Quarkman & the Beast

Satan dropped by the other night as I attempted to study Capital Market Expectations. I knew him at once by the synaesthesia he weaves in the minds of the underslept.

Clip-clop.

Beyond the pickets of my sight, I saw a coolness slink by redly and dark in a blink of sulphur and an odour of black, and I tasted the bright rustle of a wandering tail. And then there he was, hot and sour, regarding me stickily. His horns were loud and his eyes ran velveteen ink.

And he blended about sumptuously.

"Come," he said, his gossamer words crawling with oily blues and purples, "You hunger smoothly. I've brought brimstone, arias, patchouli, marzipan, heroism and contentment..."

We feasted on recalcitrance and intermezzos, and he talked of temptations long past, of great endeavours and small victories, of deserts and snakes and apples and gardens. I rolled in the coaly roughness of the thick metred clauses as they glowed and coiled in my blood.

"After we fall, we should climb back up," he said goldenly, and I smiled. He spoke of good and evil and his vowels refracted and sank. At the end of a silky while, I said: "What do you want?"

"I think you should play computer games instead of studying."

I escorted him briskly to his car, tail between his legs.

Moral of the story: Never trust anyone, not even Satan.