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.