When most people picture heaven, they picture clouds and sunlight. Inhabiting heaven, they think, are little golden men in white robes. Some have died on earth, and some have yet to exist on earth. God exists, too. I’m the first one to tell you He’s not a little magic man in the sky. He’s very real, and he’s my worst enemy.

I used to be His right hand man, but that was before we started pushing each other away. It all started on a Thursday, I think. We were sitting in one of the offices of the castle (yes, there are castles in the sky), the biggest one on top of the hill. It was a castle fit for a king—well, a king and all His archangels. I called Him in for a talk because I possessed enough power to do that back then. He trusted all of us equally, but Lucifer the Archangel, His favorite, was loved the most.

“So, um… I overheard a conversation between Raphael and Uriel the other day. They were talking about this plan you had. A plan to go down to earth? As a mortal?”

He tilted his head back and laughed. It sounded like a melody. I always enjoyed that sound, except for just then, mostly because I was upset. I didn’t mind worshipping Him, but I did mind worshipping one of the humans. Why should I bow down, give my praises to someone below me? A boss doesn’t look to their worker; a teacher doesn’t look to their student. Why should an angel—an archangel, no less—look to a human for anything?

“Yes, Lucifer,” He said. “That is my plan. For it will be written: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel.’”

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “It will be you? You will be the son? You will become incarnate, human?”

He nodded slowly, and I suddenly understood. He would be God, the father, and he would become God, the son. And I, Lucifer, would have to worship them both.

“How shall I worship you? As an archangel, I mean. You’ll be mortal?”

“I would advise you not to let your pride get the best of you.” I sensed a hint of irritation in his voice. “You may go.”

I slowly rose from my chair and walked out of the office and up to my sanctuary. I needed a plan of attack. I wasn’t going to worship a mortal. I was going to worship a God.

So, I began to talk. I talked to those I sat with at meals, like Alastor and Amaymon, and I chatted with Eligos when I saw him around. The conversations always sounded the same. They started with “Have you heard?” and ended with “I can’t believe it.”

It took only a few days to gather enough of a following, march right up to God’s office and confront Him with my band of angels.

“I have already stated my case with You,” I said. “Now I have some back up.”

“Lucifer, Lucifer,” he said, shaking his head. “This is disobedience of my plan for you, for the world. No plan of your own can change it. Now go.”

We shook our heads and left. As we were leaving, I passed Michael standing in the doorway, frowning. He couldn’t wait for his time to shine, a time that should have been mine.

A week passed without much incident, but it wasn’t long before I had heard of this virgin. Her name was Mary, and my fellow angel Gabriel had just gone down to earth to ask her to bear a child. Not just any child, but a child I would have to worship.

God called me in later that day and told me what had happened.

“I know,” I said. “I heard it from Gabriel himself. I’m just wondering how an infant is so above me that I should have to worship him?”

“The infant is me, Lucifer. We are one, the two of us.”

“This is just a lot to wrap my head around,” I said. “I have a lot of questions. How can you procreate if you’ve never been on earth? Is the child a demi-god? The woman, she is a virgin, is she not?”

“It is a part of the plan, Lucifer. You don’t have to understand. All the answers will come in due time.” He dismissed me, and I went to find a quiet spot in the clouds to think. It irritated me to think I wouldn’t get the answers I knew he had and I needed.

Just like that, I hatched a plan, and no one was going to get in the way of my determination to denounce this child.

Nine months later, Mary, the virgin, was on her way to Bethlehem with her husband Joseph. Preparations buzzed throughout heaven, and everyone watched with anticipation as the raggedy couple rode to the inn to get to the manger, where Jesus (that’s what God said he’d call the child) would be born. Everyone but me celebrated; I was preparing my plan.

As she was getting ready to bear her child, I transformed myself into a dragon. I was much uglier than I wanted to look. I had seven heads, adorned with seven crowns. I would be king of this child, the child I planned to devour.

As for the husband? I didn’t waste my time worrying about that mortal fool.

I crept behind the manger, where the woman couldn’t see me. When the child was nearly born, I positioned myself in front of her, hissing at the woman. No longer would I have to bow down to this child, this child that was supposedly my Lord.

Michael arrived in a flash of golden light. Golden light flashed before my eyes, and I felt a shooting pain in my back. I tried to hide my pain, but I couldn’t ignore the searing heat that coursed through my body.

That was the moment I realized I was evil. I disintegrated into a flash of golden light and darkness took over.

I awoke in a barren wasteland, filled with trash. A rancid smell invaded my nose, and, as I began to look around, I saw my fallen comrades next to me, no longer bathed in light. They appeared dark. I saw familiar faces: Amaymon, Eligos, Alastor, among others, all my friends, the ones who stood beside me. I sensed none of God’s presence.

“Gather ‘round!” I yelled, my voice echoing. I could definitely get used to this. The rest of the angels (or demons, I decided to call them) circled around me.

“We were sent here by an unforgiving God, so we, too, shall be unforgiving. We will make miserable the lives of all his creatures, and all his followers—we shall match him, until one day, I will rule the earth!” The demons laughed, and I knew they agreed. A God who loved them would not send them here by their own free will, would he?

I thought back to what he had told me: My free will would have consequences, and this was the final consequence. I was separated from a loving God, from all love that I had ever known. We were enemies now—Him vs. me. I saw eternity all at once. I saw myself as a snake in the garden, people dying at the hands of their fellow humans, mortals succumbing to my influence to destroy everything God had created. The worst part? I loved it. I lusted for watching so much of the Lord’s handiwork destroyed, and I wouldn’t be finished until it was annihilated.

I leaned back and sighed, inviting my demons to do the same.

“Rest up, my demons. This will be our last moment of rest before an eternity-long tussle we are going to win.”

Marirose Monaghan is a freshman at Capital Area School for the Arts Charter School (CASA).

I’m six hours deep into a late night shift at Giant, working the register, when an old lady approached me. “What’s this coupon good for, sir?” she said, eyes signaling her pure sincerity and curiosity. She handed me a small slip of paper, and I looked it over multiple times, confused. It’s a picture of a bird. “That’s just a picture of a bird, ma’am.” I told her. She thanked me, took her picture, and walked away.

I work at Giant Food Stores, a titan in the food store industry. Founded in 1953 by David Javitch, the store was originally a two-man run butcher shop. Giant, a grocery super store, carrying any food product you want. Some stores even have pharmacies, restaurants and a Starbucks to pick up some coffee before you shop. In addition to that, several services have been added. You can drop your kids off in the Treehouse daycare session, and we’ll watch your kids while you shop. Or don’t. Stay home, because now, with our new Peapod service, you don’t even have to come in! We’ll deliver the groceries straight to you. We’ve certainly come a long way from a butcher shop. Today, there are more than 180 stores.

I’ve worked at Giant for two years now, and I’ve found cashiering a much more difficult job than most people would believe it to be. I can still hear my dad telling me on the drive over to my first day of work, “It’s not gonna be that hard, bud. You’re just taking stuff and sliding it through the scanner,” a mentality I’d imagine most Giant shoppers share with my father. If cashiers run into any kind of technical issue on the machine, they’re immediately met with eye rolls and deep sighs to make you aware of the customer’s frustration.

I am always stationed to work in the section of Giant referred to as “the front end.” Our main job is to check out your items and make sure you leave the store happy. Managers stress constantly we’re the last impression the customer receives when they shop here, so we have to make that interaction with every person count. We have to make them want to return and shop again. There are multiple jobs available on the front end, the simplest being a bagger. Put the customer’s items in bags and tell them to have a nice day. Next is a cashier, ringing up the customer’s items and a self-checkout worker, who watches over customers to see if they check out their items correctly.

I once talked with a customer about working as a cashier. “I used to be a cashier too, but I had to quit,” she told me. After asking why, she explained she couldn’t “handle the rudeness of the customers.” She continued, “I’ve had keys thrown at me, I’ve been screamed at, I just couldn’t handle the stress people put me under.”

What most people aren’t aware of is how focused the cashier has to be at all times. A lot of cashiers operate on a system known as IPM—Items Scanned per Minute—where you’re judged on how fast you can scan items, so there’s always incentive to be nimble. It’s also good to be cautious of the candy bars in front of your lane; it’s highly likely someone will try to steal some candy. Hundreds of numbers for produce items must be memorized, as those items don’t scan. Each piece of produce comes with a specific PLU (price lookup) number that cashiers punch in. You can’t forget B.O.B either (bottom of the basket) to check for additional items a customer might have accidentally (or intentionally) forgotten to take from their cart.

Three months ago, I worked the checkout station. Out of nowhere, my computer just freaked out on me and shut off. This is the computer I needed to help any customers in trouble. The lane was packed, too. All six stations were filled with people, and immediately two of them needed help. I tried to rush over and help them, but there’s really not much I could do with my computer acting so wacky. All around me, I heard the people complaining and muttering to themselves as if I’m some kind of idiot who can’t do his job right. “C’mon!” a man shouted, signaling me away from the customer I’m helping to tend to him. A woman coughed multiple times to get my attention, but I remained helping the customer I helped first. “Deal with them one at a time, that’s the best way” is my manager’s advice in this situation, so I did. Eventually the computer switched back on, and it was business as usual.

“Yeah, PLUs and codes and stuff like that are annoying, but for me, it’s always the people that make me hate working retail,” commented Jake, an 18-year-old nearing one year of employment in Wal-Mart. “Sometimes, I feel like Charlie Brown, man. I’m doing all I can in there to be a good and polite guy, trying my best and all that; but it feels like everyone still hates me. No matter what I do, those people are always gonna move that football from me, man. Always.”

I worked a shift last week when a man approached with many boxes of cereal. I rang them up. “That’ll be—,” I managed to say, before being cut off. “No! These are buy one, get one free!” He scolds. I looked at the screen, totaled the order, and looked back to him. “Well, they’re not ringing up that way, sir. Let me get a coach for you.” He looked around, furious. “No! These are buy one, get one free!” he said, somehow even more firm than the last time. At this point, I’m rapidly hitting the button to call a checkout coach, Ashley, over to help me out. She strolled over and assessed the situation. “Yo, he’s saying these are buy one, get one, and they’re not ringing up that way,” I explained. “Yes! Buy one, get one!” the man explained, much louder. Ashley bolted to the aisle and checked the price, proving the man to be correct. She ran back, took the price off, and apologized for the wait. The man happily went about his day, the proud owner of what must have been at least 30 boxes of cereal.

Cashiers at my level would love to do what Ashley had just done, but, sometimes, due to lockout codes on registers, it is not within our possibility to do so. Cashiers aren’t allowed to simply take someone’s word on BOGO deals. Often, customers will pull tricks like that on cashiers to save a quick buck, handing you coupons for items they didn’t purchase in hopes you’ll just trust them, rather than search through their packed cart for the item. Or labeling produce with a smaller weight, then adding more produce in a bag, keeping the label for the smaller weight. Those moves alone cost the company immense shrink. So, if we also had to trust the word of people who tell us the prices they saw, we’d be in trouble.

“What I wish people would understand is that I feel bad for you too, man. I’m not a robot; I get how much this situation sucks. I don’t like being stuck here with you either, but this technical problem is bigger than both of us,” explained Jake.

Cashiers and retail workers are people too. When we’re having trouble and you get upset, we get that, we feel you, we understand you, but sometimes it would be nice to have some of that come back our way. Maybe every once in a while, if you see a cashier stressing out, or running into some technical difficulty, you could just relax and let that person have a second to figure things out. I know it’s frustrating as the customer to have to wait a couple of extra seconds so the cashier can replace the paper that ran out halfway through printing your receipt, or they have to call a coach over to verify the price on something. I can also assure you, if you’re cool in that situation, the cashier will love you. Most stories cashiers share with one another don’t involve the countless jerks who screamed at them about melons, but rather the one really nice person they met who was courteous to them when they ran into problems, and what a refreshing experience it was to meet them.

Clifford Kubiak is a senior at Capital Area School for the Arts Charter School (CASA).