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  Back in the overarching heavens, Merrili found that he could think of nothing but beautiful Princess Delia. He took to spending an inordinate amount of time in the Observatory, which is the place from which demons who have come of age keep an eye on humans bumbling around in the world. So Merrili became an obsessive human-watcher, or more specifically, Delia-watcher. Delia's routines became his own. He watched her wake in the morning; he watched her eat her breakfast. He sent her his love, impregnated with special demon-joy, so that for the first time in a long while she savoured the bitterness of the coffee contrasting with the sweetness of the honey on her toast. He watched her lock up the big double doors to the warehouse where she lived, and clatter down the iron staircase to catch the bus that would carry her to her day job. He watched her at work, where she spent the day staring into a lighted box with little written characters moving across its screen. He sent more Merrili-lightness to her, so that her colleagues noticed her change of heart. Perhaps she is in love, they whispered to each other in the tea room.

  She almost always went to the cinema on Tuesday nights. She had a standing date with friends. Merrili came to know her favourite performers and movie themes. After the movie the group would walk to a nearby bar or a cafe, where they would eat a light supper and enjoy a few drinks. He quite liked her friends, but worried that she drank so much. He also attended her yoga classes twice a week. He did not like her instructor, who seemed overly familiar when adjusting the limbs of his students to conform with the traditional yogic postures.

  On Saturday mornings her warehouse became a dance studio. He loved to watch these classes. Whether awkward or proficient, Delia treated all of her students with respect; she was a kind, patient and devoted teacher. And the students themselves were also a wonder to behold. The disciplined way they learned to contend with that gravity deal filled him with admiration. Fate had loaded the dice against them, yet there they were, nobly aspiring to freedom from physical constraint. So brave, they were, to work against these devastating odds inflicted upon them by nature.

  And he never missed her performances at Purgatory. It was there that she was most truly alive. The music energised her, touched her somewhere in her strange, human, being. Her dancing never failed to thrill the little demon. He also felt a strange desire to partake of whatever this animating force was that she experienced through dance. He longed to feel what she was feeling. He wanted more than her proximity. He wanted to be_her.

  Each fortnight she engaged in a ritual which utterly mystified him. She would get into her little car and drive to a place he came to understand was called 'Airport'. She would park the car then go to sit in a plastic seat on the observation deck. Once there she would remain staring out of the huge plate-glass windows for an hour, or sometimes two, as the incoming and outgoing flights came and went, came and went. There seemed to be absolutely no point to the exercise, yet she performed it regularly, and each time, without fail, it would make her cry. Merrili was both saddened and perplexed.

  One day, about six months after his first encounter with the Princess, he saw her set off on one of her airport excursions. On this particular day, for some reason, he felt unaccountably uncomfortable once she was inside the car-park. Perhaps it had been the sight of her, so small and vulnerable, driving right in under the great sign 'Terminal' which alerted him. (Demon thinking is surprisingly intuitive compared to that of most other immaterial life forms.) So he decided to expand his vision a little beyond the immediate vicinity of the object of his desire, for to be forewarned is to be forearmed. He checked out the broad concourses where people wandered to the tinkle-plink of electronic versions of Rolling Stones songs; he looked in on the waiting rooms and the bars, so unlike Purgatory, all faux-wood panelling and laminex for easy cleaning. He observed the sad and solitary patrons in the formica cafes moodily unpeeling their sandwiches from the plastic packaging. He watched the customs offices and runways and loading docks. Nothing was out of order, he was deciding, when a great roar rose up from the observation deck where his beloved was seated.

  The roar was followed by a blinding light, and then all was a chaos of smoke and flame. At first Merrili thought, Oh, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Princess Delia will be carried up to me on one of these delicious eddies of fire! But then he remembered that humans cannot bear the flames so beloved of the demon folk, that their mortal flesh dissolves in its embrace. And so Merrili, with a fine disregard for every demon rule that was ever written, leapt through a hole in the ether and plunged towards the earth.

  His princess was lying, quite unconscious, amongst the debris created by the bomb blast. Of course nobody could discern a demon amongst the licking flames and boiling clouds of smoke, for these are the basic elements of which demons themselves are composed. Merrili lifted Delia in his arms and carried her away from the site of the disaster, to the other side of the airport and the safety of one of the great, cool aeroplane hangars. He laid her gently on a tarpaulin, and then looked around for somewhere to hide while he waited. At the back of the hangar was a small kitchen for the ground staff, complete with cooker, fridge, a calendar with a picture of a pretty woman called 'September', and a poster in red and black featuring an image of someone who could have been a member of Merrili's immediate family. He carefully arranged his elements in such a way that his formal aspects blended into this advertisement for Mephisto, and composed himself to wait until someone came to find her.

  Very soon a group of young men entered the hangar. A particularly handsome man with dark curly hair and pilot's insignia on his shirt ran forward to where the princess was lying. As he leaned over her, she opened her eyes and uttered a sob of joy.

  "Bruno! What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Christ, have I died? Are you dead too? What ..."

  "Hush, love," replied Bruno with great tenderness. "We are both very much alive. And you are very lucky."

  Merrili did not mind that this Bruno received his princess's innocent gratitude. He was simply glad that she was safe. He stayed until the ambulance arrived to carry Delia away.

  And so his love lived but without him. Merrili was now in some kind of hell. He spent even more time in the Observatory. He sent loving thoughts to Delia to hasten her recovery. He chatted encouragingly to her pot plants so that her apartment would be full of pretty blooms when she returned from the hospital. He watched over her each and every day.

  He also began to broaden his understanding of the workings of the mortals' realm. Much of what he learnt frightened him, for humans, he found, were full of terrifying passions. But how marvellous this lust for life could be. When Merrili looked into those disorderly but fascinating minds, and watched the interplay of feeling and thought which occurred unconsciously but with such dramatic effect, he was quite envious. And he saw great wonders too, both natural and manufactured.

  Now, at this point, you must remember that for a creature without materiality, such as a demon, the creation of things of substance is as mysterious and strange as demonic propensities would be to a mortal. The native inventiveness that is the hallmark of human creativity stunned him. Things –objects- amazed him, whether useful or decorative. Their metal tools and plastic artifacts, their formidable cathedrals of stone, their glittering cities of glass, the beautiful forms they carved from rock or painted on screens of canvas - all of this filled him with awe.

  Merrili began to wonder how this was all possible? Why do they do it? How do they come to think of doing it in the first place? It was beyond the reach of the cleverest kinds of demonry. He began to think of himself and his people as shallow tricksters, lacking depth, lacking lustre, and was filled with envy for these strange, living, breathing, constructive beings. He asked himself, What is the stuff that fills them up and fuels this mysterious energy they have? What is it that makes them dance? Is it something to do with that thing that exists within the conjunction of matter and spirit that Indiscretia told him of? Is it soul? Is this what soul brings?
He even dared think that it might well be preferable to be human rather than demon, and soon this idea became a conviction.

  In the meantime his siblings began to worry about him, for no longer was he the laughing, jesting baby brother they adored, but a disconsolate mooning thing. Eventually, Indiscretia could bear it no longer. "What ails you, Merrili?" she asked.

  Now, the little demon badly needed a confidant, for he was a demon with an innate leaning towards open-hearted communication. So he told Indiscretia of his fascination with human beings in general, and his love for Princess Delia in particular.

  "But, brother, you can't!" she exclaimed, horrified (which is just what Merrili had expected, and he cursed himself for a fool).

  "But they are so vigorous and daring and very_very_clever," he protested. "And their creations are so grand, and they last for years and years and years! Truly, they are a miraculous race!"

  "Pah!" replied Indiscrepa. "Waste of energy. It all comes to dust in the end."

  "Dust? Why? It seems to me that if they are not consumed by flames or suffocated by smoke, they must surely live forever!"

  "Nonsense, they go out, just as we do up here in the sky. Only they call it 'dying'. And their lifetime is a fraction of ours. Demons live to be a thousand years old, whereas humans cark it after seventy of so. The whole human deal is awful, ridiculous even. I mean, it's like being born then having to fit everything into about five minutes before zap_and kaput!" She clicked her fingers to illustrate the brevity of human life.

  "Oh!" Merrili was aghast. "But that is horrible!" And privately he thought that perhaps it was the provisional nature of their life that compelled them to such feats of creativity.

  "There are compensations," Indiscretia was saying, indiscreetly. "When we expire, it is the same as when a candle is snuffed out - there is a small_pfft_and that’s it - we are no more. But the soul endures. Although after death there is no more living flesh, soul enters into the things of the world - a blade of grass, say; or a grain of salt, or into a bright ripple of light on water -and so life continues. That is how mortality works."

  Merrili's face grew sad as he wondered why, by all things sacred and profane, demon-folk had not been granted immortal souls. It was terribly unfair. A freak of nature.

  "How can I procure a soul for myself?"

  "Merrili. It is as good as impossible. You must be loved by a human."

  "But that is what I desire!"

  "Baby brother," Indiscretia said in that slightly patronising tone that Merrili had always found annoying. "Human love is not so easily won. And the quality of the love you need must exceed that of father, mother, country, even of life itself! We're talking truest, deepest, most unselfish love. And believe me, for I've been watching them in action for longer than you, this kind of human love is hard to win. They want it, they need it, but they fuck it up every time! The human heart is fickle, a frail and unreliable thing. Where we mate for life, they are terribly promiscuous.

  "In fact, you know what, Merrikins? When I think about it, it is humans who are the true tricksters, not us! They trick themselves. Always telling themselves, This is the one, this is the one for me. But it never is. We demons have a much happier time of it than people do. The world of matter is terribly disorderly. You would not like it, you would never understand it - how could you? Even material life forms themselves find their lives incomprehensible. Leave well enough alone, baby brother mine, and put all these thoughts from your mind. Accept what you are and be joyful!"

  But Merrili could neither accept nor be joyful.

  And so, he resolved to seek advice from the shaman who was known as Wherewithal the Wise, yet whom others called The Fool; ancient child and infant sage, embodiment of contradictions, Wherewithal would tell him what was to be done. Wherewithal would know how to go about winning a soul and the love of a human princess.

  The shaman lived deep within The Wastes, a terrible place that existed in a part of the universe that was not of the air like the palaces of the demon folk; neither was it substantial like the world of matter where the humans lived. It was fluid place, where ectoplasmic ghouls and spectres, ghosts and wraiths moaned and clanked and wrung their knobbly hands in mourning. To find the shaman, Merrili made his way through the Sucking Bogs, where dreadful things grabbed at him with poisonous tentacles, trying to drag him into their foetid depths. On he went, braving the Briny Wakes of Loathe, the Tracts of Tumour, the Palls of Pox ... and on and on until, at last, he passed through the Gates of Gore and into the safe haven of Wherewithal.

  The room was queasily illuminated by the livid glow from the dead men's cheeks with which the walls were padded. Merrili tried not to mind the decor too much, for he understood that as well as providing light, the resilient cheeks also protected the shaman's frail old body whenever he threw a visionary fit.

  After he had grown accustomed to the sickly atmosphere, Merrili detected the shape of Wherewithal hanging from a filthy, tattered web in the corner, reading a magazine.

  "Oh, goody!" called the shaman. "What a treat! A visitor! Greetings, little demon." He laid aside his journal and beckoned Merrili with outstretched pincers.

  "Come closer, for although I possess the wisdom of ages, I am also rotten with years, and my eyes are not what they ought to be." Wherewithal grunted painfully as he shifted his numerous limbs, all arthritically twisted into a range of interesting shapes. "Ah me. I am old and wise ... and ill, bitter and cynical. Unlike your youthful demon self. You will never suffer pain, never want for any joy, never yearn over something that is beyond ..."

  "Oh, but I_do, Shaman," and Merrili's eyes filled with tears.

  This drew Wherewithal up short. A creature of the air crying like a mortal? How strange. The youngest, sweetest, one-time happiest demon had engaged his interest. Six of his eyes boggled and the seventh stared in silent appraisal of this extraordinary example of demonkind.

  "What has possessed you, you anomaly you, that you should be overcome by emotion?"

  "I have seen the realm of humans. And I would be part of it."_

  Wherewithal cackled sarcastically. "Oh yeah?" He grinned, exposing his one remaining fang. "You desire mortality? You desire a soul, by golly?"

  "Yes. For I have witnessed the wonders of manifest creation. And I ... I have ..."

  "You have what?"

  "I have fallen in love."

  "With a_mortal? Hee hee! Now that's a good_one! The best one in millennia, for my money!"

  "Oh, Wherewithal. I want to hold her. I want to feel her living skin. I want to feel her warm human breath. I want to_be_her."

  The shaman chuckled, a dry, papery crackle, like the sound a snake makes when shedding its skin. "And what would you do in order to love her, to be her love, to be her?"

  "I would do anything."

  "Well, well, well. Actually, there might be some little thing I can do for you." The shaman gangled down from his cobweb and feebled over to his work table. He rummaged around for a while amongst the phials and bottles.

  "Now where is it ... Here? Nope. There? Nah um, oh, there? Nope. Ah, phutpoopers ..." Finally he found what he was looking for. From within a pouch of finest phoenix skin he withdrew a small vial of dark glass. "Oh, yeah, baby, this is the stuff," he murbled in glee, holding the heavy, not quite opaque bottle up against the lairy glow of the most bruised of the wall-cheeks.

  "Wh... what is that stuff, Wherewithal?"

  "Mmm? Little demon, take heed. If you were to drink the contents of this bottle, your bright scales would fall away. Poh! like so. Your lovely little horns would shrink back into your skull. Your tail would vanish. And each time you were to take a step on your new, human feet, the place where your hooves once were would pain you. You would feel knives driving into your soles. This is what it takes for a demon to become a mortal."

  "Give it to me. Give me the potion!" Merrili's eyes were fever-bright as he held out a shaking hand.

  "There is no going back, you know, dearie. Once
you have drunk this lot, which contains precious drops of my own rather nasty but very valuable blood, you can never return to your family."

  "If I can be with her, I will not want to come back."

  "And if your princess chooses to love another, then you will die. By the end of the day that she gives herself in matrimony to another man you will be breathing your last. Do you get it, baby boy?" Wherewithal smacked away Merrili's grasping little claw. "Listen to me, dammit! If she chooses to love another, you will not attain an immortal soul like other humans. You are risking love and life a very long life!"

  "I will take the chance. I must."

  "Very well." But still the shaman held onto the bottle. Four of his eyes glinted craftily, two had a rather pathetically desperate cast and the other one held the little demon's gaze with chilling focus. He hissed through his mandibles:

  "There is a fee, you know."

  "Ask it. I will pay."

  "Ooh, so decisive! Gee willikers, I'm impressed. Well. What I want is your most engaging personal attribute, my sweet. I want a touch of that demonic verve of yours, which is born of your delightful humour. A bit of life and laughter in my miserable retirement, by gum! Give me a little of that old trickster-joy gear, Merrili!"

  "But," protested the little demon, "how will she love me if I lack charm?"

  The shaman smiled a crooked smile. "You have charm to spare, and levity also. If you give me what I ask, doubtless you will feel a little heavier of spirit, but them's the breaks, fella. And, in time, she may come to love you for your devotion, for your patience, for the mystery of yourself." And in a harder voice he added: "Take it or leave it."

  "I will give you what you ask, Shaman. It is yours."

  "Then come closer, sweetling, that I may breathe in the essence of your power. Come, place your lovely lips upon my own ..."

  Soon Merrili was making his way back through the Gates of Gore, the Palls of Pox, the Tracts of Tumour, into the Briny Wakes of Loathe, and out by way of the Sucking Bogs. His spirit was heavy, for not only had he sacrificed his native lightness of spirit, but he might never again see his beloved family. For the first time, Merrili knew what it was to feel depressed. Yet there was hope in his heart, for soon he would be with the Princess Delia. He told himself that she would come to love him in return, and he would gain that brilliant, evanescent thing, a human soul.