on friend dates with the devil

I find it difficult to relate to the Demon Queen.

We met in spin class, and I have told myself

that I will try to relate to most types of people.

To see the world from their point of view.

How else are we to get along in these troubled times?

If we continue to live in our own bubbles,

the world will eventually devolve into chaos.

So when she told me her profession,

I decided not to judge. Who am I to say

that I would not be going door to door collecting souls

if I had grown up in her situation?

I invited her for coffee,

and she said she was free on Sundays.

On the bench at Starbucks,

I sipped from my paper cup

and tried to ask the Demon Queen (please, call her Demi)

all the usual questions.

Did she like her job? Did she have a family? Hobbies?

She loved her work;

who wouldn’t want to be a curator of sin

and bring in the exquisite corpses every day?

She didn’t have a spouse or children,

but her father was Satan

and her mother was Eternal Pain.

She worked in the family business, so she saw them often.

And she’d recently taking up painting

with the blood of her victims.

She asked me no questions in response,

so I started to talk about my own life.

When I said that I swam in my free time,

she quoted the statistical probability of drowning.

When I told her that I taught English,

she explained exactly how Shakespeare is being tortured.

When I mentioned that I liked cats,

she pointed out that they do not actually have nine lives.

They die the first time.

As it turns out, the Demon Queen wants the world to devolve into chaos.

I’m still trying to see things from her point of view.

But I don’t think we’ll go for coffee again.