what will your demon do?

c. Tom Brown

I have a fascination with demons – the sort that live inside your head, and mine… the sort that are born of nightmare and fear, and also the ones that might be real. They crop up every now and then in my stories. This is Gary. He’s not from round here.

���My demon, who fashions Danish pastries with fingers born from the leavings of madness. He crafts so sweetly, living to delight. Who knows what those flaming eyes have seen, peering into the midnight places of soul and monstrosity. Cupcakes, light and pleasing. Croissants so airy they might float. Let me share my demon with you, children. Let me show you how he transforms tears into honey. An alchemy like no other. There are stories he could tell of degradation, the very worst one being can inflict on another, to make idle daydreams of your precious heartbreak. He cooks waffles and brownies. Spreads syrup and cocoa. It is a better magic. Is it enough to cry out in pain, describing the worst? Making a culture of compromised flesh and hope. We could bleed the world to death, you and I. Is this why we sought out poetry? To wade knee deep in fluid metaphors for torment? Chasing the title of bard because we are wounded. A world of Fisher Kings, and no one pure enough to seek the Grail. Let go. Forgive yourselves for all you have endured and lost. Make stories, turn it to crystallised history. Give the past no power over the future you shape. Pared to the bone, you must grow new flesh. Grow wings and tails, horns and haloes. Be more than downtrodden. Be the beautiful essence pain has revealed. Fertile, tree growing soil, not barren wasteland, holding tight to every poison that stripped it. We are not what they did to us. We are ourselves, and true. My demon bakes fairy cakes, light as laughter. Look yours in the eyes, be they ever so fierce. Look your demon in the eyes and demand to know what good it means to do.���

Fast Food at the Centre of the World, happening in 2015.