Hazel

Butterscotch

"But between you and me, I know it's not. Its my demon, Phil"

He's put down the controller now, and looks at me with an expression I can't quite place. Its a mixture of confusion, concern, curiosity and pity. I hate when people pity me. It makes me feel as though the person pitying me is better than me, and I have reason to be looked down on. 

I pick up a small paper bag on the coffee table, and look inside. A blue post it note sits inside with scrawly handwriting on it: Got these for you earlier, I know they're your faves, Mum xx. The bag contains cubes of golden brown butterscotch. I pop one in my mouth, and offer them to Phil but he ignores me and continues looking.

He continues to stare intently at me, as if trying to figure out what I'm thinking. I don't want him to know what I'm thinking. I don't ever want anyone to truly know what I'm thinking. They'd lock me up somewhere and never let me see the light of day again.

"I don't know what to say, Dan." Nobody ever does. "I guess we all have our own demons in some form or other right?" He looks down at his hands with a sad expression on his face.

"What do you mean?" I'm intrigued.

"Ohh...nothing. I didn't really mean anything as such" He looks as though he's trying to take back what he said, but I want to try and understand.

"No, go on, tell me what you meant" I try to give him a reassuring look.

"I just meant...I don't know. I guess we all have our demons, regardless of whether they talk to us or not. They're hidden in insecurities or in problems that every one of us have. We all have problems and issues and things that aren't right happening in our lives. There's something wrong in this world, and I believe that its ourselves, we are our own problems," he pauses to take a slow breath, as if considering carefully what he was about to say to me, almost as if he thought that the wrong phrase might tip me over the edge.

"If we just try to let go of our issues, and everything that bothers us, and step away from them once in a while, maybe we'll see the world in a different light. Maybe we'll see a place where there is no hurt or unhappiness. Then hopefully the reason for all of this, for our existence, for all the things that are wrong in this world, will become obvious."

Im engulfed in his words. Its almost like poetry, his take on the world is so different to mine.

"How I see it, is that demons, as you called them, are like clouds. They hang over us and block the light out of our lives. But unlike clouds, we can move them aside should we so choose. Its a hard climb to reach them in order to push them aside and let the light in, but it is possible."

I'm speechless. This all comes so naturally to him. I've never looked at it like that before. Now that he mentions it, I've always assumed that my demon can't and won't be moved, that he's always going to be there, unyielding, unstoppable. But maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Phil is right. What if my demon can be defeated? What if I can defeat him? Push him out of my mind for good?

And just as these thoughts start to change my mood for the better, I get a sharp stabbing pain in the left side of my head. I crawl into a ball and cover my ears, ignoring Phil's presence.  Then, just like all the other times I get that type of headache, I hear him again:

Time to go to sleep

Don't just sit there and weep

It'll be over in a flash

All it takes is one slash