Chapter Five — and the devil died screaming

Ultra-High Book One: A cyberpunk / dystopian fantasy

“Do you ever wonder where your life has gone?” if I could wake a single day without them here it would be heaven, but then maybe I was in hell, maybe it was my punishment and they were my own tormentor. Or were they just destined to torment me? Was it even real? Or had I somehow been duped?

“Satan,” I said walking absently minded towards the fridge.

“Yes,” they said, looking up all excitedly.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said grabbing the milk carton and drinking straight from it as I gulped in solace from the hangover burning a hole in my stomach. They did not look happy, but then I doubt neither did I. My head was pounding, my ears were blocked and ringing, my throat was raw, and I had a hankering for something greasy and bad for me. ‘Maybe I should be nice to them’ I thought ‘they might cook me a breakfast’ after all the patron of all evil and the bane of my existence sure did cook a mean eggs benedict.

“I will fix you something,” they said, looking hurt. Had they read my mind? I wasn’t sure what the extent of their power was. At that moment, the extent appeared to only be the ability to hang around my house and annoy me. Although it was at least some form of company.

I looked on at them in dismay, when had they become my butler, and when the fuck had the house got so tidy? Jesus, if you pardon the pun, Satan was a good house guest even if their conversation was too heavy, banal, and one-sided first thing in the morning. Especially when you had just spent all night getting blasted in an attempt at blocking out the pointlessness of your existence with homemade moonshine from the bathtub on your rooftop.

“Look Satan,” I said, feeling a little sorry for them “you gotta realise this is really fucking surreal for me. I mean you should be dead. Fuck you shouldn’t even be real. I killed you, which means what for me?”

“Trust me, I am real.”

“Yeah, but you would say that even if you weren’t.”

“True” they stood in silence, and we just looked at each other for a moment before they turned and started to fix us some eggs benedict and a pot of coffee. “But could the devil in your head cook you a mean breakfast?” they said laughing and whistling. ‘You don’t want to know what the devil in my head can do.’ I thought. They just looked at me.

It was strange because I was starting to like having them around. I had almost forgotten how lonely it was living in isolation in that derelict part of town and having them around was kind of giving me comfort. Plus, it was someone to watch and clean the house whilst I was out. Which of course ‘officially’ I never was.

As I sat in silence, I was lost in the things that I had to do. The pointless nonsensical drivel that was my work had piled up into a mountain of never-ending bullshit. I thought that after the apocalypse things would have been different. More interesting, like in the movies of old. Not more mundane. No more pointless shit for a capitalist system. Why was I still working for the network anyway, it afforded me some freedom true, but at what cost? For fuck’s sake, I had killed the devil.

I walked out onto my porch and picked up the paper that had been thrown there. I had no idea who threw the papers. I never saw any paper person or AI. And I was the only one who lived in a house on the block, in fact, in this part of town. So why would someone come all the way out here just to throw a paper at my house, especially when I don’t remember ordering one? Who was still fucking printing this shit? Maybe, they did throw them at every home, perhaps no one had told them that mine was the only house still lived in or maybe they did. Maybe they were free. Maybe. But still, I never did see the paper delivery child or bot. But every day without fail when I stepped out on my porch there, the paper would be. Also, how were they moving around out there without adequate protection they would be dead in minutes which would make the whole delivery of a paper a too costly exercise even with the right protective gear on. Not to mention how they got it over my security fence and all the way onto the porch without it being incinerated? Nothing made sense to me, and that was the only thing I knew was consistent.

I lit a cigarette and bent to pick up the paper. My back cracked and a shooting pain went from the base of my spine all through my right leg. I jolted at the pain and shot to stand upright. All this motion served to only jar my head and make my hangover worse. I dropped the paper.

As if seeming to know this, the porch door swung open, and the devil, before I even knew it had placed a cup of coffee in my hand. And before I knew it, they had gone back into the house “thank….you..” I said, but they had already gone. If I was to describe their features to you at that point, the devils that are, I couldn’t. It was strange. I knew who they were. I knew what they looked like, but I could not describe them to you. I could not draw them and I doubted

I sat in the warm morning sun and smoked my cigarette, drank my coffee, and ignored my paper.

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This is a live cyberpunk / dystopian fantasy book writing project. Copyright is protected. It is a first rough draft so I would love to hear any feedback from readers. When the book is launched all that are signed up for this to my mailing list on the website below you will be sent a free Kindle copy of the book as a thank you for subscribing.

This project is part of the writing projects from my site sleeplessdystopian.com

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