“Three things”, he says sitting on the other side of the small table, looking incredibly far away considering it’s size.
I squint, but still can’t see his face. The light hanging from the ceiling has one of those wide covers, which is just high enough for the light to shine right in my eyes, but just low enough to cast a shadow on him from the neck up.
His voice is low and course, grating, painful and ugly. When he speaks it feels like when you are grating a carrot right down to the nub and manage to grate a part of your finger nail too. “Three things”, he repeats. I subconsciously touch the nail of my middle finger with my thumb, just to check that the nail is still there and in one piece.
He pushes over, with his index finger, a piece of paper with three things scribbled on it. Looks like the hand writing of badly trained monkey. His hand is red. Dull red. Like he’s been writing on a chalk board using cheap, red chalk for years without washing his hands. His hand is large and swollen, his finger short, crooked and fat. It’s dry and blistered. As ugly as his voice.
“This is the price”, he continues grating my nails on his blunt grater. I look at the paper. I knew the price would be high, but I didn’t expect this. “Come now”, he says, reading my emotions, faking an emotion of his own of which he really has no experience, “it’s not that tough, is it?”.
He knows it is.
Nearly a year an a half ago, in a moment of weakness, I had frivolously sold my soul. I thought it would buy me peace, I thought it would buy me happiness. But like everything else he might buy from you, peace and happiness was not part of the payment. Of course, this he doesn’t tell you.
“You didn’t pay attention to the fine-print?”, he asks seeing my thoughts in the moisture of my teary eyes. He mocks me with his tone of voice. “My my my. I should up the price just for teaching you such a valuable lesson too.” Valuable indeed. Painful. Gut wrenching. Nauseating. But valuable.
He laughs. Unlike when he speaks, his laughter sounds like dragging grated nails down a chalk board. The laughter continues to ring through the dark room, even though he has stopped laughing.
“Take it!”, he screams, slamming his heavy fist down on the piece of paper. Chalk dust flies off his hand and lingers in the stark rays of the bare light. An unbearable stench lingers with it. He slowly drags back his fist, as if it’s the weight of an elephant, leaving a red chalk imprint of his fist in the centre of the paper and a smudge trailing in the direction of which he is pulling it.
I slowly reach for the paper, my hand trembling as I pick it up and angle it so as to deflect some of the bright light. With my other hand I dust off some of the red chalk. It’s foul stench filling my nostrils. Rotten flesh, vomit and shit. I can’t bear it. I’m afraid it will stick to me and I will be unable to get rid of it again.
My eyes water, I have to swallow to push back the contents of my stomach which is threatening to explode in my throat and mouth. I try to focus on the three things.
“One“, it forms in my head as I manage to decipher the nearly illegible writing, “rip out her heart.” I was fearing that he’d put that on the list. I guess I was hoping it wouldn’t be the first one.
“Two“, I continue, shuddering at what I will read next. “Disappoint all of them“. Bastard! I wanted to take the easy way out and not tell anyone that I’m leaving. He’s obviously in my head and is trying to make this as unpleasant and painful as possible. My stomach churns as my eyes move on to last line.
“Three“, I tremble. My eyes can’t focus on it, my mind can’t grasp it. I struggle to remember which letters have to follow which in order to make words. I blink, squeezing my eyes long and hard, trying to dry out the tears lingering below my eye lids. I open it, everything is fuzzy. I blink quickly. It doesn’t help much.
I stare at the paper, trying to grasp the letters like a drunk driver trying to read the summons that gives permission for the cops to confiscate his car and lock him up in jail. Like a 3d stereo-gram image, the words come into focus. They stand out on the page, long spikes with sharp points piercing my eyes.
“Face the Banshee!” My mouth tastes sour, the urge to vomit is too strong to fight anymore. My soul wasn’t this valuable was it? How could this be? How could he expect me to do this? Anything, but this!
With my head lowered between my arms at the level of the table, vomit dripping from my lips, I clutch the piece of paper in both hands. My handcuffs, my restraints, the thing that stands between me and freedom. The key, so easy. Just follow the instructions. So easy. So easy.
I breathe heavily. It’s difficult to decide which emotion to pay attention too first. The utter vile, disgusting, repulsiveness of his smell; my tight knotted stomach which feels like it’s tearing my heart, lungs and liver towards it with the gravity of a black hole; or the taste of vomit in my mouth and the nausea still lingering in my throat.
I don’t move my head, but I look up at him. I still can’t see his face, but I can see the yellow-brown of his rotten teeth, glimmering in the reflected light. I guess they’re posed in what could have been a toothy grin. His pleasure; my pain. His smile; my tear. His heaven; my hell.
Beyond these instructions lie paradise. A well paid, challenging job in a idyllic location, where trees abound and fruit are plentifully. The fruit: a life spent close to my son, seeing him grow up and being there for him.
But he’s smirking. He knows what he’s offering, and he knows what I’ll have to go through to get it. He also knows that I will go through it to get it. He’s evil. He’s manipulative. He’s selfish. He’s hurtful.
He’s me.
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