Satan And His Little Imps

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

Brian Lucifer admired the burgundy flock wallpaper that he had just finished applying to the chimney breast in his living room. “Owzabout that then, guys and, erm, guys?” he said to his three live-in imps, who were sitting on the sofa drinking Sunny Delight from Power Rangers cups and helping themselves from a tray of assorted biccies and cream cakes. “Is that splendid, or what? As soon as it's dried out a bit I can hang my new living Jimmy Savile oil painting. Scabrous, be a darling, light a cigar for Jimmy, drip a little cadmium yellow in his eyes and open the window a crack to let in a bit of fiery air from the infinitely burning brimstone lake beyond yonder rockery. Not too much, mind, it'll set fire to the curtains - they're Laura Ashley Vittorio Gold with Venetian tiebacks, and they cost me a bloody fortune.”

“I don't wanna rain on your parade dad, I mean Mr. Lucifer, but I don't like that wallpaper,” Scabrous said, picking nervously at the permanently itching scabs on his scaly hide.

“Why not?”

“It makes the living room look like an Indian restaurant. Only Indian restaurants use flock wallpaper nowadays, especially sodding burgundy, it's so eighties.”

“Your opinion means nothing, you cheeky fourteen year old tart! This is my house, and I'll decorate it however I bloody well like. Nobody ever likes anything I do; your mother keeps taking the piss out of the beautiful pine spice rack I made her, I can't imagine why, and the neighbours keep sniggering at my new fence, the complete bastards..... How about you two, what do you think of my lovely wallpaper? Be honest, mind, because if you tell porkies in an attempt to pander to my ego I'll know immediately.”

“Ermmmmm I don't like it much either,” Flatulence said, letting rip an almighty fart that smelled like an open sewer crammed with the bloated carcasses of a million dead rats. “For more or less the same reasons that Scabrous hates it, it's tacky and dated and well cheap looking.”

“Well cheap looking?” Mr. Lucifer said, pouring himself a fresh cup of tea from his favourite Pooh bear teapot and nibbling on a Vanilla slice. “Well-fucking-cheap looking? I'll have you know that that wallpaper was £15. 99 a roll from Homebase! What about you, Kevin, what do you think of it?”

“Well, to be brutally 'onest, dad, oi mean Your Satanic Majesty, oi fink it's shit,” Kevin said in a broad Brummie accent.

“It's shit. Is that all you've got to say?”

“Well..... Yeah. It says it all, dow it?”

“I see,” Mr. Lucifer grunted, wiping away a tear. “I work my fingers to the bone trying to make this place nice for you lot, and what thanks do I get? I spent my entire Christmas holidays decorating your bedrooms while you were stuffing your faces with turkey with all the trimmings and mince pies and Arctic roll and chocolate Santas, while you were getting completely pissed on cheap Polish vodka with your irresponsible mother, spewing on the carpet and singing Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody over and over and over again – boy, when I get Noddy Holder down here I'm gonna make him suffer, I'm telling you. I bought you all new bedding after I'd decorated your rooms, and you said the same thing, Kevin – 'it's shit, we dow like bluddy Transformers any more, Flatulence and Scabrous are into One Direction and I like 50 Cent' - that's the thanks I get. Well I've had it up to here, I've had enough - I'm buying a nice little cottage in the fucking Cotswolds and growing prize winning chrysanthemums and rambling roses, I'm retiring and letting some young buck take over as Mr. Lucifer, see if the Infernal Committee can find somebody who can do a better job.”

Flatulence let out an even huger fart than normal and cacked his Huggies in the process. “Dadda!” he said, pointing to his odorous bottom. “Flatulence do huge, stinky pooh-pooh!”

“I know, my little cocktail sausage, I'll change your nap-nap in a minute when I've finished ranting and raving. You can all have a bath when I've done that, then I'll have to think about putting the dinner on.....”

“Yaw corr retire!” Kevin said.

“Why ever not?”

“'Cos despite the fact that yaw insist on us callin' yaw 'Your Satanic Majesty' or 'Mr. Lucifer' or 'Old 'Orny' or wotever's yaw're current favourite yaw'm our dad - an' seein' as our muvver's ad to gerra job in Poundland to make ends meet 'cos yaw'r wages as The Undisputed King Of 'Ades' am wank it's yaw'r responsibility to look after us. We corr manage on our own, we'd get up to all sorts of mischievous pranks loik pourin' boilin' water over each uvver or settin' the 'ous on fire or -”

“All right, all right, I get the point. I'm supposed to be overseeing the punishment of the latest batch of new arrivals, but I haven't got time so I've had to leave one of my senior demons in charge, David Cameranus – I hope he's managing. He should be treating the scum-bags unfairly enough, he's a bit of a Heinrich Himmler-cum-Marquis de Sade when it comes to tormenting naughty sinners, unless they're posh, of course.”

“Can we go on a picnic, dad, I mean Your Satanic Majesty?” Scabrous said. “I asked you last Tuesday morning, and you said 'No! You've gotta go to Imp Primary School or the truant officer will be on my back, maybe we'll go at the weekend if it's not raining.' Well it's the weekend now, and it's not raining.”

“I don't see why not,” Mr. Lucifer sighed. “You can all have a bath later, I suppose. There's half a chicken in the fridge left over from yesterday for sarnies and a few sausage rolls, it'll save me cooking dinner. I'll have to text your mother, though, and ask her if she'd mind awfully getting herself some fish and chips on her way home. Do us a favour while I change Flatulence's stinky bum, Scabrous, will you?”

“What is it dad, I mean Your Satanic Majesty?”

“Nail Jimmy to that gilded picture frame, kick him repeatedly in the balls, tell him he's a nonce and stub his cigar out in his eye. Oh, Kevin, will you go and tip those starving rats into Michael Jackson's dungeon?”

“Yes, Sir!” Kevin and Scabrous replied.