NEGOTIATING HELL: a sequel to CS Lewis' "Screwtape Letters." Ch 5-Organize Sm'organize"

The next morning, the two fallen angels were hanging out in their smelly locker room. It was like the bat cave, but not the cool one. As they prepared their expense reports, they were having trouble with their bar bill. They were hungover and tried to remember what happened the night before.

They remembered sneaking into the union meeting but failing. Yet, the big burly members met at their pub afterwards, buying them rounds. Minions may not know how to get into union meetings, but they knew blending in enough to get free beer.

“I don’t know about you, but I feel evil,” said Black. He liked beer but it didn’t like him.

“Well, my headache grows at approaching the money-grubbing succubus in Accounting,” complained the orange greaser. “But just so we have the same story, what else are we sneaking through?”

“Well, the battle axe didn’t let me claim books from, 'Ye Olde Christian Book Shoppe' last trip,” said Black. “Claims she needed 6 nuns and the pope as witnesses. Since we always pad our expense sheet, let’s not this time and freak out the old bat.”

“We never tried that before,” said Orange, contemplating honesty. “I don’t know how to do that.”

The minions finished their reports and snuck towards accounting. The familiar smells of parched paper and torched toner wafted their way. Facing the fat, fusty, finance foreseer was similarly scary to seeing old ‘Scratch’.

“Have you noticed Satan acting strange lately?” inquired Orange.

“Strange, as in how?” asked Blackie. “He knows we want to organize against him. He convinced us to rebel against God. Now we want to rebel against him. It’s the natural order. We deserve better working conditions.”

“IDK, he’s humbler and it scares me,” responded Orange. They passed their expense reports through the slotted counter glass to the penny-pinching, parsimonious, patron of prudence.

“You’re scared now?” replied Black whispering. “Wait until he finds out what we’ve been up to …”

“What did you say, minions?” eyed the Matronly Miser, leaning into them.

“Nothing,” they both jumped backwards. She stunk of moldy moth balls. They held their breath.

“Well, well, well,” said the Hoarding Hag. “I detect some honesty here for a change. Thank you for getting these in on time and not abusing the budget. BTW, nice job passing anti-peasant pamphlets for patronizing the proletariat. Off you go…”

They eyed each other and left, exhaling. She may have accepted their excuse to rationalize beer, but what did she know about their union activities?

“I think Satan knows what we’re doing,” said Orange. “Why else would he be so quiet? He’s planning his forever-revenge.”

“Maybe. What’s the worst he can do that he hasn’t done already? He’s been super weak lately. And now, we have the kroner-counting-corpse as our witness. Everyone knows he’s afraid of her. Look how our odds improve with her on our side? They may be forever in our favor!”

< See below link for Chapter 6: “Nothing is ever good enough” >

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Talking to a wall

Chapter 2: Jerking Satan’s Chain & the burning laptop

Chapter 3: “Hmm …. I guess I read that wrong”

Chapter 4: The devil is in the details

Chapter 5: And what did they want to organize?

Chapter 6: Nothing is ever good enough

Chapter 7: What could be worse?

Chapter 8: The learning curve

Chapter 9: It’s all in the sales pitch

Chapter 10: Uh, huh?