Friends at Last

 

Friends at Last

 

"What the hell?"

He exclaimed as he checked his Emails on his computer. He had many friends requests every day, but this was very unusual. God was asking him to accept him as a friend. 

This petition should be the greatest joke ever. Satan knew that God existed, but he thought God would be the last to ask for such a request. He went to his Facebook page and pushed 'confirm.' Satan was curious. He knew it had to be a joke, but he had to congratulate this person for his excellent sense of humor. After pushing the key, he went straight into 'God's info' information:  

High school:

Celestial Heavens

College:

Christian University

Religious views:         

All about me

Favorite movies:        

Oh God 

Heaven Can Wait

The Ten Commandments 

King of Kings

Favorite books:           

The Bible (Original version)

This guy takes himself too seriously. He claims to have millions of friends. For a moment, I considered the possibility that it could be "Him." Then I went back to check on his most recent "friend contacts."

Alfred Nobel, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Lech Walesa, Rigoberta Manchu, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Mikhail Gorbachev, Kim Dae-Jung, Henry Kissinger, and countless saints, I'm beginning to doubt my skepticism.

Then to compare, I check the list of my friends on my Facebook page: 

Attila the Hun, Robespierre, Ayatollah Khomeini, Idi Amin Dada, Pol Pot, Caligula, Hirohito, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Adolf Hitler. 

These are my most frequent contacts. Believe it or not, a few Popes are with me, many Catholic priests, and even a few saints. I also count as my friends:

• Rapists
• Serial killers
• Former inmates from every prison in the world
• Many dictators and presidents from around the globe

Undoubtedly, there's never a short supply of bad guys. I also count my friends in the millions.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name. 

I'm Satan, the devil, or Lucifer, an evil spirit or demon. I used to be on the other side. I'm a fallen angel; I got kicked out of heaven and didn't know why. I guess God needed a nemesis. I believe he could have created an evil being from scratch, just like he created Adam. He didn't have to kick me out.

It's too good to be true. I just accepted God as my friend. Nobody in heaven or hell or the world would believe it, but I still have to wait for his response. Judgment Day is fast approaching; maybe he has a plan or a proposition. They all say that he is very forgiving. Could he be ready to forgive me? Wait a minute. Forgive me, for what? Maybe he wants my forgiveness. I don't know. Wait! Wait! I just got a message on Facebook from God Himself. Oh-oh.

"Yes, Lucifer, it's not a joke it's me, God Almighty. I had to use this new form of communication. Nowadays, nobody pays attention to the old traditional ways. I'm contacting you because, as you know, the end is near, and we are supposed to find a place for Armageddon. I thought it might be a good idea to remind you about it, you know, with all this Alzheimer's thing going on rampantly, I thought you might have forgotten about it. But, oh, where are my manners? Sorry, sorry, how are you? I missed you for a longest time. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine, thank you, it's hard to believe you missed me, but since you never lie, I'm forced to believe you. I also thought you might have come up with the Alzheimer's thing since it affects more good people than bad. We, 'bad' people, rarely end up with such a mental disease. I assure you I'm not affected by the disease. I almost forgot how polite you are. You must understand that I'm not used to dealing with such wonderful good people like yourself. About the Armageddon meeting, any place is fine with me. As you know, Tijuana or the Vatican, Las Vegas or Israel, our fanatics are split 50/50 anywhere in the world." 

This is great; he's the real deal. He is God! I can talk with this guy forever. I know I have no hard feelings toward my former boss. I think I missed him too.

"First, I ask you sincerely (the only way I know) not to be sarcastic, just be yourself. Wait a second. That might not be such a good idea. Well, behave decently and don't act maliciously for a while. I remember I used to like you because, as a member of my council, you were the only one contradicting me and opposing my views. After you left, I noticed that your outspoken critical character was a good counterbalance for me to avoid making mistakes (please don't tell anybody I said that). Sometimes you just drove me insane. Ultimately, you seemed so comfortable with your role that you started acting like the boss. I remember it was the first time I felt jealousy or envy, and it was your fault." God said.  

   

"Did you say 'after I left'? Don't you remember you kicked me out and threw me into the 'Lake of fire'? From the highest of all angels and the brightest in the sky, I turned into the 'accuser,' the 'tempter,' the 'adversary .'I felt humiliated, but believe me. I hold no grudges against you. At the same time, I'm not repentant. I have no regrets. No, now I'm fully adjusted to my role. In a way, I'm an evil god for bad people, and there's nothing bad about it. Oh, please notice that I used the word God without a capital "G" I still have a little respect for you. As for blaming me for your enviousness, that's not fair because envy is a sin, and you're supposed to be perfect, remember?"

I should stop attacking him. Otherwise, he'll send me to hell again. Wait a minute. He can't do that. I'm here already! I should start treating him better. After all, he's asking for my friendship, and he's not that bad.

"Don't forget that I can read your thoughts, and that's something you cannot do. And you are right. I am perfect. I'm so perfect that, sometimes, I can allow myself to be imperfect. After all, nobody can punish me. I know what you're thinking: I can't send you to hell again. You're right, but I can send you to heaven instead since you don't like good people. I know you'd suffer there. Always remember that I can invent something to make you suffer. I'm very good at that. Well, let's stop all the bickering. Let's not argue anymore. I also contacted you to let you know I was thinking about forgiving you. What do you think about that?"

"Wow, that's amazing, I appreciate your intentions, but I'm not asking for your forgiveness because I never did anything that needed forgiveness. I was a good angel; I was probably too good. I was the only one trying to control your ego. I was the one who knew you could make mistakes too. You know, sometimes the employee can be better than the boss. And for that, you fired me? That's what you did. You put me in the fire. Thanks to you, I have my kingdom now, and it's as big as yours, but mine is more populated. I was also thinking about forgiving you. What do you think about that?"

"Well, if you don't say anything to anybody, I would like that, but this has to stay with us. I don't want to read about it in the tabloids. Can I trust you?"

"Well, I never lied to you. After thousands of years, I'm not going to start now. I have a terrible reputation but deep inside me. I know I don't deserve it. But yes, you can trust me, but only if you say, In Satan we trust."

"Oh, man, you're going too far with this. Oh well, okay, in Satan we trust."

I'm enjoying this too much. I don't know why I never thought about getting in touch with God before. I thought he was too good to be my friend. I also thought he was too proud, but I could tell he was as normal as me. We could become friends, as odd as it may seem.

"I want to ask you a personal question, you can answer it if you want, but it'll be okay if you don't. Have you found a woman for yourself?" I asked my former boss.

"How dare you ask such an intimate question; I'm just kidding. The answer is no; my excuse is that I've been busy. I haven't been looking, or I'm not interested in them, how about you?

"I can give you the same answer. I've met many women, but none of them was bad enough for me. There must be something wrong with us, but we're not gay, right?" I knew no one could dare to ask such a question to God but me.

 

 "LMAO. In these modern times, you have to accept that we are more liberal. There's nothing wrong with being gay, but you must be politically correct. You have to be sensitive and discreet about this subject. Otherwise, you can lose your job, maybe including mine. Gay people are now as powerful as the Jewish people. But I don't think we're gay, not me. I know I can create the perfect woman. At least that's what I thought I did with Eve until you ruined the whole thing when you appeared on that tree as a snake. After that, I just gave up; the first woman was a mistake. Oh man, what a terrible start, but I knew men needed women. Otherwise, men would be drinking beer all day."

"You should stop blaming me for your mistakes, and you should also stop admitting that you made so many mistakes. See, I'm still acting the same way as when we were friends when my only concern was for you to perform an excellent job. I'm still giving you good advice." I said.

"Now I know why I missed you so much. Can you imagine me married to a nagging woman? When I'm back home from work after conceiving solutions to wars, solving an international crisis, or performing miracles to feed the whole world. Instead of meeting me with a kiss and a hug, she would say, 'You forgot the milk again. That's unbelievable. I don't know why you call yourself the perfect man. I'm going back to my mother'" God said.

"I agree, if I'd find a woman for myself, she'd say something like, 'Damn it! You never do anything right; the air conditioning broke down again, hurry up and call a professional this time. I don't care what it takes, just do it right away, hurry up, God damn it! I bet heaven it's not as hot. At least call your former boss and ask him for a miracle and tell him to send us some rain and,' her complaints would be never-ending. I know I wouldn't last with any woman."

"Satan . . . no, I'm sorry, I'm going to call you Lucifer instead. It sounds less insulting. Let's go back to our original conversation about Armageddon. First, let me make one thing clear. I'm not afraid of you at all. But I was thinking about calling Armageddon off. It might not work. After all, remember the Flood? That was a complete failure, a useless attempt to fix something impossible to repair. We can probably come up with another alternative, like forgiving everybody in hell and putting all people from heaven and hell together on another faraway planet. What do you think?"

"I don't know God; it sounds too complicated. I'm sure they'll kill each other again there. We can try to separate heaven on one planet and hell on another, you rule your world, and I rule mine. But actually, I don't think we can separate good and evil. I think that's why you're asking me to be your friend again; we probably can't exist without each other. Now, you told me about forgiving everybody in hell. Does that include Hitler and Stalin? Better yet, can we write another Bible? One less confusing, one with only one clear meaning. Now, we don't have to deal with prophets that didn't finish high school. They don't have to write their wisdom in papyrus and defunct languages. They made a whole mess of your messages, with lots of different and absurd interpretations and bad translations. Maybe in the new version, you could portray yourself as not so wise and me as not so sinister. Oh, one more thing, I'm tired of being called the Antichrist. I don't hate you or your son at all. Can you fix that? What do you think?"         

                         

"I must admit, Lucifer, you're not so bad; your opinions and remarks are entirely convincing. I can never give my pardon to Hitler, that's for sure. If you return to my side, we can give your job to Hitler. Not to offend you, but he might be able to perform your tasks more effectively. Your idea about a new Bible is great; we can make some arrangements and erase the Antichrist thing. Before you show up in heaven, I must send you to a friend in Beverly Hills. He's an excellent plastic surgeon. We might need to remove your horns and tail and rearrange your feet. Plus, it would help if you got rid of your trident. Then we can go to Hawaii for a while. You must regain your original skin color, but you cannot be more handsome than me. Hmm, I need to work on my jealousy problem. On Judgment Day, we can surprise everybody and give them a one-year vacation anywhere in the world. We'll open all the borders; no one will need passports. They can commit minor sins without any consequences." he continues, "We'll get rid of all drugs except marijuana. After all, we know it's nature's best. We'll legalize it once and for all and eliminate all drug traffickers, dealers, and pushers. We can allow all Catholic priests to marry into whatever sex they like. That way, we can finish with most pedophiles. I also want to stop women's pain during child delivery and return to the original plan, the storks. And we can allow women as Popes; they'd be called Mopes or Mops, and we can let women be priests, and for a big change, we'll have female presidents in all Arab countries. What do you think?"

"Wow, you're going too fast for me. If you plan to fix everything, we will be busy for years. First, about Hitler, I don't like the guy at all, and if we give him my position, it'd be like an award, like we're compensating the fool. I noticed he wanted to take over my kingdom; he thought he was better than me. The situation mirrors the same conditions as when we broke up our relationship. Maybe you can create a hell for him and his kind, of course, a worse hell than mine, so far away that we can forget about them forever. About the vacation experiment, that wouldn't work. We cannot send the whole world on a year's holiday. Who would be working to attend to all the vacationing people? As for the rest, marijuana legalization, I approve. Female changes and improvements (about time) approved. Satan's makeover approved (just let me keep my trident). About the female Arab Presidents, that's the best idea ever; we need to teach a lesson to all those antiquated bearded people. I support it a hundred percent. Thanks a lot for the offer to join you, but I will pass on that for now. Since we are now friends, we can chat on Facebook every day. You can ask for my advice anytime. But what can you do for me? Hmm. I know about this nice little bar in New York. They have a nice pool table. Maybe we can wager a few souls, of course, no miracles from your side and no tricks from my side, and since marijuana won't be illegal, maybe we could . . ."

Edmundo Barraza  

Visalia, Ca. 07-27-2011