There's Also Yarn

by Greg Beatty

 

"We've been waiting for you a long time, Mr. Clemens."

Undeterred by the leaping flames—he grew up in Missouri, after all—the man better known to most as Mark Twain bowed to the Devil. "And I have been expecting to join you for most of my life. I've enjoyed earning my way here."

The Devil gave a small bow in return. "I do believe you mean that," he said. "Most people do a lot more kicking once they find themselves here."

Sam twirled his moustache. "I assure you, sir, I chose my sins with my eyes open."

He stepped to the gates of hell, then paused. "You do have cats here, correct?"

The Devil smiled. "What sort of sin could a cat commit?"

Twain waved a hand. "You misunderstand me, sir, in two ways, and I have to say, I'm disappointed in you."

The flames roared behind the Prince of Darkness. "You dare to criticize me?"

"What are you going to do? Curse me to hell? I begin to see why you lost your rebellion against the most high."

"Point taken," Satan said. "Let's start again. In what way did I, one of the angelic hosts, disappoint a dead sinner?"

"Oh, I'm sure you would have disappointed me when I was alive, too," Twain said. "Death is no more than a detail. A fly on the face of the lord of flies, if you will. The disappointment comes from your attitude toward cats. This may take a time to explain. If you'd care to take a seat?"

A twirl of the satanic wrist, and they were seated on basic, but well-designed chairs, just on the outskirts of hell. The veranda, if you will. "Virtue takes more than a moderate degree of focused attention to maintain. Or so I'm told. I've never managed it for more than a brief and accidental period."

"In any case, the virtuous marms and ma'ams I've known suffered from an excess of focus and attention. They were continually watching over everyone in the community, making sure we were all in church by the time the sermon started and not staying up too late the night before."

The Devil smiled. "Yes, I'm familiar with the type. I find them boring and nearly impossible to tempt."

Sam smiled. "You, sir, have just demonstrated the limits of your experience. You have been trying to tempt these widows with your…wild ways. Your passions. Your unspeakable accoutrements. That is not the only way to tempt a woman. There's also yarn."

"Yarn?"

"Yarn," Sam said firmly. "And kittens. Yarn is relatively sinless without the addition of a kitten, though I have seen snarled yarn tempt even strong women to cursing. With a kitten, though..."

Sam shook his head. "Add a kitten, though, and distraction reigns."

The Devil blinked. "Hairy vermin? Enough to break a holy widow?"

Sam drew two cigars from his waistcoat. He held them down at his shins, where the leaping flames lit them quickly, then offered one to the Prince of Darkness. When they were both puffing amiably, Sam went on. "You speak of breaking. You'll never break a widow, and brute force is not the way to win one. But erosion. Distraction. Joy that was not planned. That will turn a widow from God, and for that you need a kitten. May I presume, sir, that you can magick up something from anywhere in God's green earth?"

The Devil nodded. "You may indeed presume this."

"Well then," Twain said, exhaling a plume of smoke to rise above the flames of hell. "Bring us some kittens, and I'll demonstrate the truth of my claims."

The Devil matched him plume for plume, then snapped his fingers. Within a blink of the eye, a demon was beside them, a kitten in each hand.   

"Thank you, good sir. Ma'am. Honorable hellspawn," Twain finally stumbled to a halt, at a loss for the first time since his formal damnation. Being Mark Twain, he recovered quickly enough.

"Now. I assume you have some minion who should be hard at work at something?"

"Countless," Lucifer said.

"So. Drape a piece of yarn over one of their limbs, wings, or horns, and put this little calico number near said minion."

The Devil nodded. His demon disappeared and reappeared. It was down one kitten. The Devil nodded again. An irregular window formed in the air. He and Twain settled back to watch. Twain gestured for the demon to give him the tiger-striped kitten, which he rubbed to a furious purr as he settled into his chaise.

The demon in question was busy thrusting a pitchfork into the fat belly of a screaming man when the yarn draped itself over the fork's shaft. He extended taloned fingers to pull it off, only to find the kitten had already done so. The demon stood transfixed as the kitten swept its claws through the ash to pin the yarn to the hot earth, then released it to leap through two tines of the demonic fork and shred the yarn with both hands.

Twain elbowed the Devil. "Stop smiling. Look at your worker."

Startled, Lucifer did. His demon had forgotten its assignment and was allowing its corpulent damned victim time to heal and recover. The Devil scowled, ready to bark at both cat and minion, but stopped and stared. He turned to Twain. "And this works on the faithful as well?"

"Better," Twain said, stroking his lapmate to an even louder buzz. "Your demons are like slaves in the old South. They work hard when you're watching, but I suspect one or two may slack when you aren't."

"One or two thousand."

"As you say. In any case, virtuous women are armored against everything except innocence. Present them with a kitten…."

"…and invalids go unvisited, children untutored, and hymns unsung."

"Everything is," Twain said, "As you say."

"Mr. Clemens, you're going to have a brilliant future here."

"I do have some ideas about my role here," Twain began.

 

 

AUTHOR BIO:

 

When he’s not writing, Greg Beatty walks with his dog, dabbles in the martial arts, plays with his grandchildren, and teaches college. You can find a number of Greg’s stories reprinted on Payhip: https://payhip.com/GregBeatty