The Devil's Retirement

If there’s one thing that humans don’t understand about Earth, it’s that it’s extremely delicate. Every day, God stood above his creation and did his best to hold everything together. Miniscule, effervescent strings connected the actions on the planet to his consciousness, forming a very complicated marionette that the slightest ripple might disturb. Unfortunately for him, humans were constantly creating more than just a ripple, with their inexplicable tendency to pour carbon dioxide into the air, dump trash into the ocean, and start another war. It made his job extremely challenging, to say the least.

God was holding his strings in balance from a window that overlooked Earth when the news came.

“The Devil is retiring.”

“What?” God jerked in surprise, sending a cascade of rocks tumbling from a hillside in Uganda. Damn.

God carefully stilled the strings, then turned toward the angel. “What did you say?”

The angel lifted a scrap of paper. It was lined and ripped at the edges like it was torn from a notebook, and on it in nearly illegible handwriting was scrawled: I’m retiring. -Devil

“This was found slid under HR’s door this morning,” the angel said, “It’s the most paperwork he’s ever done. We’re inclined to take it seriously.”

God’s heart was hammering. The Devil had pulled his fair number of pranks over the millenia, but this felt different. This felt final. And he couldn’t have that.

“Has anyone spoken with him?” he asked.

“He’s not taking any visitors. Last I heard he was sunbathing on Planet 936, Dimension 70001.”

God huffed. “Typical.” He looked down at Earth. It always looked especially fragile from this angle, just a small blue orb lost in an endless void. He felt protective over the planet, and he didn’t want to leave his station. But if there was any emergency that warranted his departure, it was this.

He grouped the strings together and placed them gently on the windowsill. They wobbled slightly and shimmered in the light of the stars, but remained in place. He took a breath and turned from the window, trusting the world not to fall apart in his absence. “I’ll go see him now.”

Just as the angel had said, God found the Devil topless, tanning mirror in hand, roasting on a planet that was held in orbit by a thousand suns. Though the Devil and God were more concepts than physical beings, they often chose different forms to take so they could feel more tethered to reality. At the moment, the Devil appeared as his favorite human interpretation of him: long pointed tail, red skin, and long, black horns that curved into a sharp point. He even had a pitchfork beside his tanning chair, which spurted flames from its tips at random.

“I see you’re a cartoon today,” God mused.

The Devil turned toward him, fire dancing in his eyes. He smirked. “And you’re an old white guy.”

God looked down at his white robes and white beard, shrugging slightly. “It seems to be the least objectionable form I can take.”

The Devil snorted. “I seriously doubt that.”

God sighed, willing a chair into existence as he plopped down beside the Devil. “What’s this I hear about you retiring?”

The Devil chuckled. “Word travels fast around here, huh? Yeah, well it just seemed like the right time. Honestly, I should have done it ages ago, I’m not the type to be tied down.”

“You can’t just retire,” God said, frustrated, “You have responsibilities. Who will run Hell?”

The Devil shrugged. “Hell is a joke these days. You keep forgiving all those souls, so there’s hardly any for me to play with. Just get an angel to run it, it’s easy. Or, better yet, get a human to do it. They’re excellent at torturing each other.”

God felt panic rising in this throat, but he pushed it down. He just needed to remind the Devil of what he loved about his job. “What about messing with the living humans?”

The Devil arched a brow, sending a flurry of sparks from his flesh. “I do love messing with humans. But you hate it when I do that.”

“Yes. I do hate it when you do that,” God admitted begrudgingly, “But it’s a job that must be done to maintain the proper balance. Are you really willing to give that up?”

The Devil paused and studied God for a moment. He seemed to be mulling it over, though what he was thinking, God couldn’t tell. Finally he slouched back into his chair, resting his head and closing his eyes as he fell back into his tanning position. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Anger like lightning crashed through God’s restraint. He wanted to grab the Devil by the throat and demand that he return to his position. But God had had thousands of years of putting up with the Devil’s nonsense, and he knew that he wouldn’t respond to anger. Instead, the Devil’s weakness was a deal.

“If you promise to stay, I’ll join you in your… antics.”

The Devil bolted upright, his lips tilted into a grin that made God’s stomach roll. “You’ll come with me?” The Devil asked, as if to be sure he had heard correctly. God didn’t blame him. The Devil had been begging God for eons to join him in his torment of the humans. This offer meant that God was desperate. And the Devil knew it.

God nodded once, and the Devil’s grin widened. “You will make someone sick over the holidays? Stick toilet paper to the bottom of their shoes? Turn off their power at night so they miss their alarms?”

God grit his teeth. He was more than familiar with human misery, but usually he only faced it after he made a mistake, or when he was fixing a mess the humans or the Devil made. To intentionally be the cause of suffering, no matter the scale, would make part of him shrivel inside. But he needed the Devil to stay. So he nodded again. “Just for today, I will do whatever you say. If you promise to stay after the day is done.”

God extended a hand, which the Devil pondered with cold calculation. After a beat of hesitation, he took the hand and shook vigorously. His grin was unnaturally wide, a quirk of his disguise that made him off-putting to behold, and God fought the urge to draw his hand away.

“The deal is struck,” the Devil said. Then he snapped his fingers, and in an instant the blazing light from a thousand suns was replaced with a drab, overcast city skyline.

“London!” the Devil exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. He had replaced his cartoon-ish appearance with that of a typical English businessman, complete with a pin-striped suit, briefcase, and sunglasses that were rendered completely unnecessary by the clouded sky. God glanced down to see that the Devil had supplied him with the same disguise, though his human form had a belly that poked out above the waistline. God snapped once to correct that blemish, then turned to the Devil.

“What should we do first?” he asked.

The Devil rubbed his hands together, scanning the surrounding city with a grin. “I have a few ideas.”

For the next few hours, God and the Devil wreaked havoc on the people of London. They started a traffic jam that went back for miles, sent tourists down sketchy alleys, and pulled the fire alarms in a high school. Most of their actions caused minimal stress—at worst it ruined someone’s day, not their life—but God still weighed the consequences of his actions with a heavy heart. He didn’t want to be the source of someone’s anxiety, and he desperately wanted to get back to his strings.

“Well this has been fun,” God said, “But I think it’s time for me to return to my station. I assume this endeavor has convinced you to return to yours?”

The Devil tilted his head back in a laugh that was slightly sharp and much too loud. “Be serious, God. This was just a warm-up. Now the real fun begins.”

The Devil snapped, and suddenly they were dressed in tuxedos, sitting in a crowded auditorium that God recognized as a theater in France. He looked around at the audience, all of whom had their eyes glued to the young actress on stage. She was in the middle of a monologue, her tone trembling with the emotion of the scene. She was enchanting, and God swelled with pride.

"Make her forget her lines."

God balked, but the Devil only smiled at him with a cruel twist of his lips. "But this is her dream," God said. "She's worked her whole life for this." God took a moment to calculate what would happen if she blanked on stage. She would finish playing the role for the rest of the nights, but henceforth she would be so wrecked with nerves that she would make mistakes in every show to come. She wouldn't get cast again. She would spiral into a pit of self hatred, until she eventually pulled herself out and took a menial job. She would be content, but she would never act again.

"I think you'll find that watching as someone's life crumbles is a better form of art than is present in most auditoriums," the Devil said.

God wanted to scream, but with the weight of the deal on his shoulders, he felt powerless. God snapped his fingers, and the woman stopped mid sentence. She fumbled for the wods, but came up blank. She muttered something about being needed elsewhere, then hurried offstage. The audience was bewildered. God was devastated.

The Devil snapped and the auditorium fell away, replaced with a bustling street corner in Vietnam. The Devil was bent over laughing, calling the attention of everyone in the street, but he didn’t seem to care. God sat in the walkway and wrapped his arms around his knees. What had he done?

“Did you see her face?” the Devil wheezed. “Priceless!”

“You have ruined her life,” God said.

“No,” said the Devil, “You have.”

God put his head between his knees. He thought he might be sick.

“Aw, don’t pout too much,” the Devil said, “We still have a whole day ahead of us!”

God’s stomach flipped. He looked up at the bustling street corner and tried to imagine what horrors the Devil might have in store. “What are we doing here?”

“Great question!” The Devil grabbed God from beneath his arm and hoisted him to his feet with celestial strength. “You see that woman, over there?” He pointed to a woman who was selling hand-woven hats from her own stand, smiling at tourists as they passed by. “Her savings are behind her bench. You’re going to steal it.”

Though God had been preparing for the worst, the command still weakened his knees. “You can’t possibly expect me to do that.”

“Sure I can.”

God shook his head. “You can’t. She has a son, he’s sick.” God calculated what would happen if he took the woman’s money. It would take her months to save up for the medication, during which time both her and her son would starve. By the time she finally managed to purchase the medicine, it would be too late. Her son would survive, but he would never fully recover. He would be bedridden for the rest of his days, unable to see beyond the four walls of their small home.

“You know, you don’t have to do it,” the Devil said, “You could walk away right now. Just know that I’ll walk away, too.”

God shed a tear, and the Heavens trembled. But he turned to mist, crept behind the bench, and took every cent the woman owned. In that moment, a part of him died. Whatever sense of good he had preserved was corrupted, and even worse, he drew a sick sense of satisfaction from the destruction he had wrought. God had spent his entire existence trying to create life and better it. Turns out, life was much easier to destroy than it was to create, and ruining this woman’s life was one of the first acts he had executed to perfection in years.

God materialized beside the Devil and handed him the bits of change that amounted to the woman’s savings. The Devil pocketed it and smiled. “You kind of liked it, didn’t you?”

God cringed. In lieu of answering the question, he merely said, “Please don’t make me do anything more.”

The Devil smirked. “Oh, just one more task will do.”

They were on a mountain peak in Nepal. The moon was high, and wind blew snow from the ground into miniature flurries that twirled through the air. Before them stood a lone monk, dressed in simple robes, staring at the two figures who had emerged from thin air.

“Kill him.”

God stumbled backwards, gawking at the Devil. The Devil only smirked, cold and cruel. “What?”

“Kill him,” the Devil said, gesturing toward the man who looked between the two of them without comprehension.

“I could never—”

“You could.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking!”

“He’s a monk, he lives alone on a mountain with no friends and no family. He serves no benefit to society! No one will even notice he’s gone,” the Devil said. God knew it to be true. But he looked at the man, and he couldn’t justify it. He loved the man, had known him since birth, and knew him to be good and honest. He didn’t deserve to die. He couldn’t do it.

“Why?” God asked, his voice a whisper.

“Because,” the Devil said with a smirk, “I want to see you be the villain in someone else’s story. Just once.”

“I can’t.”

“You will,” the Devil said. “Or I’m gone.”

God felt like he was shattering. He looked at the man, who glanced between the Devil and God with blatant confusion, but did not run. His curiosity outweighed his survival instincts, and God knew that the man had already made peace with his death. He didn’t fear it, as most humans did. God wished that made it easier. It didn’t.

God snapped his fingers, and the man’s neck twisted with a crack. His body crumpled to the ground. He was dead within seconds.

“Wow,” the Devil said, breaking the silence. “I did not think you would actually do it. Wow. Well, that was a nice send off, thanks bud. I’m out of here.”

“What?” God staggered. He whipped around and grabbed the Devil by the arm, tethering him in place. “You can’t go! You promised!”

“Sure, but you of all people should know that my word is shit.”

Thunder cracked across the sky, and the mountain trembled with God’s anger. “You have to stay. You can’t just retire, I won’t allow it.”

The Devil tried to shake his arm free, but God’s grip only tightened. The Devil huffed. “I don’t get it, man. Why do you want me to stay so badly?”

“Because!” God exclaimed, and suddenly the words were falling out of him, “I’m not perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect! I would know, I created everything and I am certainly not perfect.”

The Devil glanced at the broken body that lay between them, then back at God. “You don’t say.”

God cried out and released the Devil. “You don’t get it. You’ve never had to be perfect. You’re supposed to be cruel, and humanity expects nothing else from you. Humanity expects more from me. I’m the harbinger of peace, the just hand, the loving parent. And when I make mistakes, they forgive me because at least I’m better than you. But if you leave, I will bear the burden of all their sorrows. They will blame me for every mistake I make, and they will hate me.”

God was trembling in the wake of his confession. Voicing his fears made them solid, and he knew what he had said would come to pass. He waited for the Devil to say something. God wasn’t naive enough to think the Devil was capable of feeling compassion, but perhaps his vulnerability would compel him to stay. If anything, the Devil might stay just so he could leverage God’s breakdown in all their future interactions.

The Devil strode over to where God stood, and God felt an ounce of hope. Then the Devil spoke.

“That’s deep man. I just don’t really see how that’s my problem.” The Devil backed away once more, and this time God let him leave. He had failed. “Hey, but maybe you could take over for me when I’m gone,” the Devil said in a parting remark. “I think you’d be really good at it.”

And then he was gone. But even in his absence, God couldn’t bring himself to leave the mountaintop. All the crimes he had committed that day had been for nothing. He felt he should bury the man, or return to his strings and correct what he had done, maybe find someone to fill in for the Devil—just do something, anything. But he couldn’t.

Night turned to day, and still God stood frozen. Years passed and God became buried in snow, just a mound in an unremarkable landscape. People passed him but paid him no heed, their footprints in the snow the only sign that time had passed. And still God did not move. He was terrified by his decisions, petrified of his future. He didn’t know how to make things right and he knew all too well how he could make them worse. And so, God remained trapped on that mountain top, stuck somewhere between perfect and cruel. Not knowing which side to choose.