Costume Not Included by Matthew Hughes Page A

Satan waved a hand to signal that he would hear the next syllable. "That God is writing. He's supposed to be writing it to learn about morality."
      The Devil grunted and rolled a hand in a gesture that said go on .
      "That's about all there is to it," the young man said, "except that the book keeps getting rewritten, and elements of previous drafts pop up in sacred scripture. So that's why you have the story about Noah's Ark or the Tower of Babel, even though these things didn't really happen. I mean, they did really happen, but only in a previous draft of the universe."
      The Devil pinched his lower lip and looked down and to one side. "I remember those events," he said. "But you're saying they didn't happen?"
      "Well, they did," Chesney spread his hands, "but then they didn't. The thing is, you were in both drafts. Or, probably, there have been a lot more than two, and you've been in all of them." He paused to think. "Although it seems as if your character has been rewritten."
      Satan's head snapped around. "What do you mean?"
      Chesney held up both palms. "Well," he said, "do you remember being a talking snake? With legs?"
      Thunderheads formed on the Devil's brow – quite literally: small, turbulent clouds through which flashed tiny bolts of lightning – until he brushed them away. Then his face took on the aspect of a man recovering a wisp of memory.
      "And did you," said Chesney, "used to make bets with you-know-who? Cause there's a story about that, too."
      "Why would I make bets with him? He knows everything that's going to happen."
      Chesney took that as a rhetorical question. "Anyway," he said, "that was Billy Lee Hardacre's theory. There's a book, we're all in it, it keeps getting rewritten, and here and there we come across traces of the previous drafts. Like fossils."
      "Like Limbo," Satan said, looking into the mists that surrounded them.
      "Maybe," said Chesney. "It's not in the current draft, but it must have been in a previous one."
      "Because," said Lucifer, "here it is." He paused. "And here we are."
      "Why show it to me?"
      "Because I like people to be knowledgeable."
      It took Chesney a moment to follow the Devil's train of thought. "I still don't see grounds for a partnership or an alliance," he said.
      "You don't?" Now the hard-featured face produced a knowing smile. "Let me point them out to you. You and I are characters in a book, a book written by someone else. We play roles prepared for us by someone else. The meaning of our existence is that we serve another's will." Lucifer fixed Chesney again with his serpentine gaze. "And that sits well with you?"
      "According to Hardacre's theory, I have free will. So do you."
      "Unless the… someone we're talking about decides to revise the draft. Then maybe I'm a snake again." Chesney shrugged in a way that he hoped showed a certain sympathy; the Devil did not appreciate the sentiment. "And maybe you're your momma's boy again, doing what she wants you to!"
      "No!" The shout could not echo in Limbo, but still it came out loud and with force.
      Another satanic smile, this one to savor a point scored. "What I hear," the Devil said, "is that there is a new draft being written. The Book of Chesney. In which you perform wondrous deeds and generally prance about like a latter-day prophet."
      "It's nothing to do with me!"
      The smile widened. "Not now," said Lucifer. "But what if it is the first cut at a new draft of the big book? Then everything changes again. And this time, maybe it's your legs that get taken away."
      "I am not a prophet!"
      "You would not be the first prophet to respond to the initial offer with, 'Who, me?' I believe those were Moses's very words."
      "I will not do it," said Chesney.
      "Not even if your mother says?"
      "Not even then. Especially not even then."
      Satan smiled upon another victory. "And thus it seems we do have something in common." He waited