By R.R. Stark Word of Warning! Do not read beyond this point if you are offended by religious beliefs other than your own!          God decided to quit. That's right. Flat out quit his job as Supreme Being. No more Old Man Upstairs for him. Because no one believed in him anymore. Oh, maybe a few here and there did. But quite frankly he didn't believe in himself either. Stuck out here in some podunk backwater solar system near the edge of the galaxy wasn't his idea of a great time. Not to mention being stranded on the tiny morsel of rock called Earth.          And not to mention he wasn't actually - or ultimately - the Supreme Being. He was a cheap imitation copycat. A rejected prototype. Yes, he was sort of a plagiarized version of such. That being the Great Such, or Almighty Such-n-Such, as it was. Which he took credit for, where credit was not due, since the morons on Earth bought the idea that he was the Supreme Being, not just a measly local tribal god - which he really was - like the ones the Hebrews followed around for forty years in the wilderness, getting lost day in and day out, looking for the proverbial Promised Land, which they're probably still looking for. Pie in the Sky crap, you know. Now, why did God let them get all lost and confused, you ask? Was he playing head games with them? And (while we're on the subject) what's with the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth crap? And vengeance is mine, saith the Lord? And there shall be no other gods before me? And I the Lord thy God am a jealous God? Yikes! Does that sound like the main hero of our story?          No, not at all. Very far from it.          You see, that was some other dude, long before Joe came along to be God. Joe is our man, our hero, as wretched as he is. But, the truth is, Joe wasn't much better than the first guy, or original prototypical deity. For one thing, Joe took the last guy's name in vain. Outright stole it from him! He should have called himself Jehovah the Second.          Now the REAL God Over Everything didn't much like all these shenanigans either. Minor deities just irritated Him. A royal thorn in His royal side.          "What the hell?!" you say. "Two Gods? What's this all about?"          You see, here on Earth, certain religious crackpots - like a few early century Gnostics - had this crazy idea that there were two Gods. Yes, that's right. No, not right that that is The Truth. But right that they actually believed such poppycockish crap! According to their idiotic philosophy there lived and breathed the REAL God of Everything and Everybody, who lived Everywhere at once (What the-? Now how on Earth does that work?) This particular all-pervading Almighty Maker of All Things and All Beings created the whole Universe and Earth and Men and Women and Sex and a lot of other amusing things too.          Then there was this slippery devil called the Demiurge (a wretched pretense of divinity), who came along one fine day and recreated Earth his own damned way, and made you and everyone in his own insufferable image, allowing you to lie, cheat and steal, because he did too; not to mention letting you kill thy brothers who were living in the land you're gonna conquer that you deserve to live in and not them! Because you were the Chosen People of all things! Not to mention the little big guy turned the bloody place into a big rip-roaring party zone, causing people to get snockered every day of the week. For the next some odd thousands of years.          So here we are with two types of Gods. It turns out that this crazy idea is not so much as true at all, but just that certain left-winged, hifalutin, celestial beings liked the idea and thought they'd try it on for size. That really off-balanced the whole flipping universe. Made it a tad top-heavy. Especially when Jehovah the First pulled off his shtick. He even did a few magic tricks, like yank a rib out of a snockered man's side, made it into his wife who nagged the hell out of him; or caused a bunch of fools to build a tower, which fell, turning them into babbling idiots; plus parted a particular middle eastern sea down the middle that swallowed a whole army of morons for amusement; and other stupendous performances of slight of hand. But that particular Old Guy Upstairs got bored and tired of it all, so he left the scenes of his crimes.          That left Earth in quite a lurch. So there were a few trials and errors, a few test gods had their measly chance, not lasting but a few days each, then they bailed out. That's when Joe came along and tried his hand every so slightly, a much longer turn, til he also botched things up really good too - then quit. Just like all the rest.          He was supposed to clean up the last guy's messes, but he got too lazy, then made his own messes. But things really went to Hell right after he quit. So immediately there gathered together a long line of concerned celestial immortals waiting for their chance to be God of Earth (or at least the demiurgical false god) who wanted to try and patch things up, make it all right, make the big booboo all better again. All of them had good intentions, but then the Road to Hell is often paved with a lot of those. That's where the other guy down there comes in. But not yet.          At any rate, the Big Boss, the REAL Supreme Being, or Grand Master El Supremo Big Guy (for short) was somewhat disgruntled and disappointed with the current tribal earthly deity, that being Joe (just a nick name for Jehovah the Second). El Supremo was growing sick and tired of how things were going on Earth these days, being the Last Days, mind you. But then things all across the whole flipping universe were going through crazy upheavals of one sort or another, and there were billions upon billions of other world to contend with, not just Earth. Gods were rising up or quitting, just like stars being born or dying. The fact is, gods throughout the universe were replaceable as of recently, and most intergalactic immortal yokels would jump at the chance to get such a stupendously awesome position as God, but most of them would just loiter around, bored out of their skulls, only to fizzle out and quit. Which is what Joe did. And that's why there was all this mass chaos in the universe. It was tough being God, but someone had to buck up and do it. But no one wanted the semi-lofty position anymore. For one thing, gods were underpaid and overworked, and presidents and dictators of certain countries got paid even more. And even though gods had all the power, let's not forget absolute power corrupts some of them. Now wait. How does that actual saying go? Corruption empowers, but absolute corruption empowers absolutely - or something like that. And who said that originally? Elect him as God!          Anyway, no one gave a hoot while Joe was in charge. Everyone had gotten lethargic and indifferent. He was bored and so was everyone else. But as soon as he quit, cosmic weirdos and freaks jumped out of every nook and cranny of the known and unknown Universe to fill the gap.          Not to be redundant and keep rehashing things over and over again, since Joe resigned, the infinitely spanning line at the Cosmic Employment Agency grew longer, for ex-heroes, ex-saints, ex-angels, ex-imps, and even ex-gods jumped in on the intergalactic bandwagon. The whole flipping universe was falling apart at the seams! Worlds collided. Black holes were sucking up whole galaxies, supernovas went Casanova. What was a Supreme Being to do?          Alright, here's how it all went down before the universe went to the gutters. Well, it was already in the toilet with Joe's help, so small difference.          So old Joe Hovah had gone to the Really Big Throne (at the very center of the galaxy) where sat the portly and rotund potentate Himself, El Supremo de Grandioso Galactico, District Manager of the whole homogenized Milky Way, and as some rumors suggested, Ruler of All Points Beyond.          The littler bushy-headed minor deity called up to his bigger Big Boss, "Hey Big Guy! How about those Angels? Ain't they a great team or what?"          "Hmmm." thundered the James Earl Jones type voice. (We aren't saying the Big Dude is black, but we aren't saying he's not either.) Then His Massive Bulbousness griped, "That stinking team mocks my best executives in the Office!"          "Oh, I see. Ahem. Okay, how about them Yankees?"          "Damn them!" El Supremo lambasted. Then he turned away, already disinterested in Joe's shenanigans, as he blithely meandered over to the Horsehead Nebula to watch new stars being born and old ones dying out.          "Uh, hey! Over here, Big Guy!" Joe jumped up and down, waving futilely. He stood on some podunk asteroid far enough away to avoid a swift kick in the rear.          El Supremo signed and glanced back toward the little pipsqueak. "Okay, Joe, what do you really want?"          Joe obviously didn't have balls enough - or never grew them to start with - to say what was really on his mind. But he had better get some fast, if he wanted to get his way, or he'd get booted down the cosmic highway.          "Alright, George," Joe called, using this pet name for El Supremo, ever since George Burns played the part, even though the ancient comedian (now dead) claimed to be too old to do such a preposterous roll. "Here it is on a silver platter. I QUIT!"          "That's it? You quit?" the Big Dude chuckled as he flicked a few measly stars with his big knobby fingers, sending them to collide with other measly stars.          "That's it in a nutshell, Big Guy. I'm outa here. I'm gone. I'm el vamoose. I quit."          "Alright. But why?" His Cosmic Colossalness now turned to watch a new baby star being born, so cute and cuddly, then he pushed a helplessly dying geriatric star (while in its agonizing death throes) right into the squirming little guy, ruthlessly massacring both at once.          "I just wanna go back to being a lowly toilet bowl scrubber back behind the Pearly Gates."          "You know, that's why I hired you in the first place."          "Because I was a lousy good-for-nothing janitor?" Joe gawked.          "No. Because you settled for that job instead of taking the high profile corporate exec. position I once offered you."          "Really? Well, I guess I wasn't listening at the time."          "That's because your attention span is impeccably narrow."          "Huh? Whadya say? I lost track of what we were discussing."          The Big Boss sighed. "You being a lowly janitor. Actually you did a fabulous job in the celestial latrines! Plus my personal throne simply sparkled! Now it's a horrible mucky mess since you left."          "I suppose that's a compliment."          "Not at all. It's just a fact."          "I see." Joe crossed his arms now.          "It's a dirty filthy job, but some fool has got to do it."          "And that fool would be me."          "Exactly. Then you took an idiotic pay cut by becoming Demiurge of Earth, which includes a particular solar system in which that hunk of rock orbits around a particular star."          "Some call it the Sun."          "Nevertheless, since you've been doing such a bang-up job in this lower position recently, which is proverbially lower than scum, I think you should keep it."          Joe shook his head, arms still crossed. "Sorry, Boss. I can't handle it anymore. Anyway, I suck at it. No one listens to me Why, I wouldn't even listen to me either! All the crap I pull on them, ya know. Oh, they say my name alright - in vain!"          "It goes with the territory. You gotta take the punches."          "Not me. I'm finished."          El Supremo Colossalus sighed heavily, and with that mighty breath, a thousand stars flung over against another thousand stars, and a cosmic fireworks display erupted, then he whipped out his colossal fire- retardant handkerchief and put the blazing fire out before his celestial executives had a chance to witness the cosmic blunder. "Then I have no choice to give the job to someone else, Probably someone less capable."          "Fine." Joe grinned, feeling free at last. "Can I go now?"          "First clean my royal throne one last time. I miss your special touch."          "I quit that job eons ago! Find some other poor schmuck!"          "I did. I fired him. There is a vacancy as of now."          "Forget it. I wanna be unemployed for several millenniums first. Collect a meager check each week, ya know, sit on my fat duff, stuff my face with junk food and watch Omnivision."          El Supremo sighed heavily again, but this time away from the whole flipping galaxy. "Fine, Joe. In that case, you are confined to a dull and boring life on Earth as a lowly toilet bowl scrubber."          "Fine by me. Can I go now?"          "Go!" * * *          So Joe settled down on Earth, settling for less, and he was soon to regret it. Within the first several days that Joe Hovah had been on Earth, living life as a mere near-mortal he got bored being unemployed, so he soon got a job with Acme Janitorial. It didn't take too long for him to notice that something was wrong. Yes, he was certain. Something was frightfully wrong on Earth. Not only was the weather out of control, but he observed that the crime rate had increased. He saw it on TV and witnessed the calamity all around him. Convenient stores were conveniently being robbed by the same robbers over and over again because no one was around to stop it. Hit-and-runs would hit, then hit again, then laugh and not run but loiter around causing more trouble. It got more evil than that, but we can't discuss such awful bad stuff here.          While scrubbing a routine toilet bowl in the john of some nondescript business building, he inquiringly looked up to God, which would have been himself once upon a time, but now he had to look up at some Unknown Stranger now. It turns he had been looking up at a spider in the corner. Hmmm. Too small to be God. Obviously he wasn't looking up high enough.          Upon reflection, he felt at ease that he wasn't responsible for anything anymore on Earth. Especially since things had gone wrong all the time. But now he highly questioned whoever was in charge currently. But what could he possibly do about it now? Since things were out of his hands, they were literally tied now. Things were up in the air, and so was some devilish new demiurge he had a demented urge to strangle.          Joe took a smoke break outside the building that night - except that he had quit smoking along with his former job. His old job had gone up in smoke, why not everything else?          As he stood out there on the expensively manicured lawn of the obscure business complex, a storm began to brew. Dark clouds gathered together like crash cars scraping along in a demolition derby. A thunderous lightening flash forked all over the sky like nobodies business, lighting up heaven and hell, and earth all at once.          "Hmm. Someone's showing off up there," Joe mused.          Then he saw a single lightening spike downward, pretty close to home too, then after two many long seconds, he heard the delayed reaction of not just one, but several thunderclaps. It was all horribly wrong. Flat out unnatural in fact.          "Something's horribly wrong here," Joe grumbled, looking up.          Then when the rain poured down, little gold fish plopped down all over the place.          He shook his head and muttered to himself, "Either this is an interim period between gods, or the next joker that got my job is a total flipping maniac!"          After a furious boom of thunder and then a hideous flash of lightning, Joe thought again, growling, "And the pathetic maniac can't even work the controls effectively! You got it all backwards, you stupid idiot!"          Suddenly an ominous lightening bolt struck him and burned him into a wretched crisp. But of course he was a former immortal-turned mortal, so he still had some meager residue of his former godliness, or at least he had some of his absolute power that corrupted even the best of them who became the worst of them in the end. Even Joe, who quit his job because of the absolute temptation.          Anyway, the dastardly bolt of death didn't effect him in the least.          "He-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-lp!" he whimpered weakly.          A sinister boisterous laugh echoed up there in the dark heavens above his head.          Joe finally shook himself and flung off the ashes like the renewed phoenix. He looked good as new. Almost. His legs were still pretty singed and crispy fried. Oh well. However, he still had his strong hands with which he could clean many a toilet bowl for the rest of his days. Hmm. Not much consolation there.          Now Joe was good and mad. With arms akimbo, he hollered up into the dismal dark beclouded sky, "Okay, just who the hell IS the wretched joker running the joint now! Huh?"          The only answer he got was another menacing lightening bolt that nearly got him, but he cleverly dodged it this time. He decided he had better get in touch with El Supremo Grandioso about this before the misguided moron got away with something worst - like Armageddon. He knew the Last Days were soon upon them, but he hoped to hold it off just a tad longer. But now that he was just a basic Earthling, he had to resort to conventional ways of communicating with Him. Churches were very primitive transmitting devices, but still effective enough. The religious yokels called their method "prayer." Joe decided to see if it really worked.          He found a fairly large cathedral, but as awesomely huge and reverberatingly acoustical it may have been, he didn't see how the Big Guy could possibly squeeze his Almighty Obese Presence into it. But then, with Him, all things were possible. Fine then.          Anyway, Joe yelled, "Okay Big Guy! Who's the Cosmic Joker you let loose Upstairs?"          The echo was ear-shattering as his voice bounced off all the walls, ceiling and floor for several minutes. Wow! This thing called prayer really worked!          Then he felt a mammoth presence. A warm light glowed all around. Ah. Him. So He could do the impossible! Cool! Then that James Earl Jonesish voice replied, "YOU RANG?" The cosmic voice bounced off everywhere, far more deafening a sound then Joe's puny vocal cords could ever produce.          "Yeah, sure did." Joe smiled to finally get back in touch with His Bigness          "So, Joe, you care now. Eh?"          Joe said indifferently, "No, not really. But if I'm gonna live a peaceful life on Earth, you gotta get rid of Mr. Wiseguy up there with all the flashy special effects."          "I never said you'd have a 'peaceful life.' I said 'dull and boring.' Big difference."          "Well, Big Guy, it won't ever be that either with your new idiot savant upstairs there."          "Well, sorry, Joe, but I didn't have time to find the right man for the job. The vacancy had to be filled immediately."          Joe had an awful gut feeling right down in his abdominal cavity. Or was that his growling stomach from having missed dinner again? Former immortals often forget they have to feed their new mortal bodies. The silly procedures dense physical creatures have to put up with! Sheesh!          "Alright, Big Guy, just who is the bloody flipping maniac to whom I've lost my awesome position? Huh?"          "Well, ahem, you see, Joe, uh, your younger brother came to me, said he'd like to give it a shot."          "What? My younger brother?! Oh my God! Oh myself, rather."          "You can't take your own name in vain anymore, Joe. But you'd BETTER NOT TAKE MINE!"          "Of course not. But - how could you let him take charge?!" Joe jumped up and down, ranting and raving, bitching and screaming, etc.          "Had little choice in the matter, and little time to choose."          Joe glowered, "Do you know exactly who my younger brother is by any chance? Do you have any idea?"          El Supremo chuckled, "Of course, he's your little brother, Sam. A bit of a rascal, but he's as good a man as any. He did a pretty lowly job too. Shoveling coal into the furnaces down in the bowls of Earth to keep the world warm from the inside out."          "Yeah, and he was Chief Coal Shoveler himself! They call him Satan!"          "What?!?!"          "Yeah, the Devil himself!"          "The hell you say!"          "The hell I don't!"          His Most Awesome Hugeness rubbed his chin over this next blunder. "Hmmm. The Devil, eh? How amusing. This should be interesting."          "Interesting? It's a total disaster! He'll ruin Heaven and Earth both!"          "Joe, you quit the job, so you take the heat!"          "Oh, blame me, eh?"          "Yes. It's your flipping fault."          "Sorry, but I claim total denial." Joe stuck his nose in the air.          "Not while I'm around. And that'll be for a long time." the Big Guy growled.          "Oh. Rats. No one replaces You then? Ever?"          "Nope. Not ever. I'm stuck with my job forever. Bummer."          "Yeah, I'd say."          "Now. Back to your screw up."          "Do we have to go there?" Joe griped.          "Yes. Don't be so spineless. You see, you can rectify it."          "Oh yeah? How? I'd like to know how you'll pull this off, Big Guy."          "I wont have to. You will."          "Yeah? How's that?"          "You'll do the dirty work. You see, right now there is a vacancy in Hell. They need someone in charge. A chief coal shoveler. Who better than you, a lowly toilet bowl scrubber!" El Supremo belted out a mega-colossal guffaw.          Joe sighed heavily, rolled his eyes up inside his head, than shook his head furiously. "I knew it! I just knew it! My gut was acting up about that! Instinct or something."          "You knew what, Joe?"          "That sooner or later I'd wind up in Hell!"          His Immenseness grinned, "This should be fun! Just think! The Devil running Heaven and God running Hell! What a bizarre twist of fate! Someone should write a story about it!"          Arms crossed, Joe grumbled, "I think someone has already. And we're the flipping characters in it!"          "But I AM the Author of the whole Universe! Don't forget that!"          "Yeah, but only in the mind of some demented psychopathic writer who imagines that two or more Gods exist in that same Universe. Ever thought of that, Big Guy? Huh?"          "No, and I don't want to think about it either." EL Biggo brooded.          "Why? Just in case it's true?" Joe grinned.          "No. But if it is - we're both victims of a sick joke."          "Well, then, Your Most Hugeness, let's find a way out of it." * * *          Flu-u-u-u-u-sh-sh-sh. Glug glug glug.          "Oh Hells bells! Where's the wretched janitor? My toilet is filthy again!"          Sam's face turned beet red. He jumped off his royal Throne and tromped down the red carpet of the royal throne room and over to the royal sink - when he just remembered his policy of never washing his hands so germs could run rampant and spread ruthlessly everywhere. He bypassed the sink and wiped his hands on the nearest imp, of which he had many, shipped fresh from Hell itself.          The royal butler, McGeeves, another wretched little imp, said, "Sire, the one who used to clean your throne quit his job, a long time ago."          "Well, hire him back!" Sam snapped like an out-of-control bullwhip.          "Uh, ahem, that may take a while, Sire."          "Who was the poor wretch anyway?" Sam shot.          "Uh, your older brother, Sire." McGeeves replied.          "What? Joe? He did his own dirty work?"          "Yes indeed, Sire. He did."          "How disgusting! Ha! And I thought I was disgusting!"          "You still are, Sire."          "But to stoop so low!" Sam gestured wretched lowness with slumped shoulders and low drooping hands.          "He was a toilet bowl scrubber, after all, Sire." the imp replied.          "At least I had others do my dirty work for me."          "Yes, quite disgusting of you indeed, Sire."          "Hey, don't rub it in, bub." Sam glared.          "But at least your brother eventually rose above it."          "How so?"          "He became God, you know. Ruler over Heaven and Earth."          "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I usually don't bother with trivial details like that."          "And by the way, Sire, there's news down below."          "Yeah?" Sam brightened up now. "What's new in Helltown? Eternal damnation was finally outlawed? That practical joke sure scared the crap out of folks! Ha!"          "Something like that, Sire."          "Okay, what is it?" Sam demanded.          "You see, Sire, your older brother is in charge down there now."          "What? Oh my God! Oh my brother, rather!" Sam jumped up and down, ranted and raved, bitched and screamed, and so on.          "Taking your brother's name in vain, Sire?"          'To Hell with him! He'll ruin the joint!" Sam snarled, his face glowing redder than ever now.          "Isn't that what you're doing here, Sire?" the imp-butler looked around, eyeing the golden drapes that were ripped, sagging and soiled, dirt and scum and mildew growing everywhere, imps reaping havoc in the heavenly gardens just outside and chasing angels. Not to mention profane graffiti scrawled all over walls and buildings.          Quickly glancing around, Sam shot, "Yeah. But that's beside the point." Sam tilted his head back and stuck his pointy goateed chin in the air. "You see, I can get away with it. I'm allowed to. By law."          "How so, Sire?" McGeeves up-jutted his eyebrows.          "I'm the Devil, you blithering wretch! That's how!" Sam bullwhip-snapped again.          "Uh, you used to be the Devil, Sire. Now you are God Almighty. Or at least a despicable demiurge, a false facsimile of deityhood. But your older brother is the Devil now, Sire."          "The hell you say!"          "The hell I don't! Uh, Sire."          "What in Hell -and above it- is going on around here? The whole planet is topsy turvy! What's up is down and vice versa!"          "Yes, that's one pathetic way of looking at it, Sire." Then McGeeves grinned slyly. "Just think. The Devil running Heaven and God running Hell. What a sick twist of fate!"          "Sounds like a sick twisted joke, you mean. I wonder whose preposterous idea it was?" Sam looked around as if someone would instantly pop out of the woodwork to confess.          "Yes, it does force one to wonder. Sire." McGeeves stroked his tiny little impish goatee.          "Yes indeed. Who could be sicker than me, trying to pull a disgusting stunt like this - this inside-out cosmic pineapple upside-down cake of dementia?! God and the Devil swapping places! Egads! Why it reeks of sacrilege!" Sam hollered. Then he grinned sinisterly. "But I like it! Give the mystery man a cigar!"          The fact is, I don't smoke. Especially cigars. Besides, I wouldn't accept a flipping cigar from Satan anyway. I don't even believe in the delusional creep, nor that he really exists, not in my universe. Unfortunately, he thinks he does - in his universe, that is, which isn't even real. It's an illusion, a figment of mankind's convoluted imagination. So if the devil thought it up, it isn't real, because we thought him up, so he isn't real, so it's a vicious circle of confused illusion.          What's this crap, "The devil made me do it!"? Huh? Shirking responsibility are we? Shifting blame, are we? Why, maybe we're our own devils! We the devil made us do it! That little mischievous imp which is our weekend will under the pressure of temptation is the only devil that exist. And it's a delusional illusion at best. To rise above that silly little imp is the key. Give it the finger and move on with life!          Now, the Big Guy IS real, I'll give Him that. But I sometimes wonder if He thought us up. Huh? We're His delusion? Hmmm. Or maybe we're our own delusion. Or is it we're our own worst nightmare? Or maybe - oh forget it!          Now. Who am I, you were asking? Well, I'm NOT the Author of the Known and Unknown Creation, God Almighty of All That Is. However, I am the author of this sick demented story here. I am the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipsycho narrator, god of all I write, edit, and delete! So it is I who decide the fate of the whole flipping universe - in this story anyway.          So, dumfounded and flabbergasted readers, let's move on and see what happens next!          Bwooo-Hahahahahaaaaaa! * * *          Joe cleaned up Hell. From top to bottom, Or rather from upper bottom to lower bottom. Being the master toilet bowl scrubber he was, he performed a top notch job. The poor sniveling souls liked it much better than before, and liked him better for it. They liked their new Head Tormentor. In fact to make a lasting impression on them, he turned down the heat. Way down! Besides, the electric bill was far too high, and Sam had only petty cash left in his register when Joe took a peak. Sam had been a lousy money manager for Hotel Hell. No vacancies were left anyway. The whole house was full up. To the brim. But since the joint was under new management now, everything was in good hands, a janitor's hands, so things were looking up down below in Hell.          Speaking of "UP," Heaven was going to Hell in a helldacious hurricane. (We're fresh out of handcarts.) That's right, Sam just let it all go to pot. It had gone to seed. The place was a pig sty. The joint was a ghetto. Besides, Sam was allergic to the cool air up in the clouds. He had to wrap up in a wool blanket and shiver a lot. So he decided to turn the heat up within the Pearly Gates. But nobody liked that. The inhabitants griped, bitched and moaned an awful lot. They even picketed around the Royal Palace grounds. But the new God -er Satan- ignored them.          One hot and humid day up in the Heavenly City, St. Pete and the boys got together and decided that they had quite enough. Sam was not fit to be their God. But this flipping joker was definitely fit to be tied. Hell may not freeze over yet, but this sure was the day Heaven heated over, and not from Sam turning up the furnace, but from the High and Mighty Hosts of Heaven getting really fed up with his lowdown shtick.          "Let's lynch 'im!" growled St. Mike.          So they got a rope and they marched up one of the many Streets of Gold, and then they stormed the gate of the Royal Palace, knocking over the royal butler-imp, plowed up the royal red carpet of the Royal Throne Room, and stopped at the Royal Throne itself, where sat that Big Imp himself, His Royal Raunchiness, formerly Satan-turned new God. Okay, just a local demigod with very limited abilities - he couldn't even operate the weather machine let's not forget.          Sam sat there on his filthy throne, stroking his pointy goatee, hoofed feet crossed at the ankles, amused by the wretched display of his ornery subjects. But he knew he had the power, and he was corrupt, absolutely corrupt, which was his right, being the Devil himself, you know, even if he was God now. If anyone could get away with it, he could.          But as he watched the growling grumbling mob, he suddenly got red in the face, which was usual for him. So he growled back, "Can't a guy have some peace and quiet while attending to royal business at his Royal Throne? And where's that royal roll of TP?"          St. Pete and St. Mike blushed, almost red as Sam's own beet red face. The others lost their fire too, but then Sam had control of fire anyway. He could give it as easily as he could take it away.          St. Pete apologized, "Sorry, your Nastiness, as smelly as you are."          St. Vick mentioned, "Yo, Sam. There's a curtain there. If you want privacy, you can close it. The guy before you always used it."          Sam looked over to one side. Sure enough. A curtain. "Gee, thanks." He grabbed it and whooshed it around himself. "And don't call me Sam ever again! Got it? I am the Supreme Being, you know."          The mob snickered at that. Obviously the new dude upstairs, formerly from downstairs, forgot all about El Supreme Grandioso Colossalus , the REAL Big Dude Way Upstairs. Being a power-hungry demiurge was just a dime-a-dozen scam these days. You've seen one, you've seen all of them.          From behind the curtain, he growled, "Alright! What do you pitiful boys want anyway? More heat? The air is plenty hot up here already. But I can turn it up more."          "Uh, no thanks," Angel Alfie said, "We got plenty of that. And you got way too much hot air all by yourself, Boss."          "Why, thanks. I take pride in that."          The members of the lynch mob looked at one another, then shrugged. Can't offend a guy from Hell who sees insults as compliments.          "So what are you here for? Spit it out, you monkey-brained morons!" Sam snarled. "I don't have all eternity you know."          Angel Ignatius stammered, "Oh, uh, nothing really, uh, just wanted to keep you company, that's all. Yep. That's it."          "Yeah, Sire," agreed St. Rocco, "That's right, what he said."          "We'll your disrupting my privacy here, so get outa my face unless it's something really important - but I don't believe in really important things. So get outa here anyway!"          Then St. Mike, the warrior archangel who might have been the only one with real balls of fire, dared, "Actually, it is real important. More than you know."          "Oh really, Mikey?" Sam snorted. "I really doubt that. But for the benefit of the doubt, try and lay it on me!" Sam double-dared.          "Oh it's nothing really. Just a little matter." St. Mike began to chicken out now. Until St. Pete nudged him in the wings. So St. Mike refocused again, gathered up some gumption. "Ahem. Well, you see, we're here because, uh, we just wanted to, uh, lynch you. Yeah. That's all. No big deal, you see."          "Oh, is that all?" Sam chuckled. Then he barked. "Lynch me!?!?!"          Then they all heard the royal flush, a royal gurgling, then the curtain flashed open. They saw standing before them their fear-instilling leader all decked out in bright red leotards, pointy pitch fork in hand, and shiny horns jutting from his forehead, his equally jutting goatee doing its thing too. He scowled at them just like the evil man downstairs. But this was supposed to be their Man Upstairs. How confusing!          So St. Pete pointed out, "Say, isn't it about time you dumped that idiotic Satan-suit? You're supposed to be God. You gotta grow a long white beard and go naked save for a skimpy loincloth."          Satan --er, God- grew real angry now and even redder in the face.          "Who said I was God anyway? I'm Sammy Satan! Always was and always will be. I'm just usurping the royal throne in Heaven, and everywhere else behind the Pearly Gates and all along the Streets of Gold. Soon it will be an annex to Hell! Or haven't you celestial nimrods figured that out yet?" he laughed insanely, holding his pitch fork horizontally, as if ready to poke someone.          "That will never happen," St. Mike approached with his mighty sword.          "Ha! It's already happened, you lamebrained, poor wretched excuses for the heavenly hosts!"          St. Pete turned to Mike and the boys, "Hey, did you hear what he implied? He's pushing our holy buttons!"          "Yeah!" the holy boys growled, getting their dander up now.          So St. Pete hollered, "Okay boys, get that rope ready! Let's lynch 'im!"          So before you can say the Devil made them do it, the mob attacked ruthlessly. St. Mike swung his mighty sword, knocking the pitch fork clear out of sight, then the holy boys dog piled on top of Sam and tied him up pretty good. Then they hung him from the highest lamppost along the Main Street of Gold and played tetherball with him, bouncing him back and forth. Sam sure got a horrible headache that day. He wouldn't be able to take enough aspirin to knock it out. Actually they knocked him out first. * * *          In the meantime, Joe was making a good impression all over Hell, passing out haloes and harps to all the poor damned souls everywhere. He even turned the furnace way down. He even transformed those nasty lakes of fire into fabulous Olympic swimming pools - filled with nice cool water, of course. The inmates loved him for that. He even installed a roller coaster ride and set up loudspeakers all over the place, blaring vivacious rock-and-roll! He turned the whole joint into a regular vacation resort, and when the news got out in Heaven and on Earth, everyone wanted to go vacation in Helltown now. Calendars and schedules were booked solid, and soon Hell was sold out till further notice! People and aliens and celestial beings and everybody lined up all the way out to Pluto just to get in. No, Hell hadn't quite frozen over yet, but it sure became a real cool place to go.          Joe raked in a lot of dough in the first several days, which really were the prophesied Last Days, when all Hell was breaking loose in Heaven, and all Heaven was breaking loose in Hell! * * *          Back in the Horsehead Nebula where El Supremo Grandioso Galactico grew awful bored watching more lackluster stars being born, He glanced nonchalantly over at Earth while yawning -- and suddenly realized the place was a total disaster area! All the way from the deep bowels below surface to the beclouded heavens above. The rough and rowdy heavenly hosts had hung their new god - no respect for a demiurgical deity these days. And the new Devil had turned Hell into a rock-and-rolling amusement park! And Earth was left out altogether, no one to watch over it anymore, not God nor Devil. Besides, most of the inhabitants had gone awol, because they all lined up to get their tickets, yes, so they could all go to Hell!          "I knew it!" El Supremo grumbled. "So. It had to come to this. No one strives to be good so they can go to Heaven anymore. Everyone's going to Hell in a handcart. Or in this case a flipping roller coaster! Oh my God Myself!"          The long line extended to the Andromeda galaxy now; everybody from every planet of every galaxy wanted to see what on Earth all the fuss was about - especially to visit the new Hellworld Amusement Park.          So the whole Universe was a lousy mess once again, just because Earth went irreparably insane. No shrink could fix it now, it was too late. These were indeed the Last Days after all.          But, then, El Supremo snickered slyly, grinning from ear to ear, for he had a great idea. * * *          It all happened in the blink of His eye. Even though a lot of indeterminate time went by according to earthly standards, probably a whole year, or maybe a measly eon, whichever. No big diff to the Dude Upstairs.          All said and done, after El Supremo Colossalus initiated his clever plan of action, he returned Sam to his ole Chief Coal Shoveling position after being seriously ruffed up by those high and holy rollers Upstairs. They even scared the wretched little imps back down to Hell where they belonged!          Rubbing his sore lynched neck, Sam mumbled to himself, "Those dirty rotten wretches! How do they get away with being meaner than me! How despicable of them! How downright nasty! Hmm." He rubbed his goatee and thought that out. " I like it! I'll hire them to be my helldacious imps! Give them all cigars!"          But when asked, St. Pete and the boys flat out refused.          But he had a more serious problem on his hands. His older brother had ruined Hell! Joe had darn near made the place freeze over! And Sam's devices of torture had been converted into carnival rides! How the hell can you torment a poor wretch on a fun-filled roller coaster?          Well, okay, Sam tried one ride himself and it scared the crap out of him - plus he lost his lunch. Turned out that was scarier than his measly lakes of fire. Hmm. Maybe Joe had been on to something after all. Give the man a bloody cigar!          Now, Joe got his previous job back. No, not as God. I mean, he got his old old job back. Yes, the position of Chief Toilet Bowl Scrubber in Heaven, especially for the Royal Throne Room. But something had changed while he was gone. The walls of which were now creatively splashed with bright pastel yellows, pinks, and lavender tones! Plus little daisies were painted everywhere. Joe had a horrible sick feeling down in the pit of his growling stomach. Not just because he failed to eat that morning either.          Let's back track just a tad.          The cute little Valley Girl in the pink miniskirt from the South-end of the Orion Belt danced for joy and said juvenilely, "Like, cool, man! I'll, like, take the job, Big Daddio!"          After the interview with El Supremo, via intergalactic transit she flew over to the Pearly Gates up on Cloud Nine that closely orbited the Earth, and she decided to redecorate the whole flipping joint like never before. She had been an interior decorator anyway, having beautified countless worlds all across the Milky Way that had otherwise been dull and boring. So she was perfect for the job. Grinning widely, El Supremo knew he fixed things good this time.          In the meantime, clueless Joe, while doing a little nondescript cleaning in the Royal Throne Room, couldn't let go of the fact that something was horribly wrong. When Joe confronted El Supremo about the matter, he was outright furious when the Big Dude told him who was God now.          Joe screamed, "But she's my baby sister for God's sake!"          El Supremo slapped His forehead. "No! Really?" The Very Last Day of the Last Days! A Word of Apology from the Author (or lack thereof)          Greetings, oh baffled and disgusted readers:          If I am addressing those who are puritanically and anally uptight, who think this story was total blasphemy and sheer sacrilege, don't worry, it's only a hysterical hallucination. On my part, that is. I had a case of extreme terminal dementia the other day. But since then, I've drastically recovered. Now I realize the horrible mistake I made in writing this hideous piece of drivel.          First let me explain that my radical anti-dogmatic views - quite a ways downwind - do not coincide with the usual mainstream hogwash. No offence. . . . On second thought, all offence intended! If you really think God runs around naked, with the exception to a shabby rag to cover his private parts, who never had a shave in a billion zillion years, than you're the one belonging in the loony bin, not me!          The fact is, I am not making fun of the Founder of Absolute Truth That IS - whatever that may be. Hey, I'm still finding out what's what. But I'm merely deflating the air out of those crazy ideas and opinions people actually believe to be true that are too idiotic to be anything more than the rampant bamboozlement of some inebriated demented psychotic zealot having an epileptic episode in front of a multitude of gullible naive fools who think this is some prophesied, God-sent, hifalutin evangelic revival preacher back behind the projects. Boy, are they sadly mistaken. We get a lot of those false messiah whackos running around these days anyway, we don't need more.          Now, some of the early Gnostics of the first few centuries of Christendom did believe in two gods: a pretty big one and then a little dinky one, a rather impish jack-ass that ruthlessly harassed Earth. That idea is the premise for this story. Well, sort of. You see, since I never read such an insane tale such as this before, I decided to write it myself -- in spite of how blasphemous and sacrileges it may appear (to the hoodwinked mainstreamers), which is a literary illusion actually, if not an optical one. You see, the truth will always be the Truth -- whatever that may be. Therefore, I may be offending some people's misguided beliefs, but realize the REAL TRUTH can NEVER be jeopardized! Aaaarrrrrr! Although I have met a few bumbling brainwashed believers that actually think It can be. Only people's concepts and opinions can be crushed to dust. Thank God! (Snicker snicker)          The real blasphemy is when people create God in THEIR own image -- and then they believe in THAT! Leaving the REAL Supreme Being out in left field somewhere. Or so it seems. Actually the Great Spirit of All Existence is in Everything and is Everywhere. Try and escape Him/Her/It! If you dare! I know I can't! I tried! And failed miserably! So, escape is futile! HE will assimilate you!          (Hardy har har!)          So, yes, if you want to fail at something good, or inflict positive failure upon yourself, try getting as far away from God as possible, and you'll just run right back into El Supremo Colossalus each and every time! The REAL God, that is, not the distorted facsimile thereof in this sick demented story. But don't try it on my account! Better to face the Big Dude head on!          Oh, and about that horrible mistake I made when writing this hideous piece of drivel. For which I must apologize, you see. (So says the anally retentive puritanical religious masses at large!)          Alright. It's almost impossible to please everybody all at once. But I futilely tried anyway. Stupid, huh? You see, I felt inclined to settle and compromise between the anthropomorphic-god promulgators and the incomprehensible infinite-scale type God-adherers. So I found a slap-happy medium. Har!          So, essentially, what it boils down to is this: I reluctantly apologize to the nearsighted literalist fundamentalists for not keeping their little god stay inside the tiny box they stuffed Him into in the first place.          Likewise, I apologize to the anything-goes New Agers for not making El Supremo Galactico much bigger than the scope of the measly Milky Way galaxy since he should - or does - encompass the whole flipping Universe (of which there are many, by the way), and even unto All Existence. But I suspect many people wouldn't comprehend - let alone accept - that reality - including myself!          Hmmm . . . You know, on second thought, I don't care a flipping frog what people think! Forget the whole rag-bucking apology! This idiotic story stands AS IS! No warranty, guarantees, or compromises! So THERE!          Now, get outa my flipping face and have a REAL nice Day!          -yours insincerely, R.R. Stark Naked

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