The Devil's Diaries

Thursday, 25 August 2016

The Oily Puddle

I slipped inside of the

oily puddle today.

Even though I knew it

was there.

The twig you threw was good

enough to save

itself, barely.

Still, it was the strangest thing.

While I was waiting,

suddenly I had this tree.

Not much moves me,

but I had to move for the roots.

They were so big.

It burned inside, I know it.

The petrol had to burn the

branches inside,

had to leave scars that

never turn white.

The explosion would have

horrified you,

had you waited to see.

Oil does that—

it explodes.

And then there is nothing left.

Not even a twig.

Fading

hold my hand for just

a little while...

we are moving

and fading

on and on

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

The End of the Game

here in your believing

triumph is fleeting

from so far away

no tongues left to speak in

When I opened the cage and released the girl, she howled past me, a cyclone powered by atomic pain. I crouched against the wall and covered my ears but I could still hear her screams, the terrified shouts of those in the lost restaurant, as she raged deadly witness against them.

After it was all over the followers had gone, sucked up in the girl’s funnel cloud. Everything lay on the ground, broken. The restaurant would not be serving again.

I was wondering with a pang of regret where Marietta had gone when a dishevelled figure with a lopsided purple hairdo and an old face limped over to me. The cruelty in her expression was now mingled with resentment. We just stood and looked at each other for a while, until she said, “You think you have won. But the spell is broken for you, too.”

“I know,” I answered. “But at least I can live with myself.”

“We’ll see about that,” she replied. She then disappeared, rather against her will, I thought, into a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.