Satan and the Raven
Handsome, intelligent boy sits down to write
paper. It’s getting late, so he rubs his
temples and lets out a deep breath.
“Smile,” he whispers to himself, “you are supposed to be enjoying
this.” He thinks of the story that is in
his mind. It’s not really complete yet,
just a couple of thoughts, some that he can describe and some that he
can’t. He wonders what the paper will
look like when it’s finished. He wants a
good grade, and is a little worried because his two other papers have only been
“B+”s. He gets
a little angry, because he didn’t really like the class anyway, and now he is
not even getting an easy “A.” Sounds of
the NBA playoffs distract him from the other room. He gets up and shuts his door, and begins to
think about the paper. Starting has
always been the hardest part for him. He
remembers that the professor has a soft spot for self-reflexive moments. Maybe he should start by writing about
himself trying to write the paper. He
tentatively types out a few words: “Boy sits down to write paper.” He laughs to himself, and then adds the words
“handsome, intelligent” to the beginning of the sentence. That could work.
The
boy types deep into the night, at some points becoming really intent and
slamming the keys, as if the story is emanating from deep within him. He wishes that the paper could have been
written, so that the deep etched marks of his pen could show his fervor. He doesn’t notice his roommates go to sleep,
nor does he notice the sky slowly become light again. He finishes, and smiles to himself, knowing
that this time, for once in his life, he has actually
been successful at transferring the image that was in his mind’s eye onto
paper. He leans back into his chair and
reads the paper, smiling to himself the whole way through. It runs as follows (start reading from
beginning of first paragraph).
God
and Satan are lounging on two lazy boys, sipping beer, in heaven
Satan: Who would have thought that it would ever come to this- me and the Lord himself, sharing a cold one? The mighty creator of the universe and I, the not-so-mighty creator of sexy lingerie, here together for a moment in time.
God: I thought that would you would have figured out that you would be saved at the end of time, I had hinted at it with the apocatastasis thing.
Satan: Apoca- who?
God: Forget it, the real truth was that the ministering angels were beginning to get boring. Hey- How many Seraphim does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Satan: I didn’t realize that you had a sense of humor.
God: Wrong- 11- one to screw in the light bulb, and ten to sing my praises for all eternity.
Satan: Did you ever find it ridiculous that humans decided to portray me as a red man-goat with a goatee. I mean, besides for the fact that a being with my powers could obviously assume whatever form I desired, couldn’t they find something scarier than a spray painted farm animal?
God: The humans always liked to translate what they couldn’t understand into something they could grasp. Although, I kinda liked the whole “old man with a white beard who lives on a cloud” thing.
Satan: The truth is that those humans provided some good entertainment over the ages. Although I do have to admit, they were pretty easy targets for someone as skilled as me.
God: That’s not what you were saying after the Job bet.
Satan: Job was one in a billion- he did really surprise me though. I thought that every man had his breaking point, that if you squeezed them enough eventually their will would pop out along with their other organs, but he was the exception.
God: He truly was a man, and do you know why- because he never thought of himself as one.
Satan: Yeah, it was only after him that I began toying with the whole “Devil’s Pact” thing. Punishing people to get them to curse you was just the wrong way to go. You had to reward them for their evil deeds. What’s the saying- You get more bees with honey than with vinegar.
Of course, it took awhile before I got the process down pat. The first offers for the devil’s pact were way too generous. You could do whatever you wanted too for 24 years- think of all the demons that had to be employed just to get one soul- it just wasn’t cost effective. And there were always the people who said that since the deal was for all knowledge, they should be told how to break a contract with the Devil, or otherwise fool him. When I refused to do that, they said that the contract was not being fulfilled.
The next stage of the Devil’s pact was really no better. That was when we were betting for souls, like the Faust that Goethe wrote about. It took much less manpower, but we lost most of the souls that we bet for.
The trade was really the best thing we ever did. Cheap, just the cost of a guitar lesson, like that Johnson boy, or a pile of gold, like we did with dear old Jabez Stone, and you got yourself a bona fide soul. Sure, we did get fooled every now and then: one starving farmer sold himself for freedom from creditors, and then we came to get him, he told us that we were acting very much like creditors.
God: When I sneeze, I bless myself.
Satan: You know, one thing that never ceased to amaze me was how many times people thought that someone had soul their soul. Every time someone was a little smarter or more talented than someone else, it had to be that they sold their soul to Satan. Humans were never good at admitting that someone else could actually be better than them.
God
makes a casual wave with his hand, and then a bookshelf appears. God hums to himself, and then chooses Edgar
Allan Poe’s works. God begins reading
from one of the poems (Annabel Lee)..
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by
me[1]
I really love that poem. The simplicity and cadence of the rhyme conveys such unadulterated emotion.
Satan: Well, what about the next part, with the jealous angels…
“With a love that the winged
seraphs of heaven
Coveted
her and me.”
Who end up murdering the poor damsel:
“So that her highborn kinsman came
And
bore her away from me”
God: I always wondered about that, demons seem like such a more obvious choice to play the evil force in the poem. Why in the world did Poe vilify angels?
Satan: He actually had two good reasons: The first was that poetically it worked well because it’s easy to get a demon to do evil, but he wanted to say that their love was so strong that it got angels jealous. The second reason was that I told him to.
God: No way! Poe was under your tutelage?
Satan: I would have thought that it would have been obvious that he had a pact with me. Think about it- mysterious, early death was always a good indicator that I was behind the scenes. Also posthumous fame, that’s another one I thought of. It’s a great way to keep up my end of the bargain of making someone famous, but not actually giving them anything. Also the talent- not always due to me, but usually correlated with something shady going on. Actually, Poe makes for an interesting story, if you have the time.
God: Well, we do have an eternity.
Satan: That should just about do it.
Satan
stands up, and mutters something under his breath with his hand pressed
together. Then he spreads his hand
apart, and a shimmering replica of 1811 Boston appears, with thousands of tiny
candles lighting the city, and miniature horse drawn carriages rushing down the
cobblestone streets, racing to get home before dark. Snow begins falling on the holographic city,
with millions of flakes catching the last rays of a tired sun.
Satan: This is really where the story begins. Human misery has always been my greatest friend. The boy’s father died when he was young, much too young for him to feel anything, but now that he’s three, he is just old enough to feel the pain of his mother dying. It was a cold winter, and cold winters were never good for people, especially ones who give their only blanket to a crying child. I offered her some help before the end, but she was a proud woman. But anyway, this was when young Edgar learned the meaning of some very valuable words: suffering, pain, want, death, misery.
Now let’s fast-forward to the pact.
The
scene begins to change. The years fly
forward to 1827 as the city morphs into
Satan: Well, the little Poe did meet with a little
luck after his parents died when he was adopted by a wealthy merchant named John
Allen. Poe’s “middle name” was taken on
then. He also got to spend some time in
Suddenly,
they are interrupted as the door of the townhouse opens, and a teen
emerges. He takes the time to scream one
last time, and then walks away from the house, not pausing to look back.
Satan: Well, anyway, I was going to say that youth were always quicker to enter into pacts with me. But you should watch this one carefully; it was one of my best works.
God
smiles at Satan, and becomes invisible, as Satan changes form to a well-dressed
business man and walks over to Poe.
Satan: Good evening to you sir.
Poe
ignores him and keeps walking
Satan: I have a business proposition for you. I don’t think that one who just cursed his only source of money like you just did should walk away from an easy buck.
Poe: How did you know that?
Satan: I’ll tell all in due time, for now come with me.
Poe: You must have overheard, we were speaking quite loudly. But if you are willing to buy me dinner, I would be happy to hear what you have to say.
Satan: Sure, I know this great restaurant downtown, it called “the crossroads”
Poe: Never heard of it; what kind of food do they serve?
Satan: Korean- or more specifically-
Poe: Sounds tasty.
Satan: It’s to die for.
They
begin walking downtown, with God trailing behind.
Satan: Now I understand that you are quite a poet. I have been keeping tabs on you, and I think that you really have potential.
Poe: Ohh, I don’t know about that, I mean, I think that I am pretty good at writing; I just don’t seem to have too many ideas for stories. Also, I have to worry about getting enough money to live on now, so I don’t really have the time to write.
Satan: See, I always thought that was such a pity- when a man wants to do something with all of his heart, and he is prevented from doing so for some silly practical reasons. You should be able to follow your soul’s one desire: writing. I think that maybe the two of us could work something out: I give you enough money to live by, and you can concentrate on producing some of the best stories that the world will ever read: scary and haunting stories that will live in the minds of readers forever.
Poe: It sounds nice, but even if I could sit all day and write; I need some plots for my tales.
Satan: I could give you that also. I am in a unique position to perfectly cater to your type of writing. I can give you access to the greatest tales of fear and betrayal and mystery that history has ever seen. I was there for all of it.
Poe: Wait a second, just who are you?
Satan
begins to get animated, with his voice getting deeper and more unearthly
Satan: I know mankind’s most inner and private thoughts. I can see into his petty and malicious and evil mind. I hear every thought of jealousy; I see every act of greed. I know the unsolved mysteries, and where all the bones lie. I know when man gets up in the dead of the night to sleep with his neighbor’s wife, or to kill his best friend. I have see kings and peasants smile when they gorge themselves of blood of innocents. I was the whispering voice in their head.
Poe: What exactly are you offering here?
Satan: Enough talk. Perhaps an example will serve best.
Satan
snaps his fingers and they are transported to a dark, underground tunnel. A light appears in the distance, held by two
men talking.
Poe: Where are we?
Satan:
The First One: Proceed, herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi --"
The Second: He is an ignoramus.
Satan: We had better go see what will happen next.
Poe: They will be able to see us.
Satan: No they won’t. Follow me.
They
walk over the light, and they see that one of the Italians has been fettered to
a wall inside a small, musky room.
The First One: Pass your hand, over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.
The Second One: The Amontillado!
The First One: True, the Amontillado
The
first one uncovers some bricks and mortar, and begins laying a wall at the
entrance to the room
Poe: Stop, you madman!
Satan: They can’t hear you. But don’t you want to know the whole story.
Poe turns quiet, and lays his head in his
hand, and cries. After a minute, he raises his red eyes, and
looks at Satan.
Poe: I know who you are.
Satan: Good boy. Now you see what I can give you. Hundreds of stories like this, just waiting to be told. You will be famous. Just sign this, and we can get started.
Poe
looks at the piece of paper, and wipes his eyes one more time. He runs his finger on the trowel, and then
scrawls his name in dripping blood on the paper.
Poe: So why would he do it?
Satan: Just an insult, actually. Makes you think twice about messing with Italians. I love this one because it shows how meticulous well-planned acts of pure evil can be: he buried his friend alive with the same care for detail that he would have used to buy a new house. But enough of this story: there is so much more for us to see.
The boy who was writing his paper at this
point pauses. He is having a dilemma
where the story should go. He wants to
explain the origin of about ten more of Poe’s stories in this new light. He could either move the
story back to heaven, and have Satan explain the rest to God there, or
keep following Poe around for the rest of the tales. The boy thinks about it, and then decides to
go back to heaven, because looking up when Poe wrote each of his stories would
be a little too much work.
Back
in heaven
Satan: Me and Poe had a lot of fun over the years. That thing is the labyrinth became “The Cask of Amontillado,” although I always thought that “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit,” which was the on the Montressor coat of arms, would have been a much better title.
After that we traveled the world. I took him back in time to see a court jester revenge himself on his king and his jesters. The kings had been mocking the jester for being handicapped for a couple of years, and the jester had just waiting for the perfect time to take his revenge. He had a flair for the dramatic, so he convinced the king and his ministers to dress in flax, and then he hung them from a massive chandelier during a ball and ignited them. The jester didn’t know it, but it took around a year before the smell of burnt flesh was really gone from the ballroom. The ironic thing was that the jester was really a beautiful man who had just become handicapped when he entered into a pact with me to become the greatest performer in the kingdom. The story actually had a nice ending: the jester ran away to a far away kingdom and lived happily ever after with his woman; well, that is, happy until I came to him one day and sucked out his soul, and ate it on rye bread with vegetables.
I took him to the time of the plague, and had him watch a group of nobleman who had locked themselves away in a sprawling manor to avoid the plague. They were having a masquerade, so one of my demons actually dressed himself up as a plague-infected person, and decided that it would just be hilarious if he went into the mansion and pretended to die, thus convincing all of the noble-folk that their precious hideaway had been infiltrated by the disease. So he walked up to the manor, ignoring the guards who kept running him through with their swords, and ran through the house, screaming like a banshee until he collapsed and “died.” The joke actually ended up being funny because all of the noblemen thought that the house was no longer safe, and so they tried to escape the country, and most died on the journey. Poe decided that the story would be much scarier if he presented it as a true story, and much more effective if all of the people in the manor died almost immediately. Of course, that was ridiculous, the average person took 2 or 3 days to die from the plague, but that’s what poetic license gets you.
God: The Masque of Red Death?
Satan: Yup. After that, we traveled to
So anyway, I took him to a room that the Spaniards had taken a while to construct. It was square, with a gaping pit in the middle that dropped a hundred feet into a water hole. The inquisitors thought that this idea of theirs was particularly clever: they would place the person in the room, and extinguish all lights, thereby allowing for the person to stumble and fall into the pit. The water was deep enough so that one could survive the fall, which was important so the victim could rise to the surface, and save some time to reflect upon the fact that he would die as soon as he stopped swimming. If the poor soul had somehow managed to not fall into the pit, they had another surprise for him: a large blade that was swung back and forth like a pendulum. They would slowly lower it for a couple of days, until it finally cleaved the prisoner, who was by that time tied up, into two messy pieces. I say messy because the pendulum was lowered about an inch at a time, so you would survive two or three of its cuts.
Poe became obsessed with this room, and decided that it would be positively frightening if he were to write a story told from the point of view of the prisoner. The only flaw in his idea was that to make a story like that credible, the prisoner had to be saved at the end, and for that purpose there is a rather forced paragraph at the end of the story about his redemption. The title that he gave that story was actually a rather good one, “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
God: The Inquisition was really a tough time for me. I would have thought that it would never be possible to carry out torture in my name. Unfortunately, belief in me indirectly allowed for it to occur; because when you believe in something so important so strongly, you are willing to do whatever is necessary to support that goal. The ends have never and will never justify the means, because the ends involved being the type of person who would never use those means.
Satan: I even took him to see some evil things that were occurring during Poe’s time. There was this one man who had traded his soul to me in return for a magic eye that we dubbed his “vulture eye”. That eye gave him the power to see whatever it was that he wanted to see. He used it to steal vast sums of money in his youth, but by the time he was an old man, he was tired of the life he was living and retired from thievery to live the rest of his days in peace. Anyway, this other madmen who lived in the building as him was driven mad by the eye, so he killed the old man, dismembered him, and hid him under the floorboards. Unfortunately, the madman did not really have the makings of a murderer, and broke down to the police less than a day later.
God: I remember that one: It was his God given guilt that caused him to scream the famous: “"Villains!, dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"
Satan: I thought that title, “The Tell Tale Heart,” wasn’t too good. I suggested, “What Not to Tell the Police When You Murder Old People,” but Poe would have none of that.
Another time, I took him to see the end an old and noble family called the Ushers. The original Usher, who was quite a family man, had made a pact with me that as long as there was some descendent of his around, the stately Usher mansion would protect them and give them whatever they wanted. Little did he know that less than hundred years later, the Usher lineage would come to an end, so I invited Poe to come watch it with me. Once the last Usher died, the magical house also took its last breath, and collapsed.
God: Ahhh “The Fall of the House of Usher.” But, I think that I am getting the point. Are you really going to go through all of his stories?
Satan: I thought that you said you had an eternity.
God: Well, I suppose so, continue.
Satan: I will try to make things go a little quicker. Poe wrote “The Black Cat” about me, because there was a point when I was haunting him as one. Poe just expanded the story, and made the protagonist go crazy and accidentally kill his wife. He then burrowed the idea of walling someone in from “The Cask of Amontillado”, and added the twist that the cat was walled in with the wife’s body, so that he would be revealed as the killer. The theme of the story, namely that I was beginning to drive Poe mad and that eventually I would cause his downfall, was a predictive one.
“MS. Found in a Bottle” was a story about a castaway on a ship. The ship was unique in the fact that everyone on the soul had soul their soul to me in return from deliverance from a storm, and the day before the castaway arrived I had collected on my part of the deal and sucked all of their souls out of their bodies. I showed Poe the ship because I thought that it created an interesting dynamic, a regular guy surrounded by soulless automatons. Poe agreed that it was interesting enough to merit a story, and added an ending about a whirlpool. He was really taken by those.
Most of his other works were actually his original ideas. The detective stories were all came from his mind, which just gives credit to his skill as a writer.
God: What about “The Raven,” was that was one his also? That one is my favorite.
Satan: “The Raven” should have never been written. It was one of the only times in my life that I actually did someone a favor. You see, “The Raven” was the story of the night I had come to collect on my part of the bargain and get Poe’s soul. I came in the form of that black bird because, well, over the years I had assumed the forms of all black creatures, from poodles to cats, and so a raven was a logical choice. He told me, as I was dragging him away, that he had an idea for the best poem he would ever write. He begged me for another ten minutes, just enough time to scrawl down the poem. That was the only time he ever wrote only one draft of a piece, because it had been formed perfectly in his mind. I don’t know why, but maybe out of curiosity, I agreed. He hurriedly wrote it, and looking over his shoulder, I realized that it was his life’s work, and that it was perfect. Nothing else ever written would ever come close to it in terms of complexity of the rhyme and beauty of the verse. No one, in any language, would ever fashion something so intricate and flowing. After he was finished with it, he smiled, and told me that he was ready to go. I, of course, had to get the poem published, so I introduced into one of his earlier collections so that no one would get suspicious of my role.
“Once upon a
He was pondering whether or not the future generations would like his works. He was weak and weary because he had not eaten in two days, nor slept, which is actually quite common for mortals who know their end is near.
”Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”
That lore was actually Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, whom Poe empathized with.
Then there was the tapping visitor, which of course was me. Poe had been daydreaming about his late wife, who also happened to be his cousin. One of the nicknames that he had given her was Lenore.
He suspected who I was, and asked me to identify myself:
“Ghastly grim and ancient raven
wandering from the Nightly shore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian
shore”
Ghastly, grim and ancient were all
excellent adjectives to describe me with.
The plutonian shore referred to the shore of the river
Poe then got hopeful, and began to think that maybe I would give me more time:
“On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before”
to which I reiterated myself, and again condensed it into “nevermore”
Poe still would not accept his fate. He wondered:
“what this ominous bird of yore- what this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore, meant in croaking "Nevermore."
Of course, it was obvious what I meant, he was just trying to delude himself.
He argued that he had suffered enough in his life, especially when Virginia, his wife, had succumbed to tuberculosis, and that therefore his death would give him a rest from so many painful memories. He was really such a tragic figure.
“Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore”
I, again, had to repeat myself, because he was still not coming with me. At that point, he began to get really angry:
"Prophet!"
said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends
above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul
with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp
a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant
maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
I had to repeat myself for the fifth time. I explained that I don’t adore God, and that also while his wife might be in some “distant Aidenn,” or heaven, he was not going anywhere near there.
Then he made me repeat myself a sixth time. Can you believe it? He was really angry; not only at me, but at his whole miserable, poor, filthy life.
Be that word our sign in parting,
bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting-
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my
door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
He wanted me to just go home. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The last verse had to be somewhat amended because it just gave too much away. The first two sentences were changed, the rest was Poe’s:
And the Raven, to call my fate in, suddenly became Satan
And smiling and beguiling, he dragged me through my chamber door;
And his eyes have
all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on
the floor;
And my soul from out that
shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall
be lifted- nevermore!
I thought that it was pretty obvious what the poem was about, especially after the last verse, but nobody ever realized what it truly was.
God: That is quite a story you got there.
Satan: Yeah, but don’t worry, I have plenty more that will keep us occupied for all of eternity. The funny thing is, this is the second time I told this story. The first time was for a boy who had made a pact with me to get straight “A’s” throughout college. One of his classes was giving him some trouble because they kept giving him “B+’s” on his papers. The happened to be excellent papers, but for some reason that I will never know why the TA didn’t think so. So anyway, I figured that I would let the kid write this story for his creative project, and it would be so good that the professor would be forced to give the kid an “A.”
The
boy who was writing his paper paused for a minute. Did what he had just written make any
sense? He had been writing about himself
writing the paper, and within his story was the story about God and the
Devil. Now his two characters had just
referenced himself, so he was actually a part of a story within a story that
was within a story that he had written.
He vaguely wondered what the boy who had just been talked about by the
God and Satan had though about his paper.
Was it the same thoughts that he was now thinking. Was he just the creation of some other boy
who had to write a paper? The boy
realized the huge problems that the last scene had just created, but he decided
to leave it anyway. Then, his characters
did something which he did not expect.
God: Want to know something interesting?
Satan: Sure, surprise me.
God: Well, I only realized this because I am omniscient, but we are just characters in a story. We were created by some kid who needed a final project for a class. We don’t even have control over what we say. We don’t even exist, except in the minds of the few who will read this story.
The
boy was now more confused than ever. How
could his characters know that they were characters? He thought that he had complete control over
them, but now he realized that he didn’t.
The thought actually made him happy because he wanted control over
himself just in case he was the creation of somebody else.
“Whatever”,
he told himself. The fact was that he
was extremely tired, having stayed up all night just to write this
project. He hoped that it would
guarantee him an “A.” His eyes became
droopy, and he fell asleep on the keyboard, causing a string of the letter “O”
around 80 pages long to appear in his paper.
When he woke up, he quicker erased it, printed the paper out, yawned,
and walked over to hand it in and take his
midterm.
Professor
Ricter stopped reading the paper, and looked up. Monica had given him the paper because it was
especially good, clearly demonstrating creativity and a lot a research. Also, the professor liked to look over most
of the final projects, because he truly loved them, and because creative
writing was the favorite part of his college experience. The paper had made him check up a couple of
Poe stories because he was a little rusty.
He decided that the paper was good enough to warrant an “A,” not only
for the paper, but also for the course.
Then Professor Ricter typed out an email to
the boy who had written the paper, telling him just how good he thought it was,
but that he thought the boy had taken the self-reflexivity thing to a silly
level. Since the paper was so long, and
since the professor had taken such a long time to read it carefully because it
really was that good, he decided that he had earned a break. He got up, stretched, and smiled, just like
he always after reading a piece of literature that was really well- put
together. Then he looked out of his
window, listened to himself breath for a couple of moment, and wondered if a
self-reflexive story that caught up to a certain, real character at the end of
a story and began to describe his movements exactly could ever really end.