I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

sentience,
humans have everything to learn from lizards. The only
animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is
the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the
sheep's got to teach.

    The animals shied away from me, even when I was one of
them. They just ... sensed. They drew away and that was
that. Me and animals would never he friends. I've made use
of them from time to time down the millennia, but there's
never going to be a relationship. Three things: they don't
have souls, they can't choose, and they're dependent on
God - ergo they're of no consequence to me. The absence
of a soul, by the way, makes it easy to inhabit a body.
(Therefore, why is Elton John still pudging around unpossessed% I hear you ask.) Conversely, the presence of a soul is
an absolute hugger to get around. I manage it, periodically,
but it's not like falling ofa log.
    However, again I digress.

    He knew I was there. God the Holy Spirit knew first and
blabbed to the Other Two, who knew in any case. Who'd
known all along. He let me stay. He created Eden and let the
Devil in. Got that? What else do you need to know about
Him? I mean do I need, actually, to go on?
    A word about humankind - and I'm ... you know ...
shooting from the hip here: I was hooked on you, instantly.
The hundred billion galaxies, the stars, the moons, the
cosmic dust, the wrinkles, the loops, the black holes, the
worm-holes ... It was nice stuff, spectacular in a remote,
high-art way. But you lot? Oh, man. Should I say that you
were right up my street? You were right up my street, in the
front door and sitting in the comfy chair with your shoes
off smoking a huge spliff while I made us both a cup of PG.
It wasn't your looks (although I was always a sucker for
beauty, and your pre-lapsarian progenitors make you lot
look like a posse of anthraxed Quazzies), it was your potential. I looked on (from the lowest bough of a laburnum tree
that had burst into blinding yellow bloom almost with an
air of embarrassment at the spectacle of itself) as Himself
coaxed and worried Adam from the dust. I watched the
arrival of bone, the wet birth of blood, the woven tissues,
the threaded capillaries, the shocking bag of skin (less
Michelangelo than Giger meets Bacon meets Bosch).
Those lungs would turn out to be a design flaw, mind you,
with all the breathable nastiness I was going to inspire you
to invent. Ah, and the genitals. Where the smart money
was going. It was, one has to admit, mesmerizing, a gory
wattle-and-daub masterpiece. Give the Maker His due, He
knew how to Make. The nipples and hair were sweet
touches, though you could see from the outset what the
wear-and-tear spots were going to be, where the mileage
was going to be racked-up: teeth; heart; scalp; bum. Still, you really were a piece of work. I lay on my laburnum
bough (I was a feral cat at the time, as yet unnamed) rapt
and, I must confess, a tad jealous. Angels had pure spirit and
a one-dimensional existence blowing smoke up the Divine
Bottom morning noon and night. Man, apparently, was
going to have the entire natural world, sentience, reason,
imagination, five juicy senses and, according to the development leaked before the sear, a get out of jail free card
courtesy of Jimmeny Christmas to be phased in not long
before the fall of the Roman Empire with limitless retroaction.

    You'll excuse my flippancy. This is difficult for me. I'd
been feeling peaky ever since I found out about Creation.
On the one hand it gave me a superabundance of material to
work with. On the other ... What am I trying to say? On
the other, it had about it the noxious whiff of finality. Once
the world was up and running, once .titn was abroad, rife
with desires and garrotted by those dos and don'ts, my role
was pretty much set for ... well, for ever. You pause for
reflection at these moments. And while we are pausing
(Adam finished now, toenails, eyelashes, earlobes,