“I think I’m gonna be scarred for my whole afterlife.” Andy was thumping his head against the wall of the elevator.
Greg uses one of his arms to pat his back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. I’ve seen much worse.”
Andy whirls around with wide eyes. “How could there be anything worse?” Greg thinks it best not to answer that. “Fuck, dude. Why was there so much detail? It’s an official, bureaucratic file.”
“Andy, you gotta get used to it. People die. Some of it is really grotesque. You have to know so that when you deliver the news you can pick which details are important to share and what is better to spare them of.”
Andy puts his hands in his pockets and does a light kick at the air. “Yeah, yeah. I think I’m just gonna bury my head into those files and try to forget the nightmare of that man’s death.”
The two step out of the elevator and start walking back to their desks. “Just be glad it didn’t have pictures.”
“They can have pictures?!” Andy’s fears have reached a whole new level and Greg starts cracking up. “Oh! Jesus!”
Greg stops laughing to look at what Andy was freaked out by. A large blob of skin was rolling and clawing its way across the floor in front of them. “Hey, Bob.”
“Hey, Greg,” one of the several faces responds. “Hey, new guy.”
“H-hi, Bob… Sorry.” Andy tries to apologize but he realizes the lack of sensitivity training may be becoming an issue.
“Don’t worry about it.” One of the several arms waves nonchalantly at the pleading human. “See you guys at four.”
“See ya,” they say in unison as they continue on their way. Andy drops into his seat and looks at the clock. It’s only 1:32. “Fuck, dude. We still have two and a half hours left!”
A familiar voice returns, this time to chastise Andy. “Language, Andy.” The surprisingly adorable, black form of Lucifer steps around the corner to confront Andy at his desk.
“Sorry, boss.” Andy avoids making eye contact with the disappointed sounding Lucifer.
“Where were you two? I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes!” The smoke flares up for a second in frustration.
Greg and Andy look at each other for a moment to silently debate whether or not to tell the truth. Greg decides to take the initiative: “Andy and I were discussing our cases and he realized he never found out how he died. So we went to ask Becky what happened to him.”
The white circles grow in surprise. “Oh! I totally forgot to tell you, didn’t I Andy? I’m really sorry! You were so brave that I even thought to myself that I should make an extra note to tell you. It’s part of why you got the job! It proved you could care for others.” His smoky hand started to slap his forehead. “Stupid, stupid Lucifer!”
Andy is somehow racked with grief now. “Whoa… Lucifer there’s no need for that! It was a busy day. You had a lot on your mind. Why’d you come up here anyways?”
Lucifer gasped, remembering his purpose for his visit. “I finished up downstairs and wanted to make sure you were getting along alright. Is the work too much? Are you stressed? Can I get you anything?”
Andy and Greg glance at one another then back to the sympathetic devil. “I’m doing just fine and I don’t need you to get me anything.” Andy puts on a reassuring smile. “Thank you for checking in.”
The bottoms of Lucifer’s glowing eyes curve in as if his invisible cheeks were hiding them from a massive smile. “It’s my pleasure! I’m just so happy to have you on the team!”
“Thanks, Luci!” Andy couldn’t help but smile at Lucifer’s happiness.
Suddenly, his eyes returned to their normal circles and dimmed down to only a soft glow and his usual flare diminished. “Yeah. Just… Let me know if you need anything. I gotta get going. See you two at four.” And without even waiting to hear a good-bye, he sped off to the elevator.
Andy furrowed his brow and looked at Greg. “What was that? He completely changed at the end there.”
Greg shook his head and sighed. “You called him Luci. His ex used to call him that and now it's a sore spot for him.”
“Really? Lucifer had an ex? I’m surprised he’s not been married for millenia. He seems like the sweetest guy in Hell.”
“Yeah, his ex was a nightmare. He may be Satan but they were the devil. Walked all over him, treated him horribly, total abuse. Yet, when they broke up, Lucifer spent a whole month locked in his office. It was a dark time in Hell. To this day, anyone calling him Luci nearly shatters him.”
“Geez, I didn’t know. Now I feel terrible! What can I do to make it up to him?” Andy’s face is slathered with guilt as he’s nearly begging his friend for a response.
“Just let him be. If you need to, you can try and apologize at the party later.”
“Fine…” Andy sits down, defeated, and tries to return to his work. He flips through the rest of his files and starts to look up how to handle the weekly assignments he’d have, such as signing paychecks.
Once again, he found himself with nothing to do and he still had an hour left to kill. He decides to explore Hell’s internet. He opens the designated browser and starts entering in old Earth websites to find that they were all still there. “Hey, Greg. Is the internet the same as Earth’s?”
Greg doesn’t even bother to stand and just talks over the wall. “Yeah, our servers copy Earth’s servers every few seconds. That way people down here can get up to date stuff from everyone upstairs but their comments don’t wind up being seen by the living.”
“Oh, that’s really cool. So I can keep seeing my timelines and keep up to date on the news?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Nice.” Andy knew what he’d be doing for the next hour.
Comments (3)
See all