Righteous Quotas
Satirical Short Story for Flag Day
This bonus story is satire rather than horror, not my normal genre but definitely my vibe this week.
Righteous Quotas
“I hate coming up here,” Mephisto sneered at St. Peter. “Why did you summon me?”
“You and your teams are way below the required soul quotas,” St. Peter explained, adding with bluster and bravado, “You’re letting way too many undesirables in these days.”
“I am?” Mephisto stomped his hooved foot. “Once they sent the Son down to Earth, they opened a direct pathway to salvation. A pretty easy one at that. Kind of hard to capture souls when all someone has to do is say they’re sorry, and the contract becomes null and void. So much extra paperwork and back-and-forth. I much prefer the Old Testament rules of engagement.”
Peter leaned over the large ornate book on his podium, conspiratorially. “You’re not alone. Many think we went a bit too far on the compassion and inclusion front. So, to rectify this overcorrection, we need you and your teams to crack down, keep people from getting through those pearly gates.”
“We still keep plenty of souls out. Our quotas are met.”
“Quotas have been increased. You’re all now desperately behind. Everyone’s quite angry about it.”
“First I’m hearing of it.”
St. Peter handed Mephisto a golden slip of paper which he quickly skimmed, smoke rising from his ears. “These are the new expected numbers?”
“Quite reasonable, we believe.”
“Impossible, not with all the loopholes and repenting allowed.”
St. Peter lowered his voice. “Things are in motion. For now, you need to keep everyone else out.”
“Everyone?”
“We don’t want any more people up here. At all. It was a good thing while it lasted but we grow tired of and overrun with human souls.”
“That’s literally your whole thing.” Mephisto shook his head, pulling on one of his pointy ears. “You’re gonna have to drastically change the rules if you want us to stop more souls from entering.”
“Already in the works,” St. Peter assured the demon. “For starters, our false prophets have been leading many off the path. The masses are sinning but think they are being righteous, so no repenting occurs. Their souls go directly to you, keeping them as far away from us as possible. We’re pretty happy with the initial results and the ten-year projections.”
“I knew those turds were your guys, way too crass and tacky for Satan.”
“They’re great for what they are designed to accomplish.”
“They’re ignorant and dull, no sense of nuance at all,” Mephisto spat, disgusted.
“You’ve always been such an elitist, so you’ll definitely enjoy this next little bit of the plan. We’re implementing ways to remove folks that are already here.”
Mephisto slinked around the podium, pulling a black, quilled pen from his vest pocket. “I have a few hundred souls in mind, just off the top of my head.”
“Patience. We have protocols to follow.” St. Peter leaned over his book and swatted at Mephisto until he returned to his side of the podium.
“We are putting new policies in motion, inspired by one of our most pious and tested denizens, Job. He’s been very angry with how easy we make it on people these days, so he was more than happy to help us make sure we tested new souls more like we did during his time on Earth.”
Mephisto grimaced. “Even I think that’s a bit much. Are you sure you want to return to those days?”
“We really have little choice. These new human souls make my skin crawl. We want nothing to do with them. We’re issuing orders that a soul can get removed from heaven for breaking heavenly laws,” St. Peter whispered. “We will need a few of your teams up here to enforce those expulsions.”
“Which laws exactly?” Mephisto asked, a crooked eyebrow raised, now very intrigued.
“We like to keep the actual law defining and breaking a bit vague, so more of a vibe of wrong-doing on a soul’s part before they’re given a one-way ticket to—”
“Hell!” Mephisto rubs his slender, clawed fingers together. “We actually like the new human souls much better than the old ones downstairs. We’ll be happy to take them.”
“No, that would be a breach of our original contract. So, we’re going to send the souls to Purgatory where they will be detained for… well, eternity. At least until we change policy again.”
“So, you’re going to send people who made it to Heaven to purgatory because you all randomly decided you didn’t like how you amended your old laws?”
“We’re sending them there because we no longer want them here. They simply don’t belong in Heaven anymore, but they don’t belong on Earth or Hell either. So, Purgatory is clearly the only option.”
“Have you spoken to Purgatory about it?”
“We came to very agreeable terms.”
“Interesting. So, God’s not the same God anymore.”
“He changes quite often and that’s His prerogative.”
That it is.” Mephisto smirked. “I’m gonna need about 1000 more fallen angels if you want this to happen.”
“That’s preposterous. That many angels haven’t betrayed their God. We can’t just turn innocent angels into demons.”
“Sounds like you can. Just make sure the new version of God will be one that many of the angels have already betrayed, unknowingly of course.”
“That could work.” St. Peter jotted down some notes in his ornate book. “Are you staying for the State of the Heavens?”
Mephisto warily peered over St. Peter’s robed shoulder at the pearly gates. “No, I think I’ll stay on my side of the gates from now on.”
“Probably the safest bet, at least until you start meeting your quotas.”
Be safe out there today, and everyone, be peaceful.
I did also write a Monster of the Week that featured one of the main characters of this story, Mephistopheles/Mephisto. It also includes a short fiction story if you want to go check that out as well.