The Angel and the Demon

This is going to get a bit sappy, so for those of you reading this who aren’t interested in that sort of thing, just move along.

This is a story I wrote the other night. It came to me as I was lying down in bed for the night. It kind of explains how I’ve been feeling lately. Or something like that.

Once, there was a demon, a great ugly, bloated, disgusting, nasty little thing. He wasn’t a greater demon, he was a lesser demon – one of a million lesser demons, crawling around in filth and doing what demons do.

One day, an Angel came down from heaven to the land of the demons. She was a pure Angel, white as snow, and wherever she went, beams of light came streaming down from heaven to light her way, and flowers grew in her footsteps. Her hair was like a million strands of gold, and it streamed behind her like a gown, shimmering and billowing in her pure, untainted radiance.

And it just so happened that as she passed, this one demon looked up from the mud and filth he was wallowing in and saw the Angel, and the Angel saw him, and she smiled and greeted the demon with fair and courteous words, her voice ringing out over the din of the other demons like a thousand golden trumpets blaring at the first sunrise of the world, when everything was perfect and all the plants and animals that ever were sang for the first time and greeted the first heavenly rays of light.

And something happened to the demon – something that had never happened to him before. He was shocked that this pure and beautiful Angel would dare to speak to him, a lowly demon. And something changed in that demon. He looked upon the image of the golden Angel before him, flowing with light and glowing with heavenly radiance, and he felt that his heart would burst – a heart that he had never felt before. And the demon was filled with a desire to leave the filth and evil of the demon world, and make himself worthy of this pure creature that was before him, and, not knowing what he was doing, he raised his hand, and to his surprise and everlasting joy the Angel reached down and took his hand, and lifted him up. And the Angel and the demon walked the Earth together, and the demon felt that he would do anything to stay with this Angel, for she was the most precious thing in his world. And he looked at the Angel, and the Angel looked back, and there was love in their eyes.

But the Angel could not return to heaven, not with a demon. So the Angel stayed on Earth with the demon, and the demon knew bliss for the first time in his life. The sound of the Angel’s laughter was a million drops of water bubbling in a new formed stream, just thawed from the winter’s snow. The light in the Angel’s eyes was reflected as though through a million scattered gems, a billion tiny rainbows lit by her inner light.

But the demon was still a demon, though he wished with all his heart that he was not. He poured forth all his power and his will to try to become something other than a demon, but it was not enough. And slowly, gradually, like a stream carving its path through soft earth, the light of the Angel began to fade. And the Angel laughed less and less, and her eyes became dark, like the dark of the deepest night, when the moon is gone and all the stars have faded into the depths of time. And the demon saw himself through the Angel’s eyes – saw himself for the demon he still was, and would always be. Saw his clawed hands, his filthy skin, his black teeth. He smelled his own stench, and saw with horror and revulsion the work of all his years in the filth of demon land, causing misery, pain, and suffering. And it seemed that his heart would break, when he saw the Angel standing steadfast beside him, her light fading,
her smile vanishing, her voice silenced – because he knew that all this was his doing. No matter what he did, or how hard he tried, the demon was still a demon.

And then one day, the Angel left – called back into heaven in a shower of light that blinded the demon so that he couldn’t see. And when the blare of the trumpets and the song of the light had faded, the demon was alone, and all the world was dark. Clouds covered the sun and the moon and the stars, all the streams ran dry, the animals went silent, and the only sound was the rustle of dead leaves in a sorrowful, moaning wind that echoed the moaning of the demon in his black, cracking, crumbling heart. He knew that he would never see the Angel again, and all the light was gone from his life. He could not go back to the demon world. He could not rise into heaven. He was doomed to walk the Earth alone and empty hearted, filled up with pity and sorrow – sorrow so deep he felt as though he would drown in it, sucked down forever into a cold, black, slimy pit, to rot and be forgotten.

The demon cried for days; his tears shattering upon the hard earth and bringing back memories of the sound of the Angel’s laughter, which only made him ache for her all the more. His disfigured body shuddered with each moaning sob, his body wracked with guilt and pain and sorrow. He cursed himself, and he cursed his lot in life – cursed fate for putting him in that place where he was able to catch a glimpse of real beauty, only to deny him the strength to change himself and then take away the only thing that had ever brought him true joy.

His strength exhausted, his tears used up, the demon fell into a deep sleep, and as he did, he secretly hoped that he would never wake. But the demon was tormented in his sleep with his memories of the Angel, of her radiance and beauty – though it was always slightly faded in his memory; faded by the darkness of his own soul. And so the demon slept, and dreamed, and it felt like he had died.

…To be continued? We’ll see.

UPDATE: Continued here.