By Clayton Margeson
Ex-Cambodian dictator Pol Pot formally announced his candidacy for Overlord of Hell last Friday, challenging long time ruler Lucifer. Also surprising to the community was the announcement that his running mate will be former actor Don Knotts, who played Deputy Barney Fife on the "Andy Griffith Show."
Tensions have been increasing, and tempers are starting to flare in the Underworld as Pol Pot openly referred to Lucifer as "nothing more than an incompetent, angel-loving cornholer."
Both Pot and Knotts are calling for torture reform. They think that Hell's residents have been getting off far too lightly over the last few centuries.
"When you have one guy pushing a stone up a hill for eternity, eventually he gets used to it," Pot said. "Where's the variety? Where is the damned variety?"
While Pol Pot has openly advocated the use of more traditional torture such as the rack, hand saws, the iron maiden and the Megadeth. Don Knotts plans to show Andy Griffith episodes to people strapped down with their eyelids pried open . Knotts would remove the laugh track so that no one could possibly tell where the jokes should be.
Lucifer held a press conference in order to answer his opponents' challenges. He told the press that he is not at all worried about the competition since he has been such a loyal public servant. Lucifer became visibly flustered, however, when one reporter brought up the biggest scandal of his administration: his make-out session with a seraphim.
"People need to forget about my personal life and concentrate on the issues," Lucifer said. "This conference is over."
Lucifer immediately set up several new creative torture reform programs in the last month and a half, including the Wall of Disturbing Images, which flashes pictures of things that people just don't want to see as soon as they walk by. "Mostly births and deaths, but sometimes all the crappy stuff that happens in between," Satan commented. The second: the feared Disagreement Bird, on loan from the Smithsonian Institute.
The Bird picks fights with people by insulting their values, and then refuses to back down no matter what valid points their opponent tries to make, screaming "rawk, total bullshit." Lucifer dressed the bird in a suit and what residents call "a hideous bow-tie," because the Bird reminds him so much of the two guys from the television show Crossfire.
Residents, however, are not interested in torture reform. They are more concerned with the economy and the River Styx run-off pollution from the soul farming industry. New Hell leadership would bring about some big changes, and several residents are looking for a way to revitalize downtown Purgatory.
"We really should just go ahead and tear down that Museum of Demonic History and put up a maggot bar,” Randy Havers said. "And we need some free parking like Jesus needs a haircut."
The people have even started looking at other options in the form of a Third Party candidate. No one has taken the forefront at this point, but many people are holding out for the coming of Jesse Helms sometime before 2007."
"We're hoping for a June suicide," Havers said. "And everybody knows that Jesse Helms hates sunshine almost as much as he hates...well, you know..."
Hitler, once an accomplished shoe in candidate, has all but disappeared from the political scene as Hell's Jewish population has banded together and blocked him from participating in even the primary Overlord elections. Since his conversion to the Jewish faith more than one hundred and seventy-five years ago, Lucifer himself has been referring to Hitler as "that no-talent Anti-Semite."