copyright © 2020
by Robert L. Blau
So God called a meeting of the
archangels to address the earthly crisis. Crises. Satan
attended ex officio. As presumed Chief Crisis Generator.
"I have called this emergency meeting of the Heavenly Council," said
God in the beginning, "to address the earthly crisis. Crises.
You all know of what I speak: war, racism, xenophobia,
sexism, religious hatred, destruction of the planetary ecosystem,
slavery, abuse of the weak, greed. Every kind of bigotry, hatred,
and violence. You give them freedom of choice, and look what they
do with it!"
"Tolja it wouldn't work," mumbled Satan.
God fixed him with an all-seeing eye. "What do you have to say for yourself?" He
fumed.
"Me?" shrugged Satan. "Don't look at me.
I wish I had the
malevolence, deceitfulness, and spiteful ... creativity of those creatures.
I must bow to my masters in evil."
"I think some good old fashioned smiting is called for," suggested
Michael. "Remind the little bastards who's Boss, I shouldn't wonder."
"Maybe it's just time to admit defeat," said Gabriel. "The experiment
failed. Wipe 'em all out and start over."
"Er, there is a bit of a
problem about that," said
God. "I did promise not
to do that again, you may remember ..."
"Ah, but that was just flooding," scoffed Gabriel. "How about a nice
asteroid strike, eh? Or similar."
"Seems a bit ... out of the spirit of the thing," God replied.
But He seemed to be thinking about it.
"Wait, wait!" said Raphael, waving his hand. "I have a great idea. Just listen to
this. Why don't You send down a pandemic?"
"Doesn't sound any better than a flood or an asteroid," said God
uncertainly.
"Hear me out," urged Raphael. "I'm not talking about something that
will wipe them out. Don't get me wrong. It has to be nasty
enough to afflict a few million people and kill ... maybe a million.
So they know we aren't kidding around. But think about
what's
going to happen ..."
"Sounds like the equivalent of a mid-tier smiting," said Michael, "but
why play around with germs when we have the good ol' Wrath of God to
fry their butts?"
"No, no!" insisted Raphael. "Listenlistenlisten! The pandemic
will be the common enemy!
Ir will overwhelm their healthcare systems and cripple their
transportation and break their economies! And isolate them and
make them stay at home! That will give the environment a break,
for starters! Then they'll realize that all humans are the same! The pandemic will be
the great leveler! It
will kill rich and poor, strong and weak, mighty and lowly alike!
They will realize that they are interdependent! They will
probably come up with some slogan like, 'We're all in this together!'
It will mean the end of political bickering because here will be an existential threat
to humankind that has absolutely nothing political about it!"
The other archangels were impressed. Even God was impressed.
"It'll never work," said Satan. "Look, you don't know how these yahoos
think. I do. I'm down there among them every day, getting
my hands dirty. First, they'll make
it political. Every political party will blame every other
political party for the pandemic so they can make points for the next
election. Some more than others, but still. The rich and
powerful will use their wealth and power to protect themselves and put
the poorer and weaker in harm's way. And they'll use the pandemic
to entrench their wealth and
power. Like busting unions in return for giving work to desperate
people. Hey, don't look at me like that. I didn't teach them this stuff.
I'm just a humble neophyte learning at the masters' feet."
So they went with the plan, but Satan never gets invited to these kinds
of meetings anymore.