Holy war

I let the angels and dev­ils fight it out. Perched on oppos­ing shoulders, facing each other across the cav­ern of my con­fused and rap­idly evac­u­at­ing mind, they pull the split strands of my hair and pinch my ear­lobes, bite my neck and dig their fin­ger­nails into my flesh. I flinch as they kick me repeatedly in the chest in a des­per­ate attempt to cling to the rem­nants of my weary self and avoid slip­ping under, to drown in the watery grave of my subconscious.

The angel tells me that he means well, doesn’t wish to hurt me, that it’s for my own good; the devil makes no bones about his hatred for all that I am, all that I rep­res­ent, all that I attempt and — if I’m hon­est — pre­tend to be.

Angel: Stay single-minded. Stay calm. Breathe in pur­ity.
Devil: Chase that thought. Chase it. Suck it and bleed it dry.

Angel: You should put your hands together in prayer.
Devil: Let your fin­gers do the walk­ing, the talking.

Angel: Strong. You are. You can be stronger too.
Devil: Weak. Weak and pathetic. Give in.

Angel: I know what you’re think­ing. I can help.
Devil: I know what you’re think­ing. I can help.

I clutch my hands to the sides of my head, slip­ping my fin­gers through my damp hair, dig­ging those wrinkled and water­logged pads into my scalp, and try to focus. I urgently con­sider my con­tin­ued agnosti­cism. If I tell the angel and devil that I’ve turned athe­ist overnight, will they believe that I don’t believe? Will they believe that I don’t believe … in them?

I don’t believe in you. Do you hear? Can you see? Can you feel how I am no longer feel­ing your slings and arrows? You don’t exist. Fig­ments. Noth­ing more than mere fig­ments. Go fig­ure. My thoughts are my own. All my own. And God help me now that I’ve arrived at such a dread­ful realisation.

Except that’s not what I mean, of course. Let me reph­rase. God can’t help me, because God doesn’t exist. I have decided that God is dead, hav­ing reached this con­clu­sion some­what later than Friedrich Niet­z­sche. God has left the build­ing. God is reclin­ing in the back of a blacked-out lim­ousine, sip­ping cham­pagne in the com­pany of a dis­rep­ut­able escort, hurt­ling at full speed down the high­way towards a life of eternal debauch­ery in the pent­house suite of a Las Vegas hotel, with grand plans to gamble away the entire pro­ceeds of this Cre­ation busi­ness that he’s been at the helm of for far too many years. He’s had enough, and so have I.

You don’t exist, angel. You don’t exist, devil. Neither and both. Begone.

My face opens wide, my eyes wrest­ling against their sock­ets, my lips pulling back taut over my teeth, as I wel­come the sud­den plumes of smoke. The nag­ging voices evap­or­ate into mist. I breathe in the babble through my nos­trils and expel upwards into heavy air. Forever. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

But I could do with the silence.