Interview with the Devil

Before the lights went on was the worse time for Catherine. It was the time where she didn’t quite know how to act, or what to say. She’d spent years at university training to operate when the lights were on, countless hours alone in the dark rehearsing and preparing to be under the lamps, but they didn’t give courses on being normal. Everyone has their cross to bear, she supposed. She was a highly regarded Investigative reporter with a beautiful and successful husband, it felt disingenuous to complain. So, she didn’t. Not aloud at least. Not to herself either. But her unrelenting angst drove her in tighten circles around whatever imprudent answer the moment presented. It was what made her beloved by her audience. Her brave and dogged search for answers. What they saw, however, wasn’t bravery, it was self-destruction, masquerading as confidence. It wasn’t the truth she sought as much as the cathartic reveal that most people were more broken than her.

It was this, more than anything, that led her down that swamp lined rural road, just south of New Orleans. To ask her next guest to fly to New York and come to the show, under the spotlight, where she felt normal.

She realized now, prepping for the interview, she wasn’t surprised when he accepted, nor when he showed up earlier that day. She couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t, but she wasn’t.

"He’s here,” Catherine heard her producer’s voice say through her earpiece.

She watched as he entered the studio. The swirl of madness that generally takes place on set behind the camera didn’t stop, but it awkwardly maintained a consistent distance away from him. Like a stream moving around a boulder, only the boulder was what was moving. She expected more curious looks from the crew, but they weren’t curious. They were judgmental. Disgust. Despise. Hatred. Even pity, but no one seemed curious. This annoyed her, as it was the primary quality needed in her industry and none seemed to have it.

"He’s not that cute,” Samadhi, the producer said in Catherine’s ear. Samadhi had grown more and more negative as the years have grinded on. It was not surprising considering what she’d been through. Catherine, however, needed her to be sharp today.

Catherine could understand that her guest wouldn’t be as many expected. Naturally he was handsome, but more subtle than his devious repute would have you to believe. Attractive, sure, but you probably wouldn’t notice him when he entered a crowded room. He wasn’t dashing by any means and the stubble from the 5 o’clock shadow did nothing to hide his unassuming, baby face.

The lights turned on and Catherine felt at home once again as the producer begin to count down in her ear. The madness behind the camera slowed to a more manageable shuffle.

She watched him take his place on the couch opposite her. His movements were somewhat methodical, but not slow. She could tell his royal blue suit was tailored but not overtly expensive. He smelled of oak wood and cinnamon and something else she couldn’t quite place.

“You’re on.” The earpiece buzzed.

“What should I call you?” Catherine started.

He shrugged.

“What do you want to call me?” Despite being countless hundreds of thousands of years old he still held a boyish curiosity in his eyes as they darted around the room observing everything as if for the first time. He certainly didn’t exude the type of egocentric self-assurance that you’d anticipate.

The question knocked her off balance slightly. She’d been justifiably concerned with not upsetting the powerful entity sitting in front her, though never stopped to think he would be concerned with her comfort at all.

“In English. I suppose Biel, was once my name.” He responded when the pause grew into a demand to be filled.

Catherine shifted in her sitting, more of a mental adjustment than a physical one.

“Why did you agree to do this, Biel?”

“You asked.” He said simply. “I am by my nature, very agreeable to most request. It’s my greatest attribute and my greatest fault.”

Catherine furrowed her brow. He seemed disappointed to have to explain.

“If my presence here yields an unfavorable outcome, it will be deemed my doing. Even though it was your request that put me here. Effects often take the blame, instead of the cause.”

“Why is that?”

“Because people instinctually request things all the time, most times unknowingly. How can a request be judged? It’s simply an ask. Not in and of itself pernicious or innocuous. The mixture of these requests creates volatility. Undoubtedly, people request what they desire. Desires, often, are not especially altruistic.”

“So, it's the people that are evil and not you?”

“No, I am evil.” He said quickly, almost defensively. “I am chaos. I am.....” He trailed off. He stopped to study Catherine. As if he hadn’t given himself a moment to fully take in her beauty. His eyes wandered across her surface like an explorer in an uncharted land. His unassuming look from earlier replaced with a more poignant intention. You could almost see the burning inside of him, wheels churning but to what end would be anyone’s guess. Finally, his eyes stopped their persistent roaming locking onto hers. There was a recognition, a glimpse. It lasted but a breath but so many great things do. He leaned back into his chair like he’d eaten and been satisfied with his meal, longing for a digestif.

“What is it that you want Catherine? Why did you ask me here?”

She was prepared for this question, although not the random direction from which it came, but before she could answer he held his hand up.

“I want you to consider, before you answer, how displeased I will be if you lie to me. And ask yourself: do really think that I won’t know if you do.”

“We can pull you out anytime,” Samadhi reassured sensing Catherine’s hesitance.

For the first time in his presence, even in the middle of the swamp, following the old lady in all white, she felt threaten and unnerved. Her instinct was to lie to bolster her career and her base; to serve her social circle, but those things seemed distinctly farther away than the next ten minutes. She decided, it you can call it a decision, to not lie to the creature that created it.

“I’ve never believed. But in the swamp the things I saw…. I felt…..”

“That’s personal,” Biel said allowing a measure of protection to that memory, “But why I am here.”

“I want the fame and prestige that comes with doing something no one’s ever done, and in the process, I want the truth. The real truth, something different than the fairytales that they read from on Sundays or Saturdays. People, even well-intentioned ones, naturally hide the ugly, but the truth is always ugly.”

Biel smiled wide for the first time.

“The truth?” He nodded to himself pursing his lips. “Of the all the futile pursuits of man, the truth by far is the most destructive.” His eyes reverted back to studying her. More slowly this time, purposefully. Until he locked upon that familiar piece in her eyes once again.

“Very Well Catherine,” He began. “The truth is I am not evil in the way you perceive it, a more accurate description is that I am incapable of seeing a distinction.”

“What distinction?

“Between the two sides in my father's struggle within himself.

“I don't understand.” Catherine said sincerely.

“Let him talk,” Samadhi urged in Catherine’s ear.

This time Biel didn’t look at her with disappointment for not knowing. Rather his look took a tone of pity. And when he started it was as a teacher to a pupil.

“God Didn't make people first. He made many universes and many different beings in many different places that you’ll never see. Then he started here, a few times actually. One time he started from scratch again. The usual: the heavens, and the seas…. But then he made angels, or more specifically he made me and my brother Gabriel. Who you’d later called Jesus.”

“Why?”

He looked as if he’d just fallen in love.

“And in all my years, it’s very rare that someone asks me why.”

Catherine paused but didn’t speak.

“It’s a good question.” Biel admitted. “Why would something so all powerful, all being , all knowing, need angels to carry out his will? The answer is he wouldn’t. Angels were repurposed. The original intent, the reason for my brother and I, was as prototypes. Protypes for mankind.”

“Prototypes?”

Prototypes?” Catherine and the earpiece said almost simultaneously.

“My father, above all else, is an artist. Which is why most unimaginative people like yourself, don’t believe in him. But as an artist, an artist with infinite creativity, he didn't want clones, he wanted something that could express, in millions of different ways, all of his many ..... intricacies.”

“Intricacies?”

He stared at the simple creature. Such capacity for intelligence and imagination and yet often times such little understanding of it. As a whole the species was a disappointment considering the gifts they’ve been given. He tried this before, to explain it. Most minds weren’t capable of digesting exactly what it meant. The few that did, a lot of them went crazy as the knowledge rolled around their head, each lap eating away more and more at the facts that thought were solid until finally nothing was and as such their very existence pointless. It was impressive how humans needed a purpose to continue to live.

Catherine’s eyes, however. Ever bounding anticipating. Biel always gave people what they wanted.

“To be a God, you have to have certain traits.”

“Traits” She urged barely before he’d gotten the word out, like a house dog waiting for scraps.

“Patience.” The earpiece counselled.

“I don't want to speak ill of father. It's a difficult job. But to be a God you have to have an appetite, if you will, for destruction, for distortion, annihilation. It’s part of the process. And yet you must wrap that in empathy, and kindness. They are, at the very least, conflicting attributes.”

“So, the angels are variations of God personality?”

“Not exactly, he started with Gabriel and myself. There were only two of us so he was able to separate some of his more.... contradictory traits into us. From us he made the rest, eventually perfecting the dosage. Until it was stable enough to give to you.”

Catherine took a moment to digest.

“I’m not well versed in the scriptures,” she countered, “but I’m pretty sure it says man is made is God's image.”

“In a manner of speaking. He was. I was made in God's image. You were made in mine. Well me.. and my brother.”

“Bullshit.” The earpiece insisted.

Despite the sheer uncanny leap of faith it would take to register any of this as fact, for some reason it struck more of a chord with Catherine than the things she has been told for nearly half a century. Still, she pressed on.

“You're known as a liar, a deceiver, why should my audience believe any of this?”

“Have you ever lied?

“Sure.”

“Does that mean everything you've ever said is a lie?”

“No, but it's means I understand if I’m questioned by someone I have lied to”

“As you should. But you don’t need an excuse for that, do you? You assume everyone’s lying all the time and so you question everything until you find something that justifies your distrust. You do this even to your loved ones. Your husband, who casually overlooks the fact that you are the adulterer not he.... I don’t expect to be treated any different.”

Her face quickly flushed red from the anger. He smirked at her, the quip about the cause getting the blame and not the effect written all over his face. She remained professional. Afterall it’s what she was trained to do.

“Don’t take the bait, Catherine.” Samadhi spoke in a soothing tone.

“Still. I found that people need a reason to believe a lair.”

“Have you?” He questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Why did Eve believe me over my father? She known us both the same amount time, we both must have seemed equally ethereal for what little she knew of the world, we spoke opposite truths with the same conviction. So why me?” He waited for an answer he knew Catherine was incapable of giving, at least not out loud. “It’s because people believe me deep in their being, in their bones, they don’t need a reason to, they need a reason not to..”

“Why is that?”

“Because, in fairness, I’ve never lied. You see, in order to be an actual lie it has to have some malicious intent… a purpose to deceive. Otherwise, it's just satire, good humor, but to call it a lie I need to have something to gain. I already have everything from you, from all of you.” The way he said that sent a slight chill whipping at Catherine’s spine. “People believe me, because they know it's true. They can feel me …Inside of them.”

“Feel inside how? Press him.” Samadhi pushed in Catherine’s ear.

Catherine looked strangely at him for this. Not because what he was saying was so off-kilter, but because she would never admit how precise it was. She didn’t push him because she didn’t want him to remove what little doubt she held.

“You ever stand at the edge of a cliff and are afraid that you're going to fall off?”

“Sure.” Catherine answered. He smiled at her, not minding the small falsehood.

“In truth that's only some people's fear, the rest might not tell you this, but some people don't fear falling, some people fear that they will jump. The French call it: L’appel du vide. They fear that something inside of them will finally catch up to another piece floating around in their subconscious. That fear that there will be a moment of clarity, and in that moment you'll know all… you finally be whole, as was intended, and you’ll willingly dive off the edge. That feeling. That’s me.”

Catherine could hear Samadhi’s breathing heavily. She remembered one late drunken night a the edge of her balcony Samadhi saying those exact words to her.

“So, at the moment you are finally one with yourself and you have all the answers you jump? Why would you do that?” She inquired pretending not to understand.

“Why wouldn't you?” He questioned with genuine curiosity. “The point of life is not more days, the point of life is understanding, purpose, death… the rest is just waiting.”

“Life is on the wire…” Catherine said under her breath.

“Wallenda,” Biel responded. “He had fascinating urges.”

Catherine had forgotten that she was filming momentarily. She’d forgotten the producer in her ear, and the lighting men carefully adjusting the hue that brings out the best tone in her skin and eyes. On a good day she could hear them all breathing and shuffling and sniffing. It used to distract her as a novice. Today she felt like she was alone, save for the familiar voice in her ear. She could only sense her presence and that of the raw power across from her. She was ashamed of the knowledge that on a certain level, a level she shoved far away from her mind, she was turned on by him. Maybe not his physical appearance but by his penetrating looks, his power, by his energy. It was chaotic and passionate; hedonistic. She tried switching gears. She would tell herself it was to capture all the opinions of her audience, but it was really to distract herself from falling deep down the rabbit hole.

“There are some that say god doesn't exist, in any form. We're all just an accident.”

He let out a slight chuckle, showing his pleasant smile in its full glory. Yet, the sound was eerie.

“You know over the years the stories of Gods have ranged from exaggerated rated to downright absurd. But nothing quite defies comprehension as the ‘accident theory’ It's profound is second only to the amount of people that believe it. You want to know the most interesting part. When I arrived into existence as I know it. I never asked how. It never struck me as important. “

“Ok Evolution, then. Evolution has been proven by science.”

“Ah Science. Strange name for a religion, but you all follow it blindly just like any other denomination. Although, I do enjoy all the scientific words. It reminds me; A few Hundred years ago the churches also used to give their masses in a language that commoners couldn’t understand.”

He chuckled to himself. Perhaps the secret to excitement is convincing yourself that something you’ve seen before is somehow new.

“Can I ask you, Catherine. Before science ‘proved’ evolution,” he said with air quotes. “Did it exist?” Biel politely paused in case Catherine wanted to insert the obvious answer. “A thousand years ago you people believed the earth was flat. It was round, far prior to it being ‘proven’. If a thousand years from now your scientist prove there is a god, does that mean he hasn’t been here all along?”

“Let’s pull this Catherine. We still have Carl in the green room.” The earpiece sounded more desperate than practical.

There was a murky silence. Not awkward in its nature, but more heavy. A silence that weighed on you to the point where you just wanted to slouch down under it.

“Besides, evolution is not in conflict with creation. It actually one of its greatest tools, it’s how I came to be sitting here and you there. Like the tiny seed from a man that grows into child in the womb. The magnificent feat is embedding that blueprint so microscopic that it evolves naturally from practically nothing. But, and this is the best part, just as each organism is imprinted with the ability to adapt and survive; to evolve. In that ability, comes the certainty of that creature’s demise.”

“How so?”

He leaned forward once again. His boyish curiosity and excitement returning. He was still fascinated by this subject endless millennia later.

“The physical evolution is basic, simple, easy to track. But the mind… the mind also evolves. And just like the physical, when the mind evolves it needs to create an environment for its survival…. but in the mind’s environment for survival, anything it can’t explain, or repeat, it seeks to kill. And that’s the cornerstone of your science religion.”

“I’m not sure scientists agree. Everything they do is based on fact finding and truth-based explanation.”

“Yes, but who asked the question?”

She was confused by this, but he was in a rhythm now and you don’t stop a subject like this from speaking.

“Do you remember the first ever skyscraper? Well, of course, you don’t remember but have you studied it, heard the stories?”

“I don’t believe.” Catherine admitted.

“The first ever skyscraper was the tower of Babel, in Babylon. One of the first real organized societies, they evolved mentality very quickly. Not that there was much competition back then. Once they evolved mentally, do you know what the first thing is they did? The VERY first thing. Is attempt to claim worship for themselves, to build a tower to the skies and kill God. That wasn't the second thing on their list... It was the first. It was the entire reason behind mankind’s first skyscraper. Why is that?”

Catherine didn’t speak. She had neither the history nor the inclination to interrupt.

“Centuries later, Nietzsche repackaged the same idea as something new, writing ‘God is dead’.” He said with an air of false trepidation, that can only be pulled off by someone who’s heard it all and seen it all before. “Why did he say that? Science, effectively, has tried to kill him in this era? Can you tell me why that is? Why? Why? Why have people been obsessed with destruction of God? Even it's only in the concept of him.”

Catherine wasn’t a fan of Nietzsche, and she didn’t have knowledge of ancient Babylonian history but she knew that generally speaking the more intelligent a person was, the more uncomfortable they were with the idea of a God. Or to put it Biel’s way, most atheist had more evolved minds. He looked at her with smirk, as if he could read the very thoughts out of her eyes like she did the teleprompter. The conclusion was simple. Basic even.

“Why?” She urged.

“Two reasons: which at their core are the same. The first reason is direct. But the second is my favorite: With God dead, what use is there for morality? A conscious? Rules even?”

“You are free.” Catherine said almost involuntarily. Biel nodded in approval.

“With god dead you are finally free.” He repeated. “But much like the theories your scientist priest ‘prove’ that have existed for millions of years before they were ever born to prove it. Similarly, you were always free, if you'd only been told the truth from the beginning. To an extent that is.”

“Do you look down at man for wanting to be free?”

“No, but you’re not made to be free in the way you crave. And even if you could kill god, you still won’t be free.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of The first reason. Control. Chaos is not good for business. People with highly evolved minds seek to end it. Control is always heralded above all else. You see the only core reason to a kill a god, is to replace him. To have you blindly follow Nimrod or Muhammad or Abraham or the Pope or the science religion to worship them and their directives. Those who don’t, are dealt with harshly. The Catholics used to burn heretics, today your punishments are more cerebral, more nuanced but it’s the same notion.”

“I disagree. Our society encourages independent thought.”

“I see.” Biel said almost with a laugh. “And what did they do to the people who spoke out against the science religion’s mandate to take a vaccine a few years ago?”

Catherine paused.

“Metaphorically speaking, they burned them at the stake, my dear. Just like the Catholics did the Heretics. Took their livelihood, ostracized them, marginalized them, punished them as far this era allows. As much as humankind aspires to elevate itself from the blood stained pages of its past, or be new and civilized. People will always just be… people. Control over them coveted, by one guild or the next.”

“No” Earpiece said.

“No.” Catherine repeated. She didn’t have an actual rebuttal. Rather just a need to reject him and his thesis. A need to stop him from doing exactly what she asked him here to do.

“No?” He questioned. “The one who gives you everything you want, you call the Devil because you don't agree with the things your fellow humans are asking for. The entity that gives you nothing and punishes you for not worshiping him you call a God. Your nature as a species shows clearly in the labels you put on us. I'm just the one who gives you what you ask for. Encourages your impulses. And he's the one who doesn't. I'm evil because you want me to be. Because through me you can do what you are afraid to do with anyone else. The truth of your particular sliver humanity's history is that you're more sordid, depraved, and self-destructive than I could ever be... you come up with these marvelous ideas, I simply enable them.”

“But you don't actually consider them sordid and depraved do you?”

“Very good. No I don't.” Biel admitted. “I can’t”

“And why not?”

“Because they wouldn't be in you, unless, on some level they were in him.” He glanced his eyes slightly above with the mannerism that you would believe he was simply referring to someone working in the office the floor above the studio. “To create a world, destroy it with everything living thing and then create another, allow it to deteriorate into rot just to prove a point to me, then destroy that one as well. Requires some, detached depravity don't you think?”

Catherine’s hear Samadhi stifle a sob in her earpiece. Samadhi personal life had left her raw to the touch. Biel’s presence was nothing if not rough. Catherine subtly removed the earpiece and let it rest of her shoulder.

“You see the fault in being created in his image, as you call it, is that you as a human don't have the capacity to contain or process some his traits, traits that were only meant for, and could only be understood by a God. Emotions you were never supposed to try to reconcile or combat. You weren’t equipped to handle these traits. Traits Eve unlocked in all of you.”

“That's why you encouraged her to bite it?

“He locked it away from you because he knew you couldn’t process it. I unlocked it because I believed in you, which was like believing in me. I believed you could deal with it, as I do. That you could reconcile. It was, of course, my mistake. You couldn't.” He sounded sincerely apologetic. “But once the cat is out of the bag the question lingers. Sure, it's said to have all started to prove to me and any doubters. And it probably was in the beginning, but now it’s something else. Now it has nothing to do with me. It’s you lot. He wants you to decide.”

“To decide who we are? Good or evil?”

“No, my dear. She wants you to decide who he is. You’re his grand mirror broken into several billion pieces. A mosaic of the struggles between light and dark sides of humanity…. Struggles between my brother and I…… The great conflict within. It’s what your science hides from you. The conflict. They show you the results but not the cause, as I said. Scientist priest built massive nuclear destruction devices with little question to if they should. It’s all so justifiable in the end. All things are … to a religion.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine saw a staffer frantically waving at her to put her earpiece back in. It was time for a break. She led them off the air. The lights dimmed slightly and suddenly she was back in unfamiliar territory with someone, or something that felt far too familiar for her to be comfortable. Strange mix.

“You shouldn’t air this,” Biel said leaning forward. “Not that you will get a chance.”

“Why? This is great content. This is your side of it.”

He smiled appreciatively at her effort, albeit soaked selfishness.

“Alas, the mirror does not know what it is expected to reflect … and it holds no bias to the reflection. This interview would influence decisions meant to be made without any.”

“I’m sorry- why did you say that I won’t get a chance-“

Already she could hear the screams from the control booth from her earpiece resting a few inches from her ear on her shoulder. “Get out!” Samadhi yelled. The cameramen and stage crew scurried in different directions in a panic, but Catherine’s eye never left Biel’s. She could see in them that there was nowhere run, just as she could see that he hadn’t lied since he sat down.

“Did you do this?” She asked calmly.

“I told you in the beginning. I don’t deal in consequences only the causes. I did what was I asked. It appears your scientist have decided it’s for the greater good that people don't see this. It's an unfavorable advantage in the game we play.”

“So, killing us is the answer?”

“Yes, of course. To stop millions that would take our words to heart. For what they deem the greater good they will sacrifice a handful. Wouldn’t you?”

“No, I wouldn’t!”

“You sound like my bother.” He said shaking his head slightly. “But today, you will see the other side.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Catherine said her mind turning. “They wouldn’t care about this interview unless they believed you are really …. You. But in order to believe in you they have to believe in god. And they don’t.” Biel stared at her while chaos ensued around them. He looked like a patient father waiting for his child to come to the obvious conclusion. “… Unless they have already proved it. But then…”

Catherine trailed off putting the final pieces to a puzzle that would end where it was always meant to end.

“If they proved the existence of god, do you think they would ever tell you? And willing forfeit their power? Their control?” Biel asked rhetorically.

He got up to leave just as he had entered. Unbothered by the chaos and screams swirling around him. They were in the studio now, masked militia with body vest, armed to the teeth, as if they needed it. Biel walked through it all, undisturbed by the carnage and pleas for help. Unbothered by rapid ascent from serene to unruly.

“You could stop this!” Catherine called after him. “He could too.”

“Yes, but I think you know we won’t.”

“But how is that ri- …. This could be your chance, your justice for all to see.”

“Justice is something your species made up.” Biel answered remorsefully. “To sooth, to help sleep, and to kill … and, continually, to control. People are always just … People.”

The double doors closed behind him, and the people sent by mankind’s latest and most dominant religion entered to do what every dominant religion has always done.