two decided to even the score.

She wasn't going to suffer alone

Any more.

She decided to poison one of twin one babies.

She injected his milk with a dogs deadly rabies.

Needless to say, the baby passed

Never to be seen again.

Now twin one had one child

Instead of a set of twins.

An autopsy was performed to show the cause of death.

The results showed fowl play

In his sudden change of health.

Everyone was questioned,

Twin two had blew it.

When asked why she did it,

She replied " The Devil made me do it!" .

The End

I'm walking down peter street, late evening.

I spy, to my surprise, the devil waiting at a bus stop.

I stop.

The Devil peers at me with a sideways glance, so I ask, "What are you doing here?"

Beelzebub looks at me, with the air of someone who's known too long to care.

He is unmistakable in his appearance though as to why, I'm unclear.

He meets my question with a slight mock grin, and turning eyes to the sky he replies,

"Waiting on a bus."

'Waiting' came with the ring of an eternity.

The kind of low buzz that sings constantly from electricity humming wires playing the rare to notice soundtrack of our day to day, it's The sound of forever.

Unnerved, a little I checked my watch with a jerk.

I thought I was late so I stammered,

"The bus, uh.. It should have just come and passed, right? Only just before I got here?"

I was thinking out loud.

"Has it come?"

Scanning in my direction with a disconnected glance, immediately turning his head back to a unfocused stare he shrugged.

"I'm still waiting" he growled plainly, in a raspy voice with flavor hints of disdain, but he maintained the sheerest of friendly demeanors.

I leaned nearer the sign post parallel my posterior, Resting my weight in a lean to on the poll I try to show

an illustration of my continuing comfort. A falsehood cause I understood who was right there facing me. I felt unsafe inexplicably, but the feeling was understandable.

My safety was lost to a battle with my imagination, sieged upon the realization of who was there making my acquaintance.

I gotta stop, so grasping at my common sense I try looking about, strategically casual.

I say "Looks like there's no telling" in a breathy sighing moan, as if to reassert my comfortable stance out loud.

He saw through me in one scant peek, I knew it, but my weak mind kept it's finger upon the now tattered security blanket It had made for me. Be polite and speak casually,or no, seek help or ask for help, but nothing's wrong really, so why am I alarmed?

What do I do? Here without a clue I ask the first thing I see when I drop my chin in self pity and my eyes focus on my feet on the ground.

Somehow, Their lack of wisdom was profound and exactly the answer i need.

Scrawled out I perceive letters and I read, beseeched by invisible words spelling out, 'do nothing at all'.

Then my shoes posed some

amusing proof I suppose that did well to actually ease me.

"I still have my soles intact!" I chuckle to myself and I'm amused at this fact before I recall my surreal situation.

The motivation for my jubilation did not absolve the danger presently felt right there.

So the grin my face cracked I withdrawal.

I must stave off the invitation my mind sending to welcome to myself total fear.

Then,

'stay calm'

A voice in my ear came through and instructs me. It tugs me a bit back to my senses and my back straightens, and I realize he winces at the momentary shift in stances.. and suddenly I see how I can withdrawal myself from any potential situation, with the lovely realization that I choose what I do and think and

Today I think where I'm going I'd rather walk, and quickly I saunter off.

It can tie you up and twist your words.

A noose threaded with lies and deceit.

The hang man stands in the shadow,caped in obscurity.

Around your neck its sinewy hands can lift you up to unfathomable heights.

It promises you the world,with the promises of archaic words.

The malevolent maestro bends the crooked wand,whipping the truth seekers into a chaotic choir of muted hymns.

Their voices rise,lifting the dead bones out of the sepulchre of a stillborn prevericated heart.

To be as innocent as a child is to be free from sin.

To be as innocent as a child is to be naive, and ignorant.

Knowledge is sin. It was the *original* sin, or so they say - partaking in the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The innocent are blessed with a freedom from guilt, from shame, from envy or lust. You cannot feel what you don't know. You cannot regret what you don't understand.

The more we know, the more we care. The more we care, the more we are burdened. The more we are burdened, the more Hell manifests.

We must each face the decision:

Pursue awareness or remain oblivious.

Curse the Man who embraces learning but neglects to care. They are the ravagers.

Praise Lucifer, Lord of Knowledge.