Tag Archives: demon

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

The Shadow in the Fire

He had always been attracted to fires. It wasn’t the heat or even the flames, it was the sheer destruction that he found cathartic. Fire consumed and destroyed everything, leaving only ash behind.

His mother and stepfather had been in his first fire. It was like his birth because he could not remember a time before that fire. His memories all faded to darkness before that fire had awoken him and his passion for arson.

These thoughts all mingled together as he watched the old warehouse in the docks begin burning. The fact that he could not really remember getting there hardly bothered him. That sort of thing happened often these days.

The hungry flames began licking around the warehouse’s ceiling. These old warehouses often had wooden beams in parts of their structures and burnt beautifully. And now the walls were taking in the growing blaze.

It was beautiful.

He liked these remote buildings. They were often desolate and empty. Typically, the fire department only arrived at these spots many hours later. It gave him plenty of time to enjoy his art before slipping back into the shadows.

A door in the side of the warehouse suddenly flew open and a handful of people in white lab-coats spilled out! It looked like some of them were even carrying handguns. One was shouting into a mobile phone while they all piled into a black van that he had not noticed before. It had tinted windows. The van’s engine revved in a panic and it screamed down the street and into the night.

None of them had noticed him lurking in the shadows a little way down the street. He felt relieved if somewhat excited by all of this. Why am I relieved, he wondered to himself? Who are they?

It didn’t really matter much to him. What could they have been doing in there, his mind wandered to next? He was more curious than anything else. From the outside, this warehouse in the docks looked as run-down and disused as any other warehouse around this area.

The questions quickly slipped from his mind as the fire began to lick the heavens. His grin widened as the hungry tendrils danced into the night sky. Soft ash began to rain down around him as the great catharsis spread, calming and exciting him through its destruction. It reminded him of home. No, it reminded him of Home.

A sudden, small explosion surprised him, sending a minor fireball roaring into the night sky. His grin widened. What could have exploded in a supposedly-abandoned warehouse? The fire’s rage and intensity rose with the explosion and it began to reach climax as parts of the roof progressively collapsed inwards.

Just before the inferno fell in on itself, a being emerged from within it. It was only a dark shadow against the fiery mass–he could see no other distinguishing features–but it walked from the gloomy doorway where the lab-coated men had run. Somehow, he felt a connection with it.

For the briefest moment, the shadow lingered on the edge of the flickering firelight and seemed to turn in his direction. Is it sniffing the night air?  Is it looking at me? Why isn’t it moving?

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he felt cold and terrified. It felt like the shadowy being was looking at him. Like it was looking straight at him through all the ash, heat, fire and shadows behind which he hid. Like it knew what he was through all of it…

And then it was gone. A shadow flickering off into the dark night.

He gasped. He realized that he had been holding his breath the whole time.

Just then the whole warehouse came tumbling down into a fiery inferno and the sirens reached his ears.

Time seemed to be moving quickly. It was time he left too.

***

Later that night, he could not sleep. Or is this a week later? Why can I not remember the time? He was tossing and turning in his bed, images of the shadow in the flames kept playing through his mind. They mingled and merged with older memories of some primordial darkness until he thought he might start climbing the walls.

Eventually, he sighed, got up, dress and wandered down to the street. It was nighttime. It was always nighttime. There was an all-night diner a street away from where he lived and, lost in his thoughts, he set out at a brisk pace towards it.

This was why he never noticed the black van with tinted windows start-up a little way down the road. He also never noticed it start driving slowly behind him. And, this was why he never saw it pick up its pace heading towards him as its side door slid open slowly…

Suddenly, the van screeched to a halt and two heavy-set men jumped out in front of him! He stopped in his tracks, surprised and frozen to the spot. A scary-looking woman lurked inside the van and the last thing he remembered seeing was the puff of smoke from the dart gun in her hand before the men grabbed him, pulled a bag over his head and he lost consciousness.

“That’s the one. Quick, grab the Time Demon before it realizes an–”

***

He slowly became aware of the light and sound around him. It felt like he was crawling up a long, dark tunnel towards consciousness and it hurt.

He was naked, sitting slumped in a chair as scientist-types in lab-coats strutted around him. He was not restrained in the chair but a glass cell was all around him and he felt it sucking the life out of him. Is there enough air in this place? I can hardly breath! It felt like he was deep underwater with all the pressure pushing down on every fiber of his being.

“It’s awake, right, OK,” the scary lady with the dart gun started talking authoritatively to the others in the room, at this point he noticed the silver cross hanging around her neck–a strange detail amidst all this science and technology in this room, “Double check the prison’s constraints, don’t let that Holy barrier waver or we’ll lose this one. These time-shifters are slippery, especially when cornered. I want–”

“So-sorry,” he managed to say, still feeling so weak, “You must have made some mistake? Why am I here? What–”

“You are a Time Demon,” the Scary Lady said addressing him, “We have caught you. It’s no mistake. You are from the bowels of Hell and–after extracting everything we want–we are going to send you right back there.”

“But, but, I-I am…me,” he said lamely, confused, “I am not from Hell or wherever, I am from downtown…down–I am from here.“

The Scary Lady smiled, “You don’t know where you are from, do you? Sometimes the summoning process does that. You must be fresh. Or maybe it was the body you possessed that is fighting back? Who knows. Notice how you don’t actually know where you are from? Downtown where? What was your mother’s name? You don’t know, do you? Joe, bring me that mirror.”

A nondescript lab-coated man darted out from a corner with a full-length mirror on wheels.

“We have this mirror around here for vampires but it’ll work for now,” the Scary Lady slid it in front of him and looked right back at himself in growing shock and terror, “The glass cell you are sitting in is iron-lined and we are running holy-current through it, so it both holds you and peels away your possessed shell to reveal your true form. Unfortunately, we can do nothing for the man you possessed but we can expel you.”

He saw himself sitting in the glass cell on his chair: rotting flesh was peeling off most of his body but there was still enough that he could recognize his stepfather. Who is that? What is my mother’s name? What lay beneath his flesh was dark and writhing, like some shadowy aberration of nature crafted solely to disturb those that looked upon it.

It was him.

Suddenly, he remembered! It felt like a darkness swallowing him…

He remembered crawling up through the layers towards the Summoning Circle. He remembered stepping out into the dark, gloomy basement where the couple was chanting over the dripping sacrifice. He remembered her screams as he tore her to pieces. He remembered the fear in the man’s eyes as his ethereal form filled up his body up and ejected its feeble soul. He could still smell the fire and brimstone as it began to spill out from the portal and engulf everything around him in a raging fire…

“Ah,” the Scary Lady smiled cruelly, “The Time Demon remembers. It never takes much. Evil always wants to remember. That’s the real difference. Good prefers to forget. So we may as—wait! Hey, what’s that? What’s going on outside?”

He stood up, shaking while fighting the pressure of the holy-cell. The final pieces of rotting, host flesh fell from him revealing his twisted, blackened self to all the world. He was a Time Demon. He could move around the dark corners of time and he could feel something coming. He could smell something coming. It had already happened and it was already going to occur.

It was fire.

The lab-coats all ran around frantically but the Time Demon stood tehre grinning wickedly. The air grew hotter, soft smoke began to bellow in and then the first, red, flickering locks of beautiful flames began to curl around the corners and edges of the walls…

“Out! Out! We have to abandon this place!” the Scary Lady was screaming. She threw a vengeful glare at him before turning to run out with the rest of her crew, “Let the Time Demon burn, if it can,” where her last words before she disappeared out of the laboratory.

Moments later, some canisters of some gas exploded. Their forced blew the ceiling to the heavens upon a grea fireball while engulfing the room in a hell-storm. Everything was destroyed in that moment and, more importantly, his iron-lined glass cell cracked.

It was enough for him.

He grinned and expanded. Space creaked and his wicked, twisted hands tore through the glass towards the fire. It felt comfortingly warm. Like home. No, Home.

And then he was strolling out of the laboratory and into a collapsing warehouse.

He grinned. He knew what was coming next. It was always his favorite part.

Just on the edge of the fiery warehouse and just before it all came tumbling down, he stood still, grinning to himself. His shadow-black demonic form writhed as he looked up the street and grinned at himself lurking in the darkness over there. His grin widened and his form flexed. Time was his again.

And then he was gone.

Fantasy, General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Tim’s Demons & Other Friends

When humans evolved and got superpowers, not everyone got a cool power. Of course, there were the super-strong people, the super-fast, super-tough and those that could fly, teleport or read minds or throw fireballs, or pretty much do anything cool.

Then there were the uncool or odd powers.

Some people could smell the future or see around corners, others could transform into a fish or summon custard pudding. Not all uncool powers were nasty, though. Many of these Pseudo-supers or “Pseuds” (as they became known) were accepted and loved in society kind of the same way you would accept and love a weird cousin.

But some of these Pseuds were downright creepy and ended up being ostracised.

On the fringe of towns and far out in the country, clusters of the Creeps (as they were known) would live together much like leppers had done centuries before. Not even the Pseuds wanted to be around them.

***

Little Tim had demons. They followed him around.

The first one had appeared after his father had left him when he was about five years old. It was a vague, shadowy demon with horns that said nothing and just followed him around. It had scared his mother who had sent him away to live with his Uncle Pat and the other Creeps.

That was when his second demon had been born. It was a pale reflection of her; gaunt and twisted as it was dark and eerie. It spoke only to other people and never to him and, mostly, just tried to sleep with them. He did not like it, as it was disliked by most people who do not have a fetish for ghosts.

Little Tim also had the snotty demon from when he was really sick that one time and the spiky one from when the bullies beat him up in the alleyway. He also had the creepy one from the old lady in the apartment below his mother’s place.

Yes, Little Tim had demons and they all obediently followed him around.

His Uncle Pat took him under his wing on the farm–the Creeps lived on a Collective where they grew their own food–and taught him the value of friendship and love. He taught him that you are not your superpower, but rather the collection of decisions on how to use it. If you use it to make the world a better place, you were a good person. If you use it for your own advantage, you were a bad person.

Uncle Pat, himself, had an awkward power: he could induce nightmares in people. Not very useful in homes with children nor in crowded cities. But, it was quite useful for the criminal justice system as an alternative form of punishment for offenders who–for some or other reason, most likely to do with their superpowers–could not go to prison.

All Uncle Pat would do was make them dream that they were in prison and serving out their full term. If a dream feels like it lasts a lifetime, then the dreamer has, in fact, dreamt a lifetime. They would wake up mere hours later but changed people.

The break-through for Little Tim was when he sat down with his demons and spoke to them. They all had a heart-to-heart. They were all stuck together; them and Little Tim. The least they could do was be friends. They, too, had not asked to be here but merely appeared. They, too, did not want to be abandoned.

Little Tim and his demons hugged afterward.

The other Creeps threw a party that night for Little Tim. Even Little Tim’s demon’s joined the party and, once they opened up, got on (more or less) wonderfully with everyone.

“Everyone is fighting a hard fight and is worth knowing when you get to know them”, Uncle Pat said and everyone agreed to loud cheers.

That was the night Little Tim kissed his first girl. Susan had lizard eyes, mosaic-scaled skin and a flickering tongue. It tickled him and they both laughed. She was very cute and Little Tim’s heart fluttered like a butterfly each time he thought of her.

When Little Tim woke up the next morning with a big smile on his face, a beautiful angel was standing at his bed. His demons stood around moping and shadowy, but the angel was radiant and smiled at him. He smiled back at her, suddenly understanding everything.

“Uncle Pat! Uncle Pat! Uncle Pat!” Little Tim panted, running through the farm to the lead-lined outer shed that Uncle Pat slept in so that he did not infect everyone else with nightmares while they slept, “Uncle Pat! I have an angel now!”

“Uh, wha–” Uncle Pat rolled over on his grubby mattress as the heavy lead-lined door squeaked open and light spilt in, “Timmy, what is it?”

“Uncle Pat, this is my angel. I now know what I have to do to make the world a better place!” Little Tim was smiling.

Uncle Pat sat up and yawned, smiling at the kid. He patted the mattress next to him, “Come sit here, Timmy, and tell me all about it.”

Little Tim dropped down onto the mattress, beaming: “I don’t just have demons. I also have now have an angel. All the bad makes my demons, but all the good can also make them. And those will be angels. And those angels will make the world a better place!”

Uncle Pat nodded, thoughtfully. He glanced up at the pack of eerie demons just outside of his shed’s open door and the single, radiant being that stood gracefully in their brooding midst. He felt peace and joy looking at her brilliance. Her light washed over his heart and lifted his spirits.

He smiled and hugged Little Tim, who hugged him tightly back. They were both crying now. It was tears of joy, maybe.

“Right, Timmy,” he began in all seriousness, choking back his tears and smiling widely, “You know what we have to do now, don’t you? We have to make sure that you have the most amazing, brilliant and happy life ever and, by the end of it, you will have filled the world with angels.”

***

When the world was filled with angels, happiness and light literally walked down the streets and joy stalked in every heart. Civilisation was at peace and the Creeps and Pseuds did not matter anymore. Neither did wars nor wealth. Society was healed and brought together in harmony.

A new age dawned for man and the President personally thanked Little Tim. In so doing, the President spawned a whole host more of angels that looked a lot like him. In fact, every street the Little Tim walked down, strangers hugged him and thanked him for all the light he had brought into the world.

It was still the same world, but it was now filled with angels, love, happiness and hope. The darkness was banished and no one had nightmares anymore.

But Little Tim still had his few demons. His father, mother, the snotty one, the spiky one and the old woman. They hid from all this light back in his apartment in the city. He felt sorry for them and spent time talking to each one of them.

They did not like the light, but he told them that they were very important. Without some darkness, there would be no need for light, he told them. Susan–who was now Little Tim’s wife–told them so too.

Uncle Pat would come over and induces terrifying nightmares in the demons. They loved it. They could escape into the darkness and terror of dreams, but when they woke the world was still full of blinding light.

And so, Little Tim, Susan and Uncle Pat closed all the windows, sat all the demons down and turned the lights off. Sitting in the darkness of the living room, the demons felt better and they began to talk. They spoke of their hopes and dreams. They spoke of their years of silence when no one looked and they spoke of Little Tim, Susan and Uncle Pat.

By the end of it, they–all of them–were crying.

“Everyone is fighting a hard fight and is worth knowing when you get to know them”, Uncle Pat said, choking back a tear.

Everyone nodded, agreeing in the darkness.

Little Tim stood up and hugged each one of his demons. They were his friends, and he wanted them to feel better. And they did.

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Elysium Field

When Kenneth died–or was unwillingly murdered in a lonely field outside of town, as he would be quick to tell anyone that would listen–he found that he could not move on. It is true what they say about unfinished business, and so Kenneth stayed behind long after his body had left.

At first, he wandered around the world looking over the shoulders of old friends, family and long-lost lovers. He would stare at them while they slept, watch them go about their days, peep at them in the showers and be there for their intimate moments with their partners. He would giggle and, occasionally, manage to knock over something small, like a picture or a glass off a table.

But most of the time he just watched.

Eventually, this grew boring and he wandered further afield. He found his murderer, but after knocking over and rattling everything he could–which was not very much–and screaming at her repeatedly while she slept, Kenneth got bored of this too. In fact, he suspected that she liked it. Bitch. There just was so little you could do from this side of the world.

And so he found himself wandering back to that lonely field just outside of town.

It was a nice, quiet, little field. A small river slipped quietly by it and, at dawn and dusk, a small crowd of ibis would cluster the banks of it. Their occasional caws would break the quiet as the glory of the rising or setting Sun would streak the sky with brilliant reds and golds, deepening the soft, wavy green of the grass and reeds in the nice, quiet, little field. Occasionally, people would wander out here to fish, take pictures or even picnic, but he would scream at them and whoosh the long grass near them, and, eventually, they would leave him and his field in peace.

But time changes all things, and his nice, quiet, little field was no exception.

The days became years, and the years became decades and then centuries. The nearby city grew, roads popped up around the field and factories spewing out smoke before a large block of flats popped up where the field was. Thousands of people began appeared overnight in this block of flats, they came and they went and noise and neon light roared all around them, but the small crowd of ibis no longer came by and the sunrises and sunsets no longer sparkled on the bogged, polluted river flowing by.

Kenneth raged! He screamed and shouted, knocked everything that he could down–which was not that much–and cursed these nameless, squalid people from ruining his quiet field. He thought less and less about his friends, family and, even, his murderer.

But time moved on, and within the century, the block of flats was abandoned. The factories around it were still. The pollution still came and the city light all around him blinded the night sky while the traffic noise deafened him by day. Then the planes dropped bombs in the distance, fires began to rage and soon the city was wiped out. It was quiet all around him again, but his crowd of ibis never returned. His field was little more than a slowly collapsing building or a slowly forming pile of rubble in a blackened land.

Then, early one morning as Kenneth was whooshing around two thin, starving pigeons fighting over some seeds on the ground, a light started over the horizon. The light grew brighter and in moments everything was blasted into dust, except him.

Kenneth remained. There was nothing left to push over, scream at or whoosh. There was not even a river anymore, so clogged up with dust was it that the land had disintegrated into a desert. A dusty, grey desert.

There was nowhere else for him to go. Besides, this spot reminded him of his field. So he just stood there waiting.

The earth was silent now. He found himself wondering if he was the only thing alive on it, but then he reminded himself that he was actually dead too. He would manically laugh at this before screaming at the wind as it blasted fine nuclear dust through him.

But time moved on, and the centuries became millennia, and the millennia moved into a unit of time that Kenneth did not even know what to call. He had long forgotten about his friends, family and, even, his murderer. The earth grew dark and cold, and then the sky started to get brighter and brighter until even Kenneth needed to squint to look at it. Even the sand and dust started to burn as a steadily growing roar began to penetrate the air.

And then the Sun exploded.

Such fire and destruction reminded Kenneth of the humans and their little bombs and wars. The earth was literally ripped apart by the force of it, but Kenneth remained. It all just went through him and left him floating out there in space.

He missed his quiet field with his crowd of ibis and his lazy little river that flowed by. He now missed his planet too. But, he had nothing to do in space but float there in agonising boredom and let the millenia’s millenia slip by…

***

“Kenneth? Kenneth? Do you know where you are?” a voice began to penetrate his consciousness. It was a familiar voice, he thought, but he could not place it, “Kenneth, please respond? Do you know where you are?”

He opened his eyes and, at first, everything was blue with green lines framing it. Then he recognised the sky above. The real sky, from earth. The green lines were the grass in his field. He was lying on his back in his field, the grass around him and the sky above him.

He sat up abruptly, surprising a nearby ibis that cawed and flapped to a further part of the nearby quiet river. God, he had missed them!

“Kenneth, do you know where you are?” said the voice again. Kenneth abruptly looked at it and saw his wife.

“I, I, I dreamt that you murdered–uhm, I, I was just asleep, wasn’t I?” he answered, the words feeling unfamiliar as they left his throat. His throat was dry and his mouth tasted like dust. But then he felt a surge of relief that had all just been a bad dream.

His wife smiled at him, which for some reason made him feel uneasy. Something started to bother him, nagging at his subconscious.

“Oh, Kenneth,” she began as she stood up, a gun in her hand, “But I did murder you, and now I am going to do it again.”

The crowd of ibis were startled at the gun shot and flew off into the sky loudly cawing. His wife laughed evilly and walked out of his sight and off of his field. Kenneth lay there bleeding, or, at least, his body did. He was already standing in that field looking down on himself dying. He found himself wondering how times this would happen? How many times had this happened already? Somehow, deep down inside, Kenneth knew the answer and it terrified him, and then he suddenly realised what had been bothering him.

He had never had a wife.

The grass in that quiet field whooshed angry by an unseen wind.

Horror & Dark Fiction

Fragile Creatures

He watches the butterfly flutter over the busy road. It is late afternoon and the cars scream by, probably on their way home from work. The colourful little creature fights her way to land on his hand. She is so light and fragile, he can barely feel her weight resting on his hand. But he can sense her heart pounding as she catches her breath. Her soft, golden-brown, red, speckled-white and black-rimmed wings flutter open and then close slowly as she recovers.

He lifts his hand up to his ear and then nods.

She saw them. She saw them all, and they did not see her.

“Yes,” he growls, “We will go once it is dark. Very dark. I love you.”

***

“Jesus Chris-almighty!” exclaims the janitor walking into the room. He takes a step back immediately and averts his eyes while pinching his nose. But he looks back. He has to see.

“J-e-s-u-sss…” he mumbles as he runs his eyes over the ghastly scene, “There is so much blood. Is that–is that a fucking leg over there? How many are here?”

But no one answers him back. He is first on the scene. He heard the screaming and came running. Now there is no one screaming anymore. He will have to call the cops. Soon the cafeteria will be swarming with forensics and outside will be full of journalists, but for now, he has a few moments to catch his breath.

He has a few moments to absorb all the horror.

Perhaps slipping in from an open window or maybe it had always been hiding there in the shadows, a butterfly suddenly flutters over the bloody scene. He stops muttering swearwords and watches the red, black and white little creature as it flies towards him and lands on his outstretched, shaking hand.

He smiles at the butterfly like a lover. His hand stops shaking immediately. She is so fragile on his hand. So small and light; so frightened with so much violence around her. Much like him, she is fragile and unprotected in this dark world. He lifts her up to his ear to listen.

She saw them. She saw them all, and they did not see her.

“Yes,” he growls, “We will go once it is dark. Very dark. I love you.”

***

The blood drips off his hands onto the tiled floor. He does not notice it. He is smiling because he is happy. He–and she!–they are both safe. Everyone is dead, and so they are safe.

“This world is so violent,” he growls softly under his breath, “So violent, but we are safe now, my love.”

He slips out the back of the hospital, casually throwing the knife into a bin out there. He starts to walk, still smiling, but then she flutters off his shoulder. The red, black and white little creature’s fragile wings barely move, but she rises in the soft breeze in the alley. She flutters silently upwards like the chorus of oncoming sirens to disappear over a roof and is gone.

Except those sirens just keep getting nearer.

He is left standing there. He is no longer smiling. He mouth is wide open and his eyes terrified. All the blood is forgotten. Suddenly the sirens cut into his consciousness and he starts. Panic sets in.

And he begins to run.

She is far above fluttering in the warm air. Below her is the mortal world. He is running and the blue lights are chasing. She is watching, and from up here she can see them and they cannot see her.

***

The aircon in the detective’s office is broken and the open window barely helps, but he does not notice the sweat on his brow. He is lost in thought looking at the cases on his desk. All of them are murders. All of them are seemingly random homicidal murder, and in all of their cases, the suspect was chased from the scene and eventually died in the pursuing flight.

Suicide-by-cop, he thinks. He knows it must be right. It was their inability to face the consequences of their actions that drove them to this, and so they took the easy way out.

But why had all of them done the murders in the first place? So violent, so bloody…

All of the perps had been described as wildly psychotic by the police that had chased them. Yet all of the perps had appeared to be completely normal people by everyone who had actually know them in their day-to-day lives. All of the murders were so violent with little regard for hiding them; some in the middle of the day, some in the middle of busy schools or hospitals…

It was almost like they had wanted to get caught in the act. But then why had they run from the cops?

He shakes his head and leans back in his chair. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He needs a drink; something cold and strong.

Something brushes his hand on the table. Without thinking, he slaps his other hand down onto it. He sighs and opens his eyes.

Crushed between his right palm and the top of his left hand is a red, black and white little butterfly. Its wings are broken and its little body and insides squished all over the detective’s rough hands. Its tiny heart beats its last time in its shattered frame as life leaves it.

“Fuck. How the hell did that get in here,” he asks, but then realises the window was wide open. He feels bad; a pang of guilt stabs into him. It looks like it was a beautiful little creature, but just so fragile.

He grabs a tissue and wipes it off his hand and throws it into a bin under his desk. He sits up and leans forward, pulling the case files nearer to him. In front of him is a mosaic of murder with bloody pictures on his desk. So many. Why? Why would they do all of this?

He sighs and growls under his breath, “This world is so violent. So violent…”

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction

Warriors of Yesteryear

“Back then you knew who your enemy was, but now… Now, it is different. How can I fight what I cannot see?” she begins venting the moment she sits down. We are sitting in a quiet corner of a coffee shop that I use for these sorts of interviews. I pull my pad of paper out of my pocket and flip it open to a new page.

“What or who did you fight,” I begin after motioning for a coffee for the lady, “And why is it different now? How old are you, if I may ask?”

She has a quiet beauty, but also a hardness to her. She looks no more than mid-twenties, yet her fingers and eyes give away that she is probably older. This is the first time I have met her. A friend who knows what I do set up this interview after he met her at a party downtown. All he had said was that I would find it very interesting.

“I am two thousand nine hundred and seventy-one years old, born in King Soloman’s day under the light of the Caliphre Star. We were fighting the pagan gods, of course, and we won. Except for Allah, and Buddaha. But treaties were drawn up–thought Allah seems to be breaking them now–and…sorry, what was the last question?”

I blink and suddenly realise that I am gaping. I shut my mouth quickly. This all came pouring out of her so quickly that I forgot to write anything down.

“Uhm, oh: What is different today?” I ask automatically picking up from where she left off.

“Yes,” she starts, nodding seriously. The waitress brings coffee over, which the lady in front of me glances at distastefully, but then looks up at me and continues, “There are no enemies or pagan gods left to fight these days, yet all of us are losing the battle. To whom? To humanity’s lack of faith, if you ask me. We are fighting the Internet, TV, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, MTV, porn and binge series watching, amongst others.”

I get an insane urge to giggle. This attractive woman in front of me believes what she is saying. There is no hesitation implying spontaneous lying, nor any sense of rehearsal or stiffness that implies the lies were practised beforehand. She believes she is telling me her story.

“So, so let’s step back here,” I begin circling back on details that do not make sense, like everything, so far, “How can you be thousands of years old? Why aren’t you dead? You are surely implying that you are an angel? But, then why are you here talking to me?”

She smiles at me. She begins talking like she is explaining something to a child.

“Yes, I am an Angel. I was in the Celestial Army, but I have deserted. That makes me a Fallen Angel, and that is why I have assumed my mortal body and can sit here and tell you everything. The Eleventh Commandment no longer applies to me.”

“But why? Why did you desert?” is the only question I can think of. My pad of paper is completely forgotten, my cup of coffee sits on top of it.

“God and Buddha believe that there are no enemies out there. Allah at least seems angry enough to be trying something, however wrong his strategy is. Thus, at this point of crisis for humanity and divinity, as we get absorbed into technology, I decided that the way to win the war of information was to share it. Do you remember the tale of Prometheus? When humanity was living in cold, damp caves and hiding from the beasts of the night, he shared fire with them.”

“Yes, yes,” I exclaim, though I think I’m just glad to know something that she is talking about, “But Zeus then chained him to a rock where it liver is eaten out daily by an eagle!”

“Yes,” she nods, “Zeus was a real asshole about it all, but gods tend to be. The less humanity knows, then the more humanity needs divinity. So, Zeus was also not that crazy. He was just acting on incentives built into the system to ensure his own divine survival. The problem here is that humanity knows a lot more now. They don’t really need us to cure diseases or make crops grow or fish swim or babies to be born. So the game has changed, but the gods have not. And so we will lose and divinity will disappear to be replaced by something ‘else’…”

The day slipped away as she spoke. It was evening now and the rush hour traffic and hubris of the city softening and morphing into the nighttime buzz. She has not touched her coffee. It has long since become cold while I have drunk a number of them.

I suggest that we go for dinner or a drink, or both. She nods and says the drink is a good idea. We wander down the street to a dingy pub that I frequent and take my favourite booth in the back.

“If only you knew what was at stake,” she continues sipping a neat bourbon, “You humans make such a fuss about animals going extinct, but you care little for the loss of the divine and all their mysteries.”

“Why haven’t you come forward,” I ask dumbfounded, “All of you. Surely if the gods walked among us, the unbelievers could not deny and things would go back to yesteryear ways of worship?”

She shakes her head sadly and drains her bourbon. She flicks her glass at a waitress, who scurries off to find a refill. She has had a couple of them by now. I have too.

“Do you believe that I am an angel?” she asks simply, looking deeply into my eyes. Her eyes are intensely blue and my heart skips a beat.

“Uhm uh,” I stutter, “no… No, I don’t really.” I have to concede to that fierce, beautiful gaze.

“And therein lies the irony, by revealing myself I am no longer divine. By taking my mortal form, I am now mortal. Because I am no longer divine, I cannot prove to you that I ever was. Divinity and mystery are like shadows and sunset. If you shine a light bright enough into either, they simply cease to exist.”

A single tear runs down her cheek at this point. I was so entranced by her that I had not noticed her sorrow. I suddenly imagine what it must feel like to believe that you are a fallen angel, but that no one believes you. It must be tragic, and I reach over and squeeze her hand reassuringly.

She startles at my touch, but then looks up at me and smiles.

“You have a kind heart,” she says, wiping away the tear, “It comforts this old warrior to be around you.”

Later that night, after she has left my room, I lie awake thinking. Thoughts of gods and monsters, men and beasts, and angels and demons all swirl around my mind. I try imagine what sheer agony falling from heaven must entail while remembering her touch…

Eventually, I get up and walk to my apartment window. Far above, the stars are twinkling, and far below countless legions of men are moving. What a surreal day, I think to myself, what a surreal night.

Suddenly, I see a shooting star’s fading form flickering in the night sky above and beyond the city’s pollution. It silently streaks down to disappear into nothing. My heart skips a beat and I cannot help but wonder if it was an angel falling to Earth.