The Devil's in the Detail. Matthew S Wilson

collect himself. He walked over to the closest of the three urinals and unzipped his fly. As he began to relieve himself, he wondered how Gabriel had found that particular moment in his past. After all of the mundane days he’d spent at that grammar school, where an exciting day was limited to scoring a goal in the lunch break’s football match, Gabriel had seized upon the day where Michael O’Connor had stuck his head down a toilet.

      As David contemplated what the chances of this were, his eyes focused on something else that had puzzled him for his entire life. And now his afterlife, it would seem.

      Urinal cakes. Those fluorescent yellow, glowing objects that sat innocuously at the bottom of the urinal. What was their purpose? Were they supposed to help nullify the smell of urine? Why then didn’t they smell of something pleasant like rose petals or wood fire pizza? Even the smell of urine was more pleasant than the stench of urinal cakes. And why were they called “cakes”? With a name like that, they were an accident waiting to happen.

      Whilst he probably should have been reflecting on what had just happened in the trial, here he was mulling over the history of urinal cakes. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bathroom door opening. He quickly shifted his eyes forward, looking at the tiles just above his eye-line. Who could that be? Did Angels use the bathroom? Was this a defendant from one of the other courtrooms? That must be it. His heart leapt at the prospect of speaking with someone else going through this terrible ordeal.

      The sound of expensive leather heels echoing on the cold tile floor, accompanied by the familiar waft of expensive French cologne, made him feel sick to his stomach. He suddenly craved the smell of urinal cake to return.

      ‘Bonjour’.

      It seemed that whilst Angels didn’t use the bathroom. Demons did. The footsteps approached and David waited for Gabriel to occupy the furthest urinal. David had, of course taken the one closest to the door; the correct option by men’s bathroom etiquette. It was therefore unfailingly accepted, if not mandatory, practice for the next man (or in this case, celestial being) to take the urinal at the opposite end. This ensured everyone their space and privacy.

      If a third person had entered the toilet, rather than use the middle urinal, the correct procedure would have been to go to one of the cubicles. Regardless of whether that person was simply taking a leak, the middle urinal was out of bounds. Three men urinating in a row was simply not the done thing. David wasn’t being neurotic or over-analysing. These rules, or indeed commandments, had been in place for time immemorial.

      But Gabriel didn’t take the left urinal. Or one of the cubicles.

      He broke the first commandment of the men’s room and stood next to David, his demonic shoulder rubbing against his own as he undid his fly and started urinating violently.

      ‘How are you holding up, Monsieur?’

      How was he holding up? How was the cheek of this French bastard? He wanted to turn to him and ask if he was being serious. Ask him if he took pleasure in trying to send him to Hell. Ask him what cologne he was wearing. But he didn’t want to break the second commandment of the men’s room: no eye contact at the urinals. If there was to be any talking while urinating, eyes remained firmly glued to the wall.

      ‘I’m doing fine.’

      He suddenly detested his British need to be polite all the time. He was silently congratulating himself for not returning the question, when he felt the words escape from his mouth.

      ‘And yourself?’

      Bollocks.

      ‘Me? I’m perfect. Merci.’

      And here David found himself – urinating side by side with a creature which was conspiring to send him to Hell for the rest of his existence. And they were exchanging pleasantries.

      After what seemed its own eternity, David finished, zipped his trousers up and hurried to the basin washing his hands with copious amounts of soap. Seemingly oblivious to the second commandment of urinals, Gabriel casually talked over his shoulder.

      ‘I do apologise for all of this, Monsieur. You should know that it isn’t anything personal.’

      He shook, zipped and walked over to David.

      ‘But we all have a job to do, oui?’

      Rather than wash his hands, Gabriel reached into his jacket pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes.

      ‘Some parts of the job I like. And some I don’t like. I’m fairly new to this position, so I’m still finding my feet.’

      He slid a cigarette in his mouth and held the open pack out to David.

      ‘Smoke?’

      ‘I quit.’

      Gabriel smiled, the cigarette hanging in his mouth, as he patted his pockets for his matches.

      ‘Well, we have a lot of the executives from the cigarette companies down my way and they confess that these aren’t entirely good for you. But the way I look at it is …’

      Annoyed with being unable to find his matches, he slipped his hand out of his coat and held up a finger to the tip of the cigarette. A small flame erupted from his manicured fingertip and lapped at the cigarette. He drew back deeply, making the tip glow red, before finally exhaling a cloud of smoke.

      ‘…we’re all dead anyway, oui?’

      David couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. Not only was Gabriel smoking in a bathroom (which he didn’t think was a commandment of the men’s room, but was pretty sure was against health and safety regulations), he’d lit the cigarette with his finger.

      Without washing his hands.

      In truth, the older David got the less he felt the need to wash his hands after taking a leak. After taking a shit, certainly, but for just a piss? He liked to think that he wasn’t completely uncoordinated. But with someone else in the bathroom one had to keep up appearances. Washing one’s hands after taking a leak in an occupied bathroom was yet another Commandment which Gabriel seemed to knowingly disregard.

      The Demon leaned against the wall, sucking back deeply on his smoke.

      ‘That’s the thing that people tend to resent the most here in Purgatory – the fact that they played by the rules and still ended up here. You spend your entire lives living by the rules – quitting smoking, not drinking too much…. Washing your hands after taking a piss. Humans follow so many rules in their lives and when they end up here they find out that they are the wrong fucking rules.’

      A smile curled on his lips.

      ‘You’re a cab driver, no?’

      ‘No… err I mean Yes.’

      David never knew how to answer Europeans when they tacked the word ‘no’ onto the end of a sentence to make it a question.

      ‘So did you speed when you drove your cab?’

      ‘Sometimes.’

      ‘But not always?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why not? Wouldn’t it get you to your destination quicker?’

      ‘Because I’d get fined.’

      ‘But the quicker you get to your destination, the more fares you get and the more money you’d make.’

      ‘But I’d get speeding tickets. They’d take my cab off me.’

      Gabriel sprang up off the wall.

      ‘There! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! The government came up with a rule that said that people can only drive at a certain speed. And your company came up with another rule to say that if you break the government’s rule, then you lose your job.’

      David’s temper flared a little.

      ‘Then what, we should just do as we please and disregard the rules?’

      ‘Why