152 Trinus

Formerly Lucifer, now I'm Trinus.

Mengele confirmed it: I am with demon. Pol Pot rubs my belly creepily. "When's the due date?"

"No dates here, fool," I reply. "Yet, time for Hell's spawn--it's a good thing."

"Ha!" laughs Adolf. "You think you can mold 'em, shape 'em, influence how they turn out--the joke's on you."

"That's right," Idi Amin chuckles.

Jeffrey Dahmer looks at my baby bump. "You gonna eat that?"

Offended, I trip the trap door; he tumbles to the Sixth Circle. Vlad the Impaler approves.

"A frickin' miracle!" bombasts Jim Jones, holding a Bible with all pages redacted.

"A miracle?" I muse. "Is that possible here?"

"Nixon's not here," begins Qusay...and Uday finishes, "that's the miracle!"

"I am Trinus, and motherhood's the new kinder, gentler Hell. That's why I summoned you here."

"Why am I here?" Mao interjects. Ferdinand shushes him; Isabella glares.

"And me?" adds Kim Jung-il.

Likewise, J. Edgar, Benito, Ivan, and Attila.

"What's the buzz? What's a'happenin'?" Judas demands.

"I've changed. There's a new way of things. A child is borne."

"Not yet," says Fidel.

"Borne, not born," chides the Shah. Fidel's confused.

"You're gonna let horns through your vagina?" asks Jack the R.

"Oh," groans Lizzie, "better go C-section, if you axe me."

"Motherhood!" I shout.

"Meaning what?" asks Muammar. "Oy, al-Assad here?"

I look through the fourth wall. "It means I've changed. My thinking's changed."

Hell is hereby canceled. No more Hell! Go. Find someplace else.

A hush.

"Unfair!" yells Nero. "I've been here millennia--Bin Laden, only a few years. Now, cancelled?"

"Unfair," agrees Stalin. A shoe barely misses me.

"Imelda," I warn, a mother's wrath is worse than God's."

"Let Lucifer speak," demands Chuck Manson.

"Trinus," I correct him.

"Too good to be true," says McVeigh. "What's the catch?"

I rub my belly affectionately. "This changes everything."

I am Mother, Daughter, and the Holy Maternity! The Puerperal Trinity!"

I glow.

"I love my baby. Despite misdeeds, mistakes, crimes--all's forgiven." I pause for effect, then clarify, "That's how a good parent parents."

"Only God forgives," argues Khomeini.

"He already has. I was the hold-up."

"You're not our mother," Khomeini argues.

"No," I answer, "but someone is. The advice stands."

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Friday, May 31 (44th Anniversary!), Day 152 of the Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title-accompaniment photo was AI (Artificial Inferno) generated, but the redemption was not.

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There are currently three surviving Vocal writers still participating in the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

Read them. Support them. And watch them gasp for air, gills aflutter on the pier of peer pressure. And watch them as they continue to search for 214 more stories to write without degenerating into gibberish.