A Fig for All the Devils

by C.S. Fritz

Happiness is a fickle lover; if loved too tightly, she often grows weary and finds a way to end herself in search of a new host. But, if happiness is not one’s center and merely a product of one’s venture, then she can be found seemingly everywhere you look, like fresh flowers perched at the tips of weeds.

Suddenly Sonny understood Jess’s drive to gather as many mushrooms as she could. This was more than a job, this was a cure. “That sucks,” he said, bending over to pull some forgotten mushrooms from the ground. “I used to think so, but I don’t remember her any other way. She’s just my mom, or at least she was,” she said with a grim undertone. Sonny’s eyes pivoted quickly to her face to see what it was like for her to say those words. Knowing what it’s like to put a mother back in the sea, like a once caught fish. “It’s my dad who suffers the most, I hear him crying through the walls at night. I hear his prayers.” “What’s he pray for?” Sonny asked, genuinely curious. “Her death mostly.” Jess said, walking off, and disappearing behind a few trees.

“Evil?” The Reaper called back, a noticeable change in tone. “You’re wrong, Sonny. Would you call the blade in surgery ‘evil’ even though it cuts away the disease? Would you call lightning ‘evil’ even though it brings with it the rain to feed your crops? Sonny, I am not evil. I am the reaction to your world’s evil. I exist, because your sin exists.”