What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [70]
The Devil sat. His engine idled. He rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders and sat some more. He glared at the stoplight. It was not a very nice stoplight. Not that that’s really saying anything – they all suck. But this one was a particularly mean, old stoplight.
Most folks don’t know that stoplights have personalities. Sure, most of us indulge in the occasional anthropomorphization of objects – labeling this boat a “she,” or that broken can opener a “complete fucker.” But there aren’t that many people out there who really believe (or who will admit to believing) that inanimate objects have feelings (or, in the case of broken can openers, loathsome, nefarious agendas). And the few people who really do believe in that sort of thing are mostly raving idiots who shouldn’t be trusted with ships (or can openers, for that matter). This works out pretty well, on the whole, because most inanimate objects are, in fact, just that: inanimate.
Except for stoplights. Stoplights have personalities. Some are nice. Some are wistful. Some are complacent. Most are assholes. Their hopes and desires and dislikes and dispositions run the gamut – just like people. But unlike people, stoplights can’t actually do anything about any of these things. This is especially galling (for stoplights) because most were, in their past lives, gods of one sort or another who outlived their usefulness, and are now, quite understandably, pissed at only being able to shine red, green, or yellow.
People eventually cease to believe in or pray to or sacrifice for or need or even care about most gods, and when a god becomes obsolete, he (or she or it) gets reassigned. And due to the fact that the universe is an infinitely weird and fucked up place, most end up reassigned as stoplights. This particular light happened to have been the Greek goddess Enodia (in charge of crossroads and gates) in a past life.
Satan – a god only in disposition and, anyway, still relevant enough to escape relegation to the mytho-galactic parts bin – continued to sit at this bitchy stoplight. He waited. On any other day, the Devil’s normal response to the interminable, evil stoplight would have been to do something decisive. Something rash even. Like stomping the accelerator and laying twin strips of quarter-inch-thick rubber across the intersection and maybe exploding some nearby buildings for good measure. But not today. Today, Satan was tired – ridiculously, impossibly tired. He had, after all, just come off a string of more than fifteen hours of mostly uninterrupted driving. And so he just sat, feeling wiped out, and maybe just a little bit weary.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been in this state, but exhaustion wasn’t really something he’d gotten the hang of. His first experience with fatigue had come at the end of his first full week in a human body – a seven-day marathon of debauchery and rage-fueled obliteration of pretty much anything and everything close to hand (including an unfortunate family of squirrels in Farragut Square). The Devil had thought then that he’d broken something. Or that the body was defective maybe, and that he ought, perhaps, to try exchanging it for another. But then he’d collapsed and slept for almost thirty-six hours straight.
When he awoke, refreshed and just a tiny bit giddy, he surmised that this was just one of the limitations imposed by the human body he chose to inhabit. It was just like it had been with the snake, which he’d been able to make talk, but not fly (which would have substantially increased the awesomeness of the Book of Genesis). He accepted this – mostly because he liked the waking up bit so much – and put himself on a regular, almost-human sleep schedule. He never quite got the knack, however, of recognizing when exhaustion was creeping in and clouding his mind. But then, when you view the world