‘Are you sure you are Satan?’

‘Very sure. Why do you doubt that?’

‘I don’t know. You don’t look Muslim to me.’

‘Right. Step one is realizing why you are here. Repenting and atonement could make your stay here a bit less harrowing.’

‘Hmm, can I let Israel investigate why am here?’

‘No, this time you’ll really have to do it yourself.’

‘Is it because I look like Dracula?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Is it because I have publicly stated I steal my kids Halloween candy stash?’

‘Try again.’

‘It’s because am from Texas?’

‘We do have a sprawling Texas ward here, but no, that’s not it.’

‘Then I don’t know, but am sure it has something to do with anti-semitism on your part.’

‘But you’re not Jewish, are you?’

‘Oh, right.’

‘We got a new Jew in, by the way, since you’re so interested. Killed by his own side. 400 bullets. We have a committee set up to figure out how we can exacerbate that much suffering.’

‘I know! You could shrink him to the size of a four year old, lock him in a car, and have a tank slowly approaching him, and you give him a phone and give him the illusion he can call someone to come and save him and then the tank just riddles the car with bullets and then you revive him and force him to say the tank made an honest mistake.’

‘Rings a bell. Hind Rajab is not in our care though, she went to heaven.’

‘So far this doesn’t quite feel like hell. A conversation with Biden is more torture than this. Or some obnoxious question about genocide and other fairy tales.’

‘This is only the reception desk.’

‘So we’re only warming up, hey?’

‘We’re familiar with that joke. So if you’re not about to repent nor atone and have no sense of mea culpa, we will have to proceed to our welcoming chamber.’

‘I admit I have no clue who the rock band ‘mea culpa’ is. It’s all so exciting. Will I get to meet Nasrallah?’

‘He’s in purgatory. He did mostly good stuff, given the circumstances.’

‘Purging? You gave him laxatives?’

‘No, purgatory, a place that’s not quite hell and not quite heaven.’

‘Well, you’re right. Having a bad case of the runs is not without its pleasures.’

‘Purgatory, dude. It’s a place.’

‘I do know what a toilet is. Am not stupid, you know.’

‘Follow me. We’ve decided that for your first 48 hours here you will be sleep deprived and will be forced to watch video after video of injured Palestinian children undergoing amputations without proper anesthesia.’

‘Ah, it’s the weekend again? I died on a Friday night?’

‘Ok, I see where this is going. Kindly tell us what would be torture to you.’

‘You could lock me up in a small room with Rania Khalek, Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Alan Dershowitz and Piers Morgan.’

‘I don’t get it, Piers Morgan is mostly on your side.’

‘Yes, but I just want to rip out the man’s throat every time he says ‘haaaaang on’. Am from Texas, you know, the only thing worth hanging on to is a football or an aggressive steer.’

‘Right. And your beef with Alan Dershowitz? He’s 100 percent on your side. I mean be careful what you wish for, we’re expecting him any time soon now.’

‘Yes, he’s 100 percent on our side, but the thing is that my ass looks like that of a 12 year old girl.’

‘Understood’, says Satan and he asks one of his assistants to arrange it.

The assistant protests. ‘But how is that going to punish Dershowitz then?’

‘Don’t worry, right before Alan meets Matthew we’ll give Matthew laxatives.’

‘Brilliant, Sir, brilliant. I can’t wait to take Matthew to a Palestinian playground with no bombs exploding.’