ME & THE MONSTER

interlude

♦️Rae's practical guide to being an Evil Demon

I know what you're thinking: it shouldn't be too hard, being bad and everything, should it? I mean, it's merely unleashing your deepest, darkest desires, and don't let's be hypocrites, who hasn't those every once in a while? Baring the uglier parts of yourself, yeah?

Well, you know what? Actually, it's more than that. Thing is, you can't be blatantly, in-your-face wicked. Well, you can, of course, you can walk around being a mass murderer and stuff. But that's just vulgar, see. No class about that.

No, you must be evil in this subtle, ever-so-sneaky sort of way. You have to be crafty when meddling in human affairs, crooking their lives with a careful word here, a sly gesture there, so that secrets are spilt.

Friendships crumble. Love turns bitter. The possibilities are endless.

And listen, the beauty of this, the real beauty of the whole scheme, is that it's the humans themselves who wreck it all. They're the ones inflicting pain onto each other.

You're nothing more than the gunpowder that triggered it all. The smiling face behind the scenes.

How elegant.

Not.

♦️Kal's practical guide to being a Positively Angelic Angel

Right. So, being an angel. Yeah. The theory goes something like this: you have to be good, but hold your horses, not because it's your duty. Not because it's what's expected of you or because people are watching or because you feel guilty.

No, the goodness must stem from your innermost being, you must have this totally natural urge to always do good and –

Hey. You listening?

Me neither.

Look, let me get this straight: it's so stupid, the whole sacrifice thing. You might think it's noble or admirable or valiant or whichever phoney adjective you'd like to add here, but in fact it's not.

It's just plain stupid.

For example, when we were kids, my aunt and uncle made Nate and I wear shoes a couple of sizes too small for us. Not all the time, but every few days, enough so that I'd sometimes dash out in my slippers or barefoot rather than limp around in those horrible trainers. What was the purpose of it all, you might very wisely indeed ask?

Supposedly it was a lesson to teach us endurance to pain and perseverance in life and whatever. Endurance my arse. I swear my left foot has never been quite the same. It's spectacularly ugly; I'm actually quite proud of it.

And don't get me started on food. No second helpings if you stay for lunch at my family's place. In fact, the more undernourished you are, the better. Eating is a really nasty habit, okay? Can't you just live on air like a normal person?

I was forgetting, no mirrors in the house, of course. Duh. Looking at yourself is something only the weak of nature do. We Mellkeths don't put up with that sort of behaviour, you narcissistic, morally bankrupt creature.

In other words, it's exhausting, being an angel.

My advice to you is to stay very human.