Gravity II

“Then let me show that I can beat you in your chosen field of measurement of success,” I challenged, truly allowing myself to get carried away by the flow of the conversation.

“Now you have gone too far,” growled Time, standing. In my arrogance I was completely indifferent to his wrath though the others looked uncomfortable. “I’m not having someone not even named by the humans yet challenge me. They have feared me since they first discovered that they age.”

“It isn’t you they fear, it’s death. You’re no death, you’re nothing better then death’s boogieman,” I mocked. Death was technically one of us but she was a grim, antisocial sort, no one was shocked when she had not shown up to our little meeting. It was never spoken but we were all a little uncomfortable around Death. Even back then, when I was young and stupid, I knew not to bother Death. I couldn’t have said what I thought she might do to me since I couldn’t die, but I knew she was a threat and kept away. If nothing else we could all choose our appearances and she was the only one who chose to look consistently old. We all had our favorite shapes but the rest of us liked being youthful. Not so with Death who continued to remind us of her nature by wearing the appearance of a withered crone.

“I’ll take your challenge then,” shouted Time, angrily. “Like Future said, humans are a good gage. I’d love to see someone who hasn’t even been named yet beat me when it comes to getting respect from humans.” I had to admit that he had a point, seeing as humans didn’t even seem to know I existed it was a stupid bet for me to make.

“It sounds boring, a sure win for me,” I said, trying to worm out of it.

“You are the one who proposed the bet to start with, you can’t back out now,” Justice told me. The others, all sitting around the fire, nodded in agreement and I found myself trapped.

“Fine, you’re on,” I blustered, and I popped away from the fire and back to my own kingdom. As much as I hate my tomblike castle it was a safe place where I didn’t have to face the others, who were starting to seem suddenly hostile towards me. I know that the excuse starts to sound old but I was young, and I didn’t understand how what I had said had brought this on me. Had you asked me what had happened I would have laid everything on the shoulders of my companions and thought that I was being honest and rational about it. Now that I am older I can see how I brought this on myself but at the time I was horribly angry with them. In my anger I decided that rather then backing out of the stupid bet I was going to win and show them all. And so a bad decision brought on another as is often the case. I was far too proud to back down now.

My first step was to observe the humans; I had never really cared about them before since they had nothing really to do with me. I mean I made them fall sometimes, mostly out of boredom. Or I brought down one of their buildings that should have been able to stand for centuries just because it was amusing to see them jump up and down and swear. The biggest problem, I decided that I would have, was to show these humans that I existed. If I didn’t I couldn’t move on to the next step which was getting them to respect me more then Time.

To be continued...

Gravity

It is easier for those of us who don't live forever, I do however and I just have to deal with it. People like the devil, I think her name is Linda these days, it's so hard to keep track, and the god, have it much easier then I do. Gravity is forever and therefore doesn't age and die like they do. My position is made even awkward since no one really understands why there should be a personification of gravity, and that includes me. I suspect most of the time that I am the Supreme Being's idea of a joke and the thought does not comfort me at all.

I was one of the first ones created, I am one of the old ones. I never have to change, I just sort of wander the earth and wonder if anything interesting will happen. Of course like all of us, I have my own kingdom, but mine is lonely and deep in the earth and I try to spend as little time there as possible. While the earths surface seems to change constantly and even as I go out for a walk another generation seems to disappear, that is actually what keeps me interested. If it stayed the same I think I would soon grow bored with it and go crazy.

I now know better then to get involved with the affairs of humans too much. If I meet an interesting one I might settle down for a while, but that never lasts long since a human lifespan is so fleeting compared to what I have already lived. At one time I chose to get involved though. Soon after humans were placed on this earth and they will still of interest to me. That was back before there was a devil and a god and it was just me and the other old ones.

It all started with a gathering of me and the other old ones, though back then we were still young and stupid and still got along with one another. Now we don't have any dealings with one another because when the old ones fight the world suffers, and we fight a lot these days. But as I said, this was back in the days when everything was young and we still gathered every few years to talk and show off. It was at such a meeting, deep in the primal woods of Germany, that I made the mistake of bragging a stupid boast.

“You are all talking about how powerful you are but I am stronger then all of you. Nothing is more powerful then the power of attraction, I could pull you all into the ground and there would be no way for you to defend yourselves against me,” I announced. “Particularly you, Time, these new human creatures might think of you as powerful but your powers are absolutely useless on any of us, and we're the ones you should be trying to get respect from.”

“You leave Time alone,” snapped Wind. She had a crush on Time and had, in a very obvious way, for the last couple of centuries.

“Or you'll do what? Blow me away?” I asked, laughing mockingly. “You forget that I can make myself far to heavy for your little breezes to bother me. Your powers are about as useless on me as Time's are.

“You are going to start causing problems,” said Growth.

“Let's face it,” I said ignoring her. “All of your powers only affect the lesser beings. My power is the only one that can affect all of you. Therefore I am the one that all of you should be looking up to. The only person more powerful then me is the Supreme Being.”

“These humans that have been around recently I think are the new bases of power. They are smart and the Supreme Being seems to favor them. Rather then looking at whether or not we affect one another we should be looking at how we affect them. Their favor can make us far more important then we are now,” said Future. “If you want respect then look to them for it.” Future was living up to his name and now I know this, but at the time this seemed like empty talk from yet another person that had no affect on me. Personifications have no future, I thought I knew that then but I didn't truly appreciate it. Now I really know it, personifications have no future.

To be continued...

Devil Linda X

“I want you to become a lawyer's office for defending the spirits that come here. The ones that you think are innocent of course, the ones who appeal, or the ones where there is some doubt. I will expect you and the demons that I assign under your charge, to bring evidence of their innocence. I am going to found another department that is going to be in charge of finding evidence of their guilt,” Linda announced. It was the fruit of her long hard thought.

“But it's just humans,” protested Dante. He obviously was torn between being honored with the trust she was giving him and the fact that he didn't like the job description.

“You are human as well, never forget your humanity,” Linda snapped at him. “We owe it to our fellow humans to be as fair as possible. We are the prisons and the judges, it is only right that we should be giving them a chance to protest. It is only natural that the innocent should be given a chance to prove it. Now I am going home and going to sleep,” Linda marched out of the room. Dante looked after her and after she was gone he smiled, she was finally starting to act like a leader, she was now the sort of person that he could follow.

“How was the sleepover?” asked Linda's father as Linda walked into the house.

“I hardly got any sleep at all. We spent all night watching movies,” Linda lied, trying to stay awake. “I'm so tired, I think I am going to go to bed and sleep for a while. Can you wake me up for dinner?”

“Not a problem,” Linda's father told her affectionately. “You go and get some sleep honey.”

“Oh yeah,” Linda said turning back around to face her father. “Can you get me some information on schools with law departments and sign me up from the GED?”

“What?” asked her father, shocked. Both he and his wife had tried to be accepting about what their daughter had decided to do with her life but neither had been happy about it. His wife had been even less happy about it then he had, but they had both gotten to the point where they were resigned to her choices. Now she seemed to be speaking completely out of character.

“I want to be a lawyer. I decided last night,” Linda explained. “It seems like a good career, I like justice.” What she added mentally was that she had no intention of using the law degree in practice. Well not in the human world. If she was going to move over to a justice based hell however, and sit judgment on a court, then she wanted to know something about justice. Of course she wasn't going to follow earth law to a letter but she was going to take any ideas she could.

“I think you will do very well,” her father said quickly. If his daughter was willing to go to college and look to the future he would do anything she wanted him to. With a smile of satisfaction Linda went upstairs to go to bed. A job well done after a long day.

Devil Linda IX

“I want to be able to see people’s pasts like you do. You are the one who grants us our power am I right?” Linda asked timidly. She had just sort of assumed that it was until now but now doubt was starting to fill her. If she was wrong and was asking for something it couldn’t do she wondered what its reaction would be. Would it punish her for asking the impossible.

“To what use would you put this power if you had it. You are human no matter what position I have placed you. There are some powers better not in the hands of humans.” Linda relaxed a little more. It wasn’t angry with her, it wasn’t willing to just hand power over to her, but it wasn’t angry and that was a great relief.

“I want to be just; I know that isn’t part of being the devil but it is something that I want more then anything else. I am fine with being part of a punishment system, but I only want to be punishing people who deserve it. I have no way to do that; I hear you are able to read people’s pasts, so I beg you for that ability, so that I can do my job in a better way.”

“I am not all powerful, I have powers but I can only get so many away, and every time I do I am no longer able to use them myself. The power that you ask for is one that I want to keep myself. It is extremely valuable to me. Do you know why I chose humans for your post and for god’s?”

“Because humans change and so must heaven and hell,” recited Linda, from her lessons from Dante.

“That is a part of it but it isn’t all of it. There is also your adaptability. I could have created a separate species, one that evolved with humans and had all of the powers that you have now. But there was a problem with that; humans are the most adaptable creatures on this earth. Any problems you are faced with you find a solution. That is what I am counting on. I trust that I will not have to give up any more of my power to you because you will find a way to live without it.” The light began to fade and Linda realized that she had one last question.

“Why have you never appeared to me before? And Dante said he had never seen you before.”

“Because you are the only one, besides two devils a long, long time ago who called me while I was within hearing. I can see everything that happens but my ears do not go as far as my eyes.” And with that the shining light was gone forever and everything was back to normal. Linda picked up her phone and called her mother.

“Mom, I am going to be sleeping over at a friend’s house. Yeah, that’s right, don’t expect me for dinner.” Then she sat down and had a good long think.

When Dante came in to work the next day he found Linda still sitting at her desk, staring at the wall. That had never happened before, not in the whole time that she had been the devil. The old man that he had worked under before had never worked all night either; he had gone to bed fairly early in fact.

“You aren’t going to be my second in command anymore Dante,” was the first thing out of Linda’s lips. He looked at her in horror so she continued. “You are too smart to be my second in command. You deserve something that puts your leadership to use. From now on you are the leader of the new department I am forming; it’s going to need someone with experience and brains.”

“I am honored but what kind of department is it?”

To be continued...

Devil Linda VIII

“I want to meet it,” Linda said. “I want to be just and if it hasn’t given the tools to be fair then it should expect me to look to it for help.” She was a little scared, after all, she was asking to meet the Supreme Being, but not knowing who her boss really was bothered her even more. It was true that she was the master of her own realm but she had still always had the feeling that she was being watched somehow and she would like to meet the watcher.

“Impossible,” said Dante bluntly. “I have never seen it once; I don’t think it pays any attention to us. I think it set us up so that it didn’t have to pay attention.” Linda sighed; she suspected that what Dante said was true. He had been around longer then she had and he was one of the more sensible people from the former administration. She respected his opinion, if he said that it couldn’t be done then she was willing to take his word for it.

The paper work had been building up since Linda had had some vacation time that had made it impossible for her to leave her parent’s house. The people in hell were used to this, it had been much worse when she had been in middle school, back then she had had to plead after school activities. So they just piled the paperwork on her desk for her to get around to when she had time. She had intentionally told her mother that she had a friend’s house to go to after work so she was able to stay late to take a chunk out of it. She sent all of the demons away though, hell never slept but they could leave her in peace for a while. She didn’t concentrate well with all of the others around her.

Linda was at her desk, head bowed over a junior demon’s report of the condition of the lower pit, when she got the feeling even more then usual that something was watching her. It had happened on several other occasions but in the past she had just always written it off as being in her head. This time, with the Supreme Being on her mind she decided not to.

“Come out and talk to me if you’re going to stare at me,” she ordered, looking up from the report. There was a blinding flash of light and the next thing Linda knew she was laying on the floor. There was an instinct, far deeper then her brain, which told her that she was not to stand up but she did manage to look up. She could see nothing but a bright white glow forever.

“You called me?” said a voice. It wasn’t male or female, angry or kind, it was neutral in all forms but if anything that scared Linda even more then any other voice she had ever heard. This was her god she realized, her equivalent, her judge and she had called it and was depending on its good graces for her continued survival.

“I realize I am going to be asking a lot,” Linda stuttered. She wanted to call it sir but she wasn’t sure if it was male so she didn’t dare in case it got offended.

“I grant no promises to give you what you ask for,” said the voice. “But I will listen so stop shaking.”

To be continued...

Devil Linda VII

The first thing that Linda discovered that she knew was that the detective’s main suspect for the murder was Mathias. However he had no proof and therefore had not actually reported to his superiors his suspicions. She looked deeper and discovered the motivation for his suspicions and wrote them off. He was mostly thinking how easy it would be to assign the guilt of the murder to a man who was a suspect and already dead in a car accident. The detective wasn’t a man who concerned himself with justice, he was thinking about the fact that there would be no interrogation or tedious court if the blame could be put on a dead man’s shoulders. The only fact that the detective actually had against Mathias was what Linda already knew, Mathias and the old lady had had no love lost between them.

Linda was the most interested in knowledge that the detective had on the subject of Mathias’s life. What hell had on each spirit was only what the watching demons could catch and while the watching demons were very good, they never caught everything. For instance they had not caught whoever had killed the old woman, it would have been a lot easier if they had, nor had they caught a lot of Mathias’s childhood.

It was for reasons like that that crimes went unpunished sometimes at first, but the person never actually escaped forever. There was someone higher then both god and the devil and from what Linda understood that person never missed any crime. The explanation from Dante had been vague and confusing but from what Linda understood that person wasn’t a human like the rest of them and therefore could simply reach inside someone and know everything that person had ever done. That was the thing that assigned the reincarnation, the day that Linda had heard of it she had sworn her best behavior, she knew that one day she too would have to go through its hands.

Mathias had no known relatives alive, something that Linda hadn’t realized actually ever happened. He was truly alone in the world, he had bounced between foster families until he had come of age, not getting attached to any one family and he had finally found himself without a home at the age of eighteen, and with no prospects. It had been an advertisement for a handyman and person to do general yard work in a news paper that had brought him to the old woman. That was interesting but had no actual connection to the case Linda decided.

What the police knew about the old woman was almost exactly what hell knew. There was nothing there. She had been married, had kids, had her husband die, had her children leave home, all but one who had kept on as a sort of live in maid, and then had been murdered. No actual reason had even been found for why anyone would like to kill her, nothing had been stolen, no one had made death threats, it was truly confusing.

The next day Linda went to work again in a less then happy frame of mind. She got through a lot of her work just like every day but it was obvious, even to the usually carefully unobservant Dante that there was something else on her mind. He finally commented on it and she threw down her pen and faced him.

“I’m still bothered by Mathias’s case,” Linda admitted.

“You could still give him a harsher sentence,” Dante suggested.

“I didn’t mean that, that’s what you were bothered by in his case. I’m bothered by the fact that we didn’t know if he had killed the old woman or not. We should know these things.”

“Some things just have to be left to the higher being. It is what gives us this task but it doesn’t expect us to manage everything, it is happily forgiving.”

To be continued...

Devil Linda VI

It occurred to Linda that going around asking about a murder might not be very tactful and might even be considered down right suspicious since it had never been solved in the human world and she was obviously not a policeman. She could shape shift of course but for that she would need a human template and she would also need the knowledge that went with it. If she could find the officer who was in charge of the old woman’s death that would be easy because then she could get all of the information from him. All it took was putting her hand on his hand and she would be able to become him and know everything that he knew. Of course she would only have that information while she was him but she could write down everything that mattered before turning back into herself. That would be the easy way except that she didn’t actually know how to find the officer in question.

Linda suddenly realized that she was still thinking like a normal teenager, she wasn’t doing problem solving with the abilities that she had. She had taken into account her ability to shape shift but she had ignored that if she was never going to be seen again in all likelihood in this part of the world then there was no point for her to worry about what people thought of her at the moment. If worst came to worst she would just send Dante up with a team of demon’s to wipe some memories, it took a lot of power and he would complain about it but her orders were law. She turned and headed to the police station.

“Can I help you with anything?” asked the police woman at the desk when Linda walked in.

“I have some information on the murder Margaret Thatcher that I thought I should share,” Linda said, though she still felt a bit nervous.

“This isn’t a prank or anything is it?” asked the police woman, looking Linda up and down doubtfully. “You do realize that our tip system is very serious.”

“I wouldn’t come to the police if I didn’t really know something,” Linda said in an indignant voice.

“Have a seat and the detective in charge will be with you shortly,” said the policewoman, picking up the phone and dialing an extension.

The detective, when Linda met him, seemed nice enough, but very over worked. Still he cleared a place at his desk, got out a notepad and told her to have a seat and talk to her. She felt a little bad about doing what she was about to but still, justice had to be done she assured herself. She had to know more about the murder.

“My name is Martha,” said Linda, holding out her hand for the detective to shake. It did the trick, she was in contact with him and she was now him herself. She pushed a bit of her power through their hand connection and felt him lose consciousness, he would be out for a while and when he woke up he would remember having had a normal conversation with her, finding out that she was just looking for attention, lecturing her about responsibility, threaten to call her parents, and then letting her flee the police station looking scared out of her mind. That would give her time to sort through all of her new thoughts. She pulled his notebook near her, she would need to write all of this stuff down to bring with her.

To be continued...