A Talk with the Devil

I am not dead, I screamed inside myself, but no words came out of my open mouth, no breath left my lungs.

" GRAHAM, "" GRAMMIE, "" GRATHAM, "" GRAM, "" MICHEL, "

"I know all your names, all your thoughts and feelings, for I am he,
the one you don't pray to."

What is happening? Your voice sounds so familiar . .

"I have been with you a long time, and now Graham, we have time, time for a little fireside chat before your spirit is commended to the hereafter. Ask what you may, it won't be the first time you have spoken to me."

When did I ever speak with the likes of you?

"Remember that time, playing with the Ouija board Graham,? sitting at a table, the spirits of four fingers resting on one glass. You, your wife Mireille, Bob and Nancy. The glass sliding back and forth, seeking out letters from the alphabet lined around the edge of the table."

Yes I remember well, I was writing down each letter the glass moved to........

M.E.S.S.A.G.E. F.O.R. G.R.A.H.A.M.

P.I.S.S. O.F.F.

I was amazed and asked why? Then the glass spelt out:

B.E.C.A.U.S.E. I. F.A.N.C.Y. Y.O.U.R. W.I.F.E

"Yes, I have a great sense of humor, playing with people is so easy.Yet I am honest, did not your wife ask of me an important question?"

More than anything, Mireille wanted to be a dancer and she asked what should she do?

"Yes, yes, and what did I spell out?"

D. A. N. C. E.

'Mireille,' is she still alive?Did she have children?

"Don't get sentimental, that is of no concern to you now."

Listen devil, you've got a lot to answer for. Why so much pain in my life?

"Pain is a transition, you are a cell of your ancestors. Their pain is relived in you, as is their joy.How close is love to hate? Your father shouting at you:

'You murdered your grandmother in Ireland'

His harsh voice penetrating your skin and in your heart as a child, confusion was internalized into hate. Yet you both loved each other. His anger was his pain and guilt of leaving his mother and sister on the farm back in Ireland.

Is that why you gave me that message through the Ouija board, 'to love my father, because he was going to die.'

"I was only telling you what you knew."

Yet I had chances of happiness snatched away from me, like a baby torn from its mother's breast. I loved Mireille so much, yet she left me.

"You were not born to be happy. Life is transient, you were born to live. When you spoke those little words 'I love you' to Mireille, holding her eyes in your own. Did you not feel joy in the moisture of your tears? Pain is the separation of that joy."

"Life is like the expanding Universe, stagnation is death, growth demands progress of the Soul. Either you embrace pain and suffering, allowing yourself to be nourished or you die in a coffin of self-pity.

And Graham, I have been good for you, if that relationship had not ended, you would never have met Barbara!"

You put me through hell with her, didn't we nearly drown? Was it you who put those words in her mouth on the island of Skopolos -

'How can you cry in this heat'

that burned into me, hotter than the mid-day sun. That pushed me over the edge into walking into the sea and swimming off to a far distant island, not knowing if I would reach it...

"Yes, but what fires of passion I stoked up for you two.
You even flew a little, too close to the sun and had to fall. And did not the taste of death bring you back to life?"

Only to be tormented six years later, when you brought her over from Israel to England.

"I was giving you both a second chance."

Second chance be buggered. You knew it had no chance of working, an uncircumcised goy and a Jewish priestess.

"It was a great day, your wedding. A great marriage of convenience. I arranged it all, I take full credit. A pantomime of sacraments. Your poor Catholic sister walking around the registry office building, praying for your soul, while inside solemn vows of marriage were being laughed at."

A marriage of connivance. Didn't you see me at the reception, in the restroom, sitting on the toilet bound with constipation.

"That was emotional constipation, a small price to pay for the farce that day."

You made me suicidal.

"Graham, there are those living, who are already dead - the living dead. They think HE, I never mention his name, put them on this earth to work seven days a week, acquire as much wealth as possible, exploiting, plundering the less fortunate, all in the name of HIM. But in fact they are doing it in the name of ME, the hypocrites, and I shall have their tasty souls.

You do not have to pull the trigger of a gun to kill.
You can do it with a piece of paper, making policies, legislation that kills, all which enhance your career. Sitting at your breakfast table, fresh with deodorant after a shower, with the stroke of a pen, while children's screams pierce the trees, as red hot metal defiles their limbs, your white shirt stained by strawberry jam, you can murder.

How many children's eyes did Nixon and Bush fry for their breakfast with Napalm bombs..All in the name of HIM.
Who is the more degenerate, ME or HIM?

Nobody fell from grace, Adam and Eve were two entrepreneurs, the first capitalists.That apple was no gift, it cost us our nakedness and gave us shame.Society covers up its own guilt.

Well Graham, time is now and I see the shimmering of phosphorescent light upon your form. You are but a breath of star-dust."

I open my mouth and hear my voice whisper to those who love me..

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumns rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
 

(Hopi Indian Prayer - author unknown)

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