The World We Know

[Dave]

This thread will have periodic updates with my book. I'm keeping the chapters fairly short and it's turning into something I hadn't planned.


I'd planned on this being a very dark book about the End of Days. What it's turning into is a light-hearted comedy of sorts...about Armageddon. Who knew?


By the way, as of this writing I'm up to nearly 2000 words. Not bad for Day 1.

[Dave]

Chapter 1:

Robert Adams opened the door, the bell having wrested him away from a particularly interesting article online about a couple in Ohio who had attempted to sell their children online for drugs and a small amount of money. It amused and horrified Robert that his sole take away was that they'd been asking for way too little money and way too many drugs. They could, he thought, have asked for more money and just bought the drugs.

It was a cynical stance, he knew, but the Internet had made him so jaded that these days even the most terrible of news amused him. Pictures of starving children? Why didn’t the photographer give them a sandwich? Tornado damage in the Midwest? He’d seen worse. He knew that he was jaded, but the ability to see the worst the world had to offer on a daily basis meant that he’d had to either adapt or shut off his computer and live in a shack the rest of his life. He was not even ashamed that this option had never crossed his mind.

Of course, his stance would have horrified his parents. Norma and Clifford Adams were real salt-of-the-Earth types; conservative, ultra-religious and very distraught that their only son was the black sheep atheist of the family. When he at the age of 15 had told them he didn’t think there was a God, their response had been about what he’d expected - they’d locked him in his room and read the Bible to him until he relented and told them he was wrong. He’d not meant it and he knew deep down that he knew they knew this, but the lie helped them reconcile to themselves that their son was a heathen destined to burn in hell. They never forced him to go to church again. They died a couple years later when the giant cross behind the altar broke free and crushed them both as they took communion. If there was an afterlife his father got there with the imprint of Jesus’ face in his chest. Robert thought they’d both looked pretty surprised.

None of this, of course, prepared Robert from finding Satan on the front step, patiently waiting for him to answer.

“Robert Adams.” The Devil smiled warmly. “May I come in?”

Robert Adams did the only thing that came to mind. He screamed.

[Dave]

Chapter 2:



Satan hated it when they did that. Not that he minded the screams in and of themselves, but when it happened he had to use his powers to muffle the noise so that others did not hear and do something foolish like call the cops or - as happened in Texas once or twice - come running with weapons in hand, relishing the fact that they finally got to use their guns for something other than impressing their friends or readying themselves for the coming apocalypse. Not that he could fault them for that last one, considering that’s why he was here as well.

Robert looked at the figure and realized how he must look, with one arm raised in front of his face while the other gripped the door as if it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing onto the floor, which he supposed it might be. He also realized that Satan had no moved a muscle other than to wince a bit when the screaming had started. Screaming that did not sound like a girl!

He knew the creature in front of him was Satan. Oh, the figure itself was not that imposing and actually would have been someone you wouldn’t look at twice in a crowded market. In fact, the guy looked - well - kinda ordinary in blue jeans and a t-shirt that proudly proclaimed that he was not fat, merely big-boned. Yet he had this aura of power around him that spoke to Robert on a subconscious and visceral level that made it perfectly clear that this was Satan. Not God. Certainly not God, but the Lord of Darkness himself.

Satan cleared his throat.

“Um,” he said, sounding a bit hesitant, “May I come in?”

Without really thinking, Robert moved aside letting the Devil into his living room. He immediately regretted this, thinking maybe-

“That I couldn’t come in unless invited?” The Devil smiled, showing that he knew exactly what Robert had been thinking. “That’s Vampires. I’m the Devil. I could have come in any time I wanted whether you wanted me to or not.”

His voice was like the rest of him, a neutral tone. It was smooth, yet void of anything that would have made it remarkable in any way. No noticeable accent, no lilt or unique way or sound. It was, Robert decided, the most perfectly forgettable voice he’d ever heard. Yet Robert found that the utter normalcy of it all was starting to overpower the instinctive fear being in the presence of the Devil brought.

“So why,” he asked, “didn’t you? Just come in, I mean?”

The Devil looked surprised. “Why, that would be rude.”

[Dave]

Chapter 3:

When Robert hit his 13th birthday he was the biggest kid in his class. Already towering over his peers at 5’8” and 150 pounds, he was both reviled and feared. Reviled by those who were intimidated by his sheer size and usually feared by the same group. Had they gotten to know him they would have discovered his largely pacifistic nature, but while other kids were being bullied and teased, Robert was left alone. For the most part. One girl named Amanda was always poking and prodding him, hitting him and calling him names like “Gigantor” and “Fatass”. She also used to call him a “Big, fat piggish slob of an elephant”, which Robert supposed was at least out of the ordinary yet never failed to sting him a little.

It was about a week before the winter break and there was a dance planned. It was a Sadie Hawkins dance, where the girls got to ask the boys out. Robert didn’t have a girlfriend but hoped that Susie Wilkins would ask him. He’d had a crush on her for some time but never had the nerve to do anything about it. That day at lunch he sat alone and stole glances at Susie as she and her friends whispered, pointed and giggled their way through the entire hour. He watched with rising hopes as Susie smiled at him, then stood as her friends egged her on. His vision became a tunnel, ignoring everyone and everything with the exception of the pretty girl who moved with excruciating slowness in his direction.

It was only this slow motion approach that allowed him to see with crystal clarity everything that happened next. Amanda stepping in front of him, mumbling something about the dance while the smile left Susie’s face and she turned away to go back to her friends. Robert wanted to scream at Amanda to leave him alone, to run to Susie and explain that this was all a big mistake; instead he turned his back on both girls and walked out of the cafeteria.

That’s the day the teasing from Amanda stopped and he realized that the whole time she’d liked him and just hadn’t known how to express herself. It was also the first time he realized that he just plain didn’t understand girls.

That day Robert had felt like his whole world was turning upside down and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Standing now in his living room chatting pleasantly with the Prince of Darkness brought that feeling back in spades.

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