4/12/10
I sit in the NorthWest corner of the park, just past the scorched bars of the kid's playground, but before the massive burning ember, the eternally blazing, giant tree trunk by the exit. Where homeless men battled West Village kids with their Kings, Queens, and Knights. Strategy and conquest are long lost concepts here, mere scuff-marks across a blackened chessboard.
"The portals of Darkness are open and the shadows of the dead hunt over the earth..."
More like linger and stare at the human, sunglasses and cap, cigarette and paperback in hand, as he rests his feet on the battered, melted plastic table with a chargrilled quilt upon it, a banged up typewriter, and a small stack of black and white photographs. The human takes a drag of smoke, exhales into the ashy, brimstone day, and writes this sentence in his head.
I put down the paperback, can't read on a day like today, I've a mad on for writing and I must force it out, destroy this section of time and space once and for all. The demonic forms all hustled by me, ignoring the last remnant of the Twentieth Century that isn't bound up in his very own bubble universe.
The rest of the world is floating out at sea, or in an underground bunker, tucked in a secure room of giant, gelatinous cocoons floating inside their own private, inflatible web; "in-case-of-Armaggedon" your reality becomes a flotation device. They all sleep, log-online, go about their day in a total delusion of business as usual humdrum.
But not me, I never grew up with one of them fancy realities. Seems a future version of myself brought me through time to save himself from something, and I bursted out of my little bubble, spilling out into the world. So, here I am. Selling thoughts and memories to the tourists from Hell in a Nightmare Futuristic Dystopia. Cybernetic monsters, wailing banshees giving birth, child-like creatures of disgusting evil, they all stroll by and throw their disapproving looks my way, or refuse to acknowledge my existence, and even sometimes, sometimes they run past in fear. God only knows what they think, how they see me.
Occasionally though, one will happen by, intrigued by my small setup, and ask what it is I'm doing.
"I'm selling my wares, to make a wage, so as to live another day."
This usually leaves them stumped and an easy mark, so I give them the spiel about winding up in the Inferno, rat-a-tat-tat down a paragraph or three on the back of a worn photograph, and then see their reaction. They read it there, but it doesn't register. They toss a piece of hellfire into my bucket, and go about their day. I slip on the shades, kick back in my kicks, and read another page.
They go home that night to their perch in a blown out highrise uptown, place the photo on their coffee table, devour whatever scraps of flesh they have about, and secretly think about my poem. The words jingle through oddly wired meat, stimulating electrical impulses to begin firing, forging connections never made, producing desires and longing for something pure and beautiful. Then their head explodes.
It's a cruel trick, but they're fucking demons, and they've got fangs and claws and an utter lack of respect for humans. Not that I blame them. They've just come in as the supernatural immigrants to the Promised Land, shoving aside the fat, complacent indigenous people.
The humans now live virtual lives, alone in a bubble, interactions between individuals now just projections on a screen, as interchangeable as a click on a remote. See the world however you'd like, absorb nutrients through the gel you swim in, let the skin of the bubble suck in the dying gasps of oxygen and rays of sunshine, letting you live to connect another day.
The Divine still twinkles in me as a ray of light beams down between clouds of filth, adrift in soulless skies, God's taillights as he drives off. Most pure evil beings can't even see pure goodness, so most of the time I'm safe, but the madmen can still see. Demented x-ray vision of my disguise, so they were the immediate threat.
I'd usually just knock them unconscious straight away. Letting them speak for more than a moment could be disastrous And granted, some are more "with it" than others to be sure, but no one stays sane long standing in the path of the beasts of the apocalypse.
I live on a fourth floor walk up in Greenwich Village, just off Washington Square Park. The fourth floor I find is just tall enough that the more lazy, mindless mutants don't climb that high, and just low enough that the reapers can't spot you from their skyskraper perches.
I drag my bucket and sling the typewriter over my shoulder, leaving the table downstairs, probably be beaten up, but not worth the effort to bring it up. I toss the hellfire into the pit in the center of the room, tighten the pentagram around it, and fire it up.
I stared long and hard into the flame, the fire, fundamental force of nature, erratic molecules, essence, idea, word, sound. All self swirls upwards in a backdraft breeze. The crossroads clashed, an X branded beyond my mind, unicorn socket insert, click connect. Twist, turn.
The engine started in my skull. It rocked on the hydraulics and rumbled teetering on the tip of my spine. My circle grew, ignition of the sigil, unlocked reality cheat code transports you to the Darkness.
He lifts you up and acknowledges you, appearing as an equal so as to make you underestimate him, and take him for a man. His great joke.
The devil removes his hat and stays awhile. He's got a sound system he carries with him, tessaract tucked into his breast pocket. As he sits a plush chair appears beneath him, and the decor flickers to one of his fancy in that moment.
"Take your head out of the fire already." He clicks disapprovingly. He's tired of my games.
"Aaahhhh." I throw my head backwards, brushing back my hair, wet from the flame.
"Hey."
"What's up?" He was pretending he had something else to do.
"Let watch Faust again." I settled into his version of the room's reality. I knew he'd want to smoke, so he'd definitely have snacks appear. Probably some beer, and God willing, some Whiskey.
"You want to sign or not?" All business today I see. Well, fine, maybe it was time.
I took the devil's offer for a test drive awhile back. I didn't really love it. I kept getting it confused with the human virtual reality, and well, milling about besides demons in post-apocalyptic future Manhattan? That sounded awesome at first.
Over time, he'd pop up, offer to send me back to my reality, to give me power, fortune, glory. Meh, in a way this was a blessing. A vacation from the burden of responsibility, some time for the devil and I to just hang out, watch some movies, sometimes talk. Although I'm sure he denies it.
At some point I realized that I was that last one. The very last soul he could tempt, unable to pierce the holy coating of mankind's deliverance. All he can do now is choke out the life of the planet's ecosystem and the humans will all have to pop out of their little pods or else drown in their embryonic filth.
So we usually just chill, I dig up some of my past, hock it in the park, get enough flame to invite him over to hook my ass up on freebies. He seems all sour so I try and get him talking.
"Remember when you let me have superpowers and we shot across the planet?" It was like a boneyard obstacle course.
"And that demonic King you introduced me to...Beedazzle, when we drank ourselves stupid and wound up destroying his army? Oh, man, I tell ya..."
I let my words trail off, sensing that he wasn't in the mood. I guess I don't know what to do now. I may as well sign. I work out the angles and wonder how it could be a bad deal.
I figure he gives me enough rope to hang myself, I take it and then can't go back to how life was before. A private reality that I have ultimate control of. But the humans over the hill offered me the same thing and I refused. My every desire is taken care of.
Of course, he'll lead me down a path that rises and falls. But that's not pre-ordained, he can't be master of all time and space, he's just hedging his bets on our penchant for destiny. I look over at him and imagine a great winged beast, a concept of absolute horrific and terrible evil, squeezed into a human shape sitting across from me.
He smiles.
"Fine. Let's do it. I was getting tired of looking at your creepy-ass face."
I drew blood across a Gothic barcode, bleached into the DNA smart papyrus, and suddenly I felt better. I saw virgins defiled on altars, an all seeing eye penetrating their dignity. My back didn't hurt, I could breathe, my mind was clear. War, Famine, and Plague seeped from my pores.
I was aflame and adrift all at once. Spinning round, throwing earth into the air with reckless abandon, I was scattershot chaos shattering the darkness. I stood my ground, and lifted myself up, surging with replenished strength.
I smashed the devil's face, shattering his fragile humanity with a single blow. I think I surprised even him, for in an instant I saw that flinch, and knew he wasn't all-knowing, cause he didn't see that coming.
His reality crumbled away with his person in the vile cross-breeze of ember and ash. The flame flickered and died down. The devil has left the building, and left behind something interesting. I fished through my pockets and found the seven deadly sins.
That son-of-a-bitch. He needed one last human to carry them for him. But I think I know why he was so nice to me. He knows I'll get rid of these for him. For him and everyone else. I'll face down the evil that's so big that not even he can see it fully.
I draw the first card, see my first sin, and and face myself.
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