The Demonologia Biblica

by Wilde, Barbie

  “Hmmm,” Dan said feigning thoughtfulness. “Now, based on the fact that I have just removed an illness that has left you a blithering vegetable for three years in order that we can have a nice, civilised chat, what are the odds I cannot make good on a threat?”

  “This is a dream. Madness caused by the illness.”

  “You know it isn’t. I can see into your mind,” Dan said matter of fact. “So, the question is, do you want me to do that, Arthur? To you want me to go to such extremes before you will talk to me?”

  “No.”

  “That is good,” Dan beamed. The smile appeared genuine. “This is progress. Now for the name.”

  “I...”

  “Say it, Arthur.”

  “Dean.”

  “And who is Dean?”

  “You know who...”

  “I wish to hear it spill from your mouth, Arthur.”

  “Dean. My son.”

  “Your son,” Dan echoed as he nodded an affirmation. “The son you’ve not seen for quite some time, by all accounts.”

  “A son who has abandoned his father in his hour of need. A son who has disowned me because I was simply too much trouble to cope with.” Arthur was breathing heavily and colour rose in his sallow cheek bones.

  “Ah, this is good,” Dan said clapping his hands together. “This is the stuff I came to hear!”

  “Who the devil are you?”

  “Oh, Arthur,” Dan chuckled. “Will you please stop feeding me the lines?”

  Arthur held his breath for a few moments. His eyes widened and he dropped his voice to a hush.

  “Are you him?”

  “Oh, no,” Dan laughed. “But fret not; you will be meeting ‘him’ soon enough.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Arthur cried in terror. “Have I not been a pure soul?”

  “In a word: No. In fact your soul is quite mucky and will probably need a good rinse before I take it, you know, downstairs.”

  “You’ve come for my soul?” Arthur exclaimed. His eyes were wide with horror. “But you are not the devil. Who are you?”

  “Well, I can see we’re not going anywhere before we get this little hurdle out of the way,” Dan grumbled. “My name is Ronove. And I am a demon.”

  ***

  “A demon?”

  “Now, please do not think any less of me,” Dan said holding his hands up to ward off any recrimination. “If it helps, then I am actually a Marquis and Great Earl of Hell.”

  Arthur was dumbstruck. He simply stared at the creature masquerading as a man.

  “Not impressed?” Dan sniffed. “Well how about the fact that I command twenty legions of demons and have a way with words? Rhetoric, for example. Now surely you must be impressed by that? I did bring you back to the land of the listening, did I not? That must stand for something.”

  “I have gone mad. Here, in my last moments, sanity has left me,” Arthur said to the ceiling.

  “Not your last moments. Not quite,” Dan assured him. “Not until my say so. Now, let’s talk about Dean. Let’s talk about your relationship with your son.”

  “I have no relationship. I have no son.”

  “I have to be a bit blunt here, Arthur,” Dan said as he eyed the old man impatiently. “We're going to have a problem if you insist on going down this road. You’re paralysed save for your vocal chords and I’m a demon with Hell at my disposal. How do you think this is going to go if you continue to piss me off?”

  “All right, demon,” Arthur conceded. “I had a son...”

  “No, no, no,” Dan said. “I need you to acknowledge you have a son, Arthur.”

  From nowhere a terrible growl filled the room and Arthur felt something on his face. A vile and pungent breeze almost scalded his skin forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut as droplets of viscous fluid splattered his cheeks, some trickling into his mouth where his tongue was met with the taste of rancid meat. Arthur began to gag,

  “Stop, stop!” he managed to utter between retches.

  His eyes opened briefly to see something clinging to the ceiling, a beast that came with scales and teeth. Its mouth was agape and its bulbous green tongue lolled like some awful snake searching for something to swallow and digest before shitting out the bones.

  “Get it away from me!” he screamed.

  “Remind me of your son’s name, Arthur?” Dan commanded as he made a few notes on his clipboard.

  “Dean! His name is Dean!”

  The creature on the ceiling promptly vanished, taking the rancid taste with it.

  “Ah, reason,” Dan said cheerfully. “Thank Lucifer for that. You wouldn’t believe how much a monstrosity like that charges by the hour. I have a question.”

  “What?” Arthur was weak with relief.

  “Would you consider yourself to be a good father?” Dan asked.

  “Yes.” The response came through tight lips.

  “And you base this on what, exactly?” Dan said after making a few more notes. The sound of the pen on the paper sounded like tiny screams behind a locked door.

  “I was there for my son.”

  “Unlike your father?” Dan stated.

  “My father worked all hours to support us,” Arthur said in defiance. “He was a good man.”

  “Your father was a drunk who pissed away money that should have put food on the table,” Dan replied tapping the biro against his chin. “When he wasn't at work he was fucking whores. I like him. We talk often.”

  "You mock me."

  “Not at all,” Dan said with as much honesty a demon from Hades could muster. “But you fool yourself if you think being under the same roof as your child makes you a father."

  “You know nothing about it, demon,” Arthur spat.

  “I know plenty,” Dan countered. “But it seems you may need a prompt or two. Now, where to begin? Ah, I know! Remember this?”

  Abruptly, Arthur was no longer supine and simpering in his bed. He was in the kitchen of his family home of sixty years. The kitchen was seventies kitsch, a place of Formica and red plastic. At the kitchen table, he saw himself aged thirty five, hunched over a sketchbook. The cartoon images were in bright, lurid colours.

  Arthur found the ability to look upon the scene the way a member of the audience watches a play most disconcerting. To try to establish a sense of order he reached out to the nearest wall. The print on the paper consisted of a series of aqua green and gold circles that could have been applied by an errant child let loose with a Spiro-graph set. His fingers found the surface but it yielded and shivered under his touch like jelly. He withdrew his hand, understanding that the image had little by way of physical substance.

  There was a noise; the sound of footsteps running across the ceiling before they moved onto the stairs. The thumps became progressively louder and suddenly a small boy - no older than eight years of age - bounded into the room, a football held firmly in his hands.

  Dean.

  His son brushed a mop of dark hair out of his eyes. The image played out like a newsreel, as Arthur saw his younger self look up.

  “I’ll stop that right there,” Dan said unexpectedly and scene froze like a movie in pause playback mode. The demon was now standing beside Arthur.

  “What are you doing?” Arthur asked.

  “I need you to see something,” Dan replied. He stepped up to the static image of young Arthur and pointed a finger at his frigid face.

  “See that?”

  “What?”

  “The look of contempt on your brow,” Dan explained. “It’s plain for all.”

  “You’re imagining such things to prove a point,” Arthur said dismissively.

  “A little harsh, if I may say?” Dan muttered. For a moment Arthur thought he could see the buds of tiny horns pushing against the skin of Dan’s forehead.

  “Have it your way, Arthur. Resume!”

  The scene was alive again.

  “Daddy, can we play football now?” Dean was asking. His voice was bright and hopeful.r />
  “I told you Daddy's busy, Dean,” young Arthur said testily. “When I’ve finished this page I’ll play football, okay?”

  “But you said that an hour ago!” Dean stated throwing his head back in an exasperated fashion.

  “You always seem to want to do something when I’m busy!” young Arthur snapped. “If you don't leave me in peace I will not play with you at all.”

  “Pause that!”

  Dan walked through the kitchen table and positioned himself between the two frozen images.

  “What do you say to that, Arthur?” Dan queried. “Shunning and threatening a child because they’re placing demands on you? Is that the action of a caring father?”

  “Can you not see that I was working?” Arthur protested but the way his eyes failed to connect with Dan’s served his guilt up for all to see.

  “Doodles are not work. They are merely an extension of the pipe dream you have carried with you throughout your life.”

  “Being a cartoonist was not a pipe dream,” Arthur said. His face appeared hurt. “I was good, before the illness robbed me of my talent.”

  “Arthur, you’re positively delusional,” Dan giggled. “You were mediocre at best. Why not accept what you had? You made a fair bit of money from the estate agent business, right?”

  “I wasn’t put on this earth to be an estate agent,” Arthur explained. There wasn’t any real conviction in his response. It was a small and frightened thing, as though intimidated by reality. “I always knew that. My passion was in drawing.”

  “Yes,” Dan conceded briefly. “However, you can have all the passion in the world but if you’re shit then the odds of having a miserable existence start climbing the stairs, do they not?”

  “I just needed a break, that’s all.” Arthur’s tone was that of abject desolation.

  “Looking at the quality of those drawings, I’d say you had several breaks. All in the right arm. Let’s move on shall we?”

  The kitchen winked out and Arthur found himself sitting in the back seat of a Triumph Herald he’d owned towards the end of the seventies. In the front seat, he could see the back of young Arthur’s head. In the front passenger seat, Dean was chatting excitedly.

  “Wasn’t that a great film, Daddy?” he said making whoosh noises as he used his flattened out hands to mimic spaceships in flight.

  “Yes, Dean,” Arthur said impatiently. “Now don’t keep going on about it.”

  Dean continued with his animated descriptions of his favourite parts of the film. Arthur could see the reflection of his other self in the rear view mirror. In almost slow motion he cast his eyes to the heavens.

  “Hold it!” Dan again. “Got something written on your eyelids there, chief? Or is that dismissal I see?”

  “I liked to concentrate when I was driving,” Arthur shrugged. “Dean tended to distract me. It was a matter of safety.”

  “I think if you told a bigger lie, you’d end up with a tongue like mine!” Dan said. “Not dismissive? Shall we continue?”

  The scene resumed and saw Arthur reaching for the radio. He turned the dial until Dean was drowned out by the newscaster who told them another series of power cuts were on the cards.

  “Stop!”

  Not Dan this time. Arthur was wiping at his eyes, the tears shockingly warm against his incorporeal cheeks.

  “This is a skewed version of events.”

  “If you’re seeing any shit on the carpet, remember that you’re the one who’s trampled it through the house,” Dan sad bluntly. “It’s time to move on.”

  In an instant the scene had changed again. The car was gone; replaced by a cafe and it was alive with the sounds of cutlery scraping against plates and the hiss of steam as coffee percolated behind the stainless steel counter.

  Arthur and his son were sitting opposite each other, the remnants of a fried breakfast occupying the space on the table between them. Time had indeed moved on, several years, in fact. The mop haired boy who had clutched footballs and made spaceships from his hands was now tall and athletic, with close-cropped dark hair and vivid blue eyes. He was wearing a Birmingham University sweatshirt.

  “You said you’d come and see the ceremony,” Dean was saying. “I looked for you.”

  “I was busy,” Arthur heard himself say. “I can’t just drop work. I have a business to run. Besides, your mother was there to see you get your award.”

  “I wanted you there, Dad,” Dean said. Current Arthur could see the how his son’s eyes were cold and the muscles in his cheeks twitched with suppressed anger. “I needed to see you there.”

  “Why on Earth was it so important?” Arthur was talking a sip of his tea and looking out of the window to the street where people walked on by.

  “I don’t know, Dad. It was my graduation. You tell me?”

  “Aaaaand, freeze frame!” Dan interjected. “But you couldn’t tell him could you, Arthur? How would any father be able to do such a thing as admit they begrudged the success of their own child?”

  “That’s nonsense!” Arthur protested.

  “Truth hurts more than a hot poker up the anus as my boss often says,” Dan stated. “Admit it, Arthur, your son is gifted. He graduated with honours in graphic design and within three weeks had an apprenticeship with Dark Horse Comics. He'd stolen your dream. As far as you were concerned he snatched the golden goose and all you got was a big fat bag of sour grapes. You pushed him away. He didn't want that but it’s the only thing you offered.”

  “His mother was the one who maintained the family. She kept it all together.”

  “This would be Sally, right?” Dan said. “The woman who fucked off as soon as Dean left home because you were a self-satisfied bore who left her unfulfilled for years?”

  “She said we’d grown apart,” Arthur muttered. His heart was soured by the memory. “She just wanted to be happy.”

  “Well she was happy for quite some time,” Dan stated. “After your divorce she shacked up with the guy she’d been having an affair with for the last three years of your marriage. They fucked so often it was a wonder she didn’t become bow legged. She died a happy soul. Well, as I say to the boss, ya can’t win ‘em all.”

  “You’re a monster who enjoys tormenting the weak,” Arthur spat.

  “And your point is?”

  “I was a good...” Arthur began but Dan rode roughshod over him,

  “Not good. Bad. Very bad. Jeez you are one stubborn mule,” Dan said scratching his head wearily. “And don’t get me wrong, here. I like bad. It keeps me in a job after all. But you’re blaming your son for your own actions. Frankly, that’s very naughty. He thinks that you don’t love him, have never loved him. Looking at the footage I can’t say I blame him for coming to such a conclusion.”

  “Stop, Demon. Please,” Arthur said. The tears were back.

  “He’s married now. Did you know that?” Dan asked unexpectedly.

  “No.”

  “Yes. To a wonderful woman. Wendy,” Dan explained. “She works at his studio. She’s a witch, of course. Witch Wendy, it has a ring to it, don’t you think? But the soppy Hag loves your son so much. She knows Dean is not in a good place. Every night he tries to find resolution in a bottle of Merlot. Something has contributed to a severe lack of self-esteem, it seems. Having a shit father, I’d say.”

  Arthur remained quiet. He really did not know his son at all. But it was dawning on him that he’d never really tried. The pain in his heart was a throbbing entity that made him nauseous.

  “Well, Wendy may be a daughter of Satan but she’ll do anything for your son,” Dan said. “She summoned me, though he’s not in the know on this, so to speak. And, let’s face it, since she’s given up her soul for the cause, and I was swinging by anyway, it seemed churlish not to do her a favour.”

  “Favour?”

  “Now we get to the point of it all, dear Arthur,” Dan said in a dramatic tone. “You need to sort out this Will business. I mean, leaving all your estate to a d
og’s home, for Satan’s sake? What were you thinking?”

  “I was angry,” Arthur sighed. “I thought Dean had abandoned me.”

  “And now?”

  “I concede that this burden is mine.”

  Dan watched the figure in the bed as it seemed to shrink as Arthur made reality’s acquaintance. The old man sobbed, but it was a quiet affair, punctuated by small gasps for air.

  “I’m not looking for atonement here, Arthur,” Dan whispered. “I’m looking for action. Besides, Dean's wily witch has done a little jiggery-pokery and placed a curse on every dog that benefits from your beneficence. Something to do with turning inside out, I forget the details.”

  “What do I do to fix things?” Arthur asked. His Adam’s Apple pumped away snot that had trickled into the back of his throat.

  “Look at this,” Dan said turning the clip board around so that Arthur could see it.

  “What is it?” Arthur asked with a sniff.

  “This is a new Will. It states that you intend to hand your estate to Dean, the rightful heir. Dean needs to know you care about him. This little thing will help him feel good about himself. And make Wendy a happy Hag. Everyone wins.”

  “How is that possible? I signed it five years ago. In law, I no longer have mental capacity to amend it.”

  “Just sign it, Arthur, and let me sweat through the peripheral stuff.”

  Arthur could suddenly feel the weight pinning his right arm to the bed beginning to recede. He wiggled his fingers, relishing the sensation of the coarse duvet under his touch. It had been a long time since sense and reasoning had found such unity. His illness had robbed him of so much and this sliver of normalcy was his window on what once was.

  “Take the pen,” Dan ordered.

  Arthur took the biro from him.

  “X marks the spot,” Dan brought the sheets of paper into view. They were white and fresh and headed with the phrase,

  Last Will and Testament of Arthur Dean Conlon.

  “The sheets appear new,” Arthur observed. “They will know it’s fake.”

  “My, you are such a worrier!” Dan said with a grin. He nodded as Arthur signed the sheets. “That’s the ticket.”