Heaven and Hello

by Bing Futch

An angel on one shoulder, a demon on the other.

The demon stopped shredding on the marimba and lit a joint, inhaling deeply and letting the smoke curl out of his long, pointed ears. He peered over at the angel, who was all wrapped up in a Chapman Stick solo. The smoking herbage was proffered.

“Not ‘till after rehearsal,” mumbled the angel without looking up from his instrument. The red-skinned hellion simply shrugged his jagged wings and took another long drag off of the doober.

“Hey, more for me.”

Time sort of skipped and shimmered along as the percussive groove of the angel’s Stick playing sped up and slowed down. Presently, the demon snuffed out the smoke treat in a red plastic ashtray that bore the legend “Far From Home” and laid his hands upon the two rubber-headed mallets that sat on the edge of the marimba. The two engaged in a fruitful bossa-nova for a bit.

And then Satan spoke: “What on Earth is that shit?”

And God answered: “What’s the matter, you can’t cha-cha?”

Both angel and demon stopped playing, their eyes furtively darting about as they attempted to get a make on the big, scary voices. The red-skinned messenger took a few mincing steps away from the marimba, reversed direction and placed the mallets down upon the blocks, then scurried away about ten feet from the angel, who had prostrated himself onto the ground, face-first, in a way that obviously had to have hurt. The huge, booming voices continued.

“I invented the cha-cha,” snapped Satan in a defensive tone. “You were busy pussying about with the tango. You’re so dramatic.”

“I’ve earned it – I invented music,” replied God, matter-of-factly.

“I invented talent agents,” said Satan.

“You’ve got me there.”

Scratch, they sound like an old married couple, thought the demon as he walked back over to the angel’s side and grabbed the kneeling figure by his halo, pulling his head out of the crater it had left in the ground. The angel blew a few spit bubbles and turned his ear to the sky. What was going on? God and Satan hadn’t chatted in centuries, instead relying on emissaries, priests, radio D.J.’s and Amway representatives to be messengers for the cause. It seemed crazy to think that the musical noodlings of two such messengers would be the catalyst for these powerful and omniscient entities to resume speaking. Something felt weird and out of whack.

“We need to come to a decision on the boy band issue,” muttered God.

There was an audible sigh of exasperation that rolled like thunder through the atmosphere. The click of Satan’s tongue cracked like a whip through space and vacuum.

“You’re not pinning that one on me,” protested Satan. “I can’t believe you have proof that I created Barry Manilow.” He coughed lightly.

The angel’s eyes grew wide as saucers and he looked over at the demon, still gripping onto a silver halo with one clawed hoof.

“Cripes! They’ve flipped!” yelped the angel.

“I shouldn’t have pawned the bass,” grumbled the horned messenger. “I knew you couldn’t play Stick.”

“Shut up.”

And, for a moment, everyone did just that. There was suddenly a tremendous absence of sound, so startling in its totality that you could almost hear questions floating on the breeze.

A stunning expanse of nothing-ness. Angel and demon took a long, slow look at each other and then delicately stuck their fingers in their ears.

A piercing wail shot through the canyon of emptiness, filling every square millimeter of air with an edgy, crisp and high-treble hypodermic needle of sonic punishment. The angel’s left eardrum shattered into eighty-seven tiny, ragged pieces. Satan spoke.

“Er. Sorry about that. The mic fell into the monitor horn, I suppose I should flip this cabinet away from…”

The angel, bleeding from the ear, shook his head and held a palm up as the crimson creek wound down his wrist. “It’s all good. Great job on the Barry Manilow,” said the angel. “I would have never guessed.”

Satan sounded pleased and allowed himself a bit of a chuckle. It came off like the gurgle of a stopped up toilet that’s just been plunged. “ABBA too, now that we’re on the subject.”

The demon raised his voice somewhat above a whisper and sort of looked around, unsure of where to direct his commentary. Settling his gaze steadfastly upon the ground, he stammered a bit as he spoke.

“Uh, my Prince Of Darkness, this is such an unusual delight, to hear your voice and, um, the other guy’s voice too.”

“It’s alright, we’re on a first-name basis,” said God. He and Satan shared a mutual giggle.

“Well, it’s very disconcerting to be kicking along a little blues jam when you two show up for the first time in centuries – what are we supposed to think?” protested the angel, feeling a bit saucy for once in a spirittime. He put a bloody palm up to his ear.

That silence again, and this time, the two Earth-bound minions hit the floor and covered their heads with their hands. But no feedback rolled forth from the atmosphere. Only the somewhat subdued voices of God and Satan as they spoke in unison.

“Think what you what, don’t want what you think,” they chimed softly.

Nothing happened for a very long time.

The demon’s red eyes glowed softly as he considered the marimba sitting several feet behind the pair. He turned to the angel, heavy clicks on the ground as his huge feet turned in a semi-circle.

“How about you play marimba?” he growled. The angel shrugged.

“You can’t play Stick either,” smirked the angel.

“What’s your point?”

Drifting lightly on the breeze of a vacuum-clad moment in time are the sounds of brittle marimba and jazz-inflected Chapman Stick. The angel looks over at the demon while using a four-stick Hampton hold and smiles. The demon can’t play Stick to save his ass. So they are in the same boat after all.

“bfsig”