{"id":236367,"date":"2023-05-29T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=236367"},"modified":"2023-05-29T05:28:01","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T04:28:01","slug":"an-interview-with-satan-on-the-eve-of-his-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/05\/an-interview-with-satan-on-the-eve-of-his-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Satan on the Eve of His Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Unz Review<\/p><\/div>\n

He didn\u2019t look at all as I had expected. I traversed the quiet room and found a portly older gentleman, immaculately and rather formally dressed \u2013 a finely spun woolen Navy blue suit, slightly lighter blue tie, starched collar and cuffs. He seemed quite comfortable and turned a kindly, inviting smile towards me as I advanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou seem surprised,\u201d he purred. His voice was light and easy on the ears. \u201cYou didn\u2019t expect horns and a tail, did you?\u201d he chuckled.<\/p>\n

He grasped my hand warmly and offered me a seat opposite. It was dusk and we looked out, from our chairs on the balcony, over a quiet harbor. The gentle clatter of voices from the nearby dining room, the hardly discernible knocks of snooker balls from another direction \u2013 these were the cushioning sounds over which our conversation took place. I hardly knew where or how to begin, I confess, but he helped me along.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, my friend, I suppose you wish to understand why I am withdrawing from the field?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

His smile broadened and his eyes, far from piercing, met my own, wide with inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I replied, half gulping the word.<\/p>\n

My host motioned for drinks and the shadow of a waiter fluttered our way, and then returned with expensive Scotch, neat. I was absorbed by the golden glow of our snifters, a way perhaps of covering my befuddlement. You see, the Satan of my imagination was a wild sharp fierce creature \u2013 yet the being here before me, about whose perfidy so much has been written, was positively benign and \u2026 and comforting, like an avuncular banker about to approve a loan. The mildly fleshy cheeks, his cheer, his reassuring gravity \u2013 I was speechless.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy work is done,\u201d Satan continued. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing left for me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drink helped me to regain composure, so I felt more myself and could respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these years,\u201d I said, \u201cthe effort you\u2019ve expended \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He interrupted me with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cEffort, you say? No, there was hardly any effort at all. You see, sloth is of one of my vices \u2013 one of my pleasures, actually. I needed to do<\/em>\u201d \u2013 and here he emphasized the word \u2013 \u201cvirtually nothing. An intimation here, a word in someone\u2019s ear, that was enough. They<\/em>\u201d \u2013 and again he added stress \u2013 \u201cdid everything I could have wished for, and with far greater speed.<\/p>\n

Except for a little trouble I had with that fellow from Nazareth who \u2013 give Him credit \u2013 very cleverly rebuffed my blandishments, it was all so very easy.<\/p>\n

Where would you like me to start? With Eve? Poor woman, I would have offered Adam that first bite of the apple, but I could never have relied on his persuading his consort. So I cossetted her and the rest, as you are so fond of saying, is history.<\/p>\n

The killings, the conquests, the idolatries, the rivalries, the hypocrisies, the betrayals, and the endless line of fire-breathing prophets sent to make things right \u2026 I needed only to watch \u2013 and to admire. Although I have no little appreciation of my own strategic wiles, I daresay I lacked the imagination for deception that your species has shown, the infinite ways of lying. Really, I take my hat off to you and your kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut \u2026 but why now?\u201d I blurted out, \u201cwhy are you retiring? Have you achieved your goals? Have your goals been met? What are your goals? Are we so bereft of hope?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was agitated, bumbling, and nearly leaped out of my armchair in consternation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalm down, sir, calm down,\u201d Satan replied. \u201cLet me tell you a parable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He eyed me as I slumped back, bewildered.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo men stood at the top of a high snowy mountain on a clear and sunny day. A small village lay below at its foot. The villagers had done nothing, really, to distinguish themselves, except for a tendency towards moderation and occasional benevolence. The men, both of whom had mild personal grievances with the townspeople, argued over which way might be best to destroy the settlement. One proposed setting an avalanche in motion, an avalanche that would engulf the town utterly and entirely. The other man listened intently, and they agreed to meet in the darkness before dawn to watch the spectacle. However, during the night the second man visited the village elder, told him about the terrible plan and its perpetrator, adding moreover, to his great dismay, that the elder\u2019s wife was his lover and that her family and their allies intended to vacate the village secretly during the night and return after their enemies had been vanquished. The elder quietly gathered his forces, discovered and executed the man who had plotted his downfall, confronted his blameless wife and had her put to the knife when she refused to confess her duplicity, whereupon a feud broke out which, in the end, resulted in the death of every man, woman and child.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was silent as Satan, after a small sip of his spirit, resumed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe avalanche would have been more cataclysmically exciting, perhaps, but wasn\u2019t it far better to have the villagers destroy themselves and, ironically, to do so on the basis of a deception? Just a word or two,\u201d he continued cheerily, \u201cthat was all. The rest was in their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The waiter appeared and refilled my vessel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most difficult part,\u201d Satan continued, \u201cwas time, simply waiting for the instruments of power to catch up with the human proclivity towards destruction. And now, as you most assuredly can see, that time has arrived. You have succeeded in penetrating and marshaling the forces of the atomic nucleus, you have divined the secrets of the human genome, you have created an electromagnetic web of such potency that nothing can ever be private again, and your leaders, in their quest for transhuman immortality, will sacrifice as many lives and as much blood as they feel they need to achieve their illusionary aims. This so-called virus, the global coordination necessary to shut down your little world, your mania for injecting, for force, for cruelty and division, and the immense concentration of power in the hands of the few \u2026 it has only one end. In the past, your murder and mayhem were, shall we say, limited, localized. But no longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that he finished his drink, adjusted his cuffs with their sparkling links, rose and bowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like a good game of snooker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But before he set off toward the tables, he took my hand, warmly.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime was all I needed,\u201d he whispered, \u201ca little time. And as for progress, which also requires time, what will you remember most about your cherished 20th\u00a0century? Which genocide? And what will your Corona Wars have crowned? A most fitting end after so much misery achieved in the guise of goodness. Well, I\u2019ve won my wager, and, to quote from His very own book \u2013 which I know by heart, by the way \u2013 even He knows that there is a time to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Emanuel E. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born writer, theatrical director, physician (retired psychiatrist), and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. He has resided in New Zealand since 2006 and his political essays and poetry have appeared widely on various websites and publications including<\/a><\/em> TMS<\/a>. <\/em>His most recent novel, published in 2021, is the story of an Italian wayfarer entitled\u00a0<\/em>Olympia. <\/em>Website: www.emanuelegarcia.com<\/a>. Email: <\/em>emanuelegarcia@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou seem surprised,\u201d he purred. His voice was light and easy on the ears. \u201cYou didn\u2019t expect horns and a tail, did you?\u201d he chuckled. He grasped my hand warmly and offered me a seat opposite. It was dusk and we looked out, from our chairs on the balcony, over a quiet harbor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":111122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[642,2817],"class_list":["post-236367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-literature","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236369,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236367\/revisions\/236369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}