The Nameless Demon

Being the First Chapter in the Account of a Demon's Existential Crisis

Mikhail Vrubel: The Demon Seated

I. Flipping the Script

The demon loved nothing more than to torment God’s creations.

It delighted at the irony that it was created for just such a purpose, so when it found the man sitting on a log in a glade, weeping, head in hands, it thought it hit the jackpot.

The demon snuck up behind him, leaned in until its puckered, swollen lips almost touched the man’s ear, and whispered:

“This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to you again, and all in the same series and sequence - and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and you with it, you speck of dust!”

The man ceased weeping, though his body still trembled. He raised his head and stared forward at nothing for a long moment.

Then he abruptly stood, clasping his hands together with obvious pleasure as he turned to face the demon.

The demon flinched in surprise but found itself held where it was by the man’s wild gaze.

“You are a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!” The man exclaimed.

“What the Hell—” the demon began, but the man drew it into a tight embrace before it could finish.

Then the man ran off, shaking his fist at the sky and laughing.

The demon stood for a long moment, staring at the log from which the man had risen.

It sat on the log.

Its head sunk into its talons and wept, scorching grooves into its own cheeks and the dirt below with its acidic tears.