SYMPATHY FOR A DEVIL

By Bennie Castle

[Image Credit to Eliphas Levi]

The man’s clothes, (if we may call them that,) showed signs of tears, patches, and stitchwork but he doesn’t mind or perhaps he pretends not to. Among the drags he wore were layers of linen shirts, some red overalls, and a discombobulated dark, bourbon mink coat with some pink substance staining a large part of its lower half. His stride is momentous and troublesome- according to people’s perspectives within his vicinity. Both of his eyes are dull and his gaze is lethargic and dead as silent night when all we hear from him is quietness and nothingness or like when an elevator rushes up too fast or the numbing sensation between your ears during mid-flight. The outer rim of his iris is gray with a hint of turquoise in the middle and pupils. Manhattan, he thinks to himself then remembers the long list of stories he’s heard over the years, although, Sammy isn’t your average tourist. “New York City, March 21st, 2024, Anno Domini… Time Square. Impeccable timing,” he says while spectators pass him by.  Imagine a condescending pope newly elected with jeering looks of sarcasm and spit for holy water since Sammy, as he prefers to be known, is a Devil. 

 Sammy overwhelms most humans crossing paths, with his red-shot eyes, the unexpected rows of straight, pearly white teeth, and a putrid, grim grin wrinkled with death and all its vices. One thinks, “What kind of spectacle is this man putting on?” Bewildered by the contradiction between attire and appearance. Sammy glances over at some magazines, news journals, and various publications at a newsstand, making his way there, passes by a crowd and picks up an issue of the New York Times- skimming and scanning through the articles, reading, “global warming, numerous casualties of war, unnecessary greed, mass extinction of species. Nothing but Man-made corruption… War wearied has performed what war can do.’’ Sammy utters, “For well over Seven hundred years have I not peered into the eyes of mortal man, confining them inside of my shit hole. It’s a pity for God almighty himself to waste his efforts on vermin…” whispers Sammy, followed by a haunting scowl after passing someone wearing a shirt of a baby dinosaur being held by Jesus Christ. 

Someone bumps into Sammy, expecting to knock him down or budge him out of the way but to no avail. “Move it, you bum!”The stranger says, a bit shaken from how grounded Sammy is. “Oh?” says Sammy, smiling from ear to ear; prey. This stout gentleman would make of excellent use someday, thinks Sammy to himself. He moves to the side, directly looking into the stranger’s eyes. “Where’d you steal the Cool Water from, Macy’s? This fucking freak smells like roses, and looks like trash!” Sammy laughs, and then says, “Found it, actually,” like your shriveled soul someday, he thinks. What is a devil doing in Time Square?’ One might ask themselves, oh, a job. Sammy is an elect of Lucifer himself, as a ‘Dark Messiah’ or rather a ‘messenger,’ so to speak. How did this come about? For being a diligent devil, that’s how. 

In Hell, at its lowest circles, in its eternal, frigid, pitch-dark night he is ordained to torture, rape, burn, crucify upside down, butcher, then stitch back together the most heinous examples of humans to have ever walked the earth, forever; Hitler, Charles Manson, the Pharaoh of Moses, Gahngiskan, Julius Cesar. They are just a few of many, with none to escape. But today… today is much different for Sammy. 

His visit to the surface proves to be much more entertaining than his day at the ‘office’. Since the fall of Lucifer himself, Samuel has known nothing but. Now, here he is during the Age of Information, within the Mecca of it all, Manhattan. Sammy walks away from the stand, heading down towards  Duffy Square. The Gigantic Screens displaying their ads, blinding lights, and blaring horns echoing from their vehicle are an atom’s weight of the chaos back in the City of Pandemonium. Street vendors, street performers, the countless scores of people oblivious to whom roam the concrete jungle. ‘Etchings, the seeds produced from a too bitter beginning,’ thinks Sammy to himself.  ‘For all they know, I invented pain. This is the day Lucifer granted me on his grand ascension to Paradise, marvelous. For tho art my author, my creator- whom else to follow but you?!’

He lifts his right hand and with the index finger, signals at a dumpster from quite some feet away, unleashing a swarm of rats, scattering out from over and under. Some to the left of pedestrians others to the right- Regardless,  a mess of screaming women and screeching wheels makes matters all the worse. Some odd score of rodents begins to jump into a car, where a woman had been parked. She wails at the top of her lungs, stretches her foot onto the gas pedal, runs a man over, and then into a mega screen outside of an electronics store. Sammy smiles. His left hand lowers then rises in her direction and a spark of electricity consumes her, the car, everything. Everywhere, fire scorches and pyrotechnic mishaps arose upon each screen; she was no longer wailing but sobbing now. What was left of her skin and face conjoined into the seats. A loud laughter echoes from a television set on the inside as Sammy wags one of his fingers, Sammy makes the rest of the TVs falter and supplies more wreckage than before. A few rats still run, hither and thither, with a nauseating smell coming from their burned hairs but one remains caught between the tire of the poor woman, who, now looks like nothing but a smoldering log, and the electronic store entrance, riddled with glass, metal, and blood. The rat’s head eventually pulses blood out like puss from wounds- a disgusting mess. “Now let us wait for your Son of God! Either way that is not the savior we know…” With her last bit of force, the woman pulls back and a parade of pedestrians catches fire around her after the car explodes, “for we know him as the King of MAN in our realm!” Scores of people ran in all directions as the pandemic ensued.

Sammy slowly steps back into a dark, narrow street and walks in the opposite direction.

Clouds formed rapidly over the City and tremendous amounts of rainfall descended on down. Shapes of dragons and hideous, ‘things’ dragging both tails and claws or what seemed to be so reared their ugly heads. Sammy closes both his hands, as if to pray, lifting both unto the skies, shouting, “Thank You Lord for this day..” a monstrous thunderclap collapses- smacking a second time as the only sound to be heard in the vicinity. Everything- mute. Sammy laughs. “This is the day.. The Day Lucifer granted me..” He looks above the cityscape, past its skyscrapers and anything else obstructing him from peering into the storm on high- piercing the scenery with his own eyes.

“It has been well over two millenniums since you’ve stepped foot upon THIS Earth, my lord. For the folly of man proved to be great on the day of “their savior’s” crucifixion. You yourself saw the one they tortured because of his holiness and goodness and guidance… you yourself saw the results of his works but what availability of knowledge and tools and resources and land and wealth and livestock and goods and delicacies at their disposal since… yet they prove themselves to be blots on THIS realm, still?! Stubborn,  selfish, measily things WE should have removed before our…” Thunder strikes again as if to reply. Sammy smiles again, “I know, I know sire. My use for this vessel is concluding… I shall warn them and scourge them before my leave.”  His steps are as light as dry leaves gliding down the avenue. Not a soul to be heard, the chaos Sammy insinuated at Duffy Square proved greater than any amusing spectacle. Sammy’s laughter echoes like a lion’s roar. His sureness and conclusiveness are enough to make any mortal man’s hair cringe into itself like a Fibonacci sequence. “Well… shall we?” says he before entering a Macy’s. He steps into the megalithic store and not a pin drop is to be heard from the inside. Not the wails and moans coming from its exterior and not the eerie emptiness of its interior; Only Sammy’s steps towards the escalators.

The store’s decor riddles the floor, some hangers are left with no articles of clothing whatsoever. A popcorn machine is filled to the brim, spilling a couple of bowls worth of it. Commercialized goods and packaging litter the second floor but not one soul to be seen. From the edge of the railing, Sammy looks down unto the mezzanine, thinking, “How far you’ve fallen… No, let us find a more heinous way of…” A shadow roams from a cross and without hesitation, Sammy sprints towards the apparition. “HALT! BEFORE I MAKE THINGS WORSE FOR YOU!” Nothing. The steps sound faint but whoever it emanates from is left breathless and panting. Sammy reaches the outside of the men’s bathroom and listens closely to the panicked screams coming from the inside. “DON’T BE SHY NOW! THIS IS THE TIMING OF YOUR DEATH AND BE CHEERFUL, FOR IT WILL BE SWIFT!”

Sammy rushes inside and sees his victim, crying senselessly with snot running down his nostrils. “YOU!? WHAT THE F#%K IS GOING ON OUT THERE?”

Sammy remains silent,  directs himself to the sink, and gently turns on the faucet… “Where’d you get this water from?” The man crawls speedily into the corner of the bathroom and says, “WHAT?! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” It was the same man from earlier; with his shriveled soul intact. “Hahaha, I said, where did you get this water from?” He stammers and says, “THE F*#&K DO I KNOW??! MAINE?!” Sammy grins, then laughs and smouches his lips upwards with the look one would give another after asking a rhetorical question. “No… The answer is..” Without hesitation, he grabs the poor fellow by the face and slams his entire body directly onto the floor. His head is bludgeoned and partly missing with blood, eyes, and teeth on the floor. “Rather… the answer WAS… your maker…  meet his other half.” The newly cleft victim tries to shout something at Sammy but not a word to escape from his mouth. The man’s jaw was hanging and an eyeball was blown out of its socket. Sammy picks him up one more time by the shirt and thrusts him into the sink again –

Blood soaks them both like water wets beach towels.

The newly appointed victim is left almost lifeless, without a lower jaw now. Sammy grins, then laughs and wipes his face clear of the guts and any residue it might present itself with.

His eyes define pain and anything it resembles while he stares at Sammy and his transformed figure into a 7-foot monstrosity of a demon. The ‘shell’ he once wore was torn off along with all the drags and clothes. From out his back issues enormous lifeless wings featuring a few ghostly holes punctured through on both of them.

‘From now, on… I’ll do the talking buddy.”

He picks the victim up again, by the collar this time.

 You know, when we first met back there at the newsstand. I was anticipating this very moment, you think you can hide and emerge that pathetic sorry excuse of a little life you live… or lived, we will soon blot you out… Prancing with your nose on high and need no correcting? You’ve met your executioner and your judge so thank me for saving you the time and trouble.”

The little facial features left on the man’s face are bloody and torn or hanging and oozing with blood. 

“Everyone has a price to pay, even me, even Lucifer but you, yours, my boy, is nonexistent now that those rosy cheeks aren’t marketable anymore but, hey, look… LOOK AT ME…!” Sammy holds him up by the few bits of cheeks left, bringing an artificial smile to the man’s face,” Everyone has a price to pay… you paid yours with your soul today. I want you to see what souls look like, THAT much I can repay you, personally. For it should bring HONOR..” And with one swing his body obliterates against the floor. The skeleton almost crawls itself away from Sammy. ‘… to a mortal with no ‘real eyes’, to see  what is not supposed to be seen.” He coldly let go of the skull and any chunk of lifeless body left. Within a split second, the man’s soul could be seen in the farthest most corner of the bathroom, crying, sobbing uncontrollably while holding on to itself in disbelief of what had just happened. Sammy grins and speaks to the soul, almost mocking it. He then sucks his teeth and stares into the mirror and again on to his newly found friend. “What can I say? No… really, tell me?” The tears roll down uncontrollably again as the man shouts for someone to save him from further offense. “Here is what I will say, at least in front of you, before we depart back to the shithole from whence you came! My being here, on the surface of this Earth,  is a one-in-a-million opportunity for ANY..” His wings spread vast, a dark crimson color that is ironically made much more beautiful and appealing with the punctured holes through them, “Mortal, for here we were expelled and here I gained my battle scars… By we I mean, Lucifer, our bright and morning star, the Fallen..” His wings hang higher than close back in/within themselves, causing the devastated soul to shriek and moan for its benefit. “WHAT…ARE YOU? OH MY G-” he yells and Sammy interrupts, jesting his prey, “I am death within the worst of nightmares… I am the darkness that peers you in the face as you pettily scream for light and God and his Glory.  I am the little voice in your head reminding you that optimism is obsolete, there is no such thing as hope, no such thing as salvation, at least not for you. Leave your worries and woes here on Earth but take your pain and torments, your night terrors, and know that you should have buried yourself alive before crossing me. With that said… Remember how we met? Because I know you won’t forget THIS face,” Sammy proceeds towards the soul and collects him with his hands, he grins for the last time, at least the last time on Earth, and for an instant, time stood still within that realm. The silence becomes a resonance and his body spontaneously combusts inwards. Samuel’s bones and skeletal system are now on its exterior, caging the organs and intestines into place, a knight made up of bones and exposed flesh as the wings it adorned are now hidden, instead, flashing his white fangs of rapture and carnage. Ghouls, half-men, and absurd creatures like swine and goats, herd around the newcomer, frightening it into submission.  Samuel proceeds past them then and smiles at the light being transmitted from the other side of the portal, the only ‘hope’ they had was bottlenecked and left in their dimensions. 

thrusts himself and ‘it’ into the ultimate heinous of dimensions within Hell, Samuel’s domain. He stares at it from the entrance of his torture chamber and explains the severity of his situation. How it is to become a servant of its ‘new lord’ and deliver anything and everything Samuel might require of it.

The fumes consume and proceed out of the poor soul, burning through the illusionary skin it had just literally regenerated, the clothes, and any other material aspect, leaving it as a bare skeleton, violated and bathed in a deep aurora of velvet and purple. Tears stream from it and turn to minute sparks that dissipate immediately once they, ‘grace the dead, black land of the Dead’ says Samuel. A vast portal was emanating from a newly founded pit outside of Samuel’s dwelling, ‘Boy, I will do you the grand honor of showing you how souls are reaped and from where… but, From when, well…it is all so complicated, how could I..’ The bare skeleton looked on to Samuel with a hollow look of death and silence, like a bitch when her entire litter has died overnight or a young athlete who’s been double amputated, the silence of the cold night when a stomach might rumble and all the local stores are closed at this hour of the night and..; ‘Starvation’. Samuel says, ‘Time is priceless, boy. With time, you could have prevented your fate, by being here, with me. With time, my boy, you will learn. Lucifer and I have built this realm with our dreaded hands and night terrors, we both fell unto this realm with the other archangels and from this realm have we waited and harvested batches upon batches of souls..’ pointing at Hitler, with his mustache hairs being shaved off by ghouls holding a pair of cactuses in their hands and red concord wine on the other, drinking and spilling and shouting and laughing before shoving the cactus whole down his throat so fast and so swift that the soul yelped ‘NO’ before them. “Here… my boy, we are KINGS to these poor souls… GODS, almost… but in fact, I tell you and I tell no lies, boy… we are the fallen ones and we HAVE our redemption IN The crucifixion… Thanks to our Lord, Lucifer, and his likeness. And because of my servitude and my loyalty and appreciation for my Lord over the last unnumbered amounts of years…’ Samuel paused, almost expecting the soul beside him to remain shut with the look he gave it, continues “ I have had the opportunity to REAP from Earth itself, ME!!” Samuel stops then roars into laughter, patting the soul on its back, ‘MY bare hands, not idly wait for the wretched things to drop… I…”

The soul turns his head in confusion, asking why is reaping on Earth so rare for him, why hasn’t he gone to its surface himself, the way a child does when they’re lost in admiration. Samuel showed pity while peering at it, stating, ‘It was never our purpose to begin with… We were Angels, as close as any entity is allowed to the Creator himself, so… To kneel before Man? To walk amongst them and guide them and teach them, and  love them… at their feet?…HA!” His wings clapped and spread themselves wider than ever, with a crashing sound like the roar of a thousand lions. The soul stood as still as time did when Sammy grinned on Earth for the last time, “that is the reason why we fell, to begin with, my boy… We only reap from this realm because our Father loved you chimpanzees so much… For YOUR safety, he kept our realm and us from being here an impossible thing BUT then again… All things are Possible with God.” Samuel points at the pitch-black sky where a gigantic red cross has appeared, with a faint apparition of Crimson Wings beside it. “Our Lord, Lucifer is set to arrive soon. Our works are done, on various Earths, as we’ve done in Hell. For the crucifixion of Judas Christ is a reality now… According to thy maker. Look, more souls entering!” Samuel points to the portal this time and countless corpses crawl from it, demented and contorted, screaming in pure pain and agony and torment after being ushered in from another dimension. The only thing the new arrivals could bring into hell with them was pain, misery, death, sin, and their miserable souls. Thunderous sounds escaped from the portal and from the skies of hell, ‘he will be back soon… how charming was our orchestration…” thinks Sammy to himself with a half-hearted smile and his eyes fixed on the pit and its portals and the souls from other realms, drifting in like rivers with their waters at night.

END