Strange Company: A Short Story
“I had a dream,” I said.
“Oh yes,” he sat up and took up an interested pose, “tell me about it.”
“Well I was having breakfast a rather large English breakfast with toast and fresh coffee. It was Sunday; I know it was Sunday as I could hear the sound of a church bell tolling in the distance. All of a sudden a strange man appeared. He asked if he could sit at my table. I could see no reason to refuse him and I invited him to join me. He was very well dressed; in his early sixties I would guess, perhaps a little old fashioned in his three piece suite and soft felt hat, which he laid to one side. He was handsome for his age with a slight goatee beard and piercing blue eyes.
We talked about how fine the weather was, about the pleasures of a full English breakfast and quite Sunday mornings. He then said “I am going to have a Brandy, care to join me?"
“Well it’s a little early for me. Excuse me but aren’t you the Devil?"
“Yes I am as a matter of fact,” he smiled a soft reassuring smile that instantly put me at my ease.
“But aren’t you supposed to be awful?”
“Yes, that is the received wisdom, I am afraid I have been the victim of a concerted PR campaign to bad mouth me, a very successful campaign.”
“But you seem very congenial, good company!”
“Well, thank you, you should not believe everything you read about me. All that hellfire stuff, constant torture and torment, I’ve never gone in for that sort of thing, disgusting! No, I leave that to the other lot, they’re far better at that sort of thing than I could ever be. No pleasure, hedonism, instant gratification this is what interests me, the joys of good food, sex, idleness, the pleasure gained from living just for now, for the moment. Sin, the other lot call it. I call it living, but they were never very interested, all he wanted was self flagellation, abstinence, submission and suffering. I could never see the appeal my self. Yet they won the argument.
Of course it wasn’t so difficult when I was portrayed as wanting to torture people for the rest of eternity. Nothing of course could be further from the truth. All I ever promoted was enjoyment, having a good time but all that got buried under the image of the pitch forked torturer.
“So what’s it like then, Hell?”
“Err; well I prefer to call it home. We spend our days doing as we please, smoking, of course this is permitted everywhere, obviously there no longer being any health risks, drinking, fornicating, basically what ever does it for you, for we have few prohibitions”
“But there are some, prohibitions that is?”
"A few, the work ethic for instance, we’re not big on that, I try to discourage any moves in that direction it tends to bring the atmosphere down, it disturbs the community."
“But what about the sadists and murderers, the political tyrants like…..Stal”
He cut me short. “I’ve no truck whatever with that sort; no, I use my powers of forgiveness on them and shuffle them off to the other lot. There they are expected to be good all the time,” he chuckled, “to abstain and live a life of piety for eternity,” he laughed again and raised his eyebrows. “But I’ve imposed my self on you too long” He got up to leave.
“On the contrary I’ve enjoyed our meeting, won’t you stay a little longer?
“Don’t worry I think we’ll be meeting again soon.” With that he was gone.
“That was my dream.”
He sat back and looked concerened, had stopped taking notes.
“Don’t worry" I said for no particular reason, "it was only a dream!”
