reallylonglies

[reallylonglies]

Taylor Swift - Demon Hunter : Part 4

Blake was exhausted. She had work. She had kids to chase around. She had a husband. She didn’t have time to pass messages between a demon and a lightning rod like they were in a really messed up fifth grade class. 

She stomped down the stairs to Taylor’s gym. It was quiet there when Taylor was touring and she needed some time to get a little work done. She found a semi-comfortable seat and began to leaf through a script she’d been sent. It was quiet and cool in the gym, and the script was actually good enough that she found herself engrossed. An hour passed before she realised she wasn’t alone. 

There was a faint hum in the air and a warm, spiced scent. She slipped the script into her bag, took off her earrings and readied herself for a fight. Only two people had the combination code for the door, but all that meant was that whatever was in here definitely wasn’t a person. Tucking her hair into a neat ponytail, she called into the darkness.

“You can come out now, she’s not here. Just little old me,” her voice echoed, the comfortable cool of the gym had become spine-tingling chill. She felt the air moving around her. 

“A breeze in a basement,” she muttered to herself, “Happy Tuesday to me.” 

Suddenly, it was in front of her. She sensed it before she saw it. Every inch of her body told her to run and never look back. From experience, she knew that this was the most important time to stay completely still and focussed. The discomfort she was feeling began to take shape in front of her. Despite her thudding heart, she found herself rolling her eyes at the over-dramatic process of manifestation. She really didn’t have time for this shit, even if it was scaring the living daylights out of her. She needed those living daylights to get through the rest of her busy life. 

After a minute or so of overdramatic swirling, the spirit manifested in front of her. She’d never seen anything like it. Except she had, she’d seen something exactly like it, but she’d never seen that thing manifest in front of her. Taylor usually just entered the room through a door, not as a swirling cloud of vapour.

“If you’re trying to convince me you’re my friend, you’ve already made several mistakes,” she said, sounding nonchalant is second nature when you’ve spent as many years in teen dramas as Blake had. 

“I’m not trying to trick you,” it said, it’s voice was not right either. Taylor had a human voice, this was a low growl with a rasping quality that made Blake want to dive for a packet of vocal zones. 

“What do you want?” Blake asked, slowly moving her hand up her back, between her shoulder blades. She grasped the handle of the small dagger she kept there, and silently thanked Gal Gadot for inspiring this little trick. 

With unseeing eyes, the spirit tilted its head at her. The eyes roamed up and down Blake’s whole body as if they had never been set on a human being before. 

“She took my friend, put her in a song,” the figure circled Blake, Blake concealed the dagger behind her wrist. 

“What are you doing?” she asked it as it passed behind her, when it stood in front of her, she took a sharp breath. 

“Learning,” the word escaped from Blake’s lips in Blake’s voice. Staring in horror at the uncanny figure before her, the real Blake stifled a scream. She slashed with the dagger at the demon, who dodged, then looked down at her own right hand. It revealed its identical dagger. The stifled scream became a roar of frustration. Blake threw herself into battle for the first time in over a decade. 

*****

I don’t attend awards ceremonies as a rule. There’s enough awful people there, I don’t need to add any more malice to the mix. I once had to find one of my old apprentices at the Oscars, the stench in that room… it was like garbage, emotional garbage. Everyone in there has so much hanging on a little golden statue. And people mock me for my crucifix intolerance. 

I sensed almost instantly that something bad had happened to Blake. I don’t know what gave it away. Was it something she said? Something she did? The fact that she had obviously been replaced by a powerful fallen angel out for vengeance? 

One of those things definitely set my alarm bells ringing when I went to her with a message for Taylor. Fallen angels are honestly the worst because if you bump into one unprepared they can do a lot of damage. They can stop you manifesting, give you a headache or in this case they can force you to possess the husband of a good friend against your will. 

She gestured to him, cowering gently in a corner. 

“Get in,” she said, she’d really nailed the voice. 

I have to tell you inhabiting a human host is gross enough but this guy had only recently been exorcised and whatever slovenly spirit he’d been possessed by did not clean up after itself. Anxieties everywhere. Nightmares left unfinished. The guy even left an existential crisis just lying around for me to trip up on. What a hack.  

We so rarely talk about what it feels like to possess someone, allow me to describe it. It’s a little like tapping into a phone line except the phone line is the person’s physical presence in the mortal dimension. Unfortunately, the host is still using the phone line so you get a live feed of all their thoughts, and this guy was a big thinker. A lot going on in his mind. Gave me a migraine almost instantly. 

Walking the red carpet, I saw Taylor at a distance. Unfortunately there was no way for me to signal to her in front of that many photographers. I didn’t want to risk the exposure of the entire demon realm over something so small as a potential apocalypse. Also, any time that a person is working hard to perform the act of “being myself” it is actually surprisingly difficult for an incumbent Demon to take over. They’re too conscious of everything, all their boundaries are up. It’s sticky and gross and I hate it. 

Fallen angels love, love having their pictures taken. Ever seen those old-timey exorcism pictures? All that ectoplasm shit? Fallen angels, they love to showboat. As soon as they get in front of a camera they have to show off. If you look at any pictures of Blake from this awards ceremony, you might be able to see the image warping a little at the edges, or get a chill when you look at her eyes. 

So anyway, the red carpet probably was simultaneously the best and worst place to attract Taylor’s attention. Demon Blake was distracted having her picture taken. Great. Stupid human host Ryan was on his best “being myself” behaviour. Not great. 

As luck would have it, my host needed the bathroom. Admittedly, I had spent the entire afternoon making him thirsty in the hope that this would give me the out I needed. Slipping through the crowd, he passed Taylor and I pushed myself to the top of his psyche so that she couldn’t fail to hear my tune blaring out over the shouts of journalists and photographers. 

Her eye met Ryan’s and she filled with fiery rage. I fist bumped, there was no way she could ignore this. 

She stormed into the bathroom while my host was washing his hands. Another insignificant human squealed at her, she swore at him and he left in a panic. It wasn’t classy. I loved it. 

“You,” she fixed me with her hardest stare, “get out.” 

“You’re blocking the door. I’m also really not sure you’re meant to be in here. This is the men’s room and you’re not a men,” Ryan’s babbling continued until he looked in the mirror above the sink and saw my face beaming back at him, “Oh God, not again, how does this keep happening to me? Do I have a possess me sign on my back?” 

He was still chattering as I drifted gently away from his feeble human body and manifested next to him.

“Wait why is he wearing a tux, do demons wear tuxes?” he asked. 

“No,” I said, “It’s a special occasion I wanted to look nice. Do you always wear a tux, dumbass?” 

“No,” he asked, “Why do you look like John Mulaney?”

“It’s a passing resemblance, why do you look like Picasso’s biggest mistake?” 

Taylor interrupted our vocal sparring by aggressively grabbing me by my bowtie. I had manifested too solidly for that not to hurt. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, twisting the bowtie tighter. 

I made some garbled gasping sounds, she relented and loosened her grip. 

“Blake… fallen angel… very bad… big event… tonnes of demons…” partly I was getting my breath back, partly I preferred talking in bullet points. 

“How many?” she asked, taking a series of silver rings out of her garter and slipping them onto her fingers. 

“Sevent…” I deliberately mumbled the second half of the word. 

“Seventeen? That’s not so many,” she shrugged, I made a guilty face “Oh, seventy, that’s many, a lot of many. Is there anyone we can call?” 

Zendaya was out on a film shoot somewhere. Aniston was retired. Dunst had a lifetime ban because of the Bettany fiasco. I racked my brains. 

The door opened. Two figures in black suits appeared. 

“Miss Swift, pleased to meet you, we’ve heard a lot about you,” the one that spoke had a gentle accent and dreamy eyes, the other one was Keanu Reeves. 

“It seems you have a bit of a situation on your hands,” Reeves answered, “How can we be of service?” 

Taylor looked taken aback. I looked taken aback. Ryan looked deeply confused. 

“What the hell is going on? Why is Neo here with this tennis player? Are we giving Golden Globes to tennis players now?” these were all logical questions. 

“This must be confusing for you,” with perfectly applied pressure from his palm, Reeves gently put Ryan to sleep. The other guy caught the body and slid it under the sink, where they kept the hand towels and soap refills. Watching these two work together, stirred a memory in me, something from an impossibly long time ago. 

“Holy shit,” I said, “You’re Reeves and Federer.”

“Who else would we be?” Federer asked as he arranged some hand towels under Ryan’s head to make him more comfortable. 

“Wait, the Reeves and Federer?” Taylor chimed in, “I thought they were from like, the 18th century.”

“We are,” they answered in unison. 

Reeves and Federer: immortal vampires. I couldn’t believe they were still around, which in hindsight felt particularly foolish. They were immortal vampires, of course they were still around. 

“Alright,” Taylor and I didn’t have time to fangirl the way I wanted to over these two absolute heroes of the dark world, “I have a plan for this but it’s going to take a lot of work. What weapons are we working with?” 

Reeves and Federer opened their jackets. I gasped audibly. 

“What do you need?”

******

Blake woke in the gym, her hands were tied to a leg press machine. She rolled her eyes, and without even flinching, dislocated her thumb to break out of her bonds. She sighed, popped her thumb back in and straightened her dress. 

“Fallen angels,” she muttered, collecting her handbag, “Amateurs.” 

*****

Demon Blake waited for the ceremony to begin before starting her big show. The sound system began to crackle and pop like a nervous bowl of rice krispies. The host apologised for technical difficulties. The technical team shook their heads in confusion. 

The lights went out. A room full of expensive people gasped expensively in shock. 

“Silence,” a voice throbbed from the center of the room. Blake had risen to her feat and was glowing blue in the darkness, “Stand.” 

A bunch of bozos in suits stood up. Taylor sighed, we were concealed behind a thick velvet curtain. 

“There are so many,” she whispered, “Reeves and Federer had better remember the plan. Are you ready for it?” 

“I was hewn ready,” I replied. It was a lie, if I was physically capable of wetting myself I would have done. 

“Ew, that’s gross,” she answered as we watched Demon Blake rise into the centre of the room. I get telepathic when I get nervous. 

There was a shuffling sound behind us, Taylor turned, instantly ready for a fight. Blake, the real one, not the floating ball of demonic rage, appeared from the shadows. 

“Hey,” she smiled, “What did I miss?” 

“Oh, nothing, just that your demon twin is trying to take over the world,” Taylor answered as Blake rummaged in her handbag and changed her heels for comfortable pumps. 

“So, just another Tuesday then,” she answered, “Where do you want me?” 

“The tech desk, I need you to raise the curtain when Reeves and Federer give the signal,” Taylor kept her eyes pinned on demon Blake, who was now floating through the audience monologuing about mortals heeding her will or something. Typical fallen angel garbage, these guys are 80% propaganda.

“Wait,” Blake paused on her way to the tech desk which was hidden at the back of the room, “The Reeves and Federer? I thought they were a myth.” 

“Yeah, me too. Now it makes sense that John Wick looks so fighting fit at fifty,” Taylor gestured that Blake should hurry, the possessed hordes were beginning to bar the doors. 

Just as the tension in the room mounted to a peak, there was a loud shout from a balcony above the stage. 

“Hey, crazy demon!” the words were less than poetry, but they sounded so good in a swiss accent, “Possess this!”

He threw what looked like, but certainly wasn’t a tennis ball into the air, jumped and served. The point blank blow knocked demon Blake out of the air, she crashed dramatically into a table surrounded by influential aged filmmakers.

It occurred to me suddenly that I had no idea where he’d been hiding that tennis racket.

Taylor was still biding her time, she made her way towards the center of the stage, behind the curtain. 

Reeves had made his way to the middle of the room, gently bringing protective posessees to their knees on the way. It was good that he was used to hurting people without actually hurting people, that was working in our favour. 

Demon Blake saw him coming and aimed a bolt of lightning squarely at his chest. He dodged it, letting Quentin Tarantino take the hit. Boy howdy he was going to have a headache when he woke up. 

Federer had climbed athletically down from the balcony and was approaching Demon Blake from behind, apologising courteously as he elbowed his way through the crowd. 

Reeves cricked his neck as Demon Blake moved towards him, real fire blazing in her eyes. 

I’ve rarely engaged in hand to hand combat with a fallen angel. In fact, I would go so far as to say I have never in fact engaged in hand to hand combat with a fallen angel. It’s risky, and hard, plus in high stress situations I have a habit of turning into a cloud of greasy smoke so it’s difficult to keep up with the “hand to hand” thing. With that for context, let me tell you that I was impressed with how long Reeves held out. 

First she came for him with a left hook. 

He caught her fist in his and forced her backwards. 

She burst into flames and he was almost incinerated. 

Stumbling backwards, he pulled a chair out from under a possessed Jude Law and shattered it. 

He struck out with a chair leg and clocked her across the face. 

At this point she lost control and contorted briefly into her true shape, horns, wings and all. 

Taylor motioned to me to move to the orchestra pit. My part of the plan was, though I say myself, a big challenge. I was being very brave. Landing in the pit I centred myself and extended a telepathic field across all of the musicians. 

Just as I got the last flautist under control, I heard Reeves and Federer give the signal. It was meant to be “now” but it came as a slightly garbled scream somewhere in the vicinity of now. 

Luckily Blake got the message and the curtain on the stage rose. I connected myself with Taylor, a conduit for her to control the orchestra. She let out a single, incredible note. Demon Blake turned, dropping both Reeves and Federer to the floor. 

“You,” the Demon floated towards Taylor at an alarming pace. 

Taylor replied with a low hum, the orchestra started up, perfectly in tune under her control. 

“You hid my friend in that stupid song,” the demon had dropped its Blake disguise in its fury. Fallen angels, not pretty. Would not recommend this as a Halloween costume. 

Taylor started the song, the orchestra was building with her. I’d never heard this one before, it was incredible. 

The angel was uncomfortable, its tune was hiding under the verses, woven tightly into the chorus, but it fought back. Blue lightning flew out of its hands towards Taylor. She dodged, rolled and didn’t miss a line of her song. 

The Angel looked upwards as it began to weaken under the intensity of the music. Taylor nodded at me, as we had planned, I extended the telepathic field to include everyone in the room. Hundreds of voices raised in unison and the fallen angel writhed and glowed with pale fire. 

Reeves and Federer gazed up at the demon, Blake’s eyes were fixed on Taylor as she fought her greatest battle. In an explosion of fire and fury the fallen angel dissolved. The song came to an end, Taylor fell to her knees on the stage. Silence fell across the room, followed by a low whooshing sound as if a gale was blowing through the building. Seventy demons evacuated their influential hosts, eager to escape the wrath of the most powerful lightning rod they had ever seen. 

More silence, then Reeves clapping, Federer joining him, Blake whooping - the whole room erupted with applause. 

She stood, shakily. Smiled the same smile she had on her face the first time she vanquished a level five fire demon, and bowed.

As the applause died down, and I began gently wiping the memories of everyone in attendance. Taylor had a sudden flash of memory, she turned to Federer, who was folding napkins and straightening cutlery. 

“Did you leave Ryan locked in an under-sink cupboard?” 

“Oh, shit, yes,” he looked at Blake with panic in his eye. She was tucking into a tray of canapes. 

“Leave him there, it’ll be good for him,” she said, through a mouthful of salmon puffs, “I’ll get him out in an hour.” 

[reallylonglies]

Taylor Swift - Demon Hunter: Part Three

Just a normal dinner, she was relieved. She’d spent the summer stalking a particularly malevolent sea spirit. Sea spirits can only be evicted with the help of actual ocean spray, which had meant luring him to the coast which hadn’t been easy. Concealing the bruises she��d gained from fighting him on a clifftop wasn’t easy either. Fighting a violent spirit was hard, she had to avoid injuring the host while landing the right blows to the spirit. Rome has excellent healers though. 

This night would just be a straightforward dinner with friends. She’d known this couple for years, it would be fun, relaxing. 

But as soon as they arrived she sensed that something was wrong. Maybe it was exhaustion that slowed her down. It wasn’t until they were half way through dessert that she took the opportunity to casually take a look at him through the bowl of her wine glass. Pretending to be checking for faults, she caught a quick glance at his refracted image. She almost groaned aloud with frustration, but she caught Blake’s eye across the table. They exchanged much more in one look than they could have in a half-hour’s conversation. 

Of course, Taylor thought, I should have known. 

The invite had been very sudden and Blake had been insistent. 

They finished their dessert. As casually as possible, she suggested that she help her friend with the dishes.

“How bad is it?” Blake asked as soon as they were alone.

“Can we start with how you know what we’re dealing with here?” Taylor asked, stacking the dishwasher with precision. Just because you’re a demon hunter doesn’t mean you can’t be damn good at household chores. 

“I… I trained for a while…” Blake looked guilty. They methodically stacked the machine and, without conferring, began removing all sharp objects from the room, “I retired early. I fell in love and I couldn’t keep chasing all those guys, it didn’t feel right.” 

“I get it,” Taylor sighed, it really was exhausting. She’d tried to keep relationships going, but some guys just get funny about you consorting with beings from other dimensions. Even the most understanding eventually grew tired of her aggressive training routine. It was always “How do I know he’s possessed, what if you’re just using that as an excuse?” 

It made sense that Blake had been a rod, her hair was perfect for luring out a satyr or a fire demon. You can fill it full of perfume and then just waft until the demon shows itself. They just can’t resist the scent/texture combination.

Blake’s husband shouted something inane from the dining room, they remembered the task at hand. 

“Alright, what do we do? I can’t take him home like this,” Blake was urgent but not panicked. Taylor sensed that this wasn’t her first rodeo. 

“It looks like a basic level three demon, nothing too complicated. Do you know how long it’s been like this?” she took a series of silver charms from her pocket and wrapped them around her fingers. Blake removed her earrings and placed them on the counter. 

“About three months, I tried to ignore it at first but then I caught sight of him in a mirror and…”

“Say no more. You were right to bring him here.”

There was a big mirror in the dining room. A level three, the Jack-Of-All-Trades of the demon world. Common as headlice in the right places… Taylor was almost impressed that it had managed to take hold of such an influential host. 

He was a big man, but they were very strong women. 

He entered the kitchen and immediately the demon knew it had made a mistake. Taylor caught him in a headlock and forced him to the floor, trying to do as little damage as possible to Blake’s husband’s body in the process. She was thoughtful like that. 

“What’s happening? Why are you doing this to me? Is it because I said I didn’t like the potatoes? I just thought they were a little underdone!” he was a talker, and there are some things that even demons can’t change. 

Taylor pressed her be-charmed hand into his forehead. 

“Oh god, that burns what are you doing? Did Blake tell you what I said about your last single? It was just below par compared to your previous work I’m sorry…” 

“Blake, we need a reflector, can you grab that tea tray?” Blake pulled a silver tea tray from the worktop and held it above her husband’s flailing head. 

“This is like the worst trip to the dentist ever, what have I done to deserve this,” he caught sight of himself in the reflection, spotting the demon for the first time as it railed against Taylor’s silver covered hand, “Oh. That… What is that? Blake honey what’s living inside me?”

“Just a level three demon, we’re gonna pop it right out for you. You won’t feel a thing.” 

“He might feel something,” Taylor asked, trying to listen for the demon’s tune through the grunting and wailing. 

“Ok, you might feel something but it’ll just be a slight pinch,” Blake smiled, she was a terrible liar. 

“It’ll be more like pulling a tooth,” Taylor was using her full bodyweight to keep him restrained.

“Yeah, just like that,” Blake’s reassuring voice was not at all reassuring.

“Except where the tooth is a demon and your whole body is the bleeding gum,” Taylor finally caught the sound of the tune. Wrenching his face towards the mirror, she sang five notes and the demon split from the host with a deafening scream. Stuck in the tea tray, it growled at them impotently. 

She let the host slip down to the floor, he was whimpering. 

“Would anyone like a coffee?” Blake asked, casually popping her earrings back in, “Ryan stop whining, it wasn’t even that big of a demon.”

*********

I didn’t agree that Blake should be allowed to enter the circle of trust. It was a very tight circle. Me, Taylor and nobody else. Of course I felt threatened by Blake. With hair like that who wouldn’t. I wanted to live in it and cut it all off at the same time. Demons can be weird about hair. 

“She knows her stuff and it would be nice to have a friend who understood… you know… this?” 

“You make a compelling point, allow me to repost: I don’t like her.” 

I beg that you don’t judge me on my debating skills. I’m a demon, I’m good at possessing and haunting and showing up at halloween parties to upset teens. I’m also great at making passion fruit and white chocolate swiss rolls, but that’s not a demon thing that’s just because I’m awesome. 

“You are only saying that because you don’t want to share me,” she said. Perceptively. I hated it when she was perceptive. It was all “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to go out” or “that’s based on your personal bias, not fact” or “you only claim to like CSI: Miami to be controversial.” 

“Fine. But don’t blame me if this goes horribly wrong.” 

“It will not go horribly wrong, why are demons so pessimistic?” 

“Because we literally live in hell.” 

At least that was an argument she couldn’t contradict. 

*******

I will consent that letting her have a team mate did have it’s benefits. Blake did information gathering and operational support, Taylor did the hands on exorcising and I did the clean-up and paperwork. 

Have I mentioned how much paperwork there is? The audit trail on an exorcism is no small thing, and it’s a pretty thankless task. 

Mentally I referred to them as Taylor Swift and Blake Deadly because I thought it was hilarious. I didn’t share this with them because I couldn’t handle all the eye-rolling. I just occasionally laughed to myself about it. The demon who sits next to me didn’t find it funny, he just seethed at me in his gross brimstone cloud. 

Everything was going well until she met him. 

It wasn’t that I was jealous. She’ll claim that I was jealous. I wasn’t. Look how well I’d coped with sharing her with Blake. We were a team now! I was not jealous. 

My complaint was that she was spending a whole lot of time with him and he wasn’t even possessed. He wasn’t even an attractive prospect for a level four wind spirit, you know - the kind that spend autumn days making people’s coffee cool down too quickly, or causing people to get their hair caught in their lipstick. These are minor players, we wouldn’t even send a high ranking rod like Taylor in to combat. For a level four you send in a trainee, someone like Zendaya: she’s got potential but needs to hone her craft with a lot of practice. (Her work with Zac Efron was flawless though, a lot of conversations went on about that back at HQ.)

This guy wasn’t powerful enough to interest low level demons, I didn’t see the attraction. 

Blake tried to explain to me it was something something work life balance. I wasn’t really listening, I was looking at her hair. 

Anyway, I think my actions were perfectly justified. 

It wasn’t like I was trying to get her attention anyway. 

I just wanted to make a point. 

I think she overreacted. 

Definitely. 

*****

She thought she understood what betrayal felt like. 

When she came home that day and found her boyfriend possessed, she almost shrugged: it was inevitable that he’d become a target one day.

It didn’t seem like a big problem, just a small infestation. She locked the doors, sat him down. Tried to be gentle. 

The shock came when she pressed her charm against his forehead and heard a familiar song. The face she saw in the mirror, straining against the face of her lover was one she’d known for fifteen years. The demon that had changed her life forever. 

She didn’t need to sing the tune, he floated gently away from the host. 

“I was just making a point,” he said. 

“I never want to see you again,” she replied to his floating form in the mirror. 

“I was just reminding you that you have an important job to do,” he didn’t even have the common decency look guilty. 

“Get out,” she said, standing up, clenching her fingers around a throwing star in her pocket. 

“Oh come on, it was only a little bit of possession, if anything it will be good for him!” 

She threw the star at him and it passed through his spectral form and smashed a vase on the other side of the room. 

“Oh see, this is why we can’t have nice things,” he began. She didn’t have time for his stupid sarcastic tone. 

“I swear if you don’t get out right now, I will trap you in a song forever and you can spend eternity alone.” 

Her voice was stern, he looked honestly confused. It was as if he didn’t understand what he could possibly have done wrong. 

“Ugh, fine,” he said, dissolving. 

He didn’t know what he’d started. 

[reallylonglies]

Taylor Swift - Demon Hunter: Part Two

The mirror bent and wavered before her. This one was different. She felt his body squirming away from her. 

“Don’t you want me to help you?” she shouted, the demon was screaming even though it hadn’t yet shown itself. 

Screaming so loud she couldn’t hear herself think.

Screaming so loud she couldn’t hear anything. 

Even when they’d met in a crowded room, lights flashing, music pounding, she’d been able to hear the notes. This one was different. Looking into the mirror she caught her breath.

“What are you?” she asked, her voice cracked. 

The demon carried on screaming, gnashing its teeth. Her teeth, her cherry lips, her blue eyes. It stared at her as it screamed. It lashed out a foot and the mirror shattered into a thousand sharp stars. 

In the morning, he told her he’d had the wildest dream. 

*****************************

“Sure I told you about them. I would not skip part of the syllabus, that would be irresponsible and foolish,” I lied.

“You’re lying,” she said, between effortless chin-ups. 

“Yes, but I have the common decency to be a terrible liar,” I replied. I was levitating gently in front of her as she worked out in order to maintain eye contact. 

“What was it? I’ve tried to get that thing out and every time it just starts looking like me and wailing,” she persisted, dropping two feet to the ground and landing elegantly. 

“Ok, but if I tell you, I want you to promise you won’t behave rashly,” I answered as she moved to a table full of throwing stars and opened a big switch that turned on her rotating targets. 

“Sure,” she answered, unleashing two stars that punctured the cardboard eye holes of her first target. 

“So you know about the story of the angels that fell? Something something, and then paradise was lost…”

“Yes, Milton most famed for his “something something” line.” 

“Look, I train demon hunters. I haven’t had a lot of time for literature over the last few thousand years,” I flinched as she decapitated a target, “Anywho, there are a few fallen angels around and they have some more tricks up their sleeves than your standard demon. You’ll have to spend a little more time with this one.” 

“How do you take out a fallen angel?” she released her last throwing star with her eyes closed and murdered another helpless cardboard cut-out. 

“Actually, it’s kind of fun if you squint a little…” 

*****************

She walked through the door with him. The air was cold. We’d lit a few scented candles to trick him into thinking he was somewhere safe and familiar. The trick with a fallen angel is to break the bond by dividing the emotions of the man as much as possible from those of the angel. Like freezing a verruca except nothing at all like that. Forget I mentioned verrucas.

Deliberately, and slowly, she removed her scarf. Scented with her perfume. To him, “yay, the scent of a sexy lady” to the fallen angel hanging out inside him, “that sure smells like someone who’s gonna drag me from my fleshy host in an unseemly manner.” 

We’d procured by nefarious means (if you call me manifesting into his mother’s kitchen in the middle of the night and stealing photo albums nefarious) some childhood photos. This confuses the angel because they don’t cope well with the idea of aging. They’re kind of timeless and the idea that you could be born anything other than fully cooked is deeply upsetting to them. 

She leafed through the album with him, sipping some disgusting autumnal hot drink that she told him would taste like “fall in a cup.” 

That was just a pun, she thought it’d be funny. It was pretty funny. I laughed. 

Because, you know, “Fall”… Like an angel… Falling out of heaven.

Shut up, you had to be there. 

Gently, she lulled him into a state of nostalgia and only mild hypnosis. Gently pressing her hand against his neck, her silver charm concealed in her palm I shot a glance at the mirror that hung over the dining room table. The angel hadn’t seen me, but it was clinging desperately onto its host, writhing and squealing like nobody’s business. 

This is my bit. I so rarely get to do a bit. The angel didn’t see me coming. 

See, one thing that holds Taylor back is that she can’t cross through to other dimensions. Her form is just a little too physical. It’s not her fault, and I’ve learned to love her in spite of that. 

So while it was busy squealing at her, I slipped through the mirror and pulled it like a calf from a pregnant cow. I wish this was like the verruca thing but honestly it’s a very accurate metaphor. 

The thing is, much like a calf fresh from a mother cow, fallen angels are also weirdly slippery. So once I’d dragged it out of the mirror it was pretty hard to hold on. Add to that the fact that  the host… Jim… Jack... Jerry… whatever, was now just a guy. Conscious. Watching a fallen angel that looked exactly like his girlfriend grappling with a sprite in the middle of his sister’s house. On top of that I knocked over his hot drink and now there was maple latte all over the carpet and the sofa. 

I don’t know if that upset him at all but I would have been peeved if that happened to my sister’s house on my watch. I don’t have any sisters because I was dug out of a cliff instead of born but I still feel like it would be an inconvenience. 

There is a demon in my office who was hewn from the same cliff face as me… But I don’t think she really counts as a sister.

Luckily, Taylor was quick to act. She caught the angel around the throat and then choke-slammed it into the pooling maple latte. 

“Hi,” she said, smiling down at  her doppleganger, “I’m going to trap you in this shard of mirror forever now.”

This is when it tried its last killer tactic. Honestly I have no idea why they think this will work but I’ve seen three of these assholes get sent back to the netherworld and every damn time they try it. 

Slowly, Taylor watched her own face start to age. Not in a graceful way. My theory is that they find aging so incomprehensible that they think it scares the shit out of everyone else. In reality it just grosses us out. 

Just as it hit the point when she was edging towards unfeasibly old, like beyond a hundred and fifty, the real Taylor rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, you can just die now,” she slammed the shard of mirror down and pushed the fallen angel out of this dimension and into an uncomfortably small piece of glass and sand. 

The host stared. 

“Oh what like you’ve never seen someone trap a demon before,” she said, slipping the mirror into her pocket. 

“But, she was you… and she was all old.” he gawped. Is it bad that I personally preferred him when he was possessed by a millennia-old cursed deity?

“Don’t worry,” I said, on my way out, “The old Taylor is dead.” 

I picked up her scarf on the way out. 

“No, leave it, the scent from that and the stuff I put in the lattes will knock him out so badly he’ll assume this was all a weird dream,” she said, casually propping the photo albums and a few salvaged scented candles under her arm. 

“I am so proud of you,” I whispered. If I had tear ducts and didn’t dissolve if salt touched my skin I would have shed a single tear. 

I trotted gaily back to the host and draped the scarf around his neck. 

“Gotta wrap up warm,” I said, “It’s awfully nippy out.”

[reallylonglies]

Glitter

The bassline throbbed through the ceiling, occasionally dislodging fragments of plaster that rested in Macey’s hair.

By the undulating light shed from bare light bulbs Macey navigated the labyrinth. The smell of sweat permeated the walls. She counted the brass numbers on the doors, 5, 6, 7, and then 8, the room she had been sent to. 

She knocked, and listened for the low voice that bade her enter. She pushed the door open gently and walked headfirst into a wall of thick floral fragrance. There was barely any light, apart from the dim red glow of a single tealight in its holder. 

A voice in the darkness told her to sit. 

“You’ve come a long way from the offices of Skin Deep, Macey Phillips,” it whispered, a warm, dark, crackling sound.

Macey shifted awkwardly in her chair. This investigative stuff was all very new to her.  At the start of the week when she had been asked to review a series of body creams for the Ibiza special, she hadn’t pictured it leading her down such a dark path. 

“You want to know what happened to me,” the voice said. In the darkness, Macey nodded. The candlelight flickered, reflected briefly in the eyes of the speaker. Macey’s eyes were adjusting to the dim light. She could make out a shapeless form sitting before her, shrouded in layers of cloth despite the warmth of the room. Macey heard a long, drawn-out sigh.

“First, Macey, I want you to know that I’m not the only one. Cases as advanced as mine are rare, but not so rare that I am alone in my affliction. In the mid nineties there were enough of us to form a community of sorts, but most of them are gone.

I used to be an acrobat. Quite famous, in the right circles. I could do things in mid-air that Olympic gymnasts only dream of, but I couldn’t handle the restraints of professional sport. The circus had glamour, mystique, prestige: things vaulting on a bar in front of three fat judges could never give me. 

For years I spent my nights as a flickering star, carried through space by the gasps from the crowds below. I glowed with pride, with promise, and the potential to achieve so much. By the time I knew something was wrong, I was already in far too deep.

They called me Celestia. You might want to Google it, there will be grainy photographs and a badly written article that was printed in the back of the New York Times. The act was quite unlike the circus acts you might imagine. Much more high concept: I was a beam of light, thrown between the arms of strong men, the planets. Each costume represented a planet. Jupiter had golden rings around his waist and arms, Earth was painted in gorgeous swirls of blue and green. And me, I’m sure you can imagine…”

She paused. Macey hadn’t taken any notes, allowing a small dictaphone to do the work for her. The picture the woman painted, the bright lights of the circus, the delicate yet impressively strong woman floating around the big top - they all seemed so distant. Macey had never been to a circus. She’d assumed they didn’t exist any more, particularly the ones with acrobats and clowns and elephants. 

“It was a long time ago,” the woman continued, sensing her skepticism. “I lived to perform, I ate to keep my body healthy, I slept through the days to be alert for my act at night. The circus was my life and my family, it was the air I breathed. I was rarely out of my costume apart from when I was sleeping. Beautiful costumes; nothing to them but lace and sparkles. Crawling into my nightgown felt like taking a step back into the real world. I used to hang my favourite pieces at the end of my bed, and fall asleep knowing that the magic was never far away.

Spending so much time performing, dressed up and painted to look like a celestial body, I found the restraints of the human world a little frustrating. When I found it hard to get rid of the thick makeup on my skin, I didn’t mind. It was a reminder, like the costume at the end of my bed, that I was forever linked to that magical world. When I had days off and I had to run errands people looked at me strangely, but only because they had never seen a woman in jeans and heavy body paint before.

They all warned me it was bad for my skin to leave it on so long. I promised my closest friend, Lynn, who did my makeup, that when Christmas came I would scrub my skin so clean she wouldn’t recognise me. The thought of my being so clean and fresh pacified her, a blank canvas for her to decorate with beautiful creations.

Winter rolled round and the circus ceased touring for a week so we could visit our families for the festive season. My mother nearly exploded when she saw me in my drab street clothes, white body paint still clinging to the backs of my ears and patches of my neck. I was thrown into a bath and told in no uncertain terms that my grandmother could not see me looking like a street urchin.” 

She took a breath. Macey looked up. 

“Do you take a lot of baths, Macey?” 

“Some, I used to write a column called Bath Salts and Bubbly but it was more of a wine thing, except I don’t really like wine though so…” she trailed off.

“I remember the sensation of the water. Getting in was a process of daring myself to get one inch deeper, watching the patterns dissolve from my skin. Lying there in the water, suddenly I felt all the impact of the circus at once, months of non-stop performances and living nocturnally, stretching, flying and throwing myself across the arena, all caught up in knots in my body. I looked at my hands, which had turned pink in the too warm water. There was something odd about them, something that I couldn’t quite place. I tried to concentrate on something else, cleaning my hair with vigour and scrubbing ruthlessly at any patch of body paint that remained on my skin. When I felt as clean as a fresh white sheet, I pulled myself out of the water and towelled myself dry. And that’s when I saw it, all over me. Not on my skin, but in it: the glitter. I laughed at first, thinking it was the circus getting into my blood, I was even quietly proud that it could never be truly removed. But after a few days passed and several baths couldn’t shift it I started to panic. My mother didn’t question my high necked, long sleeved sweaters. If anything she was pleased that my personal style was such a direct contrast to my skimpy circus gear. 

When I finally escaped the stifling embrace of the family home and returned to the circus, I sought out the make-up artist. I told her about my skin, about the seemingly increasing number of tiny silver diamonds that encrusted my body. I told her as if it were a joke, hoping that I could laugh it off and she would have some simple explanation. She simply stared at me, asked me how often I’d been showering, had I been exfoliating. It all just seemed like nonsense, the kind of thing you read in beauty magazines...”

Macey cleared her throat guiltily. 

“Then she said the strangest thing, she said “I knew it was wrong to do that to a living thing.”

I thought she was talking to me of course. I presumed she meant I was overworked and my skin was having some kind of reaction. Like hives, but pretty. What I found out, and what you must already know by now, is that this was something very different.”

Macey looked awkwardly at her gloved hands and nodded. The woman’s eyes squinted at her through the gloom. 

“Why are you here, Macey? It’s a lot of research for a single article, isn’t it?”

“I like to be thorough, I want to get a really interesting angle on the piece,” she muttered, tugging at her cuffs. 

“I don’t think that’s true is it?” the woman said, sounding gentle for the first time since Macey had arrived, “You’re an intern, aren’t you? That’s what you said on the phone. Nasty job, interning for a fashion magazine, they give you all the shitty little things to do, before they throw you a bone and let you write something. Getting coffee, cleaning, doing errands in ridiculous shoes. I bet they make you test the beauty products that they don’t want to go near with a barge pole.” 

Macey looked into her eyes, they were soft, sympathetic. 

“Show me your hands,” the woman said, tapping the table. 

Macey took off her gloves, and gingerly placed her hands on the cool surface. The skin on her fingers sparkled faintly in the light. 

“You’re not too far gone, there’s hope yet, you’ve been getting as much sunlight as you can? Drinking filtered water? Avoiding processed foods?” 

Macey nodded slowly, although these things were all part of her routine long before they needed to be, she was a fashion intern - hydrating and clean eating were her mantra. 

“You have to make the effort, Macey, don’t slip up. No matter how great it made you feel, don’t let that stuff near your skin again,” the woman’s tone was urgent. 

“You make it sound so ominous,” Macey said, “People get skin conditions all the time, a lot worse than this one.”

The woman sat silently for what seemed like hours, then with an abrupt movement she turned on a the bright lights that bordered the dressing room mirror. 

She was a statue of crystals. It was hard to look at her, she shone so brightly. Little beams of light bounced off of her body, if you could call it a body. The form of a human woman was there, but she seemed impermanent, as if at any moment she might tumble into a pile of silver dust. 

“You think this is subtle, Macey? How many years do you think it has been since I have been able to go out in the sunlight without being afraid that a gust of wind is going to split my body into a thousand pieces?”

Macey shrank away from her as she spoke, clouds of tiny diamonds escaped from her mouth, landing on the table with a clatter. 

“You know what happened the day I left the circus? I was flying through the air, living my dream. I reached out to catch the hand of my trapeze partner, and I fell. My hand disintegrated in his. I didn’t break any bones. When I landed I was a pile of dust. Have you ever had to literally pull yourself together Macey? Because I have.”

She held out her arm, which tapered out into a shimmering point rather than a hand. As she raised it, clouds of diamond dust shifted in the air. Macey’s eyes drifted over her surroundings. The room covered in stardust, windowless, the door surrounded by black tape and draught excluders. The skeletal figure, held together by desperation, hiding from the wind. 

“The applause when I fell was deafening, the audience thought it was a vanishing act. I was lucky to recover as well as I have. Here,” she thrust the tape recorder at Macey, “Take your interview, take your article and warn them. See how seriously they take you. Tell them that body glitter is taking over the world, see what they say to you then…” 

A cloud of glimmering dust followed Macey out of the darkened room.

Days later, her article went to print. 

Body Glitter is Taking Over the World  was the title. A run down of the eight best body glitters and where to find them.

As she emailed the article to her editor, she watched the light dance on her fingertips. 

[reallylonglies]

Taylor Swift - Demon Hunter: Part 1

It was when she had me in the headlock that I began to wonder if I might have struck a nerve.

Was it something I said?

I thought back through everything I had said to her that day.

“You look nice today.”

Wasn’t that.

“Have you done something different with your hair?” 

Pretty standard conversational fare, shouldn’t provoke this kind of reaction.

“Your boyfriend is a fire demon, and you need to exorcise him.”

I thought it might be that but then who can tell with teen girls, honestly? 

“Why are you mad?” I asked her, or at least tried to ask her. My voice was a little strained because her elbow was tightening on my throat and her hair was hanging over my face so that every time I inhaled I got a mouthful of it. 

“Why are you in my dressing room?” 

Oh, yeah. Maybe it wasn’t even the fire demon thing, maybe I was just intruding. Suddenly it all made sense. Mystery solved. Case closed. 

I made some strangled noises and tried to spit out a clump of blondeness but it wasn’t going to work. Country singers have big hair and now a good solid third of hers was clogging my airways. She was going to have to let me go if I was going to explain.

“You’re going to have to let me go for me to explain,” I whispered gently into her thoughts. It’s just mild telepathy, nothing fancy. I don’t have a nosebleed whenever I do it or anything.

She dropped me and shouted an expletive. It was uncouth, I was shocked and taken aback. You don’t hear that kind of language in the other realms.

“You can’t be shocked and taken aback, you’re the one who broke into my dressing room,” she shouted, her eyes had narrowed to thin slits of rage.

Perfect, I thought, we can use this.

“Use what? Who the hell are you?”

“See, this is why I don’t use the telepathy thing - once I get into the swing of it I start sharing thoughts I don’t want to and before long everyone knows where I’m going for lunch and there’s a queue for the burrito bar. It’s like inception. Suddenly everyone wants a burrito and I’m left at the back of the queue where the burritos are just wet tortillas filled with cold rice and the memory of beef.”

She kicked me in the face. She has really long limbs. 

“I will admit I should have explained myself better.”

“Yes.” 

She folded her arms and looked at me. There was an awkward silence before I realised it was now time to explain myself better.

“Have you ever heard of muses?” 

“Like the Greek myth?” 

“No, not the band. The Greek myth, you know, this is why my job has been hell since 1994… Oh, wait, you said myth didn’t you? That is the correct answer… That doesn’t happen often. Imagine if those muses were like the Greek myth except also they’re fire demons that possess men of influence and try to trick them into forming a global government of badness that will bring about the fall of mankind.”

“So not really like the muses at all then?” I liked her sarcasm, it was spunky, she’d need that in the hellscape. Demons love spunkiness.

“There are nine of them, plus assorted demons and servants. Can I move on to the good part?” 

“Is that the part where you leave my dressing room before I call the cops?” 

“No. It’s the part where I tell you that you, Taylor Alison Swift, are a Lightning Rod.” 

They never react the way that I want them to. It’s not like telling someone they’re a wizard and they get to go to wizard school. Tell someone that and suddenly you’re like their best friend in the world: it’s all fun and laughter and shopping for owls. Tell someone they’re a kind of magical exorcist and the fate of the world depends on them and suddenly you’re the bad guy. 

“Yeah, I’m calling security.” 

“Wait, wait, wait!”

She paused, her hand hovering over the phone. 

“Listen.” 

She did, I saw her eyes, once angry slashes of rage, grow wide. 

“What is that?” 

“That’s me. You can hear me.”

“No, it’s like music. Like a melody.”

“It’s the sound of me disturbing the dimensions by being here, you can hear it because you’re a Lightning Rod, Taylor,” I always feel weird about this bit, sometimes they can smell us, sometimes they can taste us on the air, but every once in a million years there’s one that can hear it. Every one of us, demons, sprites whatever, we have our own little tune. We know each other’s, but Lightning Rods don’t have them because they’re technically mortal. It’s like having someone who hates the internet scroll through your Instagram and tut. I think that’s what it’s like. I don’t show up in photos so Instagram’s not really my bag. Stupid demon laws. 

“What’s a lightning...thing?” she asked, her eyes a little misted as she concentrated on my tune. 

“It’s a kind of exorcist. The muses are drawn to you. You’re like catnip...Demon-nip if you will.”

Her gaze snapped back to me, fire in her eyes again.

“What does that mean, am I in danger?” she asked. She didn’t sound afraid, more angry, like this whole thing was just some big inconvenience to her.

“No danger,” I said, “If you let me train you.” 

“Ugh,” she sank into a chair, “Fine.”

********************************

New York, midnight. Rain falls. 

He cracks open his hotel room door and stumbles in. He doesn’t feel good. Who would, in his condition? 

“Hello John,” she whispers gently as the storm outside throws light across her face. She’s draped in a chair with it’s back to the corner of the room. The dress he left her in is gone, and she’s dressed all in black. A hood obscures most of her face. 

“I thought I just…” his drunken vision swirls to the hotel door. His memory takes him back on a stumbling journey through the lobby, out into the street, crying girl in a dress. 

“You left me to make my own way home, John,” she said. Her lips were blood red. 

“How did you…” he was on the 20th floor. The elevator had taken ten minutes. 

“I’m in good shape, John,” she looked at him, she was holding something silver and small. He wanted to look at her, and at the same time he wanted to close his eyes tight until she was gone.  

“What do you want?” with a sudden wave of discomfort he realised how much she was scaring him, this wide-eyed nineteen year old girl whose heart he’d been toying with. He looked around the room, she’d taken the mirror off of the wall above the mantlepiece, it was leaning against the fireplace. She’d scratched something into its surface. “What did you do with the mirror?”

“Do you remember when he came to you? He said he’d help you and you shook his hand, and you never saw him again.”

“What are you talking about?” he didn’t like her voice, it sounded different: powerful.

“And even though you never knew his name, you always remember that after that encounter everything started going right,” she stood up, her clothes were wet from the rain. She held out her hand, her nails sparkled. 

He didn’t want to touch her but something in him was compelled to reach out. 

Before he knew what was happening he was on his knees, her arm was tight around his throat and she was pressing something cold against his head. 

“Look up,” she said, wrenching his neck so his face was opposite the mirror. He did not expect what he saw. Two faces fought against each other on the surface of his skull. One moment he recognised his own deep set eyes, his square jaw. The next second, a different face, rounder, with odd, taught features seemed to pull against his skin and try to gain prominence. 

“Get out,” she said, but as he tried to get away from her she wrenched his body back into position, “Not you John.” 

She pressed the silver object harder into his skin, it hurt like hell. Something inside him was tearing. To his horror, the face in the mirror began to speak. 

“You can’t beat me Swift, they’ve all tried - even Aniston gave it her best shot, he likes having me here.”

“Sure,” she said, her grip tightening, “But how many of them knew your tune.”

She whistled. Two brief, one long, and then two more quick notes. Rising and descending in pitch like a small hill of sound. 

Something felt like it was splitting within him. Like his skin was pulling away from his whole body and falling backwards. In the mirror he watched as something horrifying emerged from his limp frame. She let him fall to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes.  

“You’ve had your fun with him, asshole,” she said, and kicked the mirror hard. It shattered and burst into flames. 

He woke in a cold sweat. The mirror hung above the fireplace. 

A nightmare.

**************

“I just don’t think it’s fair to name-check him,” I said, reclining in an armchair. I liked her home studio. It was warm, my office in the Inbetween is cold and damp and the demon who sits next to me smells of actual brimstone. 

“Why?” she said, strumming her guitar pensively, “His demon, his song. Doesn’t the world get to know what he did?” 

“The demon or the man?”

“Both,” she stopped strumming and bowed her head, “Is it the muses that make them all assholes or do I have just awful taste.” 

“Look,” I said, putting on my most authoritative voice, “You’re the best in the business. You’re a talented exorcist. I hear back at the office they’re even making a pamphlet about you for us to give to the next generation of Rods. You’ll be an inspiration.”

“That is not an answer to my question,” she said, putting her guitar back into its stand and spinning around in her chair, “I’ve heard of guys battling their inner demons but I never knew I would be the one that had to do all the vanquishing. It’s exhausting.”

I always came to watch her record the songs. There was something exciting about watching the lights flicker and the room shake as she trapped a demon in a melody. She was the first aural Rod since the invention of recorded sound, this innovation was helping us keep some real pieces of work at bay in her pieces of work. 

As she hit that first line of the chorus I felt the ground quiver below me. Fabulous, a real spectacle. Something worth manifesting for. 

[reallylonglies]

Klaus

“Crochet a Friend.” That was what the packet said, but as soon as I sewed the last stitch on his beady little eye, Klaus was anything but.

He lay next to me, idly dropping spoilers about every show I watched. I asked him to stop, and he laughed, “You didn’t stop poking me with that needle, adding this nonsensical mop of rainbow hair. Why should I stop causing you pain, Matthew?”

He was right.

After an hour of cliffhangers cut loose by his caustic tongue, I gave up on television. I picked up a book. Moby Dick.

“Who are you kidding, Matthew?” he said, “You’re only reading that book so that you can say you have. I see you reading only the first and last sentence of each paragraph. I see you, Matthew.”

And he did.

Every activity was thwarted by his callous dissembling of my personality. I tried to cook, he called out the hypocrisy of a vegan diet consumed by someone who wears only the finest bespoke leather boots. Crushed, I ordered takeout.

When the delivery man arrived, Klaus opened the door. I don’t know what he said, but I guess I’m being sued now. But I created him. I deserved this.

I slurped my authentic ramen noodles. Klaus stared at me. His dark eyes twinkled under his rainbow curls. His whole form glittered with judgement. I was in awe.

As I left for the gym later that night, he asked me why I bothered to train a body so evidently accustomed to a life of privilege and lethargy. I could not answer him.

“You’re society’s puppet, Matthew,” he said. In the gym I could feel the strings as I attempted to build strength in my marionette arms. Useless.

I left him for an hour, that was all.

When I returned home, the door was hanging open, the wind blowing it back and forth indecisively. Would it slam shut or fly off its hinges? In that moment, I too was that door.

He had eaten everything in the fridge. His stomach was distended and fraying. I trod in multi-coloured jellybeans that I knew to be unicorn poop. The stench of vanilla was everywhere. He’d snorted an entire packet of sprinkles. Use-by date 2015.

When I found him, he was curled in a corner, singing Wheatus, barfing rainbow laces into a plastic cup which advertised Hotel Transylvania 3.

“Just a teenage dirtbag baby,” his eyes met mine, clouds of sugar-blindness lifted, his voice dropped to a whisper, “Like you.”

I turned the light out in the kitchen, made my way towards my bedroom.

“Why Hotel Transylvania 3, Matthew?” he asked, between wretches. “It’s not even the good Hotel Transylvania? What’s next, Minions?”

He cut me to my core.

I cried myself to sleep knowing that in his brutal honesty, Klaus had undone me. Who was I, and more importantly, who was I pretending to be?

When I awoke he was gone, a letter written in scrawled unicorn script on the mantelpiece.

“I can’t be around you anymore, you’re harshing my vibe.”

He had dotted the “i’s” with hearts.

I thought I would never see him again, but everyday since then I have been haunted. Klaus’s voice in my head, his cold yarn stare, boring into me. Who are you kidding Matthew?

Work no longer satisfied my mind. The daily commute soured me to the world. I became a recluse. Step by step, I left humanity behind, knowing that my entire existence had been an act.

I write from a cave high up in the Luang Prabang mountains, the only place I can be sure that I am my authentic self, unhindered by the performance of human life. I subsist on goat milk and wildflowers. I am therefore very ill. I do not think I should be eating the flowers? Only Klaus, in his infinite wisdom, would know.

Without knowing it, I had crocheted myself a friend so real that I would feel myself bound to him forever by ties much stronger than 100% acrylic doubleknit pale pink yarn. The ties that can only be woven by a creator and his creation. With every stitch in Klaus’s deceptively small, frail body, I had unravelled a part of myself.

[reallylonglies]

Antoni

It was just a blog post. My usual content: acid wit blended with pop culture references, capturing and bottling the anxieties of a generation. Posted quickly, without consideration.

9 Times I Questioned Antoni Porowski’s Cooking Ability.

It was one of several articles I’d written that day, each in the traditional list format. Gif-laden, headed for the facebook feeds of a thousand millennials. The emojis would gush like a waterfall. The likes would overflow.

My work completed for the day, I left for brunch. If I had known the consequences that my words would have, I would never have left the house. Crossing that threshold into the outside world took me from safety into a place of great peril.

The sun warmed my skin. The gentle tingle of flesh touching air, a simple sensation, is now fossilised forever in my memory, as with every experience of that first day. The last day of freedom. Before.

I sat in a cafe, waiting for the WiFi to connect. I summoned a bagel from a nose-ring wearing a decorative man. I scrolled through my notifications. From somewhere out beyond the blistering blue sky, thunder rolled.

One can grow complacent; I know I had. The internet was my playground. I tapped into the rich, syrupy desires of my audience and drank their time away. My power, like my audience, was limited but strong. By the time my bagel arrived, the niche had stirred, thrusting their thumbs and laughing faces. Good, I thought, they understand. The readers were hungry, and I had tossed them a reality star to chew upon.

I had bitten into my bagel before I saw it. My mind tried to pass it off as nothing, a mistake in the kitchen, a misplaced order. I know now that it was not.

Slices of avocado. Nine of them, edging my plate. Artisanal. Healthy.

I shrugged it off, took a picture and threw it to the internet with the kind of frivolity that characterised my behavior at that time. Hey @blackdogcafe when did you get on that Porowski hype? How light was my load, that I could dance with gaiety around the pitfalls of fate.

Days passed, and the incident drifted from my mind.

Sasha and I liked to visit Ikea, in those days. Laugh at scatter cushions, point at coffee tables. Storage solutions were a great source of joy to me, back then. Before I saw him.

It was just a flicker. I could have missed it. Again I tried to ignore it, to pass the moment off as the stirring of a curtain caught in the wind. But in my gut I knew exactly what I saw.

A man wearing a scarf tied artfully about his throat. A graphic tee. A selection of tupperware that would make meal prep easy for even the least capable kitchen novice.

Antoni.

I blinked and he was gone. My imagination was playing tricks on me. I ushered Sasha from the store as fast as I could, citing a disgust with capitalist mores as my justification. Even then, I felt she knew the truth. She knew what haunted me. We broke up shortly afterwards. She told me I had become withdrawn and cold. Within a year she had married a vegan chef.

After that, I saw him everywhere. I saw him reflected in the chrome door of my fridge. I saw him through the steam of the sauna at the gym, posing artfully with a branded tennis racket. I even saw his name emblazoned on the t shirts of young women. And always, with every meal I ordered, those slices of avocado.

They came with acai-bowls. They accompanied bran-muffins. Once, my last-ditch attempt to outwit him, they clustered around a t-bone steak. In each case they lay limply on the plate, winking at me accusingly with non-existent eyes.

I would send plates back, demand to see the chef. “We’ve always served it that way,” they claimed, but I knew.

I hadn’t checked my blog for notifications in weeks. It was self-care, I told my friends. I just needed to unplug for a while. They could not have known the fear I felt as I tentatively logged into my laptop, my hand shaking as I clicked.

There it was, that thoughtless article. Three hundred thousand shares and counting. I watched the number increase, second by second. Was that a gently tanned face in the reflection of my screen?

An email notification roused me from my reverie. I clicked, and my fate was sealed.

It was an invitation to come to the head office of a prestigious magazine. They wanted me to write a piece for them. I was a freelancer; this was nothing new to me.

In trepidation, I made the journey. The heat that day was oppressive. Even though my growing fear had numbed my fragile body, my dry mouth told me I needed a drink.

I bought a bottle of soft drink from the cafe on the station platform. With care, I unscrewed the cap and took a sip. An unfamiliar taste engulfed my mouth and I spluttered. Through the tears brought to my eyes by the momentary distress, I squinted at the label.

Lemon and Yuzu.

Perhaps some people would not know the word. Perhaps some people would have racked their brains trying to remember where they had heard it before. Perhaps some people might have Googled it.

Those people are free, and they do not know the privilege of their liberty. No search engine could assist me now. It would only have confirmed what I already knew.

He was everywhere.

I passed artwork in the square outside the offices I was visiting. Small children scampered over a statue of a giant pepper, a comically large knife protruding from its bulk. An enormous cucumber, skewered on a gargantuan fork, loomed out of the concrete like the tentacle of some unearthly being. I rounded a corner and my heart stopped.

Some insensitive fool claiming to be an artist had erected an enormous mandoline slicer. Atop the preposterous structure, there it stood: an avocado of inhuman proportions.

There was a time when I might have laughed. I would have deigned to share the gift of my mirth on Twitter: what fool thinks you can use a mandoline slicer to chop an avocado? There was a time, before, when I might even have levelled my wit at the man himself. A chance for @antoni to prove his worth. I staggered towards my destination.  

The woman on the front desk asked me if I was ok. I shuddered away from the creamy green colour of her blouse. A necklace of heavy, round wooden beads hung from her neck. He had been here.

I took the lift to the eighth floor, sank into an office chair. My interviewers stared. There were two of them, but I don’t remember details. They were pleased I had been able to come in. They loved my work. Especially my recent piece on -

I interrupted them. I could not bear to hear his name.

The storm that had been brewing all day in that oppressive heat suddenly let rip over the city. The clouds unburdened themselves of rain as if it were evidence of some heinous crime. I would not look out of the window. I still shuddered at the thought of the horrifying statues below.

One of the people in the room spoke, but I didn’t hear. My throat was tightening, as if restricted by an elegantly tied scarf.

“Pardon?” I asked, sitting on my hands to hide the shaking.

“He’ll be coming in this afternoon. Our usual interviewer broke his ankle jogging. We’d really appreciate you being able to do this short-notice.”

His words washed over me.

“Would you like to get yourself set up for the interview in here?”

I nodded, dumbstruck.

“We’ll send in some lunch for you,” I do not remember the faces of the men who spoke. I only remember those final words.

I plugged in my laptop. Placing my pen artfully atop my artisanal leather and bamboo fibre notebook, I arranged everything carefully. I snapped a picture. I shared it.

All of this on autopilot, all of this without thought.

Lunch arrived. Tex-Mex. Through my horror I managed to consume a couple of potato chips and some salsa. I hid the guacamole in a pot plant. I moved the pot plant to a different office.

As I returned to my desk I overheard the woman in the avocado shirt speaking to someone in reception, “Just this way, Mr…”

I didn’t hear the surname. Or did my terror strike it from my mind?  

You know who she was speaking to. In my haggard, frazzled state I had not put two and two together. How could I? I was a wreck.

Seconds later, it all made sense. Words that I had ignored during that morning meeting became clear and urgent memories.

“It would be great for you to meet him, you’ve become his online nemesis in a way.”

“A lot of our readers are big fans of his, and we’d like to give him an opportunity to defend himself.”

“Just this way, Mr Porowski.”

A red scarf tied artfully around his neck. A graphic tee with a list of names. The scent of chinese lime and avocado.

I burst through the floor-to-ceiling window. I fell with the rain.

The mandoline slicer claimed its first and last victim, and the last word I ever heard, whispered in the wind:

Antoni.