Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren't deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors—doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren't paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it.
And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.
Or . . . or maybe . . . yes, what would happen if he put the cassette in the car? He could play Hastur over and over again, until he turned into Freddie Mercury. No. He might be a bastard, but you could only go so far.
What the hell. If you had to go, why not go with style?
4. Crowley was in Hell's bad books. (Not that Hell has any other kind.)
R. P. Tyler had to say something.
"Excuse me, young man," he said.
"Yes?"
I mean, it's not the kind of thing you don't notice, your car being on fire.
A tongue of flame licked across the charred dashboard.
"Funny weather we're having, isn't it?" he said, lamely.
"Is it?" said Crowley. "I honestly hadn't noticed." And he reversed back down the country lane in his burning car.
"That's probably because your car is on fire," said R. P. Tyler sharply.
"You see," said Crowley, his voice leaden with fatalistic gloom, "it doesn't really work that simply. You think wars get started because some old duke gets shot, or someone cuts off someone's ear, or someone's sited their missiles in the wrong place. It's not like that. That's just, well, just reasons, which haven't got anything to do with it. What really causes wars is two sides that can't stand the sight of one another and the pressure builds up and up and then anything will cause it. Anything at all."
"But the Great Plan can only be a tiny part of the overall ineffability," said Crowley. "You can't be certain that what's happening right now isn't exactly right, from an ineffable point of view."
"It izz written!" bellowed Beelzebub.
"But it might be written differently somewhere else," said Crowley.
"Where you can't read it."
"In bigger letters," said Aziraphale.
"Underlined," Crowley added.
"Twice," suggested Aziraphale.
"And . . . Aziraphale? Just remember I'll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking."
"Anyone who could build a universe in six days isn't going to let a little thing like that happen. Unless they want it to, of course."
"If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'?"
"I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can't be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don't bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn't be us. Because it's all—all—"
INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.
"Yeah. Right. Thanks."
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