I like the devil.
He’s fun, he can be witty, he’s dangerous and tortured. In
his mouth we can hear all the things we have privately thought. He is an excuse
for everything. He is pleasure, he is hedonism, he is even everything that we
are told to put off pleasure for. Work hard now so you can be rich and powerful
is how we are inspired as children at least in Kenya . Our whole society in its
materialistic vein encourages to work towards the fruits of the devil.
Now, now I am not a devil worshipper by any means. I just
love him in books and I love him in movies and I love him in songs. In art he
is par excellence. He is a writer’s dream. Imagine him for a moment but as a
character. What does he have? He is
beautiful beyond comprehension the best in his class. So smart he can already
see the system is rigged. When you are that good you want to be better, you
want to be the best. You want to go out and do what you will. So what if the
guy before you created rap music you want to take him off his throne and take
it in a wholly different direction. You mean to show your respect but at the
same time you need to have a little room to play with the ropes otherwise they
all strangle you.
Then this character
he does what all great protagonists do he leads a rebellion. Is it because of
this original story that we love the motif of the apprentice with so much
promise going bad? Either way imagine him using this angel version of Facebook
to spring them loose sending tweets in what he imagines is secret organising a rebellion
based on free will and democracy. A Che Guevara among the heavenly hosts.
Charming, courageous, just better. He sits them down one by one and convinces
them all to follow. He flies before them using his words, his wings, his music
to win them over. Angels cannot have been stupid they must have known this plan
was going to end up in hell but I see him as one of the great orators. A lion
standing up and telling them we will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the
churches, we will fight in the very hearts and souls of men until such a moment
as… no idea what he could have promised them. But he did and some of them
listened. The ultimate war cry. The ultimate suicide mission even more
wonderful for being the first rebellion ever. Where did he get the idea for it?
Who were his predecessors? What does it even mean to you to have your first
thought of disobedience unaided. There was no serpent on a tree for him he came
to this all by himself. In those first moments there must have been hope. A short
walk to victory was promised and they listened, their hearts soared much higher
than their wings and they began to prepare. Sharpening their swords, making
their plans all in fear, always in this horrible fear that could not overcome
the hope that sprang in their hearts.
He riles up the
troops and soon the face of his rebellion changes. It’s no longer Egypt or
Tunisia. It becomes hard fought. There is blood shed and lost on all sides. It
morphs into Lybia for a while, a battle that wavers and wavers and then it
becomes Syrian. A stale mate is drawn. Some take Aleppo some take Damascus. And
then it changes altogether. It becomes an uneasy truce and for a while he
changes too. He is no longer the young revolutionary he is the battle hardened
leader. The one whose face becomes rugged and raw. The one whose nerves are
bitten down to their bones. The one who is so tired all he could ask for is a
place to rest. At the same time the one who can’t sleep because plans go over
and over in his mind, he can’t drop off because of his doubts and hesistations.
Charm and charisma mean nothing when you are sleeping on an empty stomach and
feeding on fear and loss and all you want is to sleep so you can dream a dream where you didn’t do this most stupid of
things.
Then he becomes an emperor of his little kingdom.He has lost that beginning of the war so he reigns over sulphur and
brimstone and angels who begin to resent their following him. Do we really
imagine that Lucifer didn’t have to quell rebellions of his own? The angels who
followed him loved their freedom. They were the ones who refused to bow down to
man. This in itself as a reason for the rebellion is understandable. What was
it that we had that angels didn’t? An everlasting soul? Free will? No, we were
made in the image and likeness of God. His favourite children. And then they
were asked to bow down. And some just couldn’t take it. They didn’t like bowing
down and for all this time they have being bowing down to Lucifer? That’s
stretching credibility. Of course there were some rebellions, some bloody wars.
A hell within hell. And now our new
emperor quickly becomes a dictator.
And in this moment, somewhere in these moments he realises the
futility of what he has done. If we are going by the Christian Lucifer, its
game over for him. If he didn’t know it all he had to do was live through the New
Testament where just the name Jesus would cast out his minions. And now he is
lost. He knows he is lost and he becomes something else again. An eternal
wanderer. A man who lives forever and has to justify his loss. There is nothing
to live for because he knows how the end turns out and yet he continues churning
out year after year. He continues in a torment that is hard to imagine. Despair
feels horrible. I know because I have felt it. It smothers you and leaves you
black inside. It leaves you unable to feel anything else, it demands all of you
until all you want to do is fall in it. Yet all the despair that I have felt
had a glimmer of hope in it. There was love around or something to live for.
This is how I bore it. This is how I
took it. But not our devil in this incarnation. Now he walks around a tired old
man holding on to an empire that means nothing more than a childish tantrum.
Locked in a battle for the very souls he refused to bow down to. The saddest
figure in the universe.
This character, his beautiful arc. From triumphant
charismatic rebel, to battle worn leader and emperor over a sea of fire and
finally to old man on the sea collecting sea shells for a reason he cannot
remember muttering about his past to people who don’t care wandering out into a
great nothing staving off death for no reason other than to scoop up some more
sand. Broken, beaten but lovable. Of course I love him just a little.
