Free Up Jumps the Devil by Michael Poore Page A

opening his eyes.
    The rain made a fog, which crept and rose. Everything beyond the windshield might have been a trick of the eye, except for the red lights of the farm truck, which sped up, and then slowed again.
    â€œIt’s like driving between worlds,” Memory told the Devil.
    The Devil had fallen asleep.
    â€œYep,” he said, nonetheless.

9.
How God Stole the Devil’s Girlfriend
    Heaven and Earth, the Age of Creation
    THE DEVIL DREAMED .
    When most people dream, it’s a casserole of wishes and fears. Being several billion years old, the Devil had a lot of memory backed up—and you can wind up with issues if you don’t sort through it all somehow. So when the Devil dreamed, he remembered . It kept him from talking to himself more than he did.
    Dreaming in the passenger seat, he remembered the very oldest things of all. Before he was the Devil. When he was Lucifer, in Heaven.
    Back before Heaven and Earth were separated, because there was no Earth. There was hardly much of anything except God and the angels, surrounded by something called “the Face of the Deep,” and something called “the Waters.”
    â€œThe Waters” were a kind of flood, about six inches deep, and quite calm. You could either walk around in it all the time, or sprout wings. The angels sprouted wings.
    No one knew what the Face of the Deep was, except that it was deep and surrounded the Waters.
    â€œWhat is it?” the angels sometimes asked, but God only answered with a proud, inscrutable silence.
    A lot of angels thought God was kind of self-absorbed and crazy right from the Beginning, and would have left Him more or less alone if He hadn’t insisted they sing to Him around the clock.
    This wasn’t as awful as it might sound. There was something bright and correct about God, plus it gave the angels the idea of Competition. In this scramble for excellence and holy favor, Lucifer emerged as God’s undisputed Golden Child, shining over them all like a cherry atop a sundae.
    ONE DAY , out of nowhere, God said, “Let there be light.”
    Something like a nuclear FLASH tore across the Deep, causing the singing to falter into blindness and screaming.
    When his eyes cleared, Lucifer approached God and asked what that was all about.
    â€œI’m not sure,” He said. “But look!” He waved at the Deep with an expression of dumb wonder.
    Stars and galaxies exploded all over the place.
    The angels staggered around God in their ranks and millions, and sang to Him in shaking voices.
    God was impressed with Himself, of course, but at the same time, Lucifer could tell He was troubled.
    â€œI didn’t know it was going to do that,” He told Lucifer, indicating the expanding universe overhead.
    They splashed through the Waters, side by side.
    Lucifer shrugged and said it was a nice surprise.
    â€œSurprise.” It was a new idea.
    â€œIt was an impulse,” God complained. “I won’t fly off blind like that again. There should be an order to things.” He looked over his shoulder at the neat, concentric choirs of angels.
    Lucifer asked if God planned to create more things, besides just light.
    â€œI do,” answered God.
    â€œLike what?”
    And God answered.
    The Plan (as He called it) would take effect over billions of years. Step-by-step, God would fill Heaven with living wonders—and he had it all figured out in advance this time. Oceans and streams of water and air, rich with new forms and structures.
    But as he watched the universe spreading out like so much radioactive spaghetti sauce, it seemed to Lucifer that this creation had a wild seed in it. He wondered if the Plan was going to proceed with the order God intended. While ideas like “surprise” and “wild” were fascinating to Lucifer, he suspected God would be less than overjoyed with their effects.
    The beginnings of the Plan were cause for celebration: The sun and