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Sheila sank further down into her bleak, grey world of numbness as the television flickered before her eyes. The History Channel moved inexorably through its documentary on churches, English accent clipping through the interesting artifacts and anomalies found in each. Angels, unusual statuary, gargoyles, and imps flashed across the screen, each given their Mr. DeMille Close Up as the camera focused, then zeroed in on each piece showing the pits and scars of weathered stone and marble.

Sheila’s eyes saw but her mind had once again flowed down the righteous path of anger, and her fingers twisted the nap of the arm rest with a viciousness that plucked the few remaining threads from the bald spot created there. She looked at the chair’s open sore and smiled. Martin’s chair. Or as she liked to think of him now, “Martin the Bastard”.

Even as the fire of anger seared through her veins filling her with sensations she hadn’t felt in months, the cold clamp of despair and ennui pillowed down again, wrapping her in its protective coating of ‘no-thing’. She sighed and focused on the program.

The ‘Imp Who Had Been Turned To Stone By An Avenging Angel’, grimaced out at her. Ugly little thing, she thought and felt an emotion other than hate for the first time in months. No wonder they cause trouble, she thought sympathetically. Anything to illicit a response other than contempt and disgust. An unbidden tear welled up and trembled on her lashes. Life, she thought, was cruel and she closed her eyes blocking out the images and pushed the reclining chair back. The blankets, puddled on the floor beside her but she was too weary to reach down, grab them, and wrap herself up. Maybe, she thought, the house heat will malfunction and I’ll freeze to death. That made her feel momentarily better, and a twisted smile settled on her own features as she drifted into a hazy twilight of un-rest.

Sheila’s un-cried tear clung stubbornly to her lashes, and while the television droned in the background, the wet droplet reflected the passing images flashing across the screen. For a moment Sheila’s hands flailed, then tightened into small fists and the tear slowly rolled to the inner corner of her eye.

The television screen turned to static. White noise buzzed softly into the room and the image of a stone Imp glowed out of the salty tear of Sheila’s sorrow.

Sheila woke with a start, cold and stiff. “Ow, ow, ow ow” she complained as she pushed herself up from the chair and hobbled out to her kitchen. Lights blazed everywhere, and she flipped them off as she went. Hall, foyer, bathroom, kitchen. Resentfully, she stabbed the overhead track lights in the kitchen off, muttering about using too much electricity and Martin the Bastard. “It’ll update the look, hon”, she simpered then stuck her middle finger up at no one. Despite her fury at all things Martin, she actually liked the bright, crisp way the lights highlighted her stove, work areas and island and was glad she’d decided not to take a sledge hammer to rid them and Martin The Bastard’s stank from her life.

Absently she filled the teapot and stuck it on the stove clicking the flame high and realized her divorce would be final in two days. An ever present lump made its presence felt by expanding in the pit of her stomach, and she repressed the nausea that went with it. 10 years, she thought. 10 years of trust, love, sharing destroyed by what? A quickie with someone new? With a skill born of repetition she brought up a whirling maelstrom of moving images that crashed relentlessly through her mind to its conclusion. Her suspicion. The discovery. Her plotting. The results.

The teakettle screamed its boiling rage perfectly timed to Sheila’s own. Her ragged breath reminded her that this crazy indulgence of negative emotion was ultimately bad for her health – physical as well as mental, she reluctantly admitted. Well, at least she felt something she thought, as she pensively turned off the burner, wrapped a hand towel over the kettle’s handle, and poured her tea.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement at the window above the sink and almost dropped her cup. Hot water scalded her fingers. “Shit!” she gasped, abruptly slammed the cup down, and rushed the sink. Running cold water over her hand, she scanned the backyard. Must have been a bat, she reassured herself, then remembered, I hate bats. Her hand throbbed and she lost interest in the tea. Tired, she walked to the refrigerator, took out a bag of peas from the freezer, stuck it on her reddened thumb and index finger, and wondered if they’d blister.

Walking back into the living room, hand cradled close to her body and dripping frost from the peas, she noticed the Television was off. She stopped, her eyes drawn to the blankets which were now twisted into standing pyramids that resembled a Dairy Queen.

“What the…?” Sheila's eyes darted around the room but nothing else seemed out of place. She walked over to the blankets and kicked them. The swirled fleece and wool softly collapsed and she shivered involuntarily. She gulped. No getting around it, she needed professional help.

A blur at the picture window startled her, and before her horrified gaze, a bouncing two foot deformed figure popped up, then down, outside her window. Sheila, a woman of reason, knew she was not seeing what she was seeing. Against her will, she forced her body to slowly advance toward the window. Up popped the figure and this time, it stuck its fingers and toes to the glass and a knobby, warty face hung staring at her. It only took two seconds for Sheila to register what she was seeing. Two long, endless, mind numbing seconds of leering, pinched features, a lolling tongue, red as fresh blood, and orange, glowing eyes glittering out at her that sparked a primal fear for her soul. And, although she was sure Martin the Bastard had traded his in long ago, she was sure this creature had never had one.

A scream bounced off the walls filling the living room with an unearthly howl that puckered gooseflesh all over her body. Sheila’s eyes rolled like a filly, and she realized with a start that the sound was coming from her. Her jaw shut with a snap as she bolted from the room.

The call to the cops brought police and firefighters. When they arrived, of course, it was gone. The cops had circled her property, taking special care to investigate the area where she’d seen the face. No footprints. No telling fingerprints on the window. She’d watched their protective and sympathetic expressions drain from tight concern to irritation as the whispered non-discovery went from cop to cop. Her description that it looked just like the Imp she'd seen on TV didn't help her credulity. She overheard one bitching, "Recently divorced women should move to Florida and take their paranoid, delusional asses out of Massachusetts.” He had the good grace to look guilty when he turned to see her in the hallway, but it hadn’t wiped the smirk off his face.

After the second sweep of the area, she thanked them with a smile, cold eyed the jerk she had overheard, and showed them all to the door, slamming it to underscore her displeasure. But their inability to find any sort of evidence to her visitor placed a cold circle of fear around her heart. Her cousin Theresa had died of a brain tumor and in her last weeks of life, she’d seen ‘things’. Things that weren’t there.

When all was quiet and the last cop car had driven away, the Imp rappity tap tapped on the window and cocked its head to one side “Eee nnn,” it squeaked. It took Sheila a few seconds to realize it was asking to come in.

“What?! No! Absolutely N.O. Go away,” She said shrilly.

“EEE NNN.” It repeated louder.

Sheila ran out of the room and into the kitchen. She turned on the radio and a soft, classical Mozart streamed out. She sighed and turned up the volume. I'm not crazy. It was just a temporary brain fart, she thought.

As Sheila washed out her cup, the Imp popped up at the window waved and grinned baring sharp, little teeth. She dropped her prized black mug with her favorite saying ‘Bite Me’ on it, her gift to herself on the day she filed for divorce.

“Shit!” she yelled, now mad. “Look what you made me do!” She roughly picked up the pieces and sliced her thumb. “Fuck!”

“Nnn-ot my fawlt,” it squealed and used it’s feet and hand suckers to run frantically around the rim of the outside window. After three passes it stopped, then shrugged its skinny shoulders, and tried to look innocent. Hard to do when you carry the stamp of Satan on your face. “Eee nnn?”

Sheila thoughtfully threw away the shattered cup and wrapped the paper towel around her bleeding finger. The Imps eyes followed her movements, pupils dilating as the blood stained the makeshift bandage, and it licked its lips. Trembling, it forced itself to look away, then leaned in close to the glass and smiled again. Sharp, white pointy teeth glinted as it cocked its head and fluttered its eyelashes. The absurdity involuntarily twitched Sheila’s lips.

The Imp perked up, grabbed it’s ears, and pulled stretching them up and over its head and tied them into a bow. It now looked like a hideously deformed rabbit and Sheila laughed outloud. “Eee nnn?” it said hopefully.

Why not, she thought. Life couldn’t get any worse, even if this thing dragged her down to Hell and left her. In fact, it might be an improvement. She cranked open the window. “What do you…”

The Imp’s eyes grew large and happy, dilating into umber pools of gratitude. It hopped in landing on the sink, counter, floor, back up to the island, and on to the rim of the sink in a blink of an eye. It zinged in toward Sheila, wings creating a flurry of air around her, smelling of earth and dead flowers.

Startled, Sheila jerked back, pressing into the counter. “Mother of …” This was one bizarre hallucination, she thought.

The Imp studied her, slowly stretching its neck ET style, bringing its face closer.

Sheila looked into the goat-slitted swirling orbs of orange and gulped. Her voice quavered, but she refused to be intimidated. After all, this was her dementia. “Okay you’re in. What do you want?” Or, she thought, what does my psycho psyche want.

“I see you ann play. I fawl. Now no moure fun. Make butter.”

Sheila walked away and into the living room muttering, “A therapist would have a field day just on the language alone. The least I could do is make them speak English,” she grumbled.

The Imp followed sashaying its hips and touching everything it could. “Make Butter.”

“Better. Make Better,” she corrected. Sheila sank down into Martin’s chair and stared at the Imp. “What deep and depraved hole of my mind did you pop out of?”

Touching the chair, her leg, her shoe, the lamp, the Imp muttered, “I fawl. I hurt head. No feel good no more. Make betterrrr.”

Sheila rose suddenly, and the Imp in a blur of feet, arms, and wings whirled itself up onto the light fixture. It hung down, barred its little fangs, and in fear hissed a warning.

“I was going to get you, me, an aspirin but it looks like we could use a valium instead. Chill out.”

Slowly the Imp peeled its fingers off the light and dropped down beside her. “I fix what I done to you and Mmm-a rrr-tin.”

“What did you say!?” Sheila shouted, and the Imp leaped over the couch and out of sight. Sheila marched over to the couch, kneeled on the cushions, and stared down into the wedge of space the Imp had dropped into. “There will be no mention of that word in this house ever again. Do you understand?”

The Imp nodded vigorously, hunkered down by the floor. “Sorr-eee,” it sing-songed.

Sheila sighed and turned, drooping on the couch. “You’re sorry,” she said softly. “I curse the day I ever met the bastard.”

The Imp’s head stretched up from the back of the couch and looked down at Sheila’s prone body. “Not all HIZ fawlt,” it sang. It blew out a rancid breath, and she stiffened as a blaze of color passed before her eyes. Blurry pictures and images, people, places, times. They moved so fast, she was nauseous from the movements, and then there was black. A soft, velvet black when she heard, “Wake up. You sleeping!”

Sheila opened her eyes to a wizened, wrinkled face, sharp, pointy teeth hanging over its lower lip. She screamed. The Imp screamed and flew across the room, knocking over vase, candles, and knick knacks from tables and bookcases. My God, she thought, how elaborate and extended can a hallucination be? She sat up quickly when Theresa’s haunted eyes swam before her. Oh my God. On top of everything else I’ve got a brain tumor.

She rubbed her head and the Imp tentatively moved to her side. “Fix now,” and with lightening speed it hopped up on the arm of the couch and touched her temple.

In Technicolor, snippets of her discovery flashed before her. Martin sitting at a bar with his co-worker. Their heads together, laughing intimately, hands touching. A still shot captures their meeting. Her first in the series of evidence. Martin walking ‘Her’ to her apartment door, she leans in, the kiss. The snap shot of proof. Her hand pulling him to her door. His momentary resistance, then follow-through. A shot of the closed door, building number visible, his car identifiable. The lawyer. His denial. Her pictures. His lopsided half-smile admitting nothing but a few stupid kisses. Defeated, he agreed - no contest to the divorce. A forgotten image wavered before her. His slumped body, his eyes full of pain, his stiff lips repeating over and over that he loved her. In a crashing of truth, she saw each episode to its conclusion and realized he had never followed through. She hadn't stayed long enough to see him leave the apartment five minutes after entry. Or his avoidance of an after work drink to rush home to his now distant and angry wife.

The Imp chuckled, then grew sad. “M-eye faw-ult. Butt you f-urst.”

In an exquisite revelation of pain, Sheila remembered her own stolen Christmas party kisses with Kevin, while married only a year to Martin. A few weeks of flirtation. Working late then dinner, eyes shining with denied desire. She too had opted to pass on the affair and a blithely trusting Martin had been happy work no longer demanded her long hours away from him. She turned her shocked gaze on the Imp “Why? Why did you ruin my life!” she broke down and buried her head in her hands. The floodgates, so long denied, opened and all the sorrow poured out.

Sheila never noticed the Imp’s eyes fill with tears, changing color from day-glow orange to a deep, settled grey. It clutched its chest, feeling what it wrought in Sheila and gasped. “Do-nnn-t like.” It staggered back and turned. Two black holes appeared. One glowed Burnt Red, the other Light Blue. A Demon’s face appeared in one and beckoned a twisted, taloned finger, impatient disapproval stamped across its warty features. It held a very small trident in its other huge claw.

The Imp’s shoulders slumped as it slowly walked toward its master. The Demon sneered as it watched Sheila writhe in emotional agony, decayed lips parted showing rotting teeth. It reached out and patted the Imp’s shoulder and handed it the tiny trident. The Imp clutched it then turned to look back at Sheila.

In a quicksilver dance of motion, the Imp pointed the trident at Sheila and whispered “Make betterrrr,” whirled, and disappeared through the glowing Blue hole.

Shocked, the Demon opened its gaping maw to bellow in rage. Fangs caked with dried blood and bits of flesh gleamed as it drew in it’s own foul breath to scream its protest. The Red hole snapped shut as the Blue hole pulsed closed upon the Imp with a soft whoosh of birdsong and bells. Startled Sheila looked up, her tear stained face red and blotchy, and saw nothing.

On the morning the day her divorce would finalize, Sheila’s doorbell rang. Martin the Bastard stood on her doorstep looking nervous. Before she could say anything he blurted, “Hi, um, I know you said you never wanted to see me again, and I’ll be gone in a minute, but I wanted to say, I’m sorry I hurt you. And, and that I’ll always love you.” She looked at him and noticed for the first time he was thinner and his face was tired. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes…oh, those eyes were so sad.

“Here,” he said reaching into his pocket. He held up his set of house keys, “You might need an extra set sometime.” He stayed there a moment, then turned awkwardly walking down the three small steps to the ground.

“Wait!” Sheila called. “Would, would you like some coffee? I, seem to have just brewed your favorite.”

Martin looked back at her, his expression one of guarded surprise. “You always said French Roast was too strong for you.”

Sheila smiled and opened the door wider. “People change.”

The twittering of birds and the far away tinkle of sleigh bells followed Martin’s slow, uncertain steps back up the stairs and into the house. Sheila looked curiously around and said softly to the cold crisp air, “Thank you.” Then closed the door.

The next week she and Martin bought a stone Imp garden ornament that became a family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation. Some whispered it had magical powers.

END

Copyright 2009 Karen Dent

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