Amnesty for Midgley

 

‘Move your feet, Thomas!’

 

Ruby waited for half a second then tutted and smacked the broom straight into his ankle.

 

 

‘Hey, that’s my worst foot,’ he said, using both hands to lift his leg from the knee to move it out of her way, ‘it takes me a bit longer to shift it.’

 

‘Worst foot than what?’

 

‘Than the other one. I think I told you before that I had Polio as a child and it’s not easy for me to….’

 

‘Sick of your excuses, Thomas. And why are you always in here? This is supposed to be a waiting room for special cases and the rest of the time it’s for me and Satan to relax. You make the place look untidy with your gammy legs and stupid round glasses.’

 

Ruby was a little obsessive about cleaning but it kept her fit and Satan liked his girls fit and slender, wiry even, like Iggy Pop but with dark hair and long eyelashes. She liked to do her cleaning sessions in a frenzy, dashing around with her e-cloth and broom so that her red mini dress swung out flashing her purple knickers.

 

Thomas had seen it all before, in fact he was sick of the sight of it but he refused to give up his cause. ‘I’m in here because I have a right to dispute my status as an inhabitant of Hell and I will not give up until I’m exonerated.’ he said calmly as he loosened his collar and sighed.

 

‘Why don’t you take your tie off if you’re hot?’ 

 

‘Because I don’t intend to stay here and I’m a professional man.’

 

Ruby laughed, ‘How long you been here again?’

 

‘Eighty two years.’

 

Satan entered the room with a fancy gesture of the hand and minced over to his desk. He put on his glasses and unlocked the screen with the password, ‘Satan666’. ‘That’s enough cleaning for now, Ruby. I think J has got the sauna set up all ready for you.’

 

He waited until she’d left and then spun his chair around to face Thomas and clasped his gnarly fingers together over his midriff. ‘So, here we are again,’

 

‘Yes, and this time I intend to be successful in my quest to get out of here, to go to Heaven and see my parents and Carrie, my ex colleagues and fellow students from Cornell.’

 

‘Alright Thomas,’ Satan said dismissively, ‘I’ll talk you through your case again very briefly just for the sake of protocol and then I’ll give you my thoughts before it goes to the panel but I fear they have a bit of fatigue in regard to your case. There probably won’t even be a hearing.’

 

‘There has to be a hearing, it’s my right.’

 

‘But I imagine,’ Satan lifted his slender scarlet leg up so that it rested in a bent position upon his other leg and scratched his left horn, ‘I imagine that if the conclusion was different this time, it would cause a furore and others might come forward…even those who are quite settled here. That would be their mistake of course because they would feel cold and possibly very stupid if they suddenly found themselves in the groggy, goosedown comacloset that is Heaven.’

 

Thomas took a deep breath. ‘Sounds wonderful to me,’

 

Satan cleared his throat, ‘Everything sounds wonderful when it’s the opposite of what you’re sick of, then over time, the balance is restored and you’ll miss all this I’m quite sure of it.’

 

Thomas’s lip quivered. He wanted to say categorically that he wouldn’t but he feared it might make things worse and as it stood, he had no power in the situation whatsoever so he wiped his brow with his handkerchief and feigned a smile. ‘Perhaps,’ he said quietly.

 

Satan typed something into the computer. He was an absurdly fast typist and tiny flames danced upon the keyboard and his long fingers drilled into the keys. ‘Full name?’ he said.

 

‘Thomas Midgley Junior.’

 

‘Occupation?’

 

‘Mechanical Engineer, Chemical Engineer.’

 

‘Reason for going to Hell?’

 

‘Well, we know all this, Satan.’

 

‘I know we know but we must follow protocol as instructed by the Sheriff of the Underworld.’

 

Thomas paused and looked down at his legs in calipers. He felt so sad and so sorry but his feelings were interspersed with pride at his own innovation. How he’d followed in his father and grandfather's footsteps as an innovator, always looking to push the boundaries of human invention and making our lives easier. ‘I...’ he faltered, ‘I discovered that putting lead into petrol made for a smoother ride, more efficient, better lubrication, it tempered the explosive effects of the fuel, the list goes on. Actually it was the perfect additive.’

 

Satan grinned and looked up, his eyes shining with ecstasy, he licked his lips and Thomas saw the end of his forked tongue as it flashed across his mouth. ‘But it caused dire amounts of pollution, sickness and death.’

 

‘Yes,’ Thomas protested, ‘but that was never my intention, never!’

 

‘Okay,’ Satan scrolled down the page and leaned in to read more of the report. ‘And not satisfied with that,’ he laughed, ‘you then went on to develop something called chlorofluorocarbon otherwise known as CFCs, commonly used in refrigeration and then rolled out to aerosols as an agent for turning liquids into gas under pressure and propelling them as a fine mist. Sounds amazing!’

 

Thomas smiled and nodded, for a brief second he felt proud and excited at what he achieved. ‘Yes,’ he said, tapping his chest. ‘I did that.’

 

‘But it is commonly blamed as the main factor in causing the hole in the ozone layer.’

 

Thomas shrugged. ‘That report was flawed but hey, that’s what folks say. I saved lives,’ he said, ‘those CFCs were instrumental in the manufacture of effective asthma inhalers. I don’t know if I fully accept that one to be honest, Satan.’ he looked down at the floor, recently dusted and cleaned by Ruby and shook his head. ‘I was only ever trying to help,’ he shrugged.

 

‘You see,’ said Satan, ‘Thomas, this gives me something of a dilemma. On the one hand you never intended the harm that you caused but on the other, in your quest for innovation, you inadvertently caused a monumental amount of damage to planet Earth, and that my friend…’Satan briefly paused, looked up and closed his eyes, a slight tear of joy formed in the corner of his eye, ‘that really is quite an achievement, even for one of our own.’

 

‘I was never like that though. I’m not evil. I shouldn’t be here!’

 

Satan got up from his seat and danced around the room. ‘Oh but you’re so useful to me. If only I could put you back to work, you could invent something even more catastrophic and cause even more damage.’

 

‘I can’t though. I’m dead, I died at my own hands; an invention meant to help me with my mobility problems ended up with me strangling myself. Surely that is proof that my genius was cursed right from the beginning. I should have limited myself to basic mechanical engineering. A simple life. If nothing else, I just want to apologise, up there, to be forgiven.’

 

‘God has already forgiven you, Thomas. He forgives everyone. That’s part of his problem, he’d take everyone but if my team can put together a case for the worst of them then they come down and live with me.’

 

Thomas looked very depressed now. ‘So I’ll wait for the results again. Hopefully year eighty two will be my lucky year. I can’t stay here forever.’

 

‘You can actually. Ruby’s been here longer than you.’

 

‘What did she do?’

 

‘She didn’t have your brains, Thomas but she’s a wrong'un, take it from me. You’d better leave, she’ll be back soon, and she’ll be concupiscent after her sauna.’

 

‘Okay, okay I’m off.’ Thomas forced himself clumsily out of his chair, grappling with the two sticks he used for walking. The sudden movement caused beads of sweat to form on his forehead. As he made his way back to the bunker he shared with Mikhail Kalashnikov, he said a little prayer.

 

‘Things will be different this time,’ said Mikhail, as he gave Thomas a reassuring rub on the shoulder. 

 

‘I hope so my friend.’

 

‘I’ve given up on my own cause. People just love bringing up my name, in films, in conversation. I roll off the tongue in certain quarters. Some men even have my invention tattooed on their arms.'

 

Thomas plonked down on his sleeping mat. ‘God, depressing isn’t it.’