[FICTION]

IF

I saw the devil, on the sharpest corner of Lil 5 Points. He wasn’t what you’d expect, red man with horns and a three-pronged pitchfork. He didn’t have a big warm grin and inviting eyes, singing sweet songs of temptation. He didn’t sulk in dark alleyways with a blood tipped pen, ready to buy my soul and fence it off to any low demon. The devil, he was front and center. His skin was whiter than ivory, pink and red lumps at every end. He was dirty, mud mottled his long flowing brown hair. His eyes were blue with a glint of green, drifting around and looking at nothing in particular. His mouth was buried beneath a scraggly brunette beard, his chapped lips barely jutting forth. His hands, his big hands covered in golden rings and brilliant cut rubies. His hands were beautiful, if you couldn’t see the blood. 

PROBABLY

But the blood on his hands was probably just as red as his guitar. He played with his cherrywood acoustic guitar in hand, the wood chipped at either end. The strings wound so tight I thought they’d snap beneath his long dirty fingernails. The devil, with an apple on his tee shirt and his guitar on his knee crouched onto his flimsy folding chair and sang the blues. His black hat, he’d normally use to cover his horns, sat by his outstretched feet. He wails about love that’s lost and opportunities long gone. He cries about the pain in his knees and the ache in his back. He weeps about how he lost his soul, chasing what he thought he should’ve been his. The Devil had his crowd, listening to his sad song, applauding the vulnerability in his strong and raspy voice. Dropping money into his hat like a child, behind the Pied Piper, everyone fell in love with the Devil’s sad song. 

MAYBE

Everyone can relate to a sad song, having been done dirty one way or another. Maybe everyone wanted to believe that they shared some kin with the Devil or that their mistakes couldn’t make them because they could be beautiful. Everyone can be beautiful, when they’re in pain. Even the Devil. Pain puts angels in the eyes of everyone. Everyone but me, I saw right through Lucifer’s facade. Ain’t no white man got any business playing the blues.    

🦋

published June 10, 2022