![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
You're shaking hands with demons
I didn't sleep more than three hours last night. I dreamed I took the Devil out for his birthday.
A devil, anyway. He looked exactly the way you would expect a devil to look in a dream of mine: small, dark, a little shabby around the edges. A very quiet manner and a wistful smile. He had miscalculated the mass of a human body: I could pick him up in my arms like a toddler. He could sit on my shoulder like a cat. We must have looked like street theater, but nobody commented on it. I bought him flowers; they ended the night as a bunch of wilted irises tied with white string. We went to an all-night market and looked at heaps of fruit of all different seasons, but I don't recall that we left with any. We talked easily and enthusiastically, like people with common interests. I liked him immensely and knew that was dangerous; he smiled apologetically and never lost that breath-pricking edge of danger radiating from him like cold. Toward dawn, he slid off my shoulder and folded his hand into mine: it had been empty and then there was a stone in it, small and rounded and cool, translucently lavender-blue. I thought in the dream that it was chalcedony; awake, I think it must have been agate, like the Babylonian stamp seal in the MFA that I have coveted since I was very small. I knew there was nothing I could take from him safely. He knew it and offered anyway. I missed him when I woke, which I suppose is something the Devil relies on.
I woke and my e-mail was offline. At least I didn't have anything really planned for today past lots and lots of work. It looks nice outside.
A devil, anyway. He looked exactly the way you would expect a devil to look in a dream of mine: small, dark, a little shabby around the edges. A very quiet manner and a wistful smile. He had miscalculated the mass of a human body: I could pick him up in my arms like a toddler. He could sit on my shoulder like a cat. We must have looked like street theater, but nobody commented on it. I bought him flowers; they ended the night as a bunch of wilted irises tied with white string. We went to an all-night market and looked at heaps of fruit of all different seasons, but I don't recall that we left with any. We talked easily and enthusiastically, like people with common interests. I liked him immensely and knew that was dangerous; he smiled apologetically and never lost that breath-pricking edge of danger radiating from him like cold. Toward dawn, he slid off my shoulder and folded his hand into mine: it had been empty and then there was a stone in it, small and rounded and cool, translucently lavender-blue. I thought in the dream that it was chalcedony; awake, I think it must have been agate, like the Babylonian stamp seal in the MFA that I have coveted since I was very small. I knew there was nothing I could take from him safely. He knew it and offered anyway. I missed him when I woke, which I suppose is something the Devil relies on.
I woke and my e-mail was offline. At least I didn't have anything really planned for today past lots and lots of work. It looks nice outside.
Re: the devil's birthday