updated

INT. STARBUCKS
(black screen with 'GOD AND THE DEVIL MEET IN STARBUCKS MAY 21st IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORDS TWO THOUSAND AND TEN' - graphic)
sounds of coffee making and peoples chatter....

GOD

We have some important things to talk about, you and I.
DEVIL
Can I have a Latte?

GOD
You and I are not as important as we once were. I think we need to find out why.
DEVIL
Americano?
GOD
Look, I just need you to be omnipresent with me for a while - ok?
DEVIL
OK.
(sound of a cup being set down)
WAITER
Your Latte sir
DEVIL
Do you have to do everything as a reward for good behaviour? You're not my father y know...
GOD
Just blow the froth off that and come for a look round with me...

EXT. CEMETERY 'CLOSING TIME 4.30' SIGN - MORNING
GOD

Ok, here's a nice place to start... now, you have always worked on the assumption that death frightens people the most
DEVIL

No I haven't
GOD

Havent you?
DEVIL

No
GOD

Oh
DEVIL

You want to know what frightens people?
GOD

Might prove useful
DEVIL

dreams frighten people - have you seen that film 'paranormal activity'?

GOD

No

DEVIL

..scared the shit out of me

GOD

Your point is....?

DEVIL

oh, yeah, Ok.

EXT. FRESH DUG GRAVE IN CEMETERY - MORNING

Dreams, right - take this guy -

I've booked him in for a second tour - are you aware of the case?

GOD

No

DEVIL

Ok, read this

GOD

(reading aloud) A man who strangled his wife during a nightmare has walked free from court after the prosecution withdrew all charges against him. Both defence and prosecution had accepted at the start of the trial that Mr Jones was not in control of his actions at the time of the killing. The jury blah blah yhh brr mmm.... The defence claimed that Mr Jones was suffering the “non-insane” form of automatism and is asking for an acquittal, which would not require him to be detained.Yesterday they were directed to return a not-guilty verdict, allowing Mr Jones to leave court an innocent man.....

what's automatism?

DEVIL

It means the court found him not guilty because he was asleep and had no intention of killing his wife. It means 'to act without thought or fear of consequence'

GOD

Ah. So you're ahead of me again.

DEVIL

Yup

GOD

That's what they're all guilty of these days.

DEVIL

..and found innocent... I love it.

GOD

And I'm getting tired of the sound of my own voice...

DEVIL

Trouble is... they are innocent.

GOD

and guilty.

But the difference - I can't tell people apart anymore.

DEVIL

Exactly. Look, we need to take a look at things from a birds-eye point of view.

GOD

I was thinking more something like a 'fly on the wall documentary'

DEVIL

Very contemporary.. ok, yes, a fly on the wall.

GOD

I'm not sending one of the kids again

DEVIL

No, fine. Why don't we adopt this time? Send in an honest witness who's not long gone. Something's got to give and we need some first hand, up close evidence... a witness if you like...

GOD

That's hardly a new idea: Hebrews 12:1: "So, then, because we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also put off every weight and the sin that easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (I think George Bush used that line - refreshing fellow that - no doubts about him - a rare clear cut case) Look, I believe there are about six million Jehova's Witnesses already doing that job.

DEVIL

eee - yes, well, you know how I feel about them... no, I was thinking of someone a bit more un-biased. An un-decided; someone impartial... this Jones guy is GREAT. And he's desperate to make up for his screw-up.

GOD

A second coming?

DEVIL

Aye

GOD

Of an adopted son?

DEVIL

Much more authentic

GOD

OK. Do it.

DEVIL

Excellent

GOD AND DEVIL AT THE SAME TIME:

There's one condition though

GOD

DONT DO THAT

(devil whines a little like a dog) - shot of dog spelt backwards?

(god continues uninterrupted) I will send one and you can send one

DEVIL

Whooppee

GOD

You can have your sleepwalker - not that we've actually decided he's yours - and I will send another one. The condition is this: Watching Brief only. I don't want anyone announcing themselves as the second coming - there's too many playing that trick already.

DEVIL (childlike)

Well, obviously - der.....

GOD

So, when did your guy cross over?

DEVIL

....... just then.

GOD

Suicide. i hate that.

DEVIL

Freewill....

GOD

mmmmmmmmm

DEVIL

(pause) so - who's your chosen one?


FEMALE VOICE


I remember Tomatoes on a wooden window-sill. I remember the gardens and the hedges of the neighbours for miles around the houses where I grew up. I remember the water-butt that was always brimful and the scrapings left out for the sparrows and tits and finches and my grandad chasing away the starlings. He hated starlings. Starlings and Italians. I think, to him, they were one and the same thing.

I remember always telling the time in a circle with a 'past' and a 'to'... or as some of the older folks would say an 'after' and a before'..... I like remembering the look of things for what you can tell now that you never knew then: People's incomes and fortunes, tastes and, well, just - what they were like..... I like the way that watching helps you see the changes. What I remember is how slowly things changed. I remember a worn yellow and brown axminster carpet that was always there. Once and once only, it was replaced by a different coloured axminster carpet downstairs and the patchwork of my grandparents upstairs floors was replaced by that old yellow and brown. I don't know when this happened but I remember a trip to Darley Dale on boxing day to choose the new carpet and knowing that this was a serious and enjoyable occasion and that the expense was very large indeed - a once in a lifetime experience, talked about for years in advance. The Boxing Day sales. More exciting, that year, than Christmas...

With the savings we made, we bought a 'Kilmarnock' willow tree which sat and barely grew but lived in the dead centre of the front garden for as long as my grandparents lived in the house. I know now that 'Kilmarnock' means nothing but just sounds nice. They breed in disease, which makes the foliage 'variegated' - or 'pretty' as we, I mean, Grandma, would have said. It also kills the growth and limits the longevity of the plant. This is what I now know to be called 'planned obsolescence'. It's just one way that some people who are - kind of - cleverer than other people have discovered so as to 'maximise profits'. That tree never took up any more space in our garden than it did when first we planted it and, of course, over time, we couldn't help but re-visit the garden centre after that first trip to find new plants. After a few years and a lot of pursuasion, my grandfather built a rockery around the Kilmarnock Willow - to fill the space - which no doubt stunted it even more - so Grandma could go to Darley Dale to look at plants every Sunday in the Vanden Plas...

Our first car. Bought new for £350. Lasted 25 years. It was my job to polish the walnut dash. An Austin Vanden Plas Princess II - to give it it's proper title. Built in 1950 by the 'ang 'em 'n 'dutch'... Like 'all days and onions', this was one of the many mysterious phrases Grandad would drop in to his daily conversations. I never felt the need to ask what he meant, as I had never doubted his meaning since I had learned, from a toddlers age and viewpoint, to match the phrase to the look in his eyes when he spoke. In that way, you always knew his meaning...

In my opinion, you can learn to love a thing even more from cleaning it than you can by making it from new. Not that I know - not that I knew - much about engineering then. But I loved that car. I loved most things in me life. You never know how much until they are gone. Maybe that is why we resisted change so much.... Maybe resisting change is not such a bad thing as it's cracked up to be - nowadays.........





DEVIL

Ahhhh, she's NICE

GOD

mmmmm... maybe.

DEVIL

She coming to you or me?

GOD

She's another problem - can't decide what to do with her.

DEVIL

Come on - she's right up your street...

GOD

'Change'

DEVIL

Oh, not THE DICTIONARY thing
(groaning a bit maniacally)

GOD

'..to make or become different, to move from one system or situation to another.' That's what we're here for Sam - I just want you to understand what possible changes we are contemplating.

DEVIL

Well, all change is good isn't it?

GOD

You always say that

DEVIL

Well, un-avoidable, at least.

GOD

It's the pace of change she's talking about though, that's what matters

DEVIL

Ah timing, a tick a tick a tick a tick a...-

GOD

Exactly

DEVIL

So who is she?

GOD

Mrs Jones

DEVIL

What -

GOD

yep

DEVIL

No - hoo hoo... do they -?

GOD

Know? - No

DEVIL

(roaring laughing) This'll make for some great scripture... god the father, god the son and... hoo ... god the homicidal sonambulent sex starved married couple.... much more realistic. I am impressed.

GOD

shut up.


pause in monologue for visual images TO BE CONFIRMED AND SUPPLIED BY MY VISUAL CREATIVE RESPONDENT (VCR)<<<<

I like being dead. All you do is remember. You don't want. I think I'd stopped wanting for myself while I was alive. but you find yourself wanting for other people then - and that can be frustrating as well...
















ARTISTE

i can't believe a better way of dealing with time and money has never come around. Time, as I now know, is easily dealt with. There just isn't really any such thing. There was always an idea of eterninty. I mean it,s a word, isn,t it? But really, nobody ever lives in it, until they die. Which is a shame. Because not living in time is my favourite thing about being dead. But look, sorry, Im not here to tell you, the living, about death. Im supposed to be gathering information. Which is what I,ll be doing. Whilst you,re watching the film. Oh, I'm sorry, I don,t know if I,m explaining this very well. The bosses have done something which we couldn,t believe, at first. They,ve set up a new religion. Obviously, they fell out over some basic concepts and design ideas, so there,s a hell version and a heaven version... But they both needed it for the same reason. Soul Disappearance. It,s as big for us as Global Warming is for you. The really important thing and why i,m doing this... Watching you watching you that is... That... They are mystified. They are all seeing omnipresent gods of all things and they are completely lost as to where souls are going. It,s the first thing theyve agreed on in years. I think they might be starting to feel their own mortality. Anyway, here I am, back in my home town, on a commission of the highest order, taking notes on you all looking at yourselves, to see where in Gods names, the souls have gone? Think of it as a kind of giant focus group. But whatever you do, think freely, anything else might skew the results. Just sit back, watch, listen and reflect. what we are about here is the search for salvation. There will be an ice cream lady in the interlude. I insisted.





'NARRATOR'



Once you get there, being dead is no more special than being alive and the one lesson life should have taught you is that any future state dreamed of is neither as fearful or desirable as it first appeared. I couldnt have conceived of this in life and neither will you on hearing this - but - i was asked to do it and here it is. I wrote the whole thing down and kept reading it back until i thought it sounded right. In 1998, the difference between Heaven and Hell had already narrowed to nearly nothing. maybe it just came down to one or two seemingly minor choices made at seemingly insignificant moments. Of course, you might never get to understand which ones they were, let alone have an opportunity to re-do them if that's what you'd want to do, but it was nice to be asked. So, here goes....


My suspicion is that I knew (after you're dead, you realise when you knew things in life even though, in life, you didn't realise and so, technically, didn't know them) I was crossing over on the day the chicken died. Life is all about losses and gains and sacrifice. God, it turned out, was indeed a mathematician and the trick was to figure out when patterns changed. Taking on mortgages, investments, new businesses, and other financial or political commitments (all those years spent in the 'Friends of St George's Park' and the kids school governors meetings...) are nothing when compared to keeping chickens, kittens, dogs and so on. Taking on responsibility for lives directly nudges you into the harsh light of divine judgement. it puts you in division one when it comes to final reckoning statistics. Same thing goes for wives and girlfriends. God help Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart.

When I say 'crossing over', it sounds a bit odd. Its not a phrase i ever used in life. But it's the right one. It's right because dying is a process. it doesn't just happen. Even to the so called sudden death trajedy ones. They know they knew now. There aren't any accidents. The only big change is places and moments. You dont - live - in places and moments anymore. Instead, you become witness to the effects of everything you did. The change in Heaven and Hell is just as speedy as change on Earth right now. the bosses can't keep up. No--one seems to fussed which one they inhabit. No one arrives in trepidation - well, rarely. There's even talk of day passes so we can move freely between. It's not such a far cry from the European Union. I'll give you some idea of how it works - the mystery wont be lost entirely. Imagine yourself disembodied but present. imagine that you can either bear witness to the happiness you caused or the pain. You might suspect that your life has been the cause of both and maybe in similar measure but the important thing is to imagine only being able to see - to study - one or the other. That's Heaven and Hell. And the beauty of it is, it's never decided until you begin crossing over. For those few see-ers who know when their time is 'up', they can begin to guess. But mostly, you just start again. And it's not as stark as it sounds. It's how we keep a balance. Remember, even though you might only ever witness the damage you caused, you can still rest assured that you might have caused an equal amount of joy. You just don't get to see it - in Hell. I'm not sure this will translate so well. But look at the footage, start to imagine yourself in these places and moments. think what you could do. Imagine...

... and I'll tell you about the chicken.

The dog in question belongs to a young single mum, pregnant again, without time or inclination to fix the hole in her fence. She has time to come though. The dog is half husky and so one quarter wolf. The chicken dies of it,s own simplicity and shock. I was responsible. Suddenly, nailing some wire in place, I realise I will have less time to make reparations than to create more problems. I am responsible for the death of a chicken. That was the moment I was judged.


I had always been a sleepwalker. My mother had bells attached to all the doors and chimes on hinges which she put down at night so she'd know if I was up and about. It was first discovered when they found me at the age of five, sitting in the compost heap at the end of the garden, doing something that seemed close to making a cup of tea.... I had long periods when it went away, but it would always come back inexplicably. I had a few girlfriends in my twenties but none of them liked it at all. I guess that a man who was active and un-conscious during the night was always going to be a liability... as if men weren't difficult enough to trust anyway...

I had known Mary since we were in the sixth form together, where I had no idea she'd had a secret crush on me. We used to go Ice Skating with a group of friends on Saturdays and a few of us went out walking in the Peaks on Sundays. Eventually, this dwindled but Mary and me carried on - most weekends. She would take her camera with her and I was once a keen amateur Geologist, so i'd take a few tools and a bag and go rock - hunting. She told me later that she'd got bored taking pictures early on. Truth to tell was, I wasn't that keen on collecting rocks either.

Quite romantic looking back. We got married on Mary's 30th Birthday - we went to Las Vegas. The chapel of little flowers. I was Elvis. Two kids later and ten years on, we were really happy and content.


i can't believe a better way of dealing with time and money has never come around. Time, as I now know, is easily dealt with. There just isn't really any such thing. There was always an idea of eterninty. I mean it,s a word, isn,t it? But really, nobody ever lives in it, until they die. Which is a shame. Because not living in time is my favourite thing about being dead. But look, sorry, Im not here to tell you, the living, about death. Im supposed to be gathering information. Which is what I,ll be doing. Whilst you,re watching the film. Oh, I'm sorry, I don,t know if I,m explaining this very well. The bosses have done something which we couldn,t believe, at first. They,ve set up a new religion. Obviously, they fell out over some basic concepts and design ideas, so there,s a hell version and a heaven version... But they both needed it for the same reason. Soul Disappearance. It,s as big for us as Global Warming is for you. The really important thing and why i,m doing this... Watching you watching you that is... That... They are mystified. They are all seeing omnipresent gods of all things and they are completely lost as to where souls are going. It,s the first thing theyve agreed on in years. I think they might be starting to feel their own mortality. Anyway, here I am, back in my home town, on a commission of the highest order, taking notes on you all looking at yourselves, to see where in Gods names, the souls have gone? Think of it as a kind of giant focus group. But whatever you do, think freely, anything else might skew the results. Just sit back, watch, listen and reflect. what we are about here is the search for salvation. There will be an ice cream lady in the interlude. I insisted.


look at them getting away with things all the time. when it comes to sin and salvation, they,re like snails. But they dont know it. One drops blessings and heals all as she goes while another just overspills trouble and ramifications. A little bit of inside overtaking, a bit of anxious tailgating.. No big harm done... They,ve no idea. The roads are good way to look at this heaven and hell thing. It,s on the roads that we [the westerners] have the most chance to share, to consider, to follow the same rules.... The highway code is as valid a set of rules as the bible and those are the words of god not mine. Mark my words... I used to drive a volvo.

I used to write poems:

This one seems quite relevant - remember - it's your honest responses we're after - Focus Group.

late night shopping
Alexandra Burke and Lady ga ga,
Stray Husky Eats Chicken
The girls are late home on the bus and
inch by inch despite hope or intention

they get what they need
maybe God's intervention
was just to home-bake a Pizza
and pay a small compliment

That might've been all
that was needed.

I find myself digging holes
for fenceposts again.....

knee deep in chicken shit
and mudlove; last of all
we made a soup to turn
Teachers into Half-Frogs. (LONG PAUSE>>>>>>>>>>)

Look at this woman here... bin rummaging. She's doing 'Textiles' actually. How many of you would have guessed? And she's seen me filming her - look - doesn't like it.

All those boxes we've invented, by the way, they really are bullshit. When you are cooking your bacon in the morning, you might be doing textiles; when you mow your lawn (oh god, lawns) that's physics and chemistry and english literature and art history all rolled into one. It depends greatly on how we do things. The idea that 'life begins at 40' is a good one. Largely, we live when we are young and usually start again before we 'die'. The thing to try and get hold of is that very few people manage to live their whole lives. I think my sleepwalking was most intrusive - by that I mean - I think I 'did' more in my sleep when I was mostly dead to the world... (PAUSE)..... So don't think the bosses make judgments on our intentions - I think they do it on a tick box average system of.. well kind of trying versus not trying. That's why humans are forever seeing injustice everywhere and asking that perennial question about 'why doesn't God do something?'. It's just the wrong question - and usually a bit egocentric...

The moment you know you've had it is the moment it's too late to change anything. When you think that moment arrives will very much determine how you live your life. But, if you figure it out right. Life can be great.

As I said, for me it was the chicken and here is the shed where it's carcass is rotting, still, two weeks later. Oh yes, i'm not long gone. The chicken got set on by the husky whilst we were away, making the monthly trip to South Mimms Services when I deliver the grandchildren on behalf of my son - who married the wrong woman entirely. We joined the Caravan Club. There's an institution designed to send you to sleep if ever there was one. Not that I can hold them responsible for the suffocation of my wife. But I was alseep and I will be rightly vindicated. But who'd want to go on living? That I was still judged for my poor chicken shed erecting seems, as I have said, unjust. But having had the whole thing explained, I understand... and I do feel guilty that my son will have do his own driving to collect and deliver his kids but he will be inheriting the campervan now. And it's a bloody good one. See that man painting there - he's got three minutes left. If he doesn't get off his ladder, call his wife, tell her he's leaving her and then call his employer and tell her the same. And yet time no longer exists.
All i'm trying to do is what I was asked:
“What really motivates people these days?”
On the merit of the results I put forward the bosses will consider re-introducing time (on a limited basis and in certain safer 'constituencies') in the form of day passes. This will be a major change in the constitution of Heaven and Hell. It wont be made lightly and nor was the decision that I am the leading expert in the field of making such decisions. … Ours is not to reason why.....

here's another - er, poem that is. I hate that word P-O-E-M. Hate it.

on how ridiculous the news is
a murder
random
yaw divn want to understand em

glad for the allotment
the clubcard
the evening standard

your car,
your wifey
the way yr branded

good to drift

split shift copper

proper bar the tick

of your memory stick

be there at the start?

Impossible.

Im moving away to make it easier for you

thats ok, this is quite a good arrangement.

You cant hear this brif exchange of words, but it happens here, look. That guy has parked in an highly unconventional reverse mode in Tesco,s garage. The other guy, has managed to utilise the same pump, whilst the previous fella shops for his groceries. In fifteen years time, Tesco,s, a nationalised and licenced corporation for the retailing of goods on public highways, will discover a contraflow system which will increase their UK turnover nationally, by 4.7 million euros a day. That short exchange was the seed of this considerable change. In another possible universe .. And there are so many... The exchange could have meant something far more limited in it,s potential for outward change but far more advancing of the progress of each of our brief protagonists in their journeys through purgatory.....

these kind of moments are 'speech ghosts'. You may have had the experience, in life of saying something inadvertently and seemingly mundane in response to one set of circumstances only to find with a weighty surprise, that you have just made some inner revelation, with life changing scope. It is almost as if some, perhaps benevolent, but perhaps cruel spectre has voiced your thoughts for you. If you listen there might be some direction to be found. Of course, this is the only way we can do it. We aren't allowed to conspire to bring, in this case, two cars together, but we can influence your choice of words, making you say the thing [in this case] that you had been keeping stowed and silent inside your head: "I am moving away to make things easier for you".... It was a statement of truth which was profoundly accurate at every level of this mans existence. His next action will be to take the day off work. Unlike my impoverished efforts at chicken coup building, this guy heeds the apparently abstract warning and his life will change from here. Choices will remain open to him. But in this moment, things could have gone a different way. It was one of those moments....

And then, there was the other mans response: "Thats ok, this is quite a good arrangement"... Well, he was jut talking about the rear to rear bumper parking and that, as I explained also found it,s ultimate
realisation. A seminal moment, they call it...

Thanks for your attention in these matters. Your responses will be forwarded verbatim and without quantitative embellishment. As I said the bosses are consummate mathematicians... If you would like to add anything else, there,s a comments book by the exit. End.

Selfishness is not a sin. It is sometimes to be pitied though. This is because the quality and facet of having the ability to appreciate and take pleasure in the well doing of others is a gift. All be it a gift which comes from an unknown source [in life]. It is actually an angelic thing to be unselfish and rarer than most of the living appreciate. So, selfishness, by it,s varying increments, is a variable and all too willingly tolerated curse. Why should other peoples' happiness bring joy to ourselves? Once again, I beckon you towards the comments book as a power walking vicar passes by, personal stereo blazing with something seemingly unholy. I hope he is not oblivious to the sheer beauty of this place. [end still]