Writer's Commentary: We Are
On Post: We Are
Date: January 23, 2013
I have zero interest in discussing my faith here as there are essentially two reactions to hearing someone’s faith articulated. Either a.) it’s exactly like yours and that makes you happy or b.) it’s not the same and you get disappointed in them, yourselves, free choice, the rotation of the earth, etc, etc. Maybe there is a third, which is you didn’t care before and you don’t care after.
Anyway, not discussing my faith. But I will say I love thinking about what the Devil would be like. Beyond the super evil horned guy who wants to buy your soul and runs Hell, I mean. So I’ve written him (it? Her? Them? [they are Legion, after all {WE’VE GO TOO DEEP INTO THE PARENTHESES}]) as a warden (see also Drive Angry, the height of fast car, baby sacrifice, devil worshipping films starring Nic Cage, a surprisingly robust subgenre of art), a buddy of God’s who handles the negative aspects of the ledger sheet but is a pretty decent fella, a AA-esque sponsor to the damned, and now, hipster guy in a slowly gentrifying neighborhood.
He’s still evil, still wants your soul, but he’s kind of casual about it. If you’re interested, he has some great suggestions on what horrible acts you can commit to pass the time, but if you’re not, that’s cool, too. Just make sure you send him an invite to next week’s Around the World party because he is a SERIOUS mixologist.
I don’t know why I’m tickled so by “offbeat” interpretations of Ol’ Scratch, but I am. Although I am not tickled by Elizabeth Hurley’s interpretation in Bedazzled.
I said no Elizabeth! (photo from onelastline.wordpress.com)
Anyway, the moment I realized that “devil” appears within the first six words
of the song’s lyrics, I knew where I’d be going with it. The song is also
fixated on neighborhood imagery, so making him a neighbor was an easy choice.
Finally, there is the repetition of concerns about ignoring or accepting the
evil that men do. So the Devil is largely accepted as part of the fabric of the
neighborhood. No one’s doing as he says—at least not in this story—but no one
seems particularly interested in running him out of town.
Also, there’s a line out the information superhighway so I had to throw the laptop in there.
The one thing I played around with a lot were the Devil’s suggestions. Though it may not be clear from what made the cut, things got dark in a real hurry. REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL dark.