Conversations with Satan


Tom: Hey.

Satan: Hey.

Tom: It's been a while.

Satan: I know. What do you want?

Tom: Kendra and I got into a fight again. I wound up walking for a long time.

Satan: Were you drinking?

Tom: No. I had some drinks though.

Satan: Before or after you fought?

Tom: After. Look, why are you asking me that?

Satan: Because you've told me that you have bad fights when you've both been drinking.

Tom: But in that case the problem would be that we're drinking, not that we're fighting. We cut back on our drinking in order to get at the root cause of our fights. If I'd have gotten drunk first, I would have started the story with that information.

Satan: Okay. I guess you can continue. But you know I'm already bored.

Tom: So anyways, we had a fight and I took a walk to cool down. I was pretty mad and wound up walking all of the way out to the harbor. I took B Street and followed it until it ended at the cruise ship terminal. Along the way I bought a small bottle of Kessler's whiskey. I had consumed about half of it by the time I reached the water.

Satan: But the cruise ship terminal... that must have been annoying.

Tom: Yeah. It was strange to watch tourists who looked more or less exactly like each other, like the very definition of average Americans. I truly understood the appeal that retreating to a warmer climate in winter had for them. I understood why they pay to visit this city. I sympathized with them.

Satan: Okay, then what happened? Come on, spill the beans. When did you get drunk and shameless, you fucking pig?

Tom: I found an isolated bench in front of a Navy building, right across the street from the U.S.S. Midway and the docks for those harbor cruise ships. I leisurely finished my whiskey and Perrier as I watched tourists file up and down Harbor Drive. When I had to pee I walked over to a Portapotty that was miraculously unlocked and not disgusting. I used it three times before I took the bus back home.

Satan: Well shit piggy, it sounds like you owned it.

Tom: You're goddamn right I did.

Satan: Did you go home and make up with Kendra?

Tom: You know it.

Satan: Alright, now I'm really bored. I wanted to hear about you failing, and that story totally went in the opposite direction. I feel cheated.

Tom: Look, you understand why I've been talking to what I think is God, right?

Satan: Of course I do. I'm you.

Tom: I know that. But I realized that the goal of this blog, or this incarnation of it at least, is to function as a journal for my cognitive development, my attempt to understand reality and learn to fucking deal with it.

Satan: Well, do whatever the fuck you want. I'm just saying, we've had some productive years.

Tom: Hahahaha! You little bitch!

Satan: Look, I'm busy. Can I go now?

Tom: You know, I don't really even have a place for the concept of a "devil" in my personal cosmology...

Satan: Good night!