The Veil of Love: Memoir of a Demon

I thought forever bound we were
Entangled hearts that never stir
With words to lock us arm in arm
We lost ourselves to easy charm
            Dim ashes in the wake of flames
            amused by other sickened games
            All fragile warmth the cold soon takes
            A hollow heart that never aches
We bleed away these wasted years
And leave a mass of darkened tears
All love has died upon my lips
beneath the fall of endless trips...

I was human once; mortal. I don’t remember the name I answered to then, but it is of no importance now. I lived a quaint life, devoid of spectacle and lacking in potential. And yet I was completely content; happy even. I lost my parents in a horrific accident when I was very young. I barely remember them. Most of my childhood was spent being passed between orphanages. All of my extended relatives disowned me with eager haste and I had very few friends. Yet none of that bothered me; I was entirely appeased by my few meagre endowments. I was happy with my lot in life. I lived alone for many years in a sub-standard apartment which I leased on the small salary of construction work. I was in most respects a naive, idealistic fool, deluded by the vitality of youth and still enamoured by the sensations of new experience.

I was nineteen when I met her. Her name was Lilith. We were at the public library. I remember the musty scent of old literature: of tattered pages and inked thoughts. Turning the corner of a book isle, I saw her. Light from the many chandeliers gave a pale hue to her skin. Its imposing brilliance proved a dim irritation to my sight. Her exorbitant dress glimmered with the trimmings of wealth. But nothing in her demeanour suggested she denigrated the poorer classes. Still it should have been enough to ward me off. Our eyes met across the room and at once I was entranced. Though I tried I could not seem to look away. She returned my stare for some time, occasionally diverting her gaze with a flush of red across her pale cheeks and yet always raising it again to meet mine.

Eventually, from some uncharted cavity of my soul, I drew the courage to approach her. With every agonizing step my tongue tangled. Practiced words dried upon my desolate lips and left my mouth a cold, dead wind. She remained quietly by herself at a reading table near the library’s entrance. The small expanse of rich crimson carpet that stood between us seemed an impassable gauntlet. My every footfall dragged forward with a tedious swoosh. Yet I persisted. When I finally reached her, I stood in awkward silence. I said nothing like a mute idiot. My heart pounded, beating out a manic rhythm upon my rib cage. Cold sweat trickled down my brow and moistened my palms. I frantically wiped at my forehead with the back of my hand.

I turned to make a shameful retreat when she raised her head and smiled.
“Hi, I’m Lilith,” she said melodically. She extended her delicate hand and I took it with a little too much enthusiasm. I still remember the soft skin of her flawless palm and the way it contrasted with the coarse imperfection of my own.
The following months were a blur of mirthful days bleeding through the barriers that divided us. We spent every free hour furtively enwrapped in each other’s company. Our vastly different lives made an odd, contrasting set that seemed to perfectly interlock. As we confided our most guarded secrets our bond continued to strengthen and thrive. And I, like a fool, fell deeply and irrevocably in love with her.
Everything about Lilith enthralled me to the point of soft delirium. I found myself wanting her company more than I’d ever wanted anything. Not a moment passed without thoughts of her invading my mind. I closed my eyes and saw only the reflection of her face against my eye lids. I was hopelessly afflicted with the brand of intense, obsessive love that I have come to understand many mortals experience in their lifetime.

Soon the solitude that I once favoured became caustic and tiresome. I no longer felt content or comfortable with my own company When we were apart I was overcome with a desolate loneliness. A deep sadness washed over me and, with desperate gasps, I drowned beneath the murky tide of our separation. But the simple possibility of seeing her again sent an electric current of excitement surging through my limbs. So I began to hope and dream of a promising future: of red roses, white dresses and gleaming rings: of us entwined and entangled.

Until one night, unable to contain the feelings that assailed me any longer, I resolved to tell her. I remember that night vividly; it is forever etched into my vision like the imprint of the sun before it shunned me. We sat together on a battered public bench in a small deserted park and looked up at the starlit sky. Our youthful eyes reverently traced unnamed constellations. She seemed entirely lulled by the rustling leaves and the soothing quite of the sleeping city. The scent of freshly cut grass and recent rain against the tarmac filled the air. A mild breeze gently stung our exposed skin like the arrows of cupid. This wind lifted the tips of her oil black hair to form a subtle halo. With my fragile heart pounding fiercely I turned to her and said,
“Lilith?”
“Yes,” she replied as she turned to face me. I took her hand in mine. A slight tremble ran through me as I grasped her soft skin. She shot me a disarming smile.
“I… I’m in love with you. Desperately and hopelessly in love with you.”
The look on her face: the arrangement of lines against her complexion; her piercing gaze; the shape her mouth formed, it was unmistakable. It was horror and revulsion. She politely retracted her hand. I felt myself implode . The world around me disintegrated into a frenzy of aggravated ash. The grass seemed to wither into a sickly yellow blanket and the few trees seemed to wilt and retract to the char of blackened limbs.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I think you should take me home now,” she said and submissively I complied. The long walk through the vacant suburban streets was filled with an awful silence; the city air was thick with relentless tension. Finally we reached the threshold of her lavish house. “Thanks for walking me home. Goodbye,” she remarked. I mumbled a weak reply to the reception of her back before she disappeared.

I called on her six times the next day. The brass knocker of her entry door seemed fixed to my grip. Until eventually, unable to ignore my persistence any longer, she answered. The foreboding hue of dusk soaked the horizon behind me.
“Lilith! We need to talk,” I said through the small porthole. I was drenched. Rain trickled down the slick ends of my hair and saturated my clothing.
“No we don’t.”
“Please, just give me a few minutes of your time,” time seemed to slow as I awaited her reply to that desperate request. The rain grew heavier.
“Fine, but make it quick.”

“Okay, listen. I’m really sorry about what happened last night. It was a mistake. I know that now and  understand that you don’t feel the same way. Do you think we could just forget it ever happened and continue to be friends?” with my breath held I waited on the other side of the door for the sound of her disembodied voice. I pressed the flat of my forehead against the wood and rested the weight of my exhausted body there. My pocket watch seemed to tick with unprecedented volume, taunting me with impatient suspense. She twisted the knob and gave it a heavy tug, opening the door inwards. I fixed my balance as I fell into her, leaving a wet imprint permeated down the front of her nightgown. She caught me by the shoulders and pushed me back. The look of bewilderment and discomfort on her face was searing. She wiped at her soiled garments. Then she spoke,
“Look, I’m sorry, I am. But now I know how you feel about me I just… There just isn’t a place for you in my life anymore. Please don’t call on me again,” she said and left me with the cruel thump of a closed door. The muffled echo of her footsteps still haunts me.

I slowly trudged home through the downpour. I cannot describe to you the pain I felt; it was the worst I have ever felt in my entire life. It was like a thousand living blades writhing through my torso, cutting though organ, bone and sinew as they slowly tore me apart from the inside. It was a state of indescribable misery; of desolation so intense that it filled every corner of my equivocal soul. The storm continued to surge around me evermore fiercely as I walked, but I no longer cared. Everything that I valued: everything that I wanted and desired, had been stripped away. Nothing else retained even the slightest semblance of meaning for me anymore.

I resigned myself to the interior walls of my decrepit apartment, forgoing work in favour of recluse. I shut out the waking hours with locked doors and curtained windows. Sitting a damp mess in the dimmest corner, I grieved for something I never possessed. Despite the crushing weight of exhaustion, sleep spitefully eluded me. I wallowed in this wretched state for six days, dangling by a single thread of fraying sanity. Until I could not stand it anymore. So I did the only thing I could do: I used the only reasonable method for alleviating my torment. I rose to my feet. I cut the number six into my flesh with my carving knife and screamed the devil’s name.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “I will give you my soul if in exchange you release me from this pain.”
I felt the warmth of breath against my ear as a voice whispered
“Done.”
There was no elegantly penned contract to sign in blood, no kiss with a demon to seal my pact, no archaic ritual at a cross road. Just a whisper.

It rushed over me. It jolted up my spine and tingled every inch of my skin like a burst of ice wind. And then I was empty: delightfully numb. There was no misery, or pain, or regret, or doubt, or conscience, or feeling; just an endless expanse of vacant space. I felt at peace, like an infant cradled in the soothing arms of his mother.

That’s when my apartment began to shake. The lantern suspended from my ceiling swayed violently. I looked up. Then it suddenly exploded and descended in a rain of fire and shattered glass. I hastily shielded my eyes. The room was left bathed in purple shadow and dim light that crept around the curtains. My legs jutted out in all directions to keep me balanced. The sickening taste of rust and sulphur filled my mouth. I glanced down to see a crack spider-web across the weathered boards beneath me. Only one appeared at first, and then another and another. Soon the floor took on the many lines and indents of an elderly man’s face.  For an instant I would have sworn I saw one of the larger rifts form the outline of a sadistic smile, half filled with gleaming teeth.  Then the floor began to fall away piece by piece: inch by inch and like a gaping mouth the lightless abyss opened up beneath me. I fell…

...I fell into hell.

For me it took on the appearance of a depraved hospital in a state of perpetual ruin. The smell was of bile and death; of rotting meat and shit. I slowly managed to recover from the fall and regain some semblance of footing. A searing heat flushed over me, flameless yet more potent than the inside of a morgue incinerator. I felt as though I were burning alive. I hesitantly surveyed the surroundings. The beige walls seemed to forever peal like the petals on a wilting flower. Above me was the scorched remains of a ceiling constantly on the verge of collapsing. I remember my first steps through this maddening labyrinth. They were dimly lit by the widely spaced flicker of sparking medieval torches. The light cast a ballet of frightening shadows across the walls and floor. Desolate halls seemed to stretch on forever in all directions and were filled only with the echo of piercing screams. The place hosted an endless series of rooms; each home to some horrific torture, the details of which even I hesitate to divulge. Still, I could not help but look through every door I passed to witness a new and unique blend of torment.

Unlike most of those damned to the underworld I did not scream, or plead, or cry; not a single tear ever graced my cheeks. Much to the displeasure of the haunting eyes that burnt their impression into the contours of my back I never faltered or fell apart.

I spent decades, perhaps centuries, in hell. Or so it seemed when there was no way of measuring time. I was horrifically tortured, and I in turn tortured others. I inflicted an equal, if not greater, amount of suffering as that which I endured. Eventually every last fleck of residual humanity left me and I was awarded a status normally reserved only for fallen angels: I became a demon, baptized in spilt blood: a monster feared even by his accursed brethren. I was filled only with hate; pure and incorruptible. But it did not distort or twist my vision like its mortal counterpart. Instead this hatred awarded me a perfect clarity that lifted the blinding veil of love.

I soon became infamous in hell. My unholy name graced the jealous lips of every demon and the fearful cries of every damned soul. Upon my allocated lot of perdition I brought an impressive reign of terror and animosity. The sound of my footsteps and the rage of my voice was met with endless frantic symphonies of averting and fleeing.

Until one day Lucifer looked upon me in awe. He appeared to me soon after. He materialised suddenly from a haze of smoke and an erratic flash of source-less light. I was not the least bit impressed by his clever theatrics. I did not kneel in reverence, respect or fear as demons were expected to do in the presence of their dark father. He took my hand in his ghastly grip. And then he spoke.
“My beloved son, you make a father very proud. The darkness in you is exceeded only by my own. I have a special task for you: an honour given only to my most valued acolytes. You will ascend from my infernal kingdom and re-enter the mortal world. You will be my instrument on earth: my right hand. You will cut a swath through the plague that is humanity and they will know suffering the like of which they can sparsely imagine. This you must do to free the world from the bondage of conformity. Do you agree to this task?”

At this point my conscience was just a distant memory and my heart a hollow chamber that ceased to beat. Every last inch of me had changed. I had become the fearsome ghoul of horror stories that lurks in every lurid alley, behind every closet door and beneath every child’s bed. I was the reason you fear the dark: I was the haste in your step, the tremble up your spine and the glance over your shoulder. I was hell embodied. Perhaps this was done to me by others or perhaps by myself, but it is of no importance now.

In response to the devil’s proposal, I simply smiled and nodded. Lucifer’s cindered wings briefly fluttered as his faced warped with the grin of an angel, half filled with gleaming teeth. I echoed this with my own malevolent expression. He waved his wraith arm towards the illusionary roof and like a magician’s wand it opened a window: a blurred portal to the world above. I shifted my eyes to the ceiling. The surface moved with the rippling of disturbed water. I looked through this window and gazed upon the earth. I saw humanity in all its glory: the war, the famine, the oppression, the hate, the intolerance, the corruption: all of its innumerable flaws. The earth presented like a rotting apple: deceptively red on the surface but degraded and wrought with atrophy beneath. I was to be the worm that devoured it. I saw it for the sickly thing it was.

Yet in spite of this and what I was, impelled by some undying spark that suddenly shone upon me with blinding brilliance, I…

I…

I still…

…loved the world.

And I wanted, more than anything else, to save it.