Lily and the Demon

There are many things we could say to try and bring Lily Rose Dale into somewhat sharper focus for your casual perusal. We could spend time on the details of her physical appearance, height, hair color, the line of her nose, but these details truly do not capture the essence of who a person is. And for us to try to make any kind of description of her alleged charms or unflattering attributes is, to be honest, highly suspect; for such descriptions, even being made by those who are striving for truth and realism, sometimes cannot help but be colored with a tinge of subjectivity, and for all you know, we may be shockingly biased on some point or another. So we won't even try.

What we will tell you is that the paper boy thinks she is pretty, and will fling the paper down with a startling amount of haste and take off briskly, and blushing faintly, if he sees her silhouette in the window approaching the front door.

But then again, take into account the observations of the woman to the right of her at a 4-way stop, who just happened to catch Lily at that precise moment shoving the final bite of croissant into her mouth, and whose instant reaction was to think her ordinary, and a bit of a greedy slob.

You also may want to consider the opinion of her next door neighbor Hank Benton, who thinks her bottom is too big and her hair a shade of brown not entirely to his liking as he watches her walk past his house in the morning.

But then there's Marjorie Walls, a nice old lady who lives 3 houses further down the street, who thinks Lily has a friendly face, and likes the fact that Lily seems to admire her flower beds as she passes by. So digest a few of these observations, and agree with us on the subjectivity of people's perceptions, and then we'll continue.

This particular morning found Lily sitting up in bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and furrowing her brow suspiciously. Something wasn't right this morning. She could feel it crackling in her head, in spite of the soft, white sunlight draping across her bedspread, and the gentle noise of all those trees in the yard swaying languidly.

She looked around her room, at the clock on the dresser, the green chair in the corner, the sheer curtains dancing just slightly, trying to determine what the problem was. Whatever it was wasn't in her bedroom, so she headed for the door to the hallway, and pushed it open gently, which produced a faint high-pitched creak. She pressed the palm of her hand into her forehead as she tiptoed down the hall, concern and bemusement shining and mingling together in her eyes, but then dropped her hand abruptly to her side when she reached the kitchen.

The look that came into her eyes as she saw him sitting at the kitchen table is a very difficult one to describe. The adjectives may not have been invented yet to convey the level, and the particular brand of weariness, defiance, curiosity and acceptance all swirled into one that was dancing in them as she surveyed him purposely overfilling a coffee cup onto her kitchen table.

He was a tall man, in black, muddy clothing, greasy hair, the skin on his face too white to be credibly human. It was riddled with pock marks, his entire visage seemed to ooze an unusual strain of ill health. Yet his eyes were startlingly alive, quick, expressive and appealing. He flashed her an elastic, taunting grin, as he proceeded to mop up the black coffee on the table with a piece of severely burnt and disfigured toast.

"Nice nightgown, Lil," he made a show of looking her over as he jammed the soggy toast into his mouth. "You may want to go get a robe though, because I think I can see right through that thing," he cocked his head to the side, feigning genuine concern.

There had been other days where she would him given him the finger, or thrown a heavy object swiftly at his head, but this morning Lily decided to ignore him.

She crossed the floor to the sink and began to rinse out some dishes from the night before. Again she pressed her hand to her head, and every five seconds or so looked over at him with little weary glances. He spun around in his chair to face her, his eyes overflowing with what she had come to call it, "the milk of inhuman unkindness", yet said nothing, only sat and beamed at her.

He had changed over the years. Looking at his unhealthy face being dappled with incongruously fresh morning sunshine, it still seemed easy to remember how whole, and well, how handsome and seductive he had appeared at their first meeting. That was years ago. Since then, each successive glimpse she had made into his true motives and character had served to strip portions of his impeccable facade away.

It had happened slowly. At first she had trusted him, listened to his plans, had been willing to go along; they had always seemed like such delicious fun. But she had been an immature child then, and when the consequences had begun to catch up with her, consequences he seemed to care nothing about, she had slowly reached the mature conclusion that he didn't care for her long-term well-being, and she determined to begin resisting him.

If only that had been enough to make him disappear. He had been assigned to her for life, unfortunately. Even though there were many times that he would vanish for long, glorious stretches, apparently there was still some number of compulsory visits that he had to fulfill.

Most demons didn't have such sensitive subjects, and did their nefarious work unnoticed, their promptings taken for their charges own thoughts. Cases like Lily's certainly did happen, but were rare. A little too in-tune with the spiritual realm, her mind a shade out-of-phase will the tangible.

She shouldn't have been able to see him, and yet she could, from the very first. He had brushed past her hair like a whisper that first time, when she was a child, suggesting some bit of mischief she could bestow upon her sister that day at the park.

When she had turned to him brightly, looked him square in the eyes and asked "Who are you?" very innocently, internally he had slapped at his forehead and cursed vehemently at the prospect of being assigned to one of those damned oversensitive ones for the next several decades.

This was usually how these cases ended up. Being visible had, over time, loosened his grip considerably, and especially with Lily being the type whose sensitivity even traveled beneath his fabricated veneer, and his nature and motives were laid bare before her, unflatteringly visible.

He hadn't been able to keep her obedient to his plans and caprices. She began to resist and refuse. But "assigned" he was and would continue to be; she could not banish him, and he could not excuse himself. Only for a season or two, he could wander away, until the pull became overwhelming and he was magnetized back to her side.

Like this morning. Lily looked down into the sink. She tried to concentrate on the flower-border on one of the dinner plates, and will herself to a calm and happy place. Somewhere with a soft blue sky and maybe some delicate, wispy clouds inching their way along, a distant church bell tolling in the distance for charming effect, some fresh dew glistening on--

THUNK. The demon's boots connected heavily with the tabletop. "Why, thank you Lils, I WILL make myself at home!" Against her better judgment, she looked over at him again, and he flashed her a mouth full of black teeth. This had been his tactic the last several visits. He seemingly had given up on trying to persuade her or entice her, and had clearly decided that his only option was to make her life as unpleasant and difficult as he could. And nauseating.

She turned back to looking straight ahead, out the window over the sink. Such a beautiful day to have this odious mill-stone burdening her. "The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la," she sang to herself, trying to block out the noise of his disgusting toast-chewing, "breathe promise of merry sunshine. As we merrily dance and--"

"Lily, you are looking so imminently screwable this morning, really just so rosy and fresh for the taking-" The demon batted his non-existent eyelashes.

"-we sing, tra-la, we welcome the hope that they bring, tra-la, of a summer of roses and wine, of a summer-"

"What do you say? Right here, on this sturdy, mud-splattered table?" he taunted in a voice of honey and velvet and thumbtacks. "Right now, before this patch of sun shifts to the wall? C'mon Lil, this is a golden opportunity. For you."

"-of roses and wine." she continued, not even glancing over. "And that's what we mean when we say that a thing, is welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring.." She paused for a moment, musing that no thing could be as decidedly unwelcome as this putrid, hideous creature in her kitchen.

Lily decided she'd get ready for her walk, and headed back to her room. Thankfully he didn't follow her. As she changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, she could hear the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor, and then what sounded like a glass breaking, followed by a muffled and decidedly insincere "whoops". She rolled her eyes up into her head.

As she headed back down the hall and into the kitchen, she found the demon stretching up against one of the kitchen chairs, suddenly dressed in a filthy black tracksuit and moth-eaten sweatband. "Are we all ready to go then?" his eyes were sparkling like black diamonds, and his grin seemed to take up far too much of his face.

She got the little dustpan and broom from the cupboard and silently swept up the broken glass, while the demon jogged in place. "What a tiresome abomination you are," she said quietly, passing him and tipping the broken glass into the trash. She tossed the dustpan carelessly on the table and stalked past him again, trying to keep her temper.

"She can talk!" the demon flashed a mock-astonished look as he followed her out the door and across the lawn to the sidewalk.

It was a beautiful morning.