Chapter 5 November th.

Dear diary.

What a day. Had a cartload of visitors again. Some nice, some not nice, some boring. Good thing they all went away again after a while.

I was as good as awake when Maurice came in. Some Islamic priest on the doorstep, he said, and he wants to see you. So I hurry up and get out to the office. Well, poop, the Islamic priest was ahead of me and already waiting in the hall.

"Are you Shaitan?" he asked me.

"Nope, I am the devil, " I joked, "and who are you?"

The guy introduced himself as imam Kharusuf Ben Ahmed. "And if you call yourself the devil then you are Shaitan."

Well, duh, of course I am Shaitan. Same thing, different name, it is all devil to me.

I managed to get mister Kharusuf into the office and seat him. Maurice came in with tea and then the imam started. About everything that was wrong here.

First he missed Maalik. Yes, I know, the angel that guards the gate to hell is something we're working on. The biggest problem is that we can't find the 19 others that are required. The issue is that the job is too boring.

Second problem he brought up was that Zamhareer is missing. (That's the pit where bad souls have to suffer extreme cold. That's for the ones that committed crimes against god.) That's a tricky one, because a few weeks ago I checked that area and the signposts to Zamhareer were all there, clearly marked and freshly painted. Some joker probably took them away. I'll have Maurice send out people to check and replace them. Perhaps put some spell on them that someone that tries to take them directly goes to where they point. Now there's an idea.

Third point the imam complained about was me. I am supposed to be one of the suffering folks here. Actually in the fire-part of Hell. Yeah, sure, look at me and call me nuts. I am not going there unless I have to, as the place is REALLY HOT!.

I may have to get in touch with some god who has influence in that religion and see if we can make some modifications to the Quran in that respect. I am not going to push my butt in the fire just because they claim it is the truth.

And lastly he wanted to know how long it would take before I would judge over his presence in Hell.

Well, I asked him how long he was here, as that is something crucial here.

Two days, the joker said. I told him to take a hike and show up at the next judgement session, which is scheduled in a week.

I was glad to see him take the hike I proposed. I noted his name and will make sure he's not going anywhere soon. Also got in touch with one of the demons in the hot-spot, to keep an eye out for Kharusuf. And get him a seat near the oven. Hah. That'll teach him.

Ivan showed up. He got a copy of the receipt for the oil, coal and tar. Well, it was smudged alright, but with some effort I could decipher that the delivery had been made on the date that my supplier had mentioned. So far, so good. Ivan had not yet located the goods, but he knew that it had been delivered at supplier gate 5. He was going to retrieve the watchman that had been on duty that day and see what the man had to say about the whereabouts of the goods. Sometimes Ivan seems to possess a brain! (Just makes me wonder who he killed in order to get to it.)

Then a big surprise. The biggest of the day. Pete was at the door.

Of course Maurice told me that Saint Peter was waiting to see me. Good old Maurice, always correct.

Pete got in, we had some coffee (with a shot of rum) and then Pete told me what he had come for. He needs a way to get their souls into Heaven.

I make a "duh?" and asked which of my legs he was pulling. But he insisted that he was not making a joke. He told me then that there's a problem with the Pearly Gates. Okay, you can understand that I broke down with laughter for a while, Pete getting more and more embarrassed.

But the problem is there, laughing or not. They can't open their frigging doors, not even an inch. It is not possible to squeeze a soul through, not even sideways, not even when they squeeze very hard.

So he hoped that I could help them out. He knows there is a way into Heaven through Hell. Sure, I know about that too. Just take the ramp towards the soul devouring machine, turn left before the opening to the chute that makes you plummet to the shutter, take the escalator down to the golf course, cross that (just watch your butt for flying balls) and then behind the big bush at the edge of the Pagan area there's a flight of stairs into Heaven. Easy.

I asked him how long that backdoor option would have to be in place. He did not know. "They are trying all they can to open the Pearly Gates, " he said, "but they have to be careful not to damage them."

See, that is what you get when you put up such fancy things. One hiccup and you have a real problem. Don't damage the door. What kind of business attitude is that? It's all set up here for the throughput of and dealing with souls. Not to make things look pretty.

But hey, Pete's a nice guy and I am a nice guy, we're sort of in the same business, so I told him that it is okay to use the back door route. For a while. Just for old times sake and stuff like that.

He then asked if it would be possible to give his people the certainty that they don't run into Pagans or other people that might upset the good souls. I am sorry, but my options are kind of limited in that respect. All the groups here have their own area, they abide by that arrangement and that is how I keep things going here. I can't go around telling people to stay away from their own turf for a while as long as Heaven has issues with its doors! Pete will have to find a way around that himself, I am not going to stick my neck out for that.

Now I know that most Pagans are a friendly lot and all that, but not all of them are that peaceful all of the time. I did try to figure out an alternate route for Pete, but that is tricky. They could go down the ramp a bit further, slide past the hole that goes down to the shutter (we could mount some handles there for them) and then we could have a set of stairs down to where the Buddhists are. From there they could mosey on down the road. I am sure the Buddhists wouldn't mind, but Pete was by far not certain if the Christians would feel the same about that. And whatever way we tried to find, the best way up there still is the bush near the Pagan place.

They and their ideas of being holier than the pope once they make it to Heaven. Argh. They drive me up the wall at times. Pete finally decided that it would be best if his people would transport the waiting souls in the dark. That way they have least chance to run into the ones that dwell in Hell. That could work. And at night there is only a slim chance that you get hit by golf-balls. The only thing that can happen is that the witches get them by the balls. (Haha, that is funny!)

Told Pete that I'll have Maurice send someone over there though and let them know about these temporary arrangements. It is no more than decent to tell them. After all, I wouldn't be a happy devil if someone from Heaven decided it was a good thing to have some Jehovahs marching over the lawn in front of the house. You have got to keep up your levels of decency and credibility, right?

Too bad that, when Pete left, he did not say he owes me one. But with the last time he said that, I can understand. Really had him by the golf balls that time!!

Later today a confirmation came in from the high-tech hell guys. Could I make it on the ninth. Well sure I can. It will be interesting, I am sure. I paged through their brochure once more and saw some really nice gadgets for some of the bad people areas.

Had to go to one of those too, later in the afternoon. There was a big row going on over a soul that had arrived and who did not want to play nice. The guy in question was a serial killer and instead of waiting in line for his turn in the bad place, he tried to off some of the folks running the place. Now the folks there, demons and such, know their job, and they are not easily intimidated, but this serial killer type did not know when to stop, so I went over to have a look myself.

The guy, a Russian called Anatoly something, was sent here for a good reason. I mean, it can happen that you kill someone by accident, but the more than fifty people he blew away can't be seen as something like that. Even with Gorgon, the head demon, sitting on top of him to keep him pinned down, he was making quite a riot of things.

No real problem of course, but it does disturb the usual flow of business there and it upset a few of the waiting souls.

So I asked Gorgon to pick up Anatoly and take him into the private room. In there we had a good heart to heart with Anatoly. See, I am basically a really pleasant and easy-going devil. But when someone starts to abuse the personnel and create a disturbance in the scheme of things, I can get quite annoyed. And in this case, I got very quite annoyed. My regular appearance (I wore the usual black trousers and red sweater) did not really impress him, so I had to resort to the more convincing outfit.

So I got out, changed into the real devil-suit (still have some of the glue in my hair, whoever invented these horns should be kicked in a soft spot), got the fire, tail and red eyes going and got back. Now that silenced Anatoly a bit, but not for long.

Also the promise that he would be torn limb from limb did not quiet him down immediately. Only when Gorgon had taken off one of Anatoly's arms and started ripping at a leg, the guy finally came to the awareness that this was a game he could not win, so he gave in.

Gorgon gave him back his arm, and then guided him away, to the entrance of the bad place. Sheesh, that smell of sulfur there... highly effective, but I can't take it for long these days.

Been thinking about taking up some form of sport. I see more and more souls here doing something like that. Running, swimming. Sounds quite tiring. I'll stick to thinking about it for now.