Satan

If I could dream, I would only have nightmares.

That is why I do not sleep.

I avoid the flaws of my creation, the turmoil that moves my world more consistently, even, than the axis on which it spins.

If I were to reach down, to scoop up the clouds that shield me from the Earth, I would never be able to return to my place. In knowing the full extent of the chaos, of the violence, the injustice, the misery, I would have to cross out every line in that Holy book. 

For I am written by those tiny creatures to be good; I am made out an unmatched protector; something that creates in its own image. What am I if I create havoc?

There is one mirror in my curated kingdom. I made it so that upon their arrival, humans would be able to fully see themselves as they are, without the pressures and beliefs of their flawed world. Now, I cannot bring myself to look into my own eyes. How can I stare into the soul of the enlightened when my irises are filled with the fear of mortals? How can I bear to see the maker of havoc, the lover of destruction?

Of course, the folly of mortals is nothing new.

Since their creation, they have found ways to separate themselves from perfection. They wrote their own Genesis, outlining their lies and blasphemy before they even cemented themselves as a people.

 It is said that in the garden of Eden Eve betrayed Adam. That every shame humanity continues to live with, to believe as ingrained into their beings, was the result of a young, naive girl plucking an apple from a snake-riddled tree. 

It is not up to me to show the truth, to reveal blame or expose any faults in what humans have created. I am but a divine mediator, sentenced to watch over desperate creatures as they attempt to determine Why Them?

Why do humans have the ability to think, to feel, to love, to hate, to exist as more than a collection of atoms and slim possibility?

Why are humans animals and yet so much more? Why do humans not simply live to breed and survive? And which existence is preferable: a mindless, yet calculated life as a mammal or fish or bird, or a messy, impassioned and fated existence as a human?

Over the years, these questions have been asked, both to me, in my name and in vain of my name millions of times. There have been silent prayers in the minds of those hurt and belittled by life, their pleads growing loud and hoarse as they travel to the heavens. There have been entire congregations combining in their faith, their questions sung in prose, or hidden behind eucharist and communion. And inevitably, there have been those who take their existential dread and churn it into weapons; wreaking destruction and death in a self-appointed quest for metanoia and realisation of the divine, of my judgement. Maybe they would even like to be sentenced to purgatory, just so that their existence would have been, at least in some way, solidified.

How can I have so much power in the world that I have created but still not meddled in?

My very existence is unknown to these creatures, yet they fix themselves onto the idea of me as though I am the very earth they walk on. I am, for many, a cause to strive for, a place to long for, a sanctuary to rid them of themselves. 

Surely they must know I am as translucent as morning fog, as gossamer as the webs spun by spiders; I am the space in red-dirt canyons through which only the loudest echos travel. I am incomprehensible, unknowable, untouchable. And yet, I am the only thing that thousands want to comprehend, to know, to touch. They devote themselves to the impossible, to me. 

But if they truly knew me, they would not like me.

I am supposedly omnipresent, almighty, infinite.

If humans truly knew me, they would begin to hate themselves. They would come to despise their mortality, their fallibility, their temptation to evil. All of the things that make them inherently human, the things that allow them to progress, they would become ashamed of.

But it is not only in self-hate that humans would dislike me. 

Whilst they are forced to keep changing, adapting and evolving in order to survive, I remain unaltered and timeless. I am like a cliff immune to waves. Whilst the rocks and ledges of humanity eventually crumble and fall into churning seas, I remain above it all, trapped, weightless. Maybe my own despair is becoming obvious, but I no longer care. Because while these sediments of people are allowed to mingle, connect, form something new, something that may very well change everything, I remain untouched, alone. 

These humans can know the beauty of love and sacrifice, and I remain loveless. They can know what it feels like to be loved for being themselves, something that I will never know.

Naturally, it is said to be the other way around. It is not. You see, I was written by humanity. I was written in their image to lead their kind, inspiring their hope. I was foretold to love everyone, yet my heart remains empty. I am not what these humans thought of, what they believed in so vehemently.

This is not to say I am heartless, except in a physical sense. 

I am not human; I have no capacity to love and live in the way that they do. I love only in a way that is chemical; I love like birds love beetles and plants love sunshine. I love because it is the only way I may operate, in the same way that planets hang in space by force. 

As a being surrounded only by space, it has captured my attention.

For I may feel completely different in my loneliness, but in the universe I am the same as everything else. Space is silent in the same way I am. I reside among the stars because we are the same. They keep spinning for it is all they know. They are bright for a short while, looking down on planets and bringing them warmth. If they ever fizzle into darkness, their light will remain boundless and cosmic, their atoms spread across the universe, igniting new balls of fire to once more guide uncertain people.

However, the forces hanging the universe in balance are always proportional. For every push, there is an equal and opposite pull. 

To humans, I am the push that allows life. 

Satan is the pull of death and destruction.

Satan.

My adversary.

The greatest threat to all that I have created lies in the yellow of his eye.

Who is he? 

Well, I’ll tell you all that I know.

He was synthesised alongside Earth. 

In the beginning, he was an angel. 

A beautiful creature with wings reflecting the polar ice caps, their ivory shine brighter than the smiles of the first humans. He was subservient, good and loyal as was ever possible. 

He liked my plans for the Earth, initially. He would continuously praise my work. First, he liked Day, he liked how blindingly bright the sun was. He liked that there were no shadows, no darkness anywhere. He liked how innocently good I was. 

Maybe I was simply bored with my goodness, maybe I was sick of my trite existence. I cannot explain my reasons, but as I made my decision, I knew it would change Earth, would change the essence of my creation.

I decided to make Night. I crafted darkness in my palms alongside unfathomable depths and rolling waves. I carved out jungles so thick that they contained no light at all, only shadow. I made a kingdom of animals and plants built on the basis of death. To survive, these creatures would have to kill. Somewhere inside of me, I was thrilled by the idea of razor-sharp teeth tearing through flesh, of heartless worms burrowing into the carcasses of the dead. I made a kingdom of brutality. I was proud of myself, so I decided to make one last thing. I made humanity. And then, I gave them the key to this kingdom. They were to be the rulers of the animals.

At this point, Satan was unsettled. He had known me only to be virtuous, and now my morality was decaying before him. He thought it a passing phase, an attempt at rebellion before I was forced to overlook the Earth for eternity. 

He gently prompted his ideas. Humans should not be rulers, he said. They should be shepherds, carers of all you have created. I saw how worried he was. To be truthful, I too was concerned by my own actions, my own recklessness. I agreed. 

His ideas became increasingly unnatural. He told me that humans should have emotions, they should know feelings we cannot. He invented the very notion of emotion, of love, of hate. I simply cultivated it. It was my experiment. I would create Earth as the life I was never allowed. 

And so, Adam and Eve fell in love. 

They knew what it felt like to be wanted by another person, to be seen, felt and touched. They knew the grooves of each other’s bodies, they saw where their limbs ended and their souls began. They saw themselves and each other wholly. They were made physical and solid by the other’s presence.

When I showed this phenomenon to Satan, attempting to elicit his own emotions, he shut himself off. He was disgusted by my selfishness, by my displeasure in myself. He told me that these people weren’t puppets, that I couldn't bend their will according to my own. But I knew what I was. Even if no one, not even Satan, could truly understand me, truly see me, I had a purpose to be fulfilled. I am a mediator for life. I am a force on which life is built and sustained. Always was, always will be. Back then, this wasn’t enough for me.

I began telling myself that I could feel these things too. I convinced myself that these humans were merely an extension of myself, and thus, could do everything that I could. They were made in my image, weren’t they? I wanted to do the things humans could. I wanted it more than anything, more than everything, which I already had before me.

As love flourished between my little humans, I felt more alone than ever. Up in heaven, it was only ever me and Satan. But then again, on Earth, it was only Adam and Eve. And they were in love, they were happy.

A strange thought occurred to me. Could Satan and I have what they had? Could we experience the throes of passion and undying love?

It would be impossible to broach the subject.

Instead, I decided to simply seduce my angel. I would stare deeply into his jaundiced eyes as he spoke, would brush my fingertips against his rough cheek. I praised him constantly, attempting to show him my admiration.

But of course, he would never understand that. I was not human. I did not have a solid, definitive form. I had not the colourful irises and soft hands and rosy lips that they had. Most importantly, I didn’t have their emotion. I had only my desire for self-actualisation. I did not love Satan as Adam loved Eve.

Soon enough, Satan realised my intentions. He was furious in a way I didn’t know angels could be. His soul was alight with rage. It burned out of him in billows, crackling behind his brightened eyes. His ivory wings started to smoke as ruby flames lapped at them, and yet he was unperturbed. He let himself be consumed by rage, until all that was left of him was a darkened glare and charred, spiked wings. He hid his disfigured body and broken face in the body of a deceased ram. Horns stuck out from his new skull, his yellow eyes peeked out behind curled wool, his massive wings pierced the ram’s back, revealing themselves, reborn. 

The most disturbing, though, were his human hands. Opposing thumbs and nimble fingers. He had torn them off of my beloved Eve, having already tempted her with a poisoned apple, condemned her as evil, which warranted stripping her of a distinctly human feature. 

I was heartbroken. Not only was I alone once more, but I had been betrayed. 

The humans that fuelled me with hope were dead, by now, survived only by their slightly mutated, discombobulated children. These children were not nearly as perfect as their parents. They carried the shame of their mother and guilt of their father. Their features were strange and new, and their fingers were stubby and red and scarred with marks.

As time continued, my sorrow for the loss of Satan became anger. He was ruining my perfect humans, filling them with evil! He convinced them of their hate, urging them to fight to protect their fragile selves. Then, he introduced money.

My humans became obsessed with the object, desiring more and more. The love that had made Adam and Eve so happy was no longer enough. I crafted this world for them, and it was not enough. They made their own rules. They made me their master, but only to appease their existential dread. They fought and cheated and lied and stole.

The darkness inside of me was no longer roused and entertained. I felt the same disgust for myself as Satan had. I let myself fall into the dark depths of the silent universe, let my apathy shield me from the disastrous world I had created.

That is why now, I do not dream.

For every time I attempt to imagine a different reality, a different world, a different creation, I just see Satan, charred and blackened in his hate of me.

And yet, I never truly knew him.

He reminded me so much of myself that I never questioned where he came from. I never asked why he wanted humans to have emotions, why he wanted them to be good.

I never stopped to consider him at all. He was not a normal angel. He was the first, so I had no clue what he was.

Now, I have an army of angels that tend to every human who arrives in heaven. They explain to them death, they comfort them for their losses, show them true peace in my kingdom. These angels do not ask me questions, do not advise me of how to run creation. 

They have taken my role as loving Father as their own. They have replaced my light as new stars replace flickering pulsars. And I do not argue, for what could I say? That I am their Father? That I am the master, the shepard, the light, the judge, of everything? Maybe I once was, for a second. Now, I am a mediator. I simply engage life, allow for it on the plains I have created. Is that not more important?

Yet, as I ask myself these questions, I know I am lost. I can no longer deny it. The humans that aspire to see me in heaven never do; they are immediately ushered into the next plane of existence without a thought of their supposed hero. 

I am losing control over goodness, too. Every year, more people descend the winding, jagged steps to hell, ready for the warm embrace of my friend Satan. 

I call him my friend because the universe would not agree that he is my enemy. He is my opposite, restoring balance to all things. 

If I could feel frustration, it would roll over me at this moment. Maybe that is why I summon a storm. It is not any average storm. It is the fiercest winds, the darkest skies, the densest clouds. I am threatening destruction on the world that I have created. Not because humanity is flawed and must be reset, but because I am.

I let a sea of rain pour from the sky, flooding the earth with heavy, sullen sheets. I raise my fist and stomp my foot. Lightning crashes across the blackened sky, so bright it is purple, plasma, opening up this world to another dimension. Thunder explodes shortly after, drowning out my shrieking thoughts. Wind stronger than any tree rips through houses and schools and entire lives. People are yelling, crying, fearing for their lives. I feel nothing.

I am the one terrorising my own small humans. I am the evil force that prompts them to act as they do. When I look down through the clouds, through the chaos and destruction, down below the earth, I see my own reflection. I do not need a mirror; I just have to look among flames and inferno to find myself.

I was afraid of losing Satan because he was a version of myself that was real. He had a physical form. He had emotions. He is the closest to human that I will ever be.  

In my fear of remaining alone forever, I did not realise that I synthesised a living, breathing creature out of my innermost desires. 

When this part of myself proved capable of evil, something I have never known myself to be, I could not accept him as my own.

He would have to be my enemy. 

Otherwise, I would not be the God my little earthlings so desperately need.

Alas, I cannot hide this fact anymore.

I am not the light that humanity needs. 

Humanity is the light that I need.

Without them, I am at war with darkness, with myself-- the enemy I've grown to love and hate in equal measures.