ice choked cliff in the Third Circle. Here, an icy rain pelted down on the gluttonous, who probably would have eaten, or at least gnawed on, the extension cord if they could have seen it. But it was too well hidden. It ran for miles across the Third Circle, hidden beneath slush and mud. Eventually it disappeared into an icy spring, only to emerge even deeper in Hell, running down a waterfall to the Fourth Circle. Here it passed between the lumpen bodies of the avaricious, who were pressed down flat to the rocky soil with great weights tied to their chests. Flat on their backs they lay, and the few who could see the extension cord tried to grab it, to possess it and make it their own, but none succeeded.
The cord eventually left the Fourth Circle through a dark crack and emerged again in the swamps of the river Styx on the Fifth Circle. It ran across the muddy Styx, winding through its reeds with their razor-sharp leaves and iron hard roots until it reached a rocky slope far, far to one side of the swampy Styx. There the extension cord began its climb, wending its way over toe-cracking rocks and foot-shredding volcanic shards of hardened lava, running up and up until finally it reached a television set. The television set was being carried by Minos, who was picking his way up the treacherous mountainside, scrambling to find purchase for his hooves.
After a long, hard slog uphill he reached a level patch of rocks near the top of the slope where an enormous boulder rested. Minos walked around the boulder which was hiding a crack in the mountain. He entered the crack and there beheld a picture of utter and complete despair. Nero sat to one side of the crowded cave, slumped against the wall, while Mary Renfro stoked a miserable, greasy little fire in the middle of the floor. A few feet away, Satan lay on his side with his face to the wall. Occasionally he moaned and that was how they knew he was alive.
“I brought da TV,” Minos announced.
“Planning on watching sitcoms while everything collapses around our heads?” Nero asked.
“Hardy har,” Minos said, lowering the TV to the dirt floor. “You need ta see dis. It’s what I wuz tellin’ you about.”
“Why bother?” Nero said. “It’s all over.”
“They aren’t allowed to do this,” Mary Renfro said. “Are they?”
“Why don’t you go down and tell them,” Nero said. “I went through this once before when Rome burned. Now I don’t even have my cithara.”
“Thas why you gotta watch dis,” Minos said. “Somethin’s happenin’.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s on the TV,” Minos said.“An’ if the TV says it’s happenin’ then you know it’s happenin’.”
“Unless it’s a miracle, I don’t want to see it,” Nero groused.
The burly demon turned on New York One, local news. The slightly orange face of an inept local anchorwoman filled the screen.
“In what people are calling a ‘Satanic Miracle’ it looks like the entire country is coming together for the Devil,” she said.
The camera cut to a bake sale at a school. Rice Krispie treats, oatmeal raisin cookies in plastic sandwich bags and overly baked, nearly black chocolate chips cookies were changing hands at a surprisingly brisk pace.
“Since the verdict was passed down in the Babbit vs. the Devil court case last week, bake sales like this one have sprung up at schools across the country,” a field reporter said.
On the front of the table was taped a piece of poster board that read, “Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund.” The reporter pushed his microphone into the face of the pimply middle school girl with thick glasses who was running the cash box.
“Sam Soto, New York One,” he said. “Sweetie, why are you selling cookies for the Devil?”
She smiled shyly.
“Because I think he’s cute.”
Sam Soto turned to the camera.
“And it’s not just at schools, Sara.”
The camera cut to the outside of a bank. Sam Soto approached an elderly woman, just emerging.
“Excuse me, Sam Soto, NY 1,” he said. “Did you just donate money to the Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund?”
“I did,” she said, primly.
“What motivated you to do that?” he asked.
“I saw that Satan on television and he reminded me of my George,” she said. “George didn’t like working for the paper company but he did it all his life. Never complained once. Then when he passed, not one of those people came to his funeral. That’s a shame.”