The O’Leary Line

“This,” the demon said “is something entirely new.” In front of her stood a frail old man who bore his weight on a cane and it didn’t look like it was going to keep holding him up for very long. She smiled with only one side of her mouth and not with her eyes. “Lemme guess. You want to be young again?” “No.” He said. “You want to be rid of that cane?” Again he said “No.” “Well, why are you here? Quit wasting my time. Spit it out, old man. I don’t have all night.” She did actually have all night. “I have been told that in exchange for these offerings” he laid a small wooden box at her feet “you will engage in a contest and if I win I can have one request granted that you must honor. And if I lose... I lose my soul?” It sounded stupid when he said it out loud. She disregarded his words because truth be told, it didn’t actually matter much to her about his soul. Who cares about souls? What did he think she was going to do with it? If he lost he was hers to use. He was a vessel to sow pain for her amusement. Let him think that was his soul. The truth was far more painful and if he was too dumb to get specifics, she wasn’t going to do the work for him. It’s his fault if he’s not a good negotiator, not hers. She picked up the box and lifted the lid. It contained a plain gold ring, a vial of some kind of small white rocks, and a feather. “This is supposed to be a lock of your true love’s hair. Your true love is a bird?” He seemed to shrink into himself. He stammered “It’s the closest I have. I’ve buried my wife and son and now all I have is Agnes.” For the first time she noticed the tiny and unremarkable little bird on his arm. It was an owl. “And what’s this?” She held up the vial. “This is supposed to be the blood of your mortal enemy. Your enemy bleeds rocks?” “That” he said, with fire in his eyes “IS my mortal enemy. That is the substance I found with my son’s body. That killed him so, yes it’s both mortality and my enemy.” She stood for a moment that felt like an eternity as she weighed the depth of his words and, more importantly, the pathos of his very existence. “I choose the terms of the contest since you chose to bend the offerings to your will.” Again, an eternity passed in a moment where he knew this is a terrible thing to which he was agreeing and that possibly he was blinded by anger and despair and that he had redefined the state of being over one’s head and yet he still he agreed. There was steel in his eyes and foolishness in his heart. His little owl shuffled her feet on his arm, bringing him back to reality. The demon could barely contain her giggling. “Okay, old man. I challenge you to a contest of dance. Out of the... kindness of my...heart... I’ll allow you a fortnight to prepare. This is more than generous and you should thank me. You will meet me there.” She pointed to a distant structure that he didn’t remember having seen before. “Don’t be late.” He looked even shakier than he had been a moment ago, if that was possible. With that, he turned away and limped slowly back down the lonely dirt road.

In a fortnight he returned as promised.

If it was possible for a building to be also be a rattlesnake, that was this place. As he approached it was like the very structure was trying to warn him. Don’t come here. You do not belong here. It got louder the closer he got. You’ve been warned. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. But he continued forward in his foolish disregard. The cacophonous laughter, the smell of smoke, this is a place that doesn’t exist in the light and it was filled to the brim with people of similar nature. He walked right into the home of ugliness. This was the place where angels fear to tread and he was the fool of legend.

It took him no time or effort to find her. She was the siren that leads sailors to their doom. She was the embodiment of all of mankind’s lusty failure. Amongst this commonly of drunks and fools she glistened like a beacon of light and then she saw him. “Good. She said. “You’re not late. You look like a hermit crab.” He did. Upon his back he carried an unwieldy satchel that must have been torturous to carry any distance and this place was a long distance from everywhere. He also carried a clumsy canvas bag and in the other hand his cane and on his shoulder, the little brown owl. The demon considered the entirety of his sorry state to be very much not her problem. With a wave of her hand the lights dimmed, focusing only a single spotlight upon her. A hush came over the crowd and the music began to play.

There was an ancient time when God sought to wipe out humanity for the crime of their corruption. From this demon they had traded sex for beauty. From this demon they had traded their souls for the magic of seduction. She danced the language of every dark and dirty thought that had ever disgraced the earth. She writhed and no eye could look away. She twisted and whether the onlooker was man, woman or something else undefined, for that moment they belonged to her, body and soul. She was the daughter of Herodias shedding her seven veils, all eyes on her, hoping to get a glimpse of something more; more skin, more of the forbidden things. More of whatever made their hearts race. More more more. She was the face that launched their ships. She owned them and even the old man with his silly satchel and his canvas bag was not immune. What had he done? His blood flowed to the ebb and flow of her motion and he existed at her mercy. He thought of taking her, of sealing away with her, and was overcome with insane anger at everyone else who could see her. How dare they look at her. She was his, not theirs. He glared at them and saw them glaring back at him and at each other and for a moment he felt a murderous fury but then she swept by in front of him and all of that anger and pain melted away. There was no room to feel anything but her presence. She was the universe. And then the universe came to an end.

The crowd stood silent, not sure what to do with their lives now. Nothing would ever be the same.

“It’s your turn, old man.” This statement seemed to shock some of the onlookers out of their spell. The spotlight, at her beckoning, focused over him and the crowd turned their attention. For a moment he looked as surprised as they did. He couldn’t remember what he was doing there but he remembered as soon as a peal of laughter broke out. Oh yeah. The dance. With shaking hands and legs, he made his way to the center of the stage. He opened up the canvas bag and produced a single drum and then a collapsing metal pole with a thin brass disc. A cymbal. He also pulled out a tiny pipe that he put on his mouth. It was a kazoo. The demon had seen so many things in her countless millennia of life but what she had not seen was this. He opened the satchel and an owl hopped out followed by another owl and another and another. It was like a clown car with owls. Out they marched in a dutiful line and when there was no more owls, the littlest owl hopped off his shoulder and took her place at the front and center. The old man picked up his cane and beat a tune on the drum and cymbal and the owls bobbed their heads. The demon squinted her eyes in genuine bafflement as though she was trying to eliminate from her visage all data except for this oddity in front of her. At this moment the old man started to play his kazoo and this was her first sign that something had gone terribly wrong. She recognized the tune immediately. It was “The Stripper”. The owls all in line kicked their knobby and freakishly long legs in time to the beat of the drum. There was a moment of complete silence followed by a roar of laughter. The tiny owl the man had said was named Agnes swirled her head in a circle while strutting back and forth, stretching her leg out as if to display a shapeliness that presumably would be irresistible if you happened to be an owl. The crowd cheered. She shimmied. The line of owls linked wings and turned in a wide circle while Agnes turned around and shook her tail in tight circles. She was rewarded with a chorus of wolf whistles and someone shouted “Show us your knobs!” The entire room shook with laughter. As if on cue, she folded her shoulders forward, sauntered up to the front of the stage, and stopped on time with the beat of the drum, thrusting her chest forward with her wings back in a dramatic flourish. She kicked a bony leg high, grabbing a feather from her outstretched flank and threw it in the air. It floated to the ground and hit with the final cymbal crash. The crowd guffawed and someone threw her a dollar. This resulted in fists pounding tables and a snowfall of dollars raining around the little owl. The dance was over. The demon stood completely still trying to think some other thought than this- They had worshipped her. They had lusted after her. She owned their souls. But they had not given her a dollar. In this crude and unfair world of reprobates and idiots, she knew exactly what that meant and although she reeled for any possible explanation, there was none. She had lost.

With thinly hidden fury and a voice made of ice and. Knives, she waited for the man to collect his owls. This felt like an even worse insult and she wasn’t sure why. “What will you have as your prize, old man?” He looked up at her, shocked at her words and then caught himself. He stood as straight as he was capable and said “I want for you and your demon kind to never come near me or my family line, ever again. You will not speak any temptation. They may destroy themselves but they will not fall to demon vices. The demon that took over my son. The sadness and pain that took over my wife. Never. Ever. Again.” She looked at him with true puzzlement. “You want a... restraining order?” “Yes.” He said. “Granted.” She said, reaching out her hand toward him. He instinctively backed away but he held still off the glare she gave him. She touched his arm and for a second, he felt a searing heat and pain and he smelled something he could only identify as sulfur and burning hair. He looked down and could see a lightly raised scar that hadn’t been on his arm before. “Go.” She said in a voice that was not to be questioned. He did as he was told.

It was odd to their friends and family that his remaining children appeared to have birthmarks where they hadn’t before but then maybe they had just been overlooked. Those poor kids had been through so much, there’s no reason to fuss over something unimportant even though it was an odd looking mark. Their father had it so it must be something that ran in the family and when they grew older, their children had it and their children’s children. “You must be an O’Leary” people would say if they saw it. Nice people, the O’Learys. Never a bad apple in the bunch.