PRL Serials

Silas is not always in hell, sometimes he is happy with his family. Usually on holidays, from October through the New Year, his daughters and his wife don’t annoy him as much and they find themselves doing activities together that his daughters refused other times. For Halloween every year, the family has a party and invites all of their neighbors over. It usually lasts late into the night and everyone wakes up in various places around Silas’s sizeable home or his backyard the next morning. Silas enjoys the party, he likes the way people admire his things and the portraits of his family – and it’s easy for him to stay awake. Tyler, the man of the house next to his, was always entertaining. When he wasn’t drinking too much, he was telling stories about his time in the military and the man could talk for hours. This Halloween, Silas and his family dress as a family of cats – his wife’s idea – and when Tyler sees Silas with whiskers painted on his face he makes fun of him.

The party this year is well attended and soon Silas and Tyler sit in the backyard around the fire pit with other dad’s from the neighborhood. 

“It’s a nice night out tonight,” Tyler says opening a beer.

“Yea, I’m glad the kids can run around, give me a break for once.” One of other dads says.

“You say that until they turn into teenagers, then you have to pay them to talk to you,” Silas says and Tyler agrees.

“Not that you want them to talk to you.” Tyler jokes and they all laugh.

“Teenagers are scary,” one of the dads says. “You never know what they got going on.” Silas eyes the dad sympathetically; the man looks tired and stressed.

“How old is yours?” Silas asks.

“Eighteen, in his first year of college. I love him, he’s my son, but he’s a weird kid. He’s got problems mixing with people.”

Silas understands, his youngest daughter had trouble adjusting to high school and his wife made him pay for sessions with a counselor. “He’ll get through it, just give him time.”

The dad shakes his head slowly, ominously. “I don’t know, I hope so. He’s better than he used to be, he’s on medication, but out on his own by himself, I just hope he’s alright.”

A group of young kids storm by playing a game that Silas doesn’t understand. He realizes that they are running from a kid who is throwing rocks from the gravel in the driveway. “Who does he belong to?” Silas asks. Its Tyler’s son and when he goes over to stop him, there is an argument. Silas watches, sipping his beer, and then he feels a sharp pain on his forehead, a rock bigger than the pebbles from his driveway, that closes his eyes and makes him lose his balance. When he opens then again, he sees the man with the horns, smiling more than usual.

(in Hell)

“Silas, do I have a treat for you!” The man with the horns says, smiling his black smile. “I have someone that you must meet, a recent arrival, still fresh.”

“Why? Why do you want me to meet someone who just died and realized they’re going to spend an eternity in torture?” Silas is angry. The man with the horns has ‘introduced’ him to many people lately when Silas returns to hell and Silas is forced to see them ripped apart. Even if they are all deserving of their punishment, Silas doesn’t want to watch it.

“Oh, Silas, we have discussed this. It is for your education. You have more knowledge of hell than any living man on Earth. You can do tons with that I imagine. And I get bored of conversation with these wretched demons. Come on Silas, I think you will find this quite illuminating. And you don’t have to watch his torture, I’ll keep all the other demons away. He will tell you his story himself and we can both listen. Then we can compare notes.” Silas can tell that there is something strange about the man with the horns on this visit but he follows him through a dim corridor and into a small cave that is lit by a torch. A young man sits on a rock, he is naked and his body is burnt all over.

“Hello, again” the man with the horns says to the burnt young man. “This is my friend Silas, can you see him.”

The young man seems to squint in Silas’s direction.

“Yea, yea I can, I think. Why am I here? Where am I? I thought we were friends.” He starts to whimper like a little boy.

“Oh we are the best of friends. You are my favorite in a while. Now tell Silas here all about us.” The man with the horns sits and offers a seat on the rock next to him to Silas. “Don’t spare details. We’ve got Silas for a while, no?” He looks at Silas and smiles. “That really was a nice sized rock and you could use a good nap.”

Crazed and Confused (Part 1)

I think that burning things was always my demons idea, but honestly its hard to say because as long as I can remember, I’ve just enjoyed it. There are just things that scream to be set on fire and I figure I was put on this earth to fulfill its request. I’m not a pyromaniac though. Don’t think the worst of me. It’s just my damn demon I guess. He seemed like a decent guy when I started talking to him, and when I did, I knew that he had been there with me all along. 

It was really late when he started talking to me and I had just put my book away. I was reading for hours and my eyes felt the ways eyes feel when they’re forced to concentrate for so long, like there’s something under the lid and when you blink it moves around all weird and shit. But I was lying in the dark waiting to fall asleep, happy to have the opportunity to close my eyes and I hear this voice. I figured it was my roommate and I tried to remember if I heard the door open or not. I thought that maybe he had come in and was lying on his bed and I had forgot and he got a phone call or something. I have a bad memory sometimes. But I think I remember the important stuff. Like that it’s bad luck to kill a daddy long-leg spider and once me and my brothers held a service in the hopes that our respect would wipe our slates clean. I’m not sure if it worked ‘cause no one really likes me; everybody thinks I’m weird. 

But I heard the voice, right, and I’m rewinding the tape in my brain to try and remember if my roommate had come in and I’m watching the playback, feeling stupider and stupider that I would even have to think so hard. Of course he wasn’t there, nobody’s memory is that bad. I did have a friend whose grandpa had alzheimer’s before he died. But I don’t know if we were really friends though. I mean, I liked him fine, but he was just too nice to tell me to leave him alone. And no one else would talk to me. I took advantage of his kindness, really. I should have left him alone, but I really needed him. His name was Chris and I would invite myself to his house all the time. Plop down on his couch and wait for him to saunter in with that tired look of obligation that I would twist in my mind to mean he was just being quirky. All good pairs are odd couples, all the best ones anyway. I can’t think of any though. I missed Chris when I  started college because I was alone and no one knew me well enough to pity me so I couldn’t take advantage of anyone’s friendship. I had my roommate at least, but there are ways around getting to know your roommate. I had trouble remembering his name in the beginning; I would call him Chris hoping that he would be my new forced friend, but no luck. I think he took offense to it and now he doesn’t talk to me much. I called him Absent Roomie when I talked to my mom on the phone, “Absent Roomie locked me out again. I was in the shower and I had to walk across campus to get a key.” Or “Absent Roomie went home and I’m all alone this weekend. I can just read and do some homework.” 

But, I was waiting to fall asleep that night, eyes closed, waiting for the lumps under my lids to dissolve when I heard it and I didn’t realize what it was, but I knew that it wasn’t Absent Roomie come back from a late night studying in the library, or with his friends that he talked to about his crazy roommate who had a pet name for him that he used when he talked to his mom for the fifth time on the phone in the one day. It was my demon. I don’t know how it works with demons, but if it was an angel I would refer to him as my guardian angel. But that’s because we assume that they are actually guarding, looking out for us, and making sure things go well. But my demon, I don’t know what he really wanted, you can ask him. All I know is, he has a voice like James Bond and I’d never actually seen him before. It was so dark that night and I remember wondering where light usually comes from when it doesn’t feel as blanket dark as it did that night. I remember talking to him and the  sound of the conversation didn’t come from anyplace in particular. It was the way you listen to headphones and you can’t tell exactly which ear certain sounds are going into, it sounds more like they are just falling into the top of your head. It was like that and I remember that ‘cause I always think how cool headphones are ‘cause they do that.

What are you doing up so late?, I heard, and I wondered if I should answer ‘cause I couldn’t tell if the voice was real or not, I’d never actually seen my demon, I only heard him speak.

Were you reading a book?, he asked me, You read a lot. I see you read all the time.

I read just enough., I think I said it out loud, but I’m not even sure where my voice came from. 

Fair enough., the voice said, So what have you burned today? And I was ashamed because earlier I bought a lighter and an aerosol can of something so that I could watch this old pair of pants that I had burn. I had this place tucked away on campus where it seemed no one ever went, so I snuck back there when I felt the urge, or when something screamed at me for its own cremation, and I went to town. I wasn’t doing it ’cause I liked it, I was just helping out.

There is nothing wrong with having a little fun., the voice said, Everyone has things that make them happy.

It’s true that everyone has things that make them happy. There’s this girl that I watched sometimes. She lives in the same dorm and I try to catch her leave in the morning to go to class; I have a class in the morning too so its good motivation to get up bright and early. I always get there before everyone else ‘cause I just have to see this girl walk by, and though it’s only for a couple of seconds it’s worth it every time. I stand by the soda machine at the entrance and pretend to situate some papers or something, stealing glances at my watch cause I know that every morning like clockwork she’ll walk past and I get to smell her perfume and it leaves pleasant thoughts in my head. I don’t even hear things screaming to be turned to ashes when I see her. Her name is Candace; I’m always happy just to see her walk by.

I finally worked up the nerve to ask him what he was. You can only talk to the darkness, respond to the non-right, non-left ear sound for so long before you just have to know.

I am your demon., he answered and I repeated it back at him, My demon?

Yes indeedy my friend, your demon.

I didn’t know I had one of those but then he said, No one ever really does; you do, so feel very extra special.

I asked him if he was the reason I did bad things, like the cartoons of the angel and the demon on the character’s shoulders trying to win his soul to their team. You gonna make me do bad in my life?, I asked him.

Eh, I don’t know., he said like he was a real person, I’m bored, I want to be your friend.

I think that was all I needed to hear. He had me at ‘eh.’