Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

The barmaid seizes him by the shoulder, bends him over and gives him a furious kiss. They fall off the bench, under the table. Bateman enters.

Bateman: Has anyone seen my master Albergus?

The man at the next table turns and hails him. It is the Clock.

Clock: He’s busy. Will be for a while. Meanwhile, could you tell me what time it is?

Lights down in tavern. Mephistopheles comes out to address the audience.

Mephisto: These our revels now are done.

All my power’s overthrown.

Wagner’s found a girl at last

History has swallowed past.

For me, I’m off to warmer climes

And giving up these wretched ryhmes.

Plagiarize I can no more

From better writers’ magic store

Of characters, ideas, words,

Comic mishaps très absurd…

With brothers Marx’s sweet inventions

To tell of Faustus was our intention.

Now you must tell us if our play

Justified such rude display

A laugh’s the end we’re hoping for

Please don’t send us back for more.

But if our humor’s fit your plans

You may release us with your hands.

Curtain

“Sleep,” said the monster. It spoke with its ear, with little lips writhing deep within the folds of flesh, because its mouth was full of blood.

“I don’t want to sleep now. I’m having a dream,” said Jeremy. “When I sleep, all my dreams go away. Or they’re just pretend dreams. I’m having a real dream now.”

“What are you dreaming now?” asked the monster.

“I am dreaming that I’m grown up-”

“Seven feet tall and very fat,” said the monster.

“You’re silly,” said Jeremy. “I will be five feet, six and three eighth inches tall. I will be bald on top and will wear eyeglasses like little thick ashtrays. I will give lectures to young things about human destiny and the metempsychosis of Plato.”

“What’s a metempsychosis?” asked the monster hungrily.

Jeremy was four and could afford to be patient. “A metempsychosis is a thing that happens when a person moves from one house to another.”

“Like when your daddy moved here from Monroe Street?”

“Sort of. But not that kind of a house, with shingles and sewers and things. This kind of a house,” he said, and smote his little chest.

“Oh,” said the monster. It moved up and crouched on Jeremy’s throat, looking more like a teddy bear than ever. “Now?” it begged. It was not very heavy.

“Not now,” said Jeremy petulantly. “It’ll make me sleep. I want to watch my dreams some more. There’s a girl who’s not listening to my lecture. She’s thinking about her hair.”

“What about her hair?” asked the monster.

“It’s brown,” said Jeremy. “It’s shiny, too. She wishes it were golden.”

“Why?”

“Somebody named Bert likes golden hair.”

“Go ahead and make it golden then.”

“I can’t! What would the other young ones say?”

“Does that matter?”

“Maybe not. Could I make her hair golden?”

“Who is she?” countered the monster.

“She is a girl who will be born here in about twenty years,” said Jeremy.

The monster snuggled closer to his neck.

“If she is to be born here, then of course you can change her hair. Hurry and do it and go to sleep.”

Jeremy laughed delightedly.

“I changed it,” said Jeremy. “The girl behind her squeaked like the mouse with its leg caught. Then she jumped up. It’s a big lecture-room, you know, built up and away from the speaker-place. It has steep aisles. Her foot slipped on the hard step.”

He burst into joyous laughter.

“Now what?”

“She broke her neck. She’s dead.”

The monster sniggered. “That’s a very funny dream. Now change the other girl’s hair back again. Nobody else saw it, except you?”

“Nobody else saw,” said Jeremy. “There! It’s changed back again. They never even knew she had golden hair for a little while.”

“That’s fine. Does that end the dream?”

“I s’pose it does,” said Jeremy regretfully. “It ends the lecture, anyhow. The young people are all crowding around the girl with the broken neck. The young men all have sweat under their noses. The girls are all trying to put their fists into their mouths. You can go ahead.”

The monster made a happy sound and pressed its mouth hard against Jeremy’s neck. Jeremy closed his eyes.

The door opened. “Jeremy, darling,” said Mummy. She had a tired, soft face and smiling eyes. “I heard you laugh.”

Jeremy opened his eyes slowly. His lashes were so long that when they swung up, there seemed to be a tiny wind, as if they were dark weather fans. He smiled, and three of his teeth peeped out and smiled too. “I told Fuzzy a story, Mummy,” he said sleepily, “and he liked it.”

“You darling,” she murmured. She came to him and tucked the covers around his chin. He put up his hand and kept the monster tight against his neck.

“Is Fuzzy sleeping?” asked Mummy, her voice crooning with whimsy.

“No,” said Jeremy. “He’s hungering himself.”

“How does he do that?”

“When I eat, the-the hungry goes away. Fuzzy’s different.”

She looked at him, loving him so much that she did not-could not think. “You’re a strange child,” she whispered, “and you have the pinkest cheeks in the whole wide world.”

“Sure I have,” he said.

“What a funny little laugh!” she said, paling.

“That wasn’t me. That was Fuzzy. He thinks you’re funny.”

Mummy stood over the crib, looking down at him. It seemed be the frown that looked at him, while the eyes looked past. Finally she wet her lips and patted his head. “Good night, baby.”

“Good night, Mummy.” He closed his eyes. Mummy tiptoed out. The monster kept right on doing it.

It was naptime the next day, and for the hundredth time Mummy had kissed him and said, “You’re so good about your nap, Jeremy!” Well, he was. He always went straight to bed at nap-time, as he did at bedtime. Mummy didn’t know why, of course. Perhaps Jeremy did not know. Fuzzy knew.

Jeremy opened the toy-chest and took Fuzzy out. “You’re hungry, I bet,” he said.

“Yes. Let’s hurry.”

Jeremy climbed into the crib and hugged the teddy bear close. “I kept thinking about that girl,” he said.

“What girl?”

“The one whose hair I changed.”

“Maybe because it’s the first time you’ve changed a person.”

“It is not! What about the man who fell into the subway hold?”

“You moved the hat. The one that blew off. You moved it under his feet so that he stepped on the brim with one foot and caught his toe in the crown, and tumbled in.”

“Well, what about the little girl I threw in front of the truck?”

“You didn’t touch her,” said the monster equably. “She was on roller skates. You broke something in one wheel so it couldn’t turn. So she fell right in front of the truck.”

Jeremy thought carefully. “Why didn’t I ever touch a person before?”

“I don’t know,” said Fuzzy. “It has something to do with being born in this house, I think.”

“I guess maybe,” said Jeremy doubtfully.

“I’m hungry,” said the monster, settling itself on Jeremy’s stomach as he turned on his back.

“Oh, all right,” Jeremy said. “The next lecture.”

“Yes,” said Fuzzy eagerly. “Dream bright, now. The big things that you say, lecturing. Those are what I want. Never mind the people there. Never mind you, lecturing. The things you say.”

The strange blood flowed as Jeremy relaxed. He looked up to the ceiling, found the hairline crack that he always stared at while he dreamed real, and began to talk.