All right, there’s a lot of misinformation circulating about me, and my publicist said I had to address it, so let’s get the bloody story straight.
Let’s begin with the contracts. Everyone’s very dramatic about the contracts. ‘Deal with the Devil,’ ‘sold my soul,’ all that. As if I’m lurking behind every poor decision with a clipboard and a pen. Honestly, you think I don’t have enough paperwork to deal with already? Soul contracts are wildly inefficient, and while we have our fair share of lawyers down here, that’s one level of eternal torment too far.
Oh, and before we go any further – no, I do not have horns. Or a tail. Or a pitchfork. Do you have any idea how impractical a pitchfork is for administrative work? And I don’t even know whether I should be offended about the goat imagery.
Also, a lot of you blame me for telling you to do things. ‘Oh, the devil made me do it!’. Really? I made you do it? By the time I get involved, your mind’s already made up. At most, I provide a little… nudge. Some words of encouragement. Frankly, half of you don’t even need that. I mean really, there are wars I was never even consulted on. Atrocities that didn’t even cc me. There was that whole business in the 1940s – you know the one, with the Austrian painter. Entirely your initiative. I can’t even take credit.
And you think I want you to come down here? We have enough people as it is. The air conditioning’s been broken for around 6000 years, there’s a constant housing problem because the bloody pits of lava keep setting buildings on fire, and good intentions make for terrible paving material, so half the place is under perpetual maintenance anyways.
I’m not even the one who sends you here. That’s Peter’s department. If anything, he’s the one you should be appealing to.
And another thing – the torture. Everyone’s obsessed with the torture. Do you have any idea how resource-intensive that is? Equipment, staffing, maintenance. It’s completely unsustainable. We phased most of it out centuries ago
Dante? Don’t even get me started on that bloody poet. “Nine circles of Hell,” he says, as if I’ve got the time to maintain nine separate levels of torment. Do you have any idea what that would do to staffing? The paperwork alone would be catastrophic.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of misinformation – I did not, at any point, go down to Georgia to challenge a fiddler. I have no interest in musical competitions, and frankly, I don’t have the time to travel. I don’t even like fiddles.
I will say, I appreciate The Rolling Stones for the song. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and all that. Bit generous with the credit, though. They seem to think I’ve been personally involved in every war, every killing, every unpleasant little chapter of your history. I don’t have that kind of time. Nor, really, the interest.
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