theDevil’s Greatest

Jenna Upton

It all really did happen so fast. Leviathan took Lucifer in his arms and walked him down. Lucifer felt himself get warmer—there was hellfire everywhere. So many demons were covered in ash, and he watched them as Leviathan lay the poor, injured fallen angel down on the throne. Lucifer watched the populous in front of him, holding the crown. They wanted to make him their King. Their Ruler. Their Prince.

Their God.

The crown was jet black, and Lucifer was frightened.

There was a deafening silence as every demon watched him. He trembled as he knelt down, letting the crown be placed on his head. Gone were the days of Lucifer, the highest of the Angels, the violinist who composed melodies so wonderful no being could ever, in a million years, replicate—gone were the days of Lucifer, God’s favorite, the brightest and the best.

There was nothing left but Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. Lucifer, the tempter. The ramifications of being pushed from Heaven were unbearable. He was shattered. As he balanced the crown on his head, as all the demons worshiped him, he looked over the fiery pit that was now his dominion. He felt his face tearing, though he couldn’t describe the pain. And he felt his wings begin to tear. Maybe he did deserve this, being down here.

Lucifer had prided himself on his appearance— every little pat on the head from God made him feel so wonderful. But most of all, even if God always made comments about his dazzling eyes, he loved his wings. They were wide—the largest wings of all the angels—and gold and white, with the softest feathers. He saw his wings as a badge of honor—and there was nothing anyone could do to bring him down in that way. He was the highest of the angels, long, thin fingers plucking the violin that he so desperately loved. His fingers, now, were covered in the blood of his torn wing. Lucifer turned, and, in excruciating pain, looked at his wings. There, in the center of his right wing, was a large tear, with blood seeping out of it. It wasn’t a color he’d seen before; but he knew, then, it would be a color he would never escape again. From his beautiful, white-and-golden wings, a thick liquid red as wine poured.

It wasn’t until it began to spread that Lucifer noticed. The red was staining the rest of his wings, and he watched, helplessly, as they were destroyed. No longer were they the beauties they once were. As the red spread to all of the feathers, he noticed that the softness of them had completely changed—they were now hard, and sharp. His feathers had become knives, threatening to hurt anyone who even dared to come close to him. He was protected, now.

Something changed in Lucifer at that moment. No good boy, no beautiful boy. His eyes became those of a snake’s—they remained bright green, but still, the pupils changed. His once soft, white wings were red, and razor-sharp. He was no longer an angel. He was a demon.

No, he wasn’t a demon. He was the demon. The Prince of Darkness, the Fallen Angel. The Devil.

Lead is supposed to be poisonous, but I like the feeling of poison driving me insane.

She collected stationery from the very beginning since her father gifted them as tiny offerings long ago. Professional ballpoint pens, colorful erasable pens, pencils

a collection of regrets: FIVE THINGS

with characters and words intricately carved into the wood, and her favorite, the delicate and pretty Japanese mechanical pencils that made her friends envious of her possessions. The gifts used to make her smile all the time, and she kept them neatly in an organized box in her secret drawer. But now they were really all around the house, but mostly on her desk, a now-chaotic mess. They scattered themselves and reminded her, no matter what she did, that the urge to stab herself with one would always be there. The soft colors only made the idea more enticing every time she imagined it. And the tips were pointy and sharp, ready to take action and follow her command. Sometimes, broken shards of lead and irregularly shaped pieces of paper blotted with red, blue, and black ink littered the floor around the desk, an unconscious artist. Just open your eyes—insanity is hard to miss.

Item 2: Calendar Filled with Artwork on the Desk

Art transforms pain into beauty. It tries to, at least. But no one teaches that the pain travels through paper and colors, and not in the way that anyone expects it to. Instead, it drags the victim into the page to rip them to shreds, a reminder of what they will never be, do, finish. It feels like Sylvia Plath: “I am gone quite mad with the knowledge of accepting the overwhelming number of things I can never know, places I can never go, and people I can never be.” I can attest to this crime.

The booklet-sized calendar didn’t match the one her mother kept because she refused to update it. Because it called her forth the tasks she never finished. Maybe that’s still how she was, the way that calendar had been. It became outdated, but the art stayed, not moving an inch more than where she last placed it. The scribbles of dates and reminders and tasks hid behind the cover. She wished the art soothed her, but the glossy page only remained blatantly clear about her denial of everything in that calendar. The unfinished business never left her. Neither did her art.

Item 3: Pianos (A Boston Grand with an Upright on the Side) Downstairs, in the Music Room

The only loud sound I allow is the sound of those keys. So tantalizing and mesmerizing, and it pulls me in and surrounds me with comfort and angst and everything in between. Gorgeous. But there’s a slackline between “gorgeous” and “deadly,” and I think I’m over that valley.

The clear tunes reverberated around the room and drowned her in the Atlantic Ocean of melodies and expressions. It rang in her ears minutes after the melodies had ended, a sweet memory of what had been. She could never play like that again, with the same amount of will and passion and desire. That version of herself was lost to the world, lost in the forgotten noises, swallowed up by the newly-appointed version of her, and the touch on the keys only felt unfamiliar and dusty now. Maybe a little guilty even. The music died in the Sargasso Sea. Maybe a part of her did too.

Item 4: An iPhone 11 in the Pockets of Jeans (or Everywhere)

It’s a whirlpool of the known and unknown, all at once. It should feel safe, something personal and mine, but I’m left shaking when I hold it.

There was nothing special. No dark secrets hidden in password-locked apps or unrevealed gossip to spill. The most peculiar things to be found were a filled-up camera roll of art and quotes, a poorly timed selfie or two, and 1000 tabs in the Safari app (500 in the normal window, and 500 in the private one). She never showed anyone else those pictures or those websites or any of the blurry selfies, but she had no dangerous secrets. It was the sheer number that would terrify someone. 14,748 items in her albums. The notes app displayed one single note flooding over 513 lines (“finish planning the dinner event for the magazine, don’t forget to finish that assignment”). Everything was noted down: reminders, drabbles, anything. Even frustrated incomplete poems from her as an amateur writer. A pathological hoarder, or maybe a dweller, of sorts. And if that wasn’t the problem, she would be overly cautious with deleting things and reorganizing them. Fear would overcome responsibility every time.

Watching her thumb slowly and carefully as she dragged one app, intent on not touching the others, sweat forming on her other hand and sliding the phone out of her reach. Her own collection threatened her to make no mistake, but it was once freedom, personality, laughs, where she confided her heart’s desires with fascination. The shaking of her unstable hands didn’t go away.

Item 5: Sticky Notes and Random Scraps Everywhere Everywhere, anywhere. There’s two scraps by the keyboard, a clipboard with scrunched up sheets of paper on the nightstand, and a bajillion other pieces that kill time all around. When did it grow to this? I want to keep them; no one can throw them out. They’re my thoughts, my ideas, my checklists, no matter how recklessly they land. I can’t let go yet.

They were only reminders of how messed up her life was now. Of how desperately she clung to sanity. It was hopeless, and the piles slowly flooded the premises, stacked upon each other. Tissues with ink, pink and purple sticky notes folded together, and old office papers from her parents that no longer played their original roles. If you looked into her brain, it would resemble this dump of white and black and blue and red with hints of purple and other colors. So beautifully bright but disorganized and in shambles. Too late to start a cleanup. Too deep in the engulfing scraps.

If she could have told her younger self one thing, it would have been to let it all go.

But regrets stuck longer than anything, including time, memories, even hatred, and certainly longer than happiness or cheerfulness. Regrets killed, usually slowly, with its victim unaware. And this girl held on for too long.

Another regret.

A final regret.