An Inspector Scrawls

 An Inspector Scrawls 

The screeching of the demon still echoed round the cavern even though all infernal life had evaporated from the body. Slowly, like a shattering iceberg, chunks of the now-brittle flesh broke off and fell sizzling into the white hot hellfire in the pit beneath. The gathered throng of fiends watched. Normally the demons would relish the suffering of another like fine wine, but this time the spectacle was tinged with nervousness as each of the unholy creatures wondered if they would be next for the chop. If they would be dismissed as unworthy of another minute's worth of existence.

Beelzebub cast his multifaceted eyes at the scroll before him and buzzed contentedly. His bulbous head occasionally jerked towards one of the nervous junior demons, causing them to stumble or slither back. Each of them clutched a scroll in a taloned hand or tentacle, their own reports on their various activities of spreading misery and mayhem in the world of mortals. 

 “The destruction of this… failure should serve as a lesson to you all,” he uttered through razor sharp proboscis, “incompetence will not be tolerated. Our infernal Lord has decreed that there are too many of you coasting along, doing little or nothing. Whilst sloth is an admirable sin,” his eyes darted across to the filth-encrusted face and straggling beard of Belphegor, “It is only to be encouraged in humans. Laziness amongst the Legions will be penalised most heavily!” 

The lower orders looked at their centennial reports and hoped their wickedness would meet the grade. Their Infernal Inspector from Offstade (Office for Standards in Devilry) called for the next candidate to step forward for interrogation. A cloven hoof made contact with a backside and sent its scrawny owner crashing into a heap before Beelzebub’s throne of dung. The Inspector’s proboscis drooled saliva with excitement, the acidic slime burning a hole in the rug. 

The junior fiend looked up and tendered his scroll along with his name, Titivillus the Demon of Misprints. A raucous cackle of derision rippled round the cavern. Titivillus clawed the rug with his needle-sharp talons and drew himself up to his full three foot five. 

“The last I heard of the Printer’s Devil was you sparking a fight in a Spanish monastery scriptorium in 1362. Have you done anything whatsoever to spread mayhem and sin since then?” 

“I have been busy, your Disgrace, in a number of ways,” the diminutive fiend announced in a booming voice that belied his size. “You will doubtless be familiar with the Adulterer’s Bible of 1631 – that was one of mine!” 

More than a few eyes rolled to hear this tired old brag about the infamous missing word in Exodus which appeared to give the green light to adultery in the doctored version of the Ten Commandments. The rolls were accompanied by mutinous mutterings when Titivillus went on to attempt to detail the 47 sexual shenanigans committed by lechers who took the misprint to heart. Silencing him with a snap of his wings, Beelzebub pointed out that there was little merit in getting randy goats to jump each other’s bones. Were there no cases where he had succeeded in corrupting the innocent? 

“Well, I invented spellcheck and have been driving dyslexics and semi-literates insane ever since,” an appreciative murmur ran round the cavern. To hinder people whilst appearing to help them was no easy thing. Beelzebub’s droning voice enquired if anyone had been driven to murder, “Not as such, but countless acts of wrath! Plenty of students driven to despair by failing grades.” 

The multifaceted eyes gazed at Titivillus for some time, coldly assessing him. It was well-known that Beelzebub was a rather old-fashioned Arch-Demon with scant understanding of the modern mortal world and its technological oddities. The small demon’s mind raced to think of something that might please the old monster and preserve his own existence at least until the next Offstade visit a hundred years hence. 

“After that I invented predictive text so that mobile phones could dictate to people what they think,” an appreciative murmur ran round the cavern. “So far I have caused over fourteen million arguments, around sixteen thousand divorces, and managed to get over two thousand people sacked. I tweaked the design of emails to enhance the capacity for chaos. Your Disgrace would not believe how many people have destroyed promising careers by hitting Reply All without realising it." The Inspector, however, did not look impressed - or even as if he had a clue what the little monster was talking about.

Tiny eyes darted around the gloomy cavern in panic, alighting at last on a massive lobster-red form with a necklace of skulls. "I collaborated with Sathanas the Demon of Wrath to develop Twitter, the fall-out from which is well… legion!.” Beelzebub’s wings thrummed with unholy pleasure at the news. Even in his odiforous pit of Hell, they had heard of the misery caused by Twitter.