by Jameson Johns
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Black rock glimmered crimson in the flicker of scattered fires, yellow sulphur billowings fissured with an acid hiss, and a trickle of belching lava ran slurping and gurgling between the crags of hell. Off in the distance, the bile pit gleamed with greenish sickness, lending a fetid luminescence to the infernal cave. A gambolling playground of tortures was pockmarked by brown, brackish pools all burbling with cess and filth, and the humid stench of pestilence hung heavy over the leprous, digit-littered midst.
There, in the field of scabs, two former cosmetics executives were jellywrestling in a glutinous solution of agent orange, while neutered pornographers drowned ceaselessly in sour breast-meat. Sodomites were beset by unending rectal haemorrhages, and oversmug christians choked on their own satisfaction.
A carnal whirl of storm-tossed bodies beset fondlers, fingerers and the odd malingerer, and not far off in the seethe of the peat-bog, whispering obscenities tormented grub-tongued slanderers as they bricked themselves in to airless wormholes, thankful for walled mercies. Circling among them, an indeterminate multitude were being prodded sporadically with pitchforks, while high above, two furied poets climbed brazenly for the Gates, straining in vain against the living weights of irony and self-righteousness.
Just across from the meadow of endless itches, hiccoughs and erections, a desperate many queued outside hell’s kitchenette, awaiting both lashings of hot lime-and-bitters, and the bitter lashings with hot limes that inevitably followed. They clamoured with anticipation, thirsty and unthrashed, to no avail. After what seemed like thirty or forty purgatories, an ungodly quiet befell the once-teeming corridors.
Then, suddenly, an horrific cheering bit into the air, etching its din into the pit: a bleating cacophony of cloven-hoofed stoats, the bray of two-headed harpies, the sloughing rasp of goblin swarms. Hording around a grim arena, they were inflamed now, the bedevilled crowds—especially the demonspawn, dribbling muck down their pitted cheeks, frothing from every orifice. They stamped, screeched, gnawed on their tongues and clawed their wasted faces in the sweaty grip of exhilaration.
In the stand opposite – though it was less an amphitheatre than a befouled, rocky outcrop – a small cluster of saints and angels mustered in the stricken heat, with the occasional, fatted cherub flitting overhead. Their beatific faces were struck with rapt fascination, hanging on every move, their haloes aglow with pious excitement. Rosaries jangled, dandling between tense, miraculous hands; ablutions of holy-water doused the flush and tumult of supernal nerves; and a soft-hued humility barely repressed the quiverings of blessed viscera.
And in the thick of it, surrounded by pus-flecked eyes and kind, saintly smiles, by greasy pores and the chastity of sacred flesh, by palsied legs and noble, martyred brows, amid all this commotion the combat was at its best—there, on a modest rostrum, raged the Deities.
For years – indeed, since a little before the beginning of time – the contest had blazed: the primal battle between good and evil, Heaven and Hades, between God himself and hell’s own Lucifer. In immortal circles, it was better known as the Biennial Divine Armwrestle.
The wrestle was the highlight of the celestial calendar, and drew saints, satyrs, seraphim and fiends, demiurges and earthmothers alike. This year there was even an incubus, who during half-time had regaled the local coven with seedy aspersions against the Immaculate Conception.
The event had begun some weeks ago, following a lengthy preseason of taunts and warm-ups. Talk of a ‘friendly’ had fluttered through the halls, hallowed and hellish, but naturally had come to nothing. (The Antichrist felt there was already a glut of idle speculation among his minions, and as he remarked to the smithies, “the probes won’t insert themselves.” All in all, it was better to get straight to the crunch—especially as the underworld was hosting this year, and he wanted the volcano brimful of scientologists before the visitors’ arrival.)
After a sensational start, as God attempted a classic ‘five second smiting’ while his surprised opponent hung on by a razor-fingernail, the two competitors had knuckled down, with the armwrestle teetering mostly to Satan’s advantage, but hard-fought all the way. At one point, when the Prince of Darkness was but inches from vanquishing his messianic foe, God had managed to distract him momentarily with a burning bush, and garnered some leverage. Days later, a diabolical Granny Smith almost tempted the Holy Father into a premature capitulation, but he wasn’t going to fall for that ploy two millennia running.
The loathsome hosts hissed and squealed with every wavering of the almighty biceps, feasting all the while on rank platters of haggis, blood-sausage and spotted dick. The perennially ascetic saints looked on with undisguised repugnance, and spurned each proffering of netherworldly refreshments.
As the thousandth hour ticked past, Lucifer’s glacier eyes bored across his adversary, and a wry smile tweaked his wrought features: the old man looked tired beneath the brilliant robes, his vast musculature lacking the vigour of revelations past. Satan inched his lead a little further, leaning over at a perilous forty-five degrees—but then a sudden upward thrust from God almost levelled them and a sonorous stream resounded from the angel choir, enraptured with the gain, layered melodious and ringing through the spitfire pit.
The wizened face met the Devil’s gaze with a stunning compassion, piercing into the latter’s soulless core with unhesitating warmth, an aeonian embrace, a tidal yet tender affection. Satan parried with a lone raised eyebrow, casting all the vicious cynicism of history back upon this font of benevolence.
“You may win this battle, Nick,” God intoned, in a rich basso somehow free of the strain of galaxies discharging through his arm. “But you can’t fight Love.”
“Fight it?” Lucifer rejoined with the flash of wit, “why my good man, Love is my willing puppet.”
The Heavenly Father smiled indulgently, then heaved the clotted weight of mortal sin up a notch to the hymnal jubilance of his flock. The demon throngs slavered up cankered gobs of blackest rot, awrithe in their anxiety amid the curdling spawn.
It seemed as if
“Surely,” Lucifer sundered, “in your infinite wisdom, you foresaw Love’s debauch?”
“Perhaps, but in my infinite charity I forgive myself the lapse,” God replied, “along with Man’s.” And with the colossal strength of omnipotence, he wrenched them level.
Lighted grace duelled the swagger of night … brimstone rocked and the earth quaked … and Satan bore back down on God’s right hand as the gruesome Medusa slapped and scoured her scaly thighs in furious delight.
After innumerable biennial armwrestles, the Dark Lord was ahead by only thirty-six; but from the look of things he was set to claim another win to the wracked clamours of his underlings. Thankfully, only a small contingent of angels had flown down to the Inferno to watch the match this year, as the Apocalyptic arm had been somewhat out of form these last few decades, and moreover the match had clashed with a Friends marathon.
Of course, there was a time when the triumphant din of hymns stopped up the ears of every demon in hell when the Man Upstairs was regularly winning his away games. During an antediluvian winning streak, some of the more fiendish organisers had even suggested a thumb-war to break the infernal drought. But the dull spectacle of jousting digits was poorly received, and they shortly reverted to the armwrestles that had been putting bums on seats for the last eternity and just might for the next two or three to come.
This year, however, it was only a few of the newer and more enthusiastic saints who had journeyed down from the plush heights of paradise, along with a coterie of lesser angels. (Saint Anthony hadn’t been the least bit tempted, while Gabriel was in a tizz about the recent dearth of Annunciations, and had offered only terse encouragement from a nebulous couch.)
But the newbies were giving it everything, Teresa foremost among them. The palimpsest of wrinkles that hung about her face rustled with zeal as she shrilled forth war-cries and pummelled the air with lilliput fists. Next to her, a doddery ex-pope made a mental note to move a few rows back during the next divine breather, his devotional avidity having waned since the days of the Inquisition; and from his box-seat below, Noah wandered off for a spot of limbo with Socrates, his ears still ringing.
Ironically, it was precisely when dear little Mother Teresa blasted out an aria that Satan’s arm crashed down upon the empyrean hand, smashing it into the craven table with the clangour of damnation—a flash of black lightning—and a crack that shuddered the globe. A babel rumpus erupted; Cerberus unleashed a herculean stream of barks and snarling, the Minotaur’s phlegm-thickened bellows convulsed the very air, and the scrawl of voices from venal legions thundered across the pit of hell. The damned masses howled for the headsplitting noise, and all but the legless lumbered forlornly to the mohel-slicks, to jam up their eardrums with spent ringlets of flesh.
Ecstatic goblins were jigging, gimlets whizzing in the air; the harpies hacked and cackled with a beady rasp; the spawn festered with pulsing glee. And a six-eyed slug oozing mustard and pus fell off its rocky perch into a slurp of lava, hissing and spitting a noxious steam of moribund ecstasy.
The Archfiend simply leaned back – eyes agleam, a curl upon his lips – and smoothed his pinstriped waistcoat. He’d been shocked by God’s lack of form, and had drawn out the armwrestle for a few weeks simply to entertain the hordes, as well as spare the divine pride. But in reality, he’d hardly broken a sweat. God bowed his congratulations, noble to the last.
“You’re looking old, Jehovah. I have a large contingent of cosmetic surgeons down here; I’m sure we could arrange something for you.”
“Don’t get too cocky, or I’ll make Mormonism the eighth deadly sin.” Satan grimaced, inwardly, at the thought of shortsleeved doorknockers proselytising the streets of hell. The Rock of Ages continued: “Besides, there’s always next time, old friend.”
“Quite.” But they both knew it would take more than just another a miracle to resurrect God’s wrestling prowess sometime this century. Omniscience could be such a burden.
“Well, I’d best be off. See you at Saint Peter’s birthday do, I suppose.”
Lucifer winked in confirmation, and watched as his rival heaved from the great stone table, stretching heavily with his robes weary around him. They each made a slight nod of acknowledgement, as deities are wont to do, before God ascended off with his heavenly entourage.
Veritably, it was a strange old game, Satan mused. He sometimes wondered how it had all begun. A schoolyard tiff? A row over a goddess? Satan couldn’t remember for the life of him. He rather suspected that God had forgotten also.
Nevertheless, he would certainly enjoy the spoils of the armwrestle – having already sketched out two years of suffering and corruptions – even though he would’ve preferred more of a contest. The Prince of Darkness rapped his nails with satisfaction and decided on some milk-poached vegans to celebrate the occasion. Or perhaps he could serve up that awful Dr Atkins with some mashed potatoes? At least there was enough of him to go round the demon multitudes hungering in the bedlam of hell.
And so the Dark Lord sauntered off to indulge in the exaltation of his minions, strutting between underlings with eyes atwinkle, the glimmer of sin in his stride.
…
