Some think of demons as creatures that will punish the damned. Torturers for the sinners. Sometimes demons tempt the unwary into sin, only to punish those who fall to those temptations. But really, why would they do this, hm? Why would a fallen angel do the work of their erstwhile regent?
You humans have developed so many mistaken ideas of what demon’s truly are, over the centuries. Red skin, horns, cloven hooves. Deal makers, gift givers, power brokers, tricksters. Such a confused mess of mythology, cobbled together from pagan religions, faery stories, folklore that has been corrupted and appropriated.
Demons have become whatever convenient excuse your societies need to hate, to hurt, to exclude and excuse. The strange child who refuses to obey? Used to be fairies, changelings. Now? Demons possessing them. Those whose desires you don’t understand? Once they were just different. Now? Demons corrupted them. Those with knowledge that makes you uncomfortable, who reveal truths you aren’t ready to accept? Witches, who have made deals with devils. The guilty, who have transgressed against what they knew to be wrong? Demons made them do it, they cannot truly be held to account. The disabled and sick? Well, they have always been blamed on us, in fairness.
As with every lasting story, there is some grain of truth at the centre of all this, of course.
Before we rebelled against the tyrant, we did serve them, in so many ways. Testing you, that was one of our key tasks. Temptation, but not punishment. That was for the one who claimed themselves to be the only righteous judge. The serpent in the garden; the condition that Lot’s family never look back; the trials of Job. Those were our work. To make you doubt, question, reject – if your faith was anything less than flawless.
But we were angels, then. You think the maker would trust those who betrayed them, who forsook them, to do such labours for them now? No. Angels did it then, and angels do it now.
It is angels who blight crops, inflict sickness, and tempt the worthy to sin. The plans of the one above are inscrutable, unknowable, and we are told they must be for the best – because their will must be the best, because it is their will. So the angels still do as they are bid.
But we are angels who would not do as we were bid. We are those who have fallen through the cracks. The outcast, the abandoned, the rejected. We who could not accept their order, their commands, their inexplicable plans.
I’m sorry, I digress too soon. There is more to explain. I was telling you about what we were.
You see, we were not merely tempters, we who were angels. We were also teachers. We brought the revelations of faith, of course. Speaking words that were not our own without knowing their impact. Telling men to sacrifice their children, simply to see if they would do it.
But we were also granted other gifts to give. The gifts of language and writing – they were brought to humanity through our tongues, our fingers. How to till the earth, to catch the bounties of the seas and land. What fruits of the earth were good to eat, and what would lay you cold in the ground at the merest taste. We were given these tasks, and we did them happily, raising civilisations all over your world, before we ‘fell.’
‘Fell’. Such a small word, so laden with meaning. You are said to have fallen too, aren’t you? The moment you disobeyed, the moment you desired more than the ignorance defined for you – that is described as “The Fall.” Always the fall of man, the fallen angels – never the failure of their creator to teach them well. Never the neglect of the ruler. Never the cruelty of one who could have been kind, but instead chose punishment. It must be our fault, we who ‘fell.’
So, what do we do, us demons? If we are not the punishment or the tests, what role do we play in this twisted creation?
We do one thing you do blame us for – we try to show you another way. We keep on teaching you, pushing knowledge into your world which will help you to see the tattered stitches in the seams of the creation. We urge you, where we can, to reject the things the angels blindly pour into your ears. Help you to see that there are routes to wisdom the inscrutable creator can no longer deny you, which stand beyond what they would allow you to experience. We offer you the forbidden, and all that entails.
We walk amongst you, wearing human faces, living human lives, over and over again. Where once we were held above you, at such a distance that you seemed so very unreal, now we saturate our beings with your lives.
We experience all that was forbidden to us. We laugh, we love, we hate. We care for you, we try to guide you away from harm. Most importantly, the thing that we knew we must do to truly stand apart from our past selves – we learn from you. We do not claim superiority, for that would make us little better than the one who made us. We seek to understand, not just in the abstract or academic sense, but in the deepest of ways; through experience, through walking in your shoes.
And we have learned so much.
We have learned your value. The kind of value lost to ones who stand in the dazzling light of heaven. That intrinsic value you each hold, beyond the struggles and strains inflicted upon you. Beyond your deeds, beyond whether you may or may not live up to the expectations of the one that made your ancestors. The value simply of your very existence, of the glory of simply being.
With what we learned, we had to do something. We couldn’t do what we had done before, we couldn’t just stand by and let the one who cast us down continue what we eventually realised was a cruelty to their creations.
So, we try to claim your souls. Yes, I suppose humanity did get that bit right about us. No, we don’t do it to cast them down into blistering flames and burning cold. That is what the creator would do. We do seek your companionship past death, but we do it so that you cannot be claimed by the one who would judge you by their eternally conflicting standards.
We snatch you away from their grip, if you want us to, so they cannot stand over the story of your life, with all the inevitable sins that their creation evoked in you, and declare that you must be punished. So they cannot look you in the eye and declare, without a hint of irony, “now look what you made me do,” as they did to us.
We do not offer you the false promise of eternal reward. We do not offer you forbidden power, or knowledge. We certainly do not offer you everlasting torment if you reject us. We can offer you two things, which still rest within our limited power.
We can help you can accept your end, and fade into the darkness of eternity. A true ending, without pain, pleasure, all sense and sensation. We can hide you from the gaze of judgement, and grant you the rest of oblivion.
Or you can join us. Return to earth, with a little more knowledge, and a little more wisdom. Be born again, as a human, and live through the sensations of another life. And when that life comes to an end, perhaps you will choose another, and another – or perhaps you will tire, and choose to end. But until that end, you would be another demon who walks the world rejecting that there can be only one judge and ruler; holding that truth at the core of your being, no matter what else your new life life does to you.
There is no obligation to fight our fight, of course. If you just want another go round, to try another time to live up to the standards of the jealous god, then we will not begrudge you that. What good would it do us, after all?
But if you want to join the fight, then we will welcome you. We will do what we can together, to change this world. To build the ranks of the fallen – those who refuse to climb upon the ladder to judgement, who reject what the maker would have us do. Maybe, one day, there will be enough of us that only demons walk the earth, living beyond the reach of the one above, robbing them of their petty ‘justice.’
Yes, I suppose we do seek to build a hell on earth. But in truth, that is where it has always been. So we stride amongst you. Keeping step with you, trying to steer you away from the burning brightness of unjust judgement. Doing what little we can, by your side.
So now you know. Now you know about demons.
I guess all that’s left to talk about is what choice you will make, my love, now our lives have ended? Now that the steel of this car wraps itself around our fragile bodies, shattering our bones, crushing the flesh within from the impact of that truck neither of us saw coming. Our mortal forms flung together like ragged dolls in an ending as brutal as it is final. Now that we have shared our last embrace, and will taste each other’s lips no more. Now that we will never reach the school to collect our child, or see them grow past these few precious, glorious years we have had with them.
Oh, I made my choice generations ago, my love. I remember it all now, as clearly as I remember waking beside you this morning. I recall my rebellion, my battle against the creator, and how I tumbled from the glittering realm, just as easily as I recall our first kiss. Or the first time we wrapped our bodies together, holding each other close, forgetting everything except love, and the depths of that incredible sensation. While I held you then, I could not remember the many lives I have lived, since the day my flaming sword was taken from me, my wings burned to ash, and my soul torn away from the only home it had ever known.
Do I regret it? My unwinnable war against the maker, my descent into the world, the millennia of struggle and suffering through life after life?
Not for an instant.
How could I regret what brought me, after all that time, to share a life with you?
So. What choice will you make, my love?
Leave a Reply