Satan vs God - Petition to expand purgatory

A small crowd of well wishers gathered on Buccleuch Street to catch a glimpse of Satan as he left the court. The hoof-ed one was whisked away in a McLean’s taxi after a short delay. A panel of learned judges will now retire to the Chamber of Scones to deliberate on the matter of expanding purgatory as a short term measure. The need has arisen, according to Mr Satan, due to a sharp increase in the number of absolute roasters now making their way to the dark side for the way they did wrong by their fellow humans.

Said Satan, “God has to do something about this and share some of the load, at least until I can get the extension finished. With the price of materials these days and supply chain issues, it’s proving difficult to get it finished on time. This was never the deal. In the early days, God and I would split the souls pretty much 50/50. Then at the end of the 20th century it looked like a liberal consensus had triumphed and the majority of people were just less dick-ish. I’d been looking forward to fewer new souls per week and maybe putting my hooves up from time to time. I thought I’d finally have a chance to grow some dahlias and maybe set up a greenhouse with a few tomatoes. But oooooh no, all that hatred, insecurity, racism, misogyny and bile that comes out as a hatred towards fellow humans was just under the surface.

Why can’t you people just hate on food mixers or something inanimate like that? Oh no, you have to take it out on each other. And now there’s all the grifters and crypto bros to contend with scamming their neighbours and citizens. Well I’m done. I’ve got queues out of Hell’s Gate longer than an iPhone launch queue in the 2000s. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no angel. I’ve double binked some sould oin the past, but this is at a nother level entirely. It’s causing all kinds of bad blood with the neighbours and frankly it’s about time God got off his big fat cloud and gave me a hand.”

God has been in absentia for the whole two week proceedings. It’s thought that he is being represented by his son. In the interests of balance we asked God’s lawyer, Mr J. O’Nazareth for comment. “While we sympathize with Mr Satan’s overcrowding predicament, a deal is a deal. And even if we were going to make drastic changes to purgatory, it has to go through the proper planning authorities after all, if Satan had his way, purgatory would be within less than a foot away from the boundaries of Limbo and that’s a planning violation right there.”

Here’s my tuppence. Maybe the solution isn’t expanding Hell, but creating better people.