Sometimes somebody does something which is so audaciously WRONG, there’s no way you can let it pass. What better way to right a wrong than satire, and who better to do it than a beloved character y’all would like to hear more about.
Soo …
What would happen if a greedy author tried to trademark the words “Lucifer” or the “devil” so nobody else could use them?
THIS FOLLOWING STORY IS SATIRE…
“I hereby rule,” the Honorable Judge Jephthah’s voice boomed, “that the defendants owe the plaintiff all profits from the sale of the hats, as well as a fine of ten-thousand dollars apiece.”
He banged his gavel. The court stenographer, Kaitlyn Lee, “Kaylee” to her friends, recorded the decision as the losers filtered out of the courtroom. Coyote Corporation’s lawyers moved closer to the bench, chittering excitedly about how much money they’d just made, not on the hat sales, but on their share of the fines. Not one of the independent crafters had ever made more than a few hundred dollars—every single hat was handmade. But the show had developed a cult following and there was money to be made selling merchandise to diehard fans.
Kaitlyn sighed. Just this once, she’d been hoping her boss would rule for the defendants.
At four-foot eleven, with mousy brown hair, intelligent brown eyes, and a figure prone to a bit of plumpness, the judge, the lawyers, and even the litigants rarely noticed her. She was, after all, just a court stenographer. So when one of the knitters slipped up to her desk, Kaitlyn looked up with surprise.
“You’re one of us?” the knitter whispered. “Aren’t you?”
She pointed to the upside-down triangular pin Kaitlyn wore pinned to the straitlaced brown suit she’d worn in quiet solidarity with the defendants; green with two yellow stripes, and a blue star.
Kaitlyn glanced up at her boss. He sat atop his tall bench, cloaked in a too-large black robe. He looked like a mole with his sharp nose, too-small eyes, and a moustache that wriggled as he spoke like whiskers. “It’s our JOB to uphold the discretion of the clerk who issued the trademark,” he always told his staff.
“I’m sorry,” Kaitlyn whispered. “He never rules in favor of the little guy.”
The woman reached into her knitting bag and pulled out one of the now-forbidden hats; red, burnt orange and yellow; hand-crocheted, with earflaps and an enormous pom-pom. She placed it next to the stenography machine, and then slipped out of the courtroom.
On days like today, Kaitlyn absolutely hated her job.
She glanced at the judge, but he was too busy lapping up accolades from the corporate attorneys to notice the gift. Just once she’d like to see the court administer justice. She slipped the woolen hat into her bag.
Her head shot up as the Clerk announced a familiar name:
“I call the case of Hyeena Cocktard vs. Lucifer, the Devil,” the Clerk said. “An emergency motion to enjoin defendants from using her characters and titles.”
Hyeena Cocktard?
A statuesque redhead glided into the courtroom, dressed from head to toe in the latest faux Boho chic. She carried herself with the air of a Hollywood starlet, a bit too old to be relevant, and not quite talented enough to land a major role. Hyeena Cocktard had been her nemesis at an ill-fated improv class she’d taken: a failed screenwriter, failed film producer, failed comedian, and wannabe actress whose main talent was bragging about her own self-worth and conniving her way to the top. Behind her shuffled a disheveled-looking attorney, the kind who got “patent bar experience” by volunteering as a “volunteer lawyer for the arts.”
“The Plaintiff is present,” said her lawyer.
Hyeena spotted Kaitlyn and gave a self-satisfied smirk.
She hadn’t seen that name on the docket. She would have noticed, wouldn’t she have? Penciled into this time slot it said, “emergency injunction” and a question mark.
Drat! Had she known Hyeena Cocktard would be in court today, she would have worn something more attractive than the plain brown suit and, maybe, Idunno? Gone to the gym and run off fifteen pounds?
Hyeena caught her attention and held up her wrist. From her eloquently slender arm dangled a silver charm bracelet, the one she had thrown back in her ex-fiancé’s face after Hyeena had seduced him right in front of her, all part of “acting a part” in improv class, but later that night, Kaitlyn had gone home and found the two of them in bed.
Kaitlyn looked down, rather than let the bitch see she’d just driven another stake into her still-broken heart. Yeah, it was lame, to remain celibate two years after Joss’s betrayal. Rumor had it the two were now filming a porno together.
The red and orange knitted hat peeked out of her bag, reminding her of her favorite television series.
“Some days you’ve got to aim to misbehave…”
Her fingers flew to her stenography machine. She might not have Hyeena’s artistic connections or good looks, but she had a strong mind. She would record every word, including the ones the judge ordered her to strike, and make note of the spurious reasons for rejection, in the hopes that Hyeena’s latest victim might overturn Judge Jephthah’s decision on appeal?
“Where is the defendant?” Judge Jephthah asked.
“It’s everyone who stole the words ‘Lucifer’ and the ‘devil,’” Hyeena answered.
“Do the Defendants have actual names?”
“It’s just a bunch of conniving indie authors,” she batted her eyelashes at the judge, “using my beloved characters so they can piggyback off my fame.”
Characters, eh? So Hyeena had written another screenplay? Kaitlyn pulled up the case file so she could figure out what “play” the conniving bitch was twisting to squash her latest competition. Trademark violation on a book series? So that’s what she was doing now? Selling her carnivorous lifestyle to romance readers?
With Hyeena Cocktard, there were no happily ever afters…
“Please?” she prayed as she typed “Case Transcript: Injunction.” “Whoever you are, defendants, somebody please show up?”
“We move for a default judgment,” her attorney said.
The judge held up his gavel.
“I hereby rule—“
*SLAM!!!*
The courtroom doors flew open. Kaitlyn gasped as the most beautiful man she’d ever seen stalked into the courtroom.
Well over six feet tall, “Lucifer, the devil” wore a custom-tailored navy pinstripe suit; topped with an off-white cashmere overcoat thrown casually over his shoulders like a pair of wings. He radiated animal magnetism, as though they were all just sheep and he was the alpha-predator. His white-blonde hair framed high cheekbones, a sensual mouth, and eerie silver eyes which reflected the light.
“It is I,” the man gave a mocking bow to the judge. “Lucifer, the devil, in the flesh.”
“You can’t call yourself that,” Hyeena sneered. “Lucifer is a character, invented by me, for my romance novels.”
“Lucifer is my name,” Lucifer said. “The government doesn’t have the authority to prevent people from using everyday terms of speech.”
“It does when a private party has filed a trademark,” the judge said.
“But I’m the devil,” Lucifer said.
“No you’re not,” Hyeena said. “-I- am. Or at least, in the books, my characters are. I trademarked those words so nobody else could use them.”
Kaitlyn glanced up at her boss. Normally in cases like this, he ruled immediately against the defendant. But one look at Lucifer’s hand-tailored suit warned the old mole that this was a client who might have enough money to launch an appeal.
“Can you prove prior use?” the judge asked.
“Of course.” Lucifer gave a wolf-like smile. “I’ve been called Lucifer and the devil for several thousand years.”
He reached into his overcoat and pulled out an ancient book, bound in leather, with frail, yellowed pages hand-written in faded brown ink. Emblazoned across the front it stated: “THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues.” Just inside the cover it said “1611.”
“It’s the original,” Lucifer said. “Ordered by King James to warn all of you about me. Though I must say—” he shook his finger in Hyeena’s face “—that you, young lady, have been giving me a run for my money.”
“That’s a lie!” Hyeena said. “-I’m- the creator of Lucifer, and the Devil series.”
“Do you swear it?” Lucifer grinned maliciously.
“Yes!” Hyena swore.
“On this bible?” he held it out.
She placed her hand on it. “Of course!”
“But it refers to me right here—” he flipped the book open. “O Luciferi … star of the morning.”
Hyeena glared at her attorney.
“Objection!” her lawyer shouted.
“Grounds?” the judge asked.
“Lack of foundation,” the lawyer said. “Nobody knows who originally wrote that book.”
“Affirmed,” the judge said. “The book is excluded as hearsay.”
“It is?” Lucifer appeared perplexed. “Are you seriously stating the court refuses to recognize the bible?”
“Can you subpoena the person who wrote it?” the Judge asked.
“Who, my father?” Lucifer snorted.
“Yes.”
“No,” Lucifer said. “We had a falling out.”
“Then its inadmissible hearsay,” the judge said. “So if you want to call yourself Lucifer or the devil, you must prove you’re the only person entitled to use those marks.”
Hyeena smirked.
Lucifer tapped his lip, deep in thought. His eerie silver gaze settled on Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn stopped typing, a mouse held mesmerized by a snake. The cocky bastard knew the effect he had on women. And yet, there was real intelligence in those eyes.
“Tell me, Miss Kaitlyn,” he said softly. “What would it take to convince you that a man was really the devil?”
Her face turned scarlet as every eye in the courtroom turned towards her. A nobody. The court stenographer, asked to help sway this case?
“The devil has powers?” her voice lilted up in a question.
“What kind of powers?” Lucifer stepped closer. Oh, god, he smelled good.
“He’s tempting!” she blurted out, and then realized she sounded like a pathetic she-dog in heat. “I mean, the devil is known for his powers of persuasion.”
“Persuasion?” the judge asked.
“Yes,” Hyeena said. “The devil can persuade anybody to do anything. Obviously—” her eyes glittered with malice “—your stenographer has read my books?”
Lucifer turned back towards Hyeena. Of course he hadn’t really noticed her. Men like that, they used women to get what they wanted, and then they threw them away.
He stalked towards Hyeena like a panther sizing up a meal.
“You realize I can’t make people do anything they don’t want to do?” he said.
“So you’re conceding defeat?” Hyeena’s eyes glinted victoriously.
“I’m saying,” Lucifer’s expression grew intense, “that maybe you want something badly enough to misrepresent the truth?”
Hyeena tried to look away, but Lucifer held her in his gaze, an apex predator who had a weaker predator cornered.
Kaitlyn waited, her fingers positioned over the keyboard.
Say it?
“I need controversy,” Hyeena said breathlessly. “It’s the only way Hollywood will take notice of my movie.”
“What movie?”
“The one I’ve been filming based off my romance series,” she admitted. “A ‘Fifty Shades’ knockoff. By poking indie romance authors, it’ll cause enough uproar to attract the attention of a distributor.”
Kaitlyn typed it. There… The defendant had her.
“Objection!” the lawyer shouted. “Move to strike!”
“Basis?” the judge asked.
“Relevance?” the lawyer asked. “It’s not a crime to use fake publicity. The Clinton News Network broadcasts fake news 24/7.”
The Honorable Judge Jephthah fingered his whiskers.
“I’ll uphold the objection,” the judge said. “Building a ‘brand’ is the very reason that trademark law exists.”
“What?” Kaitlyn squeaked.
The judge gave her a pointed look.
“Strike it,” he ordered. “Miss Cocktard is not the one on trial.”
Kaitlynn “struck through” the damning statement, but did not erase it. She noted the basis for the motion to strike and highlighted it in red. Here. Here was a place the defendant might be able to appeal?
“Now, Mr. Lucifer,” the judge asked, “do you have any other way to prove your impossible claim?”
“That I’m the devil?”
“Yes.”
Lucifer paced. He turned back to Kaitlyn.
“Tell me, Miss Kay-lee?” his voice dripped seduction. “What else might prove to you that I’m the devil?”
A pleasant tingle rippled down to her girly-parts, the place no man had touched since Hyeena Cocktard had lured away her man. Her mind filled with lurid thoughts, of him—it’d been a long two years since she’d broken things off with Joss.
“OMG … it’s hot,” Kaitlyn fanned her face.
“You’re saying the devil is seductive?” Lucifer asked.
Something deep within her abdomen clenched…
“Oh, yes!” she gasped. “Women would be willing to “do him,” right in the middle of a crowded room!”
Hyeena Cocktard giggled. The corporate lawyers all laughed. The Honorable Judge Jephthah cleared his throat.
“Which is why,” Hyeena Cocktard said, “I filed a trademark on that character. Obviously the stenographer has read my books, because that reaction is exactly the reaction women have whenever I write my character, Lucifer, the devil.”
“Sex sells,” her attorney said. “Which is why my client needs to enjoin the other romance authors from appropriating her intellectual property.”
The Honorable Judge Jephthah fondled his mole-like whiskers.
“These days,” the judge said, “even toothpaste is sold with sex. You’ll need to do more than seduce a plain young woman—“ he gestured at Kaitlyn “—to convince me that you’re really the devil.”
The courtroom laughed. Kaitlyn slouched down in her seat.
“Make sure you record that!” Hyeena gave a viscous laugh. “I want to see it quoted in all of the newspapers.”
Tears welled in Kaitlyn’s eyes. Lucifer gave her an apologetic look. She reached into her bag and grabbed the red, orange and yellow hat. It felt warm and comforting, made by a single crafter, for a single buyer, with love.
“Tell me, Miss Kaitlyn,” Lucifer said gently, “what else would convince you that I’m really the devil?”
In his eyes, she could see her own reflection. Her voice warbled.
“Lucifer is an angel,” she said. “An angel, who fell too close to the Earth.”
“So you’re saying the devil should have proof of divinity?” he asked.
She glanced at her cruel boss, the judge, who’d just humiliated her for no good reason.
“Y-yes.”
Without breaking her gaze, Lucifer flipped off his cashmere overcoat and revealed a pair of enormous, snow-white wings.
The courtroom gasped.
Lucifer flared them out to their full length. Each primary feather was the length of an arm or leg, and the knee-joints rose so high, they almost reached the courtroom’s coffered ceiling, and when he flapped them, it blew all of the case files off of the Clerk o Court’s desk. How in hell had he managed to hide those underneath that paltry overcoat?
He gave her a coy grin, as if he had read her mind.
“The power of persuasion means more than simply convincing others to give me what I want, Miss Kaitlyn,” he said, seemingly inside her mind. “It means, making people speak the truth, especially when the truth goes against authority.”
Kaitlynn began to type:
‘The defendant angel just revealed his thirty foot wingspan…”
She proceeded to describe his wings in beautifully worded detail. The way the feathers moved as he flexed. The pink skin beneath them. The way they rustled and smelled faintly of after-shave and ozone. And most of all, how fluffy and downright heavenly the soft underfeathers appeared.
“They’re fake!” Hyeena shrieked. “Everybody knows angels only exist in books!”
“Objection!” her lawyer shouted.
“B-b-basis?” the Honorable Judge Jephthah gaped.
“Think what will happen if this court starts overturning trademarks?” Hyeena said. “The government’s control of commerce will cease, all because you cast doubt about government control of the people’s right to use common words?”
Kaitlynn held her breath.
“Government control of the people’s right to use common words,” she typed. There. She had it. She was no lawyer, but even she knew the government wasn’t allowed to do that.
“Lucifer?” she whispered, and held up one finger to signify the First Amendment issue. “Raise the objection!”
Lucifer met her gaze, but he said nothing.
The judge shuffled through the folders on his desk, rather than look at the enormous white feathered appendages which dominated the entire courtroom.
“We get a lot of cosplayers in here,” he mumbled. “You’d be amazed, at what they can do now with hydraulics.”
“So you’re denying my wings as evidence?” Lucifer clarified.
“Yes,” the judge said. “You can buy pneumatic wings on Etsy for two thousand dollars.”
Kaitlyn’s heart sank.
Lucifer glanced at her and winked.
“Then, may it please the court,” Lucifer said, “I can think of only one other way to prove to you, once and forever, that I, and only I, hold first use of my name.”
“And what might that be?” the judge asked skeptically.
“Why—“ Lucifer snapped his fingers. “I’ll simply let the court verify there really is a hell.”
Kaitlynn’s stomach lurched like it did when she got into an elevator, but the room looked exactly as it had before, only the Clerk, the Bailiff, and the other lawyers had all disappeared. Brilliant white shone through the window. All around them, heavenly harp music beckoned with soul-inspiring chords.
“This is it?” Hyeena asked. “This looks just like a courtroom.”
“Why, this is his hell,” Lucifer pointed up at the judge. “More specifically, your hell—” he turned to Hyeena’s lawyer “—and your hell, as well. It’s a court without plaintiffs because the government stops issuing trademarks for anything except truly unique, and original, work.”
“We’re still in the courtroom,” Hyeena challenged. “All you did was make the other people leave the room.”
“Is that what you believe?” Lucifer grinned.
Just outside the courtroom door, somebody shouted: “Lights, camera, ACTION!!!”
Hyeena leaped up.
“C’mon!” she grabbed her attorney. “The news must have gotten my press release about the lawsuit.”
“I don’t know…” the lawyer held back.
“Dammit!” she shrieked. “I need the publicity! We did all this so I can star in and produce my own upcoming “50 Shades of Devil” movie!”
Lucifer held up a key, solid gold and ornate, and slipped it into a lock which Kaitlynn couldn’t recall ever having seen on the front of the Honorable Judge Jephthah’s bench. The double doors to the hallway swung open. Brilliant white light flooded in.
“Miss Cocktard, Miss Cocktard!” a bunch of television reporters begged from the hallway. “Could you please tell us about your upcoming movie?”
Hyeena fluffed her hair, and then sauntered towards the hallway.
Kaitlyn caught a whiff of brimstone…
“Your honor,” Lucifer said. “You’ll want to decide this for yourself. After all, you are the judge?”
“Yes!” The Honorable Judge Jephthah stepped off his enormous raised bench, revealing he wasn’t all that much taller than Kaitlyn, and hurried to the double wooden doors. He, and Hyeena Cocktard, and her lawyer all rushed outside.
Lucifer pulled the key out of the lock. The light, which until now had been blindingly, brilliantly white, all of a sudden turned into bright orange flames. The courtroom filled with the scent of sulfur and smoke.
“Ahh!” Hyeena screamed as the television reporters turned into demons.
The doors began to swing shut.
“Let me out!” ordered the judge.
“Please!” the lawyer shouted.
Mind-numbingly horrifying shapes scurried out of the shadows and dragged the three humans down into the writhing flames.
“I rescind the trademark!” the judge shouted as his face ignited.
“Too late!” Lucifer gestured at Kaitlyn. “She’s recorded enough for me to win on appeal.”
The doors finished swinging shut, not wood, but the kind of blast doors you’d see in an underground bunker designed to withstand a thermonuclear blast. The screams cut off as the doors thunked back into place. The courtroom disappeared, revealing Kaitlyn sat, at her stenography table, in an enormous, underground cavern.
All around them stood dozens of men. No. Not men. While vaguely human, many possessed sharp teeth and mottled green skin.
Demons?
No. They were dressed like soldiers. They looked more like were-shifters.
Kaitlyn grabbed her stenography machine and slipped it into her bag. All she had to do was get out of here, and then she could forward the transcripts to the defendants so they could all file appeals.
Lucifer turned towards her. The Lucifer. Prince of Hell. The one cast down from heaven. He sauntered towards her, still cocky and predatory, but there was an unsureness about him. As if he wasn’t sure she would bite his head off.
“Did you get all that?” he gestured at the stenography machine in her purse.
Kaitlyn nodded.
“There’s enough there to turn over several dozen cases,” she said. “But will they believe me? When I tell them the devil himself appeared in court?”
He handed her the priceless 1611 bible.
“It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “All you have to do is show them this.”
“And what about me?” she backed up. “Will you send me—“ she glanced at the blast door “—there?”
Lucifer laughed.
“Now why would I do that?”
“So you intend to seduce me?” her voice warbled.
“Do you want to be seduced?” he asked.
Kaitlyn thought about it a moment, and then shook her head.
“No,” she said. “It was kind of mean, what you did in the courtroom.”
Lucifer curled one snow-white wing forward and caressed her cheek.
“Women like you, when you fall for a cocky guy like me, you do it because we respect you and feed your mind. But—” He slid a single feather down her arm. “If you don’t mind, I do have a favor to ask.”
Kaitlyn’s heart beat faster. All he had to do was push, and she’d fall prey to his charm, because the truth was, now that Hyeena Cocktard had gotten her due, he’d given her the one thing she’d become a stenographer to achieve.
Justice…
As soon as she got back, she’d amend the day’s transcripts so that the cases came down the way they should have been decided; including the case brought by Coyote Corporation against the hat-makers.
“What is it?” she swallowed.
Lucifer reached into her bag. He pulled out the hand-knit orange, red and yellow hat.
“Do you remember that episode when your namesake, Kaylee got shot?” he asked. “And Jayne stood outside of surgery, guarding the door?”
Kaitlyn knit her brow together. “Yes?”
“He cared for her, you know? He was just too cocky to show it.”
“Yeah,” Kaitlyn sighed. “I always ‘shipped them. Too bad Kaylee never made a move.”
He put the hat onto his head and flipped back the lapel of his suit, revealing that he wore the exact same upside-down green triangular pin as she did.
“Do you wanna cosplay?” Lucifer asked.
With a delighted squeal, Kaitlyn “Kaylee” Lee threw herself into the beautiful angel’s arms.
*Cocky Devil – a “Lucifer Chronicles” short satire, Copyright 2018 by Anna Erishkigal, All Rights Reserved. This story is satirical fantasy fiction. Any resemblance it may bear to anyone living or dead, or living dead, is purely coincidental.
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I hope this story made y’all giggle…
And seriously … the government isn’t allowed to impede free speech and freedom of the press (including books), which means it cannot grant that right to a third-party via a trademark. I mean, think about it? What will they trademark next? Will some Political Action Committee trademark “Change” or “Great Again” to shut down the next presidential campaign? Or maybe some multinational corporation will trademark “genetically” and “modified” to shut down public discussion about the safety of GMO’s? #CockyGate will be overturned, but in the meantime, all we can do is call out greed and make fun of the malefactor.
If you’d like to read more about my character Lucifer, who was originally supposed to be a bad guy, but he kinda ended up being my version of Loki across several of my book series, you’d probably like him best in my story “Angel of Death: A Love Story.“
More information HERE: https://wp.me/P5T1EY-u
