P+popu #2

Pockets and purses of parallel universes
Tale 2

Go To Hell Satan!
By
Martyn 'Awesomic' Eker AKA FREKER

The TV turned on, just as Ricky predicted, the power of the remote served well.
The over-the-top bass music from next door was interrupting his vital episode of CSI at this moment, Ricky thought that he was never going to even hear the TV and after thumping the walls a couple of time like a POW, he decided he would have to resort to Teletext.
Ricky couldn't stand Teletext, it was the internet before the internet, but failed miserably and every screen looked like it was themed on somebody's wake after their funeral, it was poorly designed and forced you to remember 3 digit numbers. Whilst you tried to do so, holiday advertisements came up with their companies telephone number to taunt you.
It was a battle. He needed index...101, 'Great, easy number that,' He thought to himself. Ricky found this number easy to recall, because one of his favorite films was 101 Dalmatians. Except from the fact the title explains the main plot device of 101 Dalmatians, he'd more or less forgot what the film was actually about.
The black screen stared at him as he waited patiently for the TV to try to find the page he was looking for, 'If this was the internet, this would be a whole lot more easier...' Ricky thought to himself. The black was taunting, and it was a shame for such a drab tone to be used on a television, 'Why didn't they use a proper colour? It looks like the TVs off anyway...'
Ricky suddenly wanted the creator of Teletext to be killed and sacrificed. This type of abuse to a TV was not acceptable, whatever bright spark came up with the ingenious idea to fill a colour TV with black must of been laughing in his executive chair.

'Ha! ha! ha!' Screamed the creator, in his executive type clothing. 'The world will be brainwashed with my EVIL, BLACK screen!'
The intercom on the desk screamed, 'Mr teletext, Theres somebody who calls himself Ricky here to see you!'
'Send him in, Julie!' The man cackled, 'Nobody can stop my EVIL masterplan now!'
He leaned back in his teletext background themed leather chair and reclined as if to look a big shot, the chair had a little conversation with him in squeaky-leather-chair'ish as he leaned back.
The door started to shake as if a powerful force was about to break through. Mr Teletext started to panic. Mr Teletext was scared, as he sat up the chair once again spoke. The door must of been going over the reicter scale by now.
Bang, bang, bang...WHAM!
The door ripped open through the front and two shards of wooden door just missed Mr Teletext's head.
'Heeeerress, Rickkkkyyy!!' Screamed the person who just shouted his own name in his own clich'e speech.
Ricky was on a vendetta, he was out to get Mr Teletext, Mr Teletext knew this, and pretended not to know, whilst Ricky pretended that he didn't know that Mr Teletext knew, synchronised, Ricky and Mr Teletext had a headache over the confusion what they had both been thinking about. Ricky continued his vendetta.
'Ah. Mr Teletext, we meet.'
'Ricky Chimera!' Mr Teletext hid behind his chair.
Ricky walked up to the desk and cleared all the objects of Teletext's work surface.
'Don't you even TRY to press that alarm switch, Teletext.'
Teletexts arm flee'd from the button.
'What do you want?' Teletext started fumbling about with his desk, and after some shuffling pulled out an object that fired metal projectiles that fit in his hand. 'Ha! Ha! Mr Chimera! Did you expect, THIS?'
Ricky's right eyebrow rose up and touched his fringe, 'No, I did not.'
Teletext looked at the object in his hand to see a piece of handy, but not in this situation, stationary. 'Shit.'
Ricky leaned over Teletexts desk. 'I admit, I did not expect such a powerful person as you, to threaten me with a mere...STAPLER.'
The intercom screeched again 'Oh, Mr Teletext! I put your gun in the third draw down, I decided to put more important things in the top draw.'
These important things were as to follow; A now removed stapler, a box of cuban cigars, a copy of Radio Times, a scratched copy of Microsoft Windows 95, A box of Tetleys teabags and finally a smurf that once stood proudly on his desk, in all of that, no food mixer or cuddly toy.
Ricky once again unpaused from his vendetta, 'Mr Teletext, your invention has been really,' Ricky paused and looked Teletext in the eye, 'Irritating me, I am here to take your life for all the time I have wasted looking at a black screen on a colour television set.'
Ricky then pulled out his UZIs from his black leather trench coat and adjusted his shades, Mr Teletext smiled,
'I have been waiting for such a day as this for millenia, and now, I will challenge you!'
'What, with a stapler?'
'Not exactly...' Mr Teletext held out his hand and with a neon yellow beam blasted Ricky across the room.
Ricky flew through several offices walls interrupting several workers looking at porn, and several short skirted secretarys, but he didn't exactly fly through the stationary photocopier.
He picked himself up and brushed the plastic debris off his coat, the office staff looked at him. Ricky pointed his finger up into the air, 'This photocopier will be noted as a prisoner of war!' and Ricky flew off fists forwards back to Teletexts office.
The techno-rave music came on in the background as once again Ricky arrived in Teletexts base of operations. 'Chimera, I CHALLENGE you!', Ricky could see, plainly, Teletext was holding what looked like a torch.
'That is a torch, Teletext.'
Teletext leaped towards Ricky, 'This is no torch, Chimera! This is a blade!', In pure insanity, Teletext ripped open his own desk in half with the shining red blade of light. 'this is one of a kind, Chimera! The ultimate melee weapon!'
Ricky rustled through his skyscraper sized pockets, Teletext paused,
'what are you doing?! I have just challenged you!'
Ricky pulled out his clenched fist, 'Yes!, thought I had one of them hanging about!'
Teletext stood in shock as Ricky activated his One-of-a-kind-melee-weapon, 'B-b-but, how...' Teletext fought his mind, 'How, what, when, the hell did you get one of them?'
Ricky grinned with a smirk, 'The internet is far more worthy of your so called, Teletext!'
Ricky dodged a couple of neon red beams aimed to hit vital bodily organs, until Ricky heard a rip.
The silence was deadly, okay, maybe not as deadly as the lazer based weapons each competitor held, but it was pretty dodgy.
Ricky held his hands over his chest, collapsed knees down on the floor, 'You will pay for this, Teletext,' He stood up, 'You just ruined...' his facial muscles clenched, 'MY BEST SHIRT!'
Ricky grabbed the nearest object and threw it at Teletext, in a sudden twist of fate, extremely unlucky for Teletext, this was his beloved chair. Even more unluckier, his own chair hit him in the chest and made a couple of organs internally bleed. To make that just that bit worse, Teletexts trajectory was heading towards his view through his fragile glass window leading to the bustling metropolis below him. Just to rub it in more, the glass started to shatter as he fell against it thanks to the velocity of his beloved black chair which often tried to communicate with him after sitting down, hitting him in the chest making some beloved internal organs bleed like Hell.
'Gasp.' Teletext gasped as his foot slipped off the windowsill. 'Y-y-you.' Teletext took in a deep breath through his now collapsed lungs, 'Win.'
Teletext interacted with gravity and started moving down at an incredible speed. Teletext was thinking about his life as he fell, which is was very sucessful and way too long to even try to explain here. To be honest, it was so good, with no flaws, apart from the fact he was falling to his death, about to meet a inviting concrete floor, that He didn't even have enough time to think about it much. He more or less got up to the point when he was in Kindergarten messing around with paint, his teacher came up to see what he'd been 'working' on all day.
'And what have you been working on today?'
Teletext was mute at this age, and after showing his work of art, which was a completely black painted sheet of A4 paper, calmly said, 'Dats gonna make me rich wen I'm older!!' and he was true, it would probably would do, maybe possibly if all this wasn't in Ricky's over reactive imagination whilst he hadn't even taken in the fact that the index page had loaded exactly, ten minutes ago.

Ricky woke up and picked up the remote again, and accidentally jumped past the index page, all Ricky wanted was a simple life and to find out what was going to be said in CSI. He wanted subtitles and he needed them fast. Ricky remembered from all those times he played Bamboozle acting sick when he should of been at school, that it was a 3 digit number with all the numbers the same. Randomly in anger, Ricky typed in just so.
The TV flashed black to red, a blood red, like the red that Mr Teletext was bleeding in his fifteen minute daydream, bizzare icons flashed on his walls, runes moved across his carpet, admittedly it was a lot better than the flowery pattern that resided there first of all. A mysterious red fog loomed about the room, the runes became more intense and started to form into the greek alphabet, until it spelt; 'yeah, what the Hell do you want?'
Ricky stood in shock that such an accent could appear on his carpet in such a way, but was distracted by the sudden invasion of pentagrams.
Ricky felt stupid, but split second decided that he'd really ought to try to communicate with the carpet.
'I only want subtitles so I can watch CSI tonight...'
A ghostly face projected through the carpet, 'Is that...all?'
'Well, yeah, I was trying to get subtitles...'
'Oh, bugger, not again,' The face moved along the skirting board to the wall in front of Ricky.'This happens all the bloody time in England. Just one finger to the wrong side of the remote and you contact me through your TV. Great, just bloody great.'
'Wha?!' Ricky said like a gormless idiot, which suffice to say, the spectral face thought he was at this exact moment in time.
'Now, you...you're different, you can reply back, you can actually hear me!' The face bellowed with excitement.
'W-w-who the Hell are you?' Shouted Ricky at the overjoyed grinning face.
'So, you DO know...'
'I know?'
'You said, Hell, right?' The face smiled, 'You did, yes?'
Ricky replied, 'Yes, I said Hell.'
'HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW?!'
Ricky stood in confusion, 'Look, is this some kind of 'Its a hologram' thing off of Scooby Doo or something?'
'Blood red? Runes? Satanic Pentagrams?' The face hinted and winked.
The prospect of Ricky's own wall winking back at him didn't go down too well. He meant so say something but just made a 'Uhhhhh...' noise.
'I'm Satan you fool!'
'My walls Satan?'
'No, I'm using your wall to communicate to you.'
'Stop it. Its scary.'
The face looked pissed 'Thats the bloody point!!
'Well, you never talked to other people like that in fables, stories, myths, The Bible...'
The face stared Ricky back in his, 'Well, you see, 'Hi, I'm Satan, Lord of the Underworld,' doesn't exactly work these days, they just laugh at me.' the face started sniffling.
'I won't laugh at you.' The door creaked.
'Promise?' The face smiled.
At this exact moment Ricky could of sworn he just heard somebody shout nearby, maybe it was just the loud music next door with those gormless big mouthed DJ's screaming 'Everybody inda house!!!' or something crap like that.
'I promise over my dead body...'
The face interrupted '...soul.'
'Okay, then...soul, I will NOT laugh at you.'
'Really?'
'yes really, hurry up, I'm missing CSI.'
'You promise you won't laugh?'
'Bloody hell! just get it over with!'
The face started sniffling again, 'Its not really like that.People just like speading rumours, its just like Heaven only with Flames and tortured souls.'
Poof!
And there was Satan, Lord of the Underworld, dressed in his unstereotypical costume, a Red PVC bodysuit.
'You're Satan?!' Ricky exclaimed. 'But you look like Britney Spears in the Oops I did it again video!' Ricky started walking backwards to the kitchen still talking, which was pretty astounding.
'Ever wonder how she became so rich and famous?' Satan muttered. 'And she stole my image!'
'Only for one Video.' Ricky shouted from the kitchen as he closed the fridge, 'So then, lets get this over with, what do you want?' and started drinking his ice cold milk.
'Your soul.'
Ricky snorted milk out his nose. 'My soul? You want my soul?!'
Satan held out his hand, 'One soul please.'
'Why should I give you MY soul?' Ricky turned his back on Satan, 'I'm missing CSI for this.'
'You just laughed, earlier you said that if you laughed, you would give your soul to me.'
'I said nothing like that!'

The room flashed, Ricky was outside his door with Satan next to him.
'Open it,' Satan whispered in Rickys ear.
Ricky opened the door ajar, the door creaked, to Ricky's horror, he could see himself talking to the wall. Ricky got a sudden feeling of DeJa Vu. Ricky listened in.
'...The Bible...'
Ricky looked at Satan, 'Thats me! Thats me!'
'Very observant, now shut up and continue listening in.' Satan smacked Ricky at the back of the head.
'Ow, what was that for?'
'Just LISTEN!' Flames shot up Satans body.
'I would if you did'nt shout so much!' Ricky paused, 'Or ASSAULT me!'
'Just listen in.'
'Hey, people don't like the idea of other people listening in to conversations!'
'Look, you are listening in to YOURSELF, YOU.'
'I'm sure I wouldn't like myself listening in to myself.'
Satan cocked his eyebrow and put his hands on either side of his hips, 'Right then, ask yourself.'
'Ask myself? Thats crazy! I can't do that!'
'Exactly, I'm sure he'll be fine with it.'
Ricky listened in to catch;
'I promise over my dead body...'
'...soul.'
'Okay, then...soul, I will NOT laugh at you.'
Satan clapped his hands and jumped about, 'Ha ha! Proof! You DID say it!'
'You just brought me back in time just for THAT?!' Ricky looked intimidated, 'To prove yourself right?'
'Yes! soul please!' Satan held out his hand.
'Don't you have enough souls?'
'Does a collector ever have enough?'
'I dialed 666, by MISTAKE, I purely wanted to watch CSI with the subtitles, of which I have just missed quarter of an hour of.'
'No you haven't! Its about 10 minutes you've missed, we just went back in time, stupid! Remember?'
Ricky held out his arms in a crucified position, 'Go on, take my bloody soul!'
'Aggghhh!' Satan screamed.
'Take it!'
the door opened fully, the past Ricky walked past shouting through to the living room, walking backwards, not even noticing both time travelers, not even the horned, horny looking one, opened the fridge, pulled out the milk from the milk compartment, ripped open the carton, opened the cupboard, pulled out a glass and walked back out, still shouting.
The present Ricky stood in shock, 'How the Hell didn't I notice that?!'
'Because you're an idiot, Ricky.' Satan paused, 'Thats why.To be honest, I don't even want your soul anymore!'
Ricky stood straight both arms clenched into fists down his waist, 'HEY! don't be like that!'
'I said you could have my soul!'
'But then you did that sign, I'm offended!'
'What sign?' Ricky enquired.
'The crucifix!' Satan exclaimed.
'I've been meaning to ask you that, why exactly are you scared of a shape?'
Satan's eyes rolled, 'I don't know.'
'So you're scared of an emblem that represents a carpenters son, apparently the son of God, nailed to two planks of harmless wood?'
Satan's eyes rolled again.'I never thought of that. I'm better than that! I'm not scared of no shape!'
Ricky sat down on his settee, 'Good, feel better now?'
'Y'know, you're a really good friend, nobodies spoke to me like this for years!' Satan paused as he sat down next to Ricky, 'Mind you most of them were deaf...'
'I can imagine.' Ricky grabbed the remote, 'Right, since I'm your friend now, do us two favors.'
Satan sat close up to Ricky, 'What?'
Ricky moved away from Satan, 'One, Rewind time so we can watch CSI...'
Satan did so, 'And two?'
Ricky stood up again and turned the TV off, the room fell silent, '...And two...'
'Raise the dead?'
'Nope'
'Destroy the universe?'
'Nope.'
'Oh, I give up, what?'
Ricky pointed towards Satan,
'Piss Off.'

(This was written 28 September 2005)