The Purpose

A Mephistophelian bargain...a tale of possession, addiction, and body horror.

approximately 1850 words

The Purpose

         I’m not crazy. 

         From my lips to your ears, I speak nothing but truth.  I’m no different from the next person.  I’m no different from you. I'm leaving this recording on my phone as proof.

         It snowed the first night the Man walked down my stairs and into my life.

         That night, I sat in the shadows of my threadbare living room, guzzling warm beer, wolfing down cold pizza, and playing Call of Duty on my phone.  Outside, fat snowflakes swirled through the amber glow of the corner streetlight. The windows shuddered with each gust of wind. The furnace rumbled, and its warm breath washed across my features.  On the far wall, a stairwell rose to darkness where my bedroom and loneliness waited on the second floor.

         That night, as ever and always, I was alone. 

         The flames flickered low in the fireplace, and I considered stoking them, but a sudden saffron glow emanated from the top of the stairs.  Footfalls creaked on the steps, and the Man emerged, englobed in a golden halo.  His black suit and ivory shirt contrived to mask his robust, almost obese frame.  He wore a crimson cravat, and his hair, the shade of wheat in sunshine, was too carefully coifed to be fashionable, too perfect to be real. 

         His mouth smiled, but his eyes, his porcine eyes, sent a different message.  I might have listened to his eyes, then, but his next words distracted me.

         He extended his hands and said, “I’m here for you.”  He spoke in a voice warm as soft butter, alluring as a lover’s caress.          

         Loneliness creaked in my soul, and that’s when I made what was, perhaps, my first mistake. I asked him a question. “Who are you?”

         “I’m the answer.”

         The answer to what?  To my loneliness?  To my poverty? To my neighbors, who scorned me? To why I should bother to keep breathing? “What’s the question?”

         He waved a hand and his gaze raked over my crappy room. His mouth twisted and he sneered, “You know, none of this is your fault.”

         I must have looked puzzled, for he continued.  “They think they’re better than you.  They put you down. They’re the reason you have nothing and are nothing.  I’m here to make you into something and someone. I’m the answer to your most secret yearnings.”

         Not my fault? 

         No job?  Their fault.  No one to love me?  Their fault.  Not rich?  Their fault.  This hovel where I lived, but without really living? No reason to keep on living? Those things were their fault, too. 

         That was when I maybe made my second mistake. I didn’t ask who they were.  I just reveled in a rush of anger, in the wallow of victimhood. It felt good. Right. I hadn’t felt so right in a long time.

         He strode across the room and held his hands out to me.  His tiny hands.  I grasped them, and sudden power flowed from him to me. 

         We sat together then, that first night, drinking beer, eating pizza, and sharing dreams of cruel vengeance. 

         They were going to pay. 

         The next morning, I woke in my underwear, stiff and cold on my sofa. Sunlight poured through grimy windows and dust motes floated in the air.  The rhythmic scrape of a snow shovel came from outside.

         Spent beer cans and empty pizza boxes littered the room.

         The Man was nowhere to be seen. 

         I groaned, stretched, and limped to the window.  Outside, my neighbor labored, shoveling snow from my sidewalk.  His breath puffed in smoky clouds, pure and white, from his mouth.  He wasn’t my normal neighbor, though. No, this was my other neighbor.  The pervert.  He was probably trying to prove he wasn’t really disgusting vermin by shoveling my walk. Pretending to be nice.  Showing off.

         The Man’s voice whispered in my ear.  His fault.

         Resolve firmed my mouth. I went to the kitchen alcove and started coffee.  Last week’s dirty dishes filled the sink.  I retrieved the butcher knife, wiped it clean, and honed it on the whetstone before hiding it behind the Mr. Coffee.

         Still in my underwear, I opened the front door.  Cold air made me shiver.  I called out, “Hey!”

         My neighbor turned and looked at me.  A broad grin split his cherubic features.  “Good morning!  I already had the shovel out, so I went ahead and cleared your walks. Hope that’s ok.”

         The pervert was probably just feeling guilty over whatever disgusting thing he and his black-skinned “partner” had done last night.  I put on a smile and said, “Thank you.  I’ve got coffee, if you’d like some.” 

         His grin grew broader. “That’d really hit the spot.  Thanks.”  He strode up my now snow-free sidewalk and leaned his shovel against the porch. 

         I stepped aside and motioned for him to enter. 

         He stomped his snow-covered boots on the porch, wiped them on the doormat, and entered my home.  “It’s nice and warm in here.”  His gaze roamed across my parlor, lingering on the beer cans and empty pizza boxes.  “Cozy.  Lived in.  I like it.”

         Lived in. Pervert-speak for what he really thought. Shithole. In silence, I led him to the kitchen, rinsed out a filthy cup from the sink, and poured him some coffee.  “I’ve got pink stuff if you need it.  Sorry, no milk.”

         He accepted the cup and inhaled steam from the brew.  “Smells good.  I like it black.”

         I bet he did.

         He held out his hand.  “I’m Sam, by the way.” 

         I touched it with two fingers. “Nice to meet you,” I lied.  He didn’t seem to notice.  I waved toward the table. “Have a seat.”

         He shot me a cheery grin as he turned to walk to the table.  Sudden insight made me hesitate: this pecker head was happy.  My resolve faltered for a split second, but, from nowhere, the Man's voice whispered in my ear, "He doesn't deserve happiness.  Take it from him." 

         I bit my lower lip, then retrieved the butcher knife.  I swung it with a determined, slicing, satisfying motion across the side of the pervert’s neck. 

         His flesh parted. Blood spurted and splattered.  He made a gurgling sound.  His coffee cup clattered to the floor and shattered. 

         My breath caught in my throat. My my heart quickened.

         He turned and stared at me with bulging eyes. He clutched at his wound. Red gushered between his fingers. Crimson droplets speckled his suddenly ashen features. 

         His body wavered.  One frantic hand tried to staunch his wound while the other reached for the table.  He fell to the floor and twitched. 

         My heart drummed.  My throat clenched.  Rapture gripped my muscles. Euphoria narrowed my vision.

         Then the pervert’s body fell still.  His eyes, open,  wide, unblinking, stared at nothing.  At me.

         Blood pooled underneath his contorted corpse.

         I shuffled my bare feet against the cold floor.

         My heart still throbbed.  My breath still heaved. I was alive.  More alive than I’d ever been. 

         A puddle of yellow warmed my toes. I’d pissed myself. 

         The Man re-appeared.  He stood next to me.  His voice, that smooth, alluring voice, declared, “The pervert had it coming.”  He put an arm over my shoulder.  “Good work.”

         I took a shuddering breath. Something powerful, something ineffable, flowed between us, the Man and me.  Whatever it was, it made the Man grow bigger, while it made me more virile. More alive.

         But it also made me leaner. Smaller.

         The Man said, “This is just our beginning. We have much to do. The world needs cleansing.”

         That was many months and many bodies ago.   

         Filth filled the world.  The Man was always with me, reminding me that they hated me.  Reminding me everything was their fault.  Sometimes they were perverts, like the first time.  Sometimes, they spoke in foreign tongues.  Sometimes, they worshipped false gods.  Sometimes, they pretended to be innocent. Sometimes they thought they were smarter, or better, or just richer than everyone else. But they were always evil.  They always needed cleansed. 

         And the cleansing!  That was glorious.  Better than I’d ever imagined mere sex might be.  It became my life. It defined who I was. It gave me purpose.

         The Man has joined me after each act.  He’s put his arm around me and praised me.  Power has flowed between us. Just like the first time, he’d get bigger and I’d get more manly. 

         But each time I’d get leaner. Always leaner.  Always less.

         Tonight, fireworks light the summer skies. My body still thrills from the euphoria of this, my most recent act of cleansing.  The last words of my enemy, the brown demon who lay twisted at my feet, echo in my brain. Dios te perdone. Nonsense syllables with no meaning.  His sightless eyes stare at me.  His blood, dark and glistening, puddles under his shattered skull. 

         The Man is with me, as he has been since that first night.  His black suit is now soiled and smells of excrement. He’s grown huge, Orca huge, and fat bulges at every seam.  His belly hangs over his belt and jiggles when he moves.  His hair, once golden and perfect, now flutters in the summer wind and reveals his bald pate.  His voice, though, his praise, that’s still as compelling as it was that first time. More, even. Hypnotic.

         As he’s grown more immense, I’ve grown...to be less. My arms hang like sticks at my side. My knees quiver under the strain of holding me upright.  My belly sucks against my spine and my ribs press against the thin fabric of my shirt.  Rapture, awesome and overpowering, has rewarded me, even as the Man has devoured my flesh.

         I can’t help but think that each death might bring my undoing, that each breath might be my last.

         My hand trembles with the weight of my knife. The blade drips blood onto my ragged blue jeans.

         I see now that I may have made fateful mistakes that first night.  But, if they are mistakes, I no longer have the power to overcome them, or even to regret them.

         I can’t stop now. Cruelty, revenge, and violence, those three and the exultation they bring have become who I am. They, and the Man's praise that they bring, are now my reason for existing.  They are the answer to my unspoken questions. 

         I now know that the goal of life is to find your gift, to find what brings you joy.  The work of life is to perfect your gift. The purpose of life is to give your gift to eternity. 

         My gift is cleansing the world of evil. That act brings me joy, more joy than I would have ever imagined possible.  The Man's praise perfects my gift.  My purpose is to give my gift to the world.

         This recording is my testament.  We are alike, you and I.  We want the same things, to find meaning and joy in life. 

         I hear sirens in the distance.  Perhaps they’re coming for me.  I hold my knife to my throat.  The Man whispers in my ear. Do it. That will show them.

         Perhaps he's right. 

         Perhaps I will.   

        Perhaps...