Hell Is Not a Cyber-Cafe

Wherever there was light, there were shadows.

Where goodness hesitated, evil danced gleefully.

And when the wicked at last felt the cold embrace of Death, each was justly rewarded with his own personal resting place in Hell.

And that spot was pre-warmed, too.

In that forsaken hole of absolute darkness, where nightmares rode freely across the sulfur fields and succubi both pleasured and tormented their prey, where a thousand billion tortured souls wailed their unheeded repentance, could be seen a tiny, blue, flickering square of light in a secluded cavern.  That light wavered feebly for a few more seconds of eternity, then, with a small crackle, went as dark as the rest of the Abyss.

Cool Mint, Demon Lord of the Sixth Ring of Sheol, was not pleased.  Almost all light was intolerable to him, but this darkness was worse than the blazing glory of a thousand suns.

His television had broken down again.

Cool Mint let loose a roar that mortals above, on the sunlit earth, felt and attributed to an undersea gas explosion.  So great was the demon's bellow that rabbits and squirrels above were sent into such frenzied panics that thousands of them globally all died of heart attacks, all at approximately the same time.

A succubus that had been asleep on a rocky outcrop near the ceiling thirty feet up jolted awake in shock and fell to the granite floor with a soft thud.  Getting up moodily, she pouted cattily in the general direction of the demon lord and stalked off to find a more quiet resting place.  Cool Mint - or Minty, as the imp children teased him - paid her no heed.  He was busy contemplating how he would confront the perpetrator of the unforgivable crime of interrupting his personal entertainment.

"LUCIFER!" Cool Mint bellowed.  Another soft thud echoed from a distance of thirty yards.

"Now what?" an irritated voice hissed on the Demon Lord's left side.  Whipping around, Cool Mint glared down at the short, greasy-eyed face of the fallen angel that had materialized before him.  The Prince of Darkness glared right back up at him, his eyes as coal-black as his stubbly goatee and his shining mat of hair, which was suspected by many in Hell to actually be a toupee.

Cool Mint pointed towards the blank black box, which was hissing small streams of smoke through the holes where the volume control buttons once rested.  "You've ruined my tube again," he growled, his yellow eyes narrowing threateningly.  "And Howard Stern was just getting started!" he roared in outrage.  No soft thuds this time.

Satan sneered back.  Deepening his voice and putting on a slow, stupid drawl, he cruelly imitated, "You broke mah tube, you broke mah tube."  Resuming his natural voice and scowl, the tempter snarled, "So what?  Why don'tcha go and sue me, then?  Go to any pit here and find yourself an attorney.  God knows there are enough of them down here.  You know, Minty," he added, emphasizing that loathsome nickname, "You don't come off to me as that smart.  I mean, how hard is it to fix a busted television?  Getting a bit slow, are we, Minty?"

"Shut up.  At least I'm not the one wearing that stupid red ballerina suit."

"Shut up yourself.  It's not a ballerina suit, it's called a leotard.  And it doesn't chafe like those revolting white robe things we had to wear up there.  Or is leotard too big for Baby Minty?"

"That's it!"  Abandoning all pretenses of civility, Cool Mint flung himself at Lucifer with every intention of pounding his head to a pulp against the brimstone wall.  However, looks are deceiving and so is Satan, and the devil fought back with matched strength and vigor.  Around and around the two demons tumbled.  At last, Cool Mint was able to pin Satan's head against the floor.  Closing his bony claws around Lucifer's throat, he started banging the devil's head into the floor.

"Fix - my - TELEVISION!" the demon lord roared, beating Satan's head into the floor with every word.  "It's not fair that I have to miss 'I Love Lucy' while you overload the generators downloading porn on five different computers!  And HUMAN porn, no less!" Cool Mint spat with disgust.

"You're - just - jealous - that I have such a good relationship with Hugh Hefner!" Satan rasped, breaking free of Cool Mint's chokehold and kicking the larger demon across the room, opening a new window in the opposite wall.

"But it takes so infernally long!"

"I can't help that we've only got dial-up!  This is Hell, not some stupid human Starbucks!"

"Yeah, our cappuccinos aren't that great either," Cool Mint cut in.

"Shut up!  Just shut up, you idiot!" Satan snarled, his old temper flaring up again.  "I'm trying to think."

The demon lord retorted, "Well, excuuuuuse me!  I guess I didn't hear the rattle in your head."

Lucifer ignored the jibe.  Pacing the small cave, he paused and snapped, "Go find an electrician."

"There aren't any.  Down here, I mean.  We always just used natural heating."

Satan strode up to to Cool Mint, reached up, and grabbed one of the demon lord's ears.  Twisting it in a distinctly Three-Stooges-ish manner, the Prince of Darkness hissed, "Then you'll just have to go get one from the living, won't you, Cool Mint?"

The demon lord broke away, rubbing his smarting ear.  "Cool Mint....It sounds like the name of some human homosexual rapper.  How in Hell did I ever get stuck with a name like Cool Mint?"

Lucifer winked cheerily at the Demon Lord.  "That's what Hell is all bout, Minty."

"Bad names and gay rappers?"

"That and much more.  Now go and find that electrician.  And while you're at it, see if you can find someone from Starbucks.  Our javas need work."