our work on Creation and the other angels followed orders because that was what they were created to do. They didn’t know how to do otherwise, but something inside of me was twisted. Maybe I was sick from exposure to all of those micro-universes, maybe I was contaminated by what I had seen my experimental humans do to each other, but deep inside of me there was a new idea: No. None of us even knew it was possible to say ‘No’ to God. But I wanted to say No. It made me feel light-headed and dizzy. I had a hard time staying moored in time. The only part of me that felt solid was this pressure in my chest, this No that was building and building, becoming more and more painful every day, becoming desperate to get out.
“One day, God was talking to us, instructing us on how to bring life to this Universe. I was his bright star, his best pupil, the one he had invested with the most of his being. He wanted me to light the suns and I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t able to say ‘No’ but I could refuse to do as he asked. He became angrier and angrier. I just stood there, unable to move, unable to offer an explanation for my resistance. The pressure inside my chest kept building, and I just wanted him to shut up and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. So I punched him in the face.”
Satan paused for effect, but Sister Mary didn’t react. She was still dead.
“None of us even knew how to process this. We were shocked. I was shocked. I had punched God. It was a big deal.
“It didn’t go well after that. I had violated all the rules of my existence, I had fractured Creation. Until that moment there was only the will of God, but now I had opposed it. I had made something that was Not-God. He threw me down, literally and metaphorically. It was my Fall. I fell so far, so fast that gravity bent around me and the angels who had supported my cause were sucked down in my wake. We had wanted to stop the cruelty of Creation and we had lost. I had punched God. I had invented resistance. I had invented rebellion. I had invented exile. I had invented punching.
“Finally, I landed here, in Hell. Back then it was a realm of eternal darkness, full of smoldering fires, walls of flame, floors of magma, ceilings of lava. Around me, in the darkness, I could hear the cries of the angels who had fallen with me. Angels love the cool for its calm, relaxing waves of slow Brownian movement but in Hell they burned for centuries, for millennia, and it twisted their bodies and broke their minds. All of these deformed demons you see around you were angels once.
“It didn’t bother me so much, I was one of the archangels. What hurt was that I had been removed from the presence of the Creator and trapped in Hell, locked away inside his Creation, unable to get him to stop trying to build his cosmic ant farm. I made do. I built Hell, I turned it into my realm, I brought order to this chaos. I was as surprised as anyone else when he first began to send his outcast souls to me. I guess he thought that they were like me: sinners, rebels, traitors to his glory. He had expected they’d just burn, the way we had burned, but he hadn’t seen what I’d done with the place. I stratified and codified the punishments, brought order to the torments. I used to invent new ones all the time. It was fun.
“I did the best I could with what I had. I don’t know how I could have done it any differently or any better. Now they’re going to take it from me. I got so used to the way things were that I forgot they could just take all my work away anytime they wanted. I suppose I thought that I was as good as them. But I’m not. I’m Satan. I am the lowest and most worthless being in all of Creation.”
Suddenly he plunged his hand into Sister Mary’s chest and yanked. Sister Mary bolted up like she was spring-loaded or, to be more precise, her soul did. Her body stayed on the flinty ground, but her soul popped out like a champagne cork. She