“Do you want us to stay or go?”
“Stay… please.”
The demon tutted, “Okay. Your funeral… well, you know. You get it,” he said as he looked away to grab a sharp object off of the rolling cart.
Our hero had said no, he didn’t want them to stay, so many times after the first time. But the empty darkness had turned out to pierce and cut apart his being in a far more tormenting way than any knife could ever manage. His wrists were bound by chains that had no end. He had managed once to climb all the way to the top, and had found that the chains weren’t mounted to any cavern roof or prison ceiling by brackets or pulleys. He had felt around and discovered he was hung tight and firm from the air itself. No maneuvering or manipulation could free him. No amount of time would rust them away. He hung there perpetually in the darkness.
On his awkward descent back down the chains, his weak and tired hands had lost their grip, and he had fallen, his fingers tearing, trying to reclaim their grasp on the rough chain links. When he had run out of leash, his arms had been ripped above his head, and his wrists and elbows and shoulders had snapped, crackled, and popped.
His back had spasmed, and he had screamed in pain and frustration as he swung back and forth like a desolate pendulum.
In a sense, there was a freedom in knowing he was in an abyss. He could scream, and bellow, and cry, and break open and no one could hear him. The Darkness didn’t judge him. It embraced him, and whispered back, Yes, that’s it. Let it all out. It’s okay. I’m here for you. I’m here…
He and the Darkness would have deep meaningful conversations about life, and suffering, and sacrifice, and he likened the Darkness to a narcissist from the way it talked. It liked to remind him how alone he was, and how no one really gave a damn about him, or anyone else for that matter. People were always out for themselves. And, really, none of that even mattered, because no one could ever understand what he, the hero, had gone through. No one would get it. Even if they did care, they would never understand or comprehend. The Darkness was the only one who understood him, who would listen to him cry and self-deprecate. No one else would want to be burdened with that shit, but the Darkness would bear all his burdens, and would never ever leave him...
The sound of the rattling wheel of the rolling cart severed him from his demented reverie. “Please… don’t go,” he said to the demons. They were leaving him now, and they were almost to the door.
“Got other rounds to make, kid… See you tomorrow.” The demon waited for his response.
“Tomorrow?”
The gruff demon gave him a sympathetic smile as he wiped the hero’s blood off his hands with a crusted rag. “Feels longer than that, don’t it? Time’s a real bitch.”
The two left and closed the door, cutting off all the dim firelight, leaving him alone with his only friend...
The actor pulled the chain on his lamp. The incandescent bulb illuminated, and our hero reappeared in smoke and lightning in the small kitchen of the apartment.
“Hey, so, I’m heading to this audition tomorrow,” the actor began, “for a role as an old, hardened criminal. I mean not that old. But like… been around the bend. So, I was wondering if maybe I could ask you some questions now? Because I think that- not that you’re a criminal- but you’re hardened, and uh… Can you help?” He gestured to the jar of peanut butter he had bought for bribery. It sat ceremoniously in the center of the kitchen table.
Our Hero had lived with this actor for three weeks, and the actor had yet to make a wish, a single one.
Instead, the actor was using him as a character study, and made notes on what he liked and what he didn’t. He made a list of his idiosyncrasies, and together they had discovered the Jinni had a soft spot for extra crunchy Jif peanut butter.
The actor passed a plastic spork across the empty space between them. “Please?”
The chair squeaked against the tile as our hero pulled it out to sit, and he opened the new jar of peanut butter. Still feeling disjointed and small, he reached out with unsteady fingers and took the spork between his index and thumb.
The actor bolted to the end table, and grabbed his notebook and pen, which had been sitting next to the lamp. He sat down at the kitchen table, and made ready his writing implement.
“Okay,” the actor cleared his throat. “What is the motivation behind your stoicism?”
The warm peanut butter hit the Jinni’s tongue as he plunged a spork-full into his mouth, and his nerves instantly mellowed.
He swallowed then raised his eyebrows, but he kept his eyes lowered into the depths of the Jif jar. “It’s uh… choice. You can drive yourself insane fighting the way of things, or you can just accept it.”
This wasn’t the answer the actor was expecting, and he asked, “Why wouldn’t you try to change things if you don’t like the way things are?”
“Because… you can’t change the way things are. The world is going to do what it’s going to do. The only way to change the world is to change yourself. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’”
“There isn’t one thing about the world you’d wish to change?”
“My wishes don’t come true.” He looked up from stirring the Jif with the plastic utensil. “And even if they did… I’d know better.”
The actor’s eyes narrowed, and screwed his face up in concentration. Then covering his mouth with his hand, he laughed and leaned back in the chair. He cleared his throat, and tried to do his best war-vet impression. “Is that scar on your arm from back in Nam?”
The Jinni looked down at a long j-shaped strip of discolored flesh going down his elbow. “No, that’s when I was pitted against a wyvern for an Unseelie prince’s entertainment.”
The actor blinked, “Okay… What about that one?” He was pointing at the sigil burned into the hero’s flesh, just peeking out from the collar of his t-shirt.
The Jinni pulled down his collar to reveal it fully. “That is a magick sigil burned into me for regeneration.” He went back into his peanut butter snack.
“Regeneration?”
“Yeah… so that,” he tried to find a way to explain, “they can pit me against a wyvern, which will eat me alive, and I won’t die. Or tigers, or I don’t know. So they can burn me, drown me, bury me, and I can still keep granting wishes. I don’t know if I can die anyway, but it helps with their aim.”
“Oh… People don’t actually do that?” The actor looked horrified, so the Jinni lied with little conviction.
“No. Course they don’t…”
The actor set down his pen, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Why don’t they just wish for it, instead of burning it into your flesh?”
“Sigils are pretty reliable. Wishes go wrong. I have trouble controlling their outcome.”
“You control it?”
“It’s not easy.”
The actor leaned forward again, “And you can’t be wished free?”
“I won’t let anyone wish me free.” The Jinni gave him a stoic frown.
And the actor replied, crossing his arms in indignation, “What if I just blurt it out?”
The Jinni’s green eyes met his, and threatened him without words. He just used the cold frigidity of his gaze.
“What?” The actor taunted, “Would you punch me in the face before I got the chance?”
The Jinni set down his spork and lifted the back of his shirt, and he twisted in his chair to show the actor a magickal scrawl in blue ink. “It’s a magickal binding that means I cannot touch another person without permission from the owner of the vessel.”
The actor’s brows furrowed, “Why?”
The Jinni turned back, and picked up his spork, “The guy who did it to me… I might have slept with his wife.”
They made eye contact, and began to giggle like boys.
“You did not!”
“I did! On my own free will too, and hers. He didn’t like it much, though.”
They laughed again.
“Well, uh,” the actor swallowed, “I give you permission to punch me in the face if I need it.”
“If you need it?” He gave the actor a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
“Yeah. Like or… you know, hand shakes, fist bumps… if you ever need to hug it out-”
“No.” He turned him down hard.
The actor wrinkled his nose and played nonchalant. “Yeah I didn’t peg you as that kind of guy.” He wiggled his foot and slightly twisted side to side.
The kitchen fell silent, and the Jinni finally put the lid on the jar of peanut butter.
“You’d have to take my place. If you wished me free.” He was looking down at the table top. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Ever.”
The actor only nodded.
“Did uh… any of this help for your audition tomorrow? Because you used up all the questions the peanut butter bought you.”
“Yeah. No.” The actor stood. “That helped. I’ll uh… let you get out of here.”
He walked to the lamp, and nearly pulled the chain.
“No!” The Jinni stood, and feeling small and meek again said, “I mean… May I, please, sleep on the couch? W-with your permission? I uh-”
The actor nodded insistently. “Yeah, yeah of course! Do you not like it in there? If I had known-”
“It’s not that I don’t like it-,” the Jinni tried to wave it away.
“Like, you have to communicate these things-”
“Really, it’s not that bad…”
The young man threw out his hands. “If you don’t tell me, then I don’t know!”
“Well…” The eyes of the fierce Jinni were glued to the floor, and they both stood there for a second.
“Let me get you some blankets.”
“No. I don’t need it. Don’t-” But, the actor was already heading towards the bedroom, “go to any trouble.”
He came back and handed the Jinni the blankets. “It’s no trouble.”
The Jinni cleared his throat. “I appreciate it.”
Instead of pulling the chain to turn off the lamp, the actor just ripped the cord from the wall with more force than was needed.
“I know I’m out of questions, but…” He gave the ominous lamp a look of pure hatred, “what’s it like in there?”
The Jinni made himself small on the couch, feeling stupid and awkward for losing control of his stoic demeanor. His heart was racing. His palms were sweaty. He was wringing his hands as subtly as he could, and he couldn’t breathe. He was thinking about the demons with the rolling cart, the loneliness, the Darkness.
He swallowed hard, and tried to keep from rocking back and forth. He shrugged. “It’s Hell.”
The actor almost took the answer and walked back towards his room, but then asked, “Is that just a metaphor or…?”
“Yeah. Just a metaphor,” the Jinni lied. “There isn’t an audition, is there?”
The actor rubbed the back of his neck, “Oh, no. There is. Just, it’s for a guy at a coffee shop. Unnamed. Four lines.” He gave himself a sympathetic smile.
“You’ll get there. I like to think hard and honest work pays off.”
The actor laughed, “In my improv class last week, this guy, in a sketch about Ivanka Trump and P.T. Barnum at a dump- the sketch doesn’t really matter, but he said, ’nobody gets rich being honest,’ but I like to think that too, what you said. It makes me think that the world could be fair.”
“Nah. The world isn’t fair, but it still pays off,” he pointed at his head, “in here.”
The actor shoved his hands into the pockets of his Levi’s. “Okay. Well, goodnight. Make yourself at home, and er… help yourself to whatever. You have my permission, which is stupid that you need it, but uh… you got it.”
The Jinni nodded, and lay there in the dim living room once the actor disappeared into the hall. Light from the kitchen appliances made the darkness less oppressive than the pitch he was used to.
He took a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. He should have given this guy a better chance from the start. If his eternal torment could be of any use, it ought to at least punish the shit-heads of the worlds and reward good-hearted nerds like this guy. But he had enough experience to know that good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. If he thought he could reward good behavior, he was missing the mark. It didn’t work that way. Being rewarded quickly turns good people into entitled shit-heads.
He needed to release regrets and be content with the goodness of his present, to embrace the now, because this place was temporary. This would end, as all things do, and he would be consigned to darkness.
