The streets of New Orleans were swishing with music from every direction. Jazz was melting together with country, alternative was colliding with a spoonful of the most romantic French music on this earth. You'd think there would be a cacophony that arose from this; a cacophony that scraped the ears and released a horrible stench you could hear miles after you're away from the city- but instead, the different sounds had formed together to create some kind of ever present mixed-media background noise, like something you'd find in an indie movie. Even though it was 3 in the morning, the streets were still crawling with sleepless people, some good natured, others less so, and among those people was the devil himself with his companion, Basil.
You wouldn't know the devil if you saw him- or maybe you would, but never while in his presence. He was quite young, but also not, and his hair reminded anyone of the gold pieces hidden away in treasure chests. His eyes were horribly black, with not an inch of warmth in them, which was strange for someone who had spent more time than he can remember in a place where flames appeared every time he stepped. Truly, looking at him would be the equivalent of looking at a Faberge egg in the middle of a sea of regular painted Easter eggs. In contrast, his companion, Basil, appeared to look extremely mortal, and his own black eyes looked like coal-filled ovens gleaming with the good sort of apathy. Basil was colorblind, messy-haired, and Argentinian by birth, and kind of looked like a brown sheep. He met the devil after he saved him from a stalker by accident; from that moment on Basil had sworn his life to the fallen angel until his debt was repaid.
"I can't understand half the people on this street, Luca," said Basil in the same unemotional voice he had used his entire life. "I think they're speaking French, which I suppose would make some sense, but it doesn't feel like French."
"It's French, Basil. It sounds like French," answered the devil. He had grown used to his companion's nickname for him, but he still wasn't used to the way that it didn't strike fear in the hearts of anyone nearby, not that he cared much. The devil stretched, and adjusted his navy-blue blazer. "How much more time until we get to this cafe of yours?"
"It's not a cafe. Well, I suppose it sort of is, but we're not going to be drinking coffee there. You'll see when we get there, alright?" Basil said. They continued walking along the street, stepping away from oncomers, rushing past groups of slow drunks blockading the sidewalks without meaning to. "Why don't you tell me a story about Hell?"
"That's a horribly broad topic. You know it is. That's like me asking you to tell me a story about earth. Or of Reality," Luca said with distaste across his features that Basil did not notice, as he was in the middle of studying the architecture of a barely lit building in the distance. "But alright. Fine. I'll tell you a story. And it'll be better than anything you could create."
"So, Basil, are you listening? It begins with a fish in a river. Believe it or not, there's a river in Hell, which makes sense, I guess, as the humidity had to come from somewhere. It's a dangerous lake, the kind that could drown the sun, and it's even more dangerous as it completely erases the memory of anyone who drinks from it or bathes in it or just basically touches it. Not really useful in a place like Hell, where everyone is completely obsessed with the bad things they've done, and horribly happy with how they've spent their lives- the last thing they want to do is just forget what got them down there in the first place. So, naturally, everyone avoids that lake. Occasionally a bucket or two ends up in the wells of humans in Reality, but that rarely happens, it's like a once-every-thousand-years-thing, but when it does..." Luca trailed off, and became completely silent, thinking, possibly having an argument in his head.
"The fish," said Basil, causing the devil to jump like he was waking up from a dream.
"Yes! Yes, the fish. That's why it was weird when I found a fish in the river. See, I hate every single person and demon and everything in Hell, so I used to take walks along the banks because I knew no one would be there, and no one ever was. But one day I saw a fish, a living one, swimming in the exact center of the lake at this leisurely pace. But then I kept watching it, and it kept slowing down until it came to a full stop. It waited in that stop for a few moments, and then it shot forward for about ten meters before slowing down to the pace I discovered it. And it kept doing this. I was a bit confused on to what a fish had to do to end up in hell, as most animals are reincarnated, no questions asked. I thought of getting a net or something, and pulling it out, but for some reason I resorted to pulling it out with my own hands. The water affected me, but not much- I simply forgot my entire morning. I knew I had been in my tower, but I had absolutely no inkling of what I had done while there. But yes- I pulled the fish out, and its silver body was wriggling in my hands. I was tempted to kill it just there, but instead I dropped it, and the second I did, it grew into an angel."
"How many wings?" inquired Basil.
"Six. Huge, powerful, white glistening wings. I was more frightened than I'd like to admit. It said nothing, and then it bowed to me, and in that moment all of the feathers just dropped from his wings, like dead leaves dropping at once off a tree in the fall. So, basically, the floor was completely covered with white feathers that burned as they landed. Then, the angel shut all six wings and started walking away from me along the river's bank," Luca finished, now realizing that for a while now they had been standing outside a building with an odd wooden door. Basil opened it for him, greeting the devil with a dark room populated by an audience and a spotlight-hogging stage.  A middle-aged woman with hair like fire was reading a poem about the sorrows of losing her first born child to a witch. Both men took their seats and listened until the end, when they snapped politely along with everyone else.
"So that's all that happened? The angel just walked along the bank forever?" Basil whispered into the devil's ear.
"Nope. I went back the next day and it was gone. Probably walked off, or drowned. I still don't know how it turned into a fish. Or why. Or how it ended up in Hell," Luca whispered back. "But the gates of hell are never locked, so anything is possible," he added.
"Yes," whispered Basil. "I suppose anything is."