What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [1]
Nowhere does this juxtaposition between timelessness and everyday mundanity stand in starker contrast than in the Gaston Auditorium. This wood-paneled auditorium is fancy enough that it’s often used for things like presidential debates. It was also, for one semester, the location of Satan’s weekly lectures in his History of Religion course.
The Devil burst in through the back door of the auditorium and found it packed with students. They occupied every seat and even most of the space on the aisles that led down to the stage. His stage. A hush fell over the audience as he entered and threaded his way toward the front. The first sound to break the silence was the tapping and scraping of a small piece of chalk as he scribbled “DIRTY CANNIBALS” on a portable chalkboard, underlining it twice for emphasis.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” He spun with a flourish. “Who can tell me … why there is so little written in the Bible about what happened to the Apostles after the crucifixion?”
The students just sat, not bothering to look sheepish at their own silence.
Satan stood at attention as he scanned the room, a thin, well-dressed soldier standing tall for truth and justice. “Well,” he continued, “you may recall, if you’ve studied your Bible – and I expect nothing less of students at this fabulous institution—” He waved his hand at the general fabulousness of it all, which for some reason seemed to be located kind of up and to the left.
“—that after Jesus died, they took him down and stuck his body in a tomb, and the next morning, according to the Gospel of Luke—” There was a popping sound, and Satan produced a Bible, from which he began reading without having to flip or search, “‘[T]hey entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.’” The Book popped back out of existence, and Satan glanced up at his audience from underneath a lofty and benevolent brow. “Well, isn’t it obvious?”
The auditorium stayed silent. Nobody even blinked at Satan’s parlor trick with the Bible. Magic, schmagic.
“Okay,” said Satan. “I’ll tell you.” He began to pace. “The night before the crucifixion, Jesus went on and on about, ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood.’ It was so tedious.” He shook his head. “But,” he pointed a finger, “as it turns out, the Apostles were actually listening very closely.” He paused, pressed the finger to his lips, and then resumed pacing.
A lone croak reverberated through the auditorium. Satan stopped mid-step and turned to face his audience, his eyes darting this way and that. There was no sign of a frog anywhere.
“Was that—?”
The students just continued to stare at their teacher, waiting. Some of them tilted their heads, but none gave any sign of having borne witness to anything other than pearls of Satanic wisdom. The frog, having apparently said its peace, stayed silent.
“Anyway.” Satan nodded and turned on his heel to resume his pedantic stride. “Jesus died, and after he died, and was dead, they—” He paused to peer behind a stack of boxes piled on one side of the stage. “They stuck his body in a tomb. But you already knew all that.” He peered behind the portable chalkboard and then turned again to face the students. “What you didn’t know—”
The noise frogs make usually sounds a lot less like “ribbit” than children are led to believe. Cats go “meow,” and ducks really do go “quack,” but frogs do not say “ribbit.” Instead, they usually make a sound that is not entirely unlike the gastroesophageal event that follows a good root beer. For Satan, that sound was like having a bunch of fire ants shoved in his ear, but only if those ants had just come from a crack and methamphetamine picnic, and were maybe armed with tiny, ant-sized pitchforks. His face went all squinchy for a second, and when he opened his eyes, they glowed a little.
“Where the hell is it?” he asked, scouring the stage. He shoved the lectern aside and was just about to fling the portable chalkboard when he was stopped by the sound of a small, female voice.
“Um, professor