The Devil and The Writer

Usually I listen to the accusations and don’t respond. Eventually he goes away. But there was something different about this day.

 “You’re a failure,” he said.

 “You always say that.”

 “Because it’s true. You are a flat-out failure at life and everything you do. Especially the writing.”

A pause. Maybe he’s right. “I’m trying,” I said.

“You’re a child playing with words you don’t understand.” 

“I’m a child who’s been forgiven.”

“Ach, Cliché! Who cares if you’re forgiven, you’re still a failure. You’re a loser. You’ve worked how long to get to this point? Decades? You still have nothing to show for it.”

Thinking. Waiting for a comeback. I utter something but my heart is not in it. “It’s taken me this long to realize I have everything I need.”

The Devil laughed. “Right. And that’s why you look so intently at the best-seller lists. And when you walk in a bookstore and can’t find a single thing you’ve written, you get depressed.” 

Silence.

 “If I were you, I’d curse God.” He plopped a stack of bills in front of me. “You call this blessing?”

It was an unusually large stack. And there were more in the kitchen.

“Face it. God doesn’t care about you. You pray, you plead. He’s not listening.”

A clock ticked somewhere in the room. It was the only sound, other than my heart.

“You’re trying to praise this God of yours with an inconsequential life. With your inconsequential talent.”

He tapped the screen. “This is garbage. Hackneyed, putrid fluff.”

He drew close enough that I smelled his sulphurous breath. “You sit at your desk filled with unpaid bills and pretend you’re reaching people’s hearts. And your ego brings you back to the page because you think that one day someone will notice your greatness.”

Perhaps he’s right. I do have expectations of being noticed. That someone will actually read my words. “I would be lying if I didn’t admit I feel inadequate at times.”

“Inadequate? You’re not even in the ballpark. You must have talent to be inadequate.”

I wanted to find some scripture, some sentence like, “Man does not live by bread alone,” but I couldn’t. I was confused again, the way he always confuses.

“Admit it, you’re a failure. Let me pull up the bestseller list. What a surprise. I don’t see your name.”

Stammering now, shaking, I said, “My success is not measured in numbers. My success is measured by how faithful I—”

“Faithful?” he said, bellowing. “You fail him every day with your attitude and your thoughts and your words and the way you treat your family and feed your ego by sitting here pretending all of this is important.”

I pondered his words. Some truth skittered through my mind. Measured and even I said, “First of all, you don’t know my thoughts unless I express them. Second, you’re right, I make many mistakes. But every time you bring up failure, he brings forgiveness.”

“Oh, please. Give up. You are never going to amount to anything.”

Something flashed inside, like a warning light, a signal from somewhere deep. Real truth I need not simply understand but claim.

“If I’m never going to amount to anything, why are you here?”

He paused. His eyes darted.

“Why wouldn’t you be content to let me flail away if I’ll never amount to anything?”

“Because I hate failures.”

“Perhaps you’re projecting,” I said, wind picking up the sails. “You know, when you put on me the things—”

“I know what projecting is, you don’t have to explain.”

“You lost. You failed. In fact, you thought you had won, but at the cross—”

“Enough,” he screamed, and it was a long, reverberating shout of pain and anguish, as if I had tapped some primeval spring.

“I don’t value your opinion,” I said. Instead of lashing out, his voice flattened.

What if I offered you success?”

“Tempting, but that fruit is stale.”

“But I have power. You have no idea. A million dollar advance. A big house overlooking the ocean.”

“I don’t need the view. And I’m not selling my soul.”

“Really? Every man has his price. Name it. Anything you want. Anything at all.”

I looked at him squarely. You can always see fear in the eyes.

“You can’t buy what’s already been sold.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “I’m not my own. I’ve been bought for a high price. By God himself. You want me, you’ll have to dicker with the owner.”

He turned to walk away, muttering. “You’ll always be a failure.”

I almost felt sorry for him.