scared? yup. and found wanting

The devil was kind last night and left me alone. I was growing fearful of going to bed so this was good.
It happened on Friday. Hallowe’en if you believe in that kind of thing - and I never have before - when I was woken, presumably by a child, and lay there crossly knowing that that was that. It was 4 am. I consoled myself with the normal guff that it didn’t matter, I was resting, it was good Thinking Time, etc etc, but the truth was that I was cross; a dream had been lost and I like a good dream.
The room was quite hot thanks to our defunct heating system. Being brand new and efficient, it doesn’t work reliably. Before going to bed, I busily turn off the timer and down the thermostats, to about ten, just to labour the point. Come 2 in the morning the radiators are fit to fry eggs on. Another thing to fume about. So I did, creating angry letters in my head.

And then I felt it. A truly malign presence just to my right rustled out of nowhere. Just hovering there. I did not need to look to know it was the devil. And I did not look because I was frightened beyond any normal sense of fear, worse than when I was attacked in a locked underground carpark. Worse than half way through childbirth, half out, half in. Bleak, soul-destroying, defeated fear, a capitulation with any sense of self denied.
I could sense but not see dark red and black.
I lay pole-axed in terror, thinking that if I barely breathed he would go, that I would be spared from having to deal with it, that I could evade it. I like evasion. Seconds spent in denial are seconds I don’t have to act.
But he didn’t, he stayed there, very still, and I did not know what to do. So I set up a rapid account with God and crossed myself busily and endlessly, muttering like a possessed loon in a film from the ‘70s. I was feeling by now a quite enormous pressure on my torso which I visualised for no good reason as large tubes of air woven haphazardly, strewn casually by the devil and constituting a killing pile. I felt myself sinking and mashed and helpless. Unable to breathe. I continued to cross myself. And all this time I was awake.

Time passed, maybe half a minute. Don’t laugh. Think back, that’s a long time in a chemistry lesson, or being crushed by the devil. Then it passed. The devil evaporated and I could go to sleep again. He was there and then he was gone, and the fear went, too, although I continued to lie very still.

Bold stuff appears in quotes – oh, yes, I’ve been on-line – about the devil. Confident lies where the boastful claim of despatching him or shaming him, of the routing of him by fair means. Shakespeare reckons the devil is seen by the poet, the lover and the lunatic. A cheering thought when you know which prong of the triangle you’ve been left.
My inner Cowardly Lion would like to re-write events, to say that I saw him off. But we both know that that ain’t true. So instead I ticker-taped through my recent history trying to establish what I might have done to deserve this. Or was it the product of an accrual of unpleasantnesses, mean thoughts, glowers at Lolly, small irritations resulting in this visitation? Had Lolly herself had a paw in it? Anything's possible, the rules seem to have changed and it would be just like her having a hotline to hot places.
I’m more of a carrot girl, as a rule (praise is us), than one who responds to a stick but I felt cowed and chastened and don’t like it much.

The next night I placed my mobile phone by the alarm clock. E is stern about things like mobile phones and unnecessary use thereof. Texters had always had a special place in hell reserved for them. Such imagery no longer amuses.
“It’s in case the devil comes,” I said. “I might need to call someone.”
It sounds stupid, but it was about all I could think of. T12 would understand. He’s a child to derive comfort and security (and too many renditions of Scouting For Girls) from tawdry plastic.
I would offer, naturally, Lolly as some sort of sacrifice, should that be the devil’s bag. I can see her on an altar, fulfilling a greater purpose. But he didn’t ask and she meanwhile seems to suffer no such visitations. Is this fair? Indeed, just now, ha, how much self control can one person exercise? I had to walk past her. She was asleep in her basket, splayed, steeped in that familiar stench of satisfied eau de dead badger following a ninety minute romp with her friend near the race course (gratitude sent my way? none). I was carrying a spade through the hall. As you do. The sweet juxtaposition never realised: fetid beast, sharp blade, a marriage made in heaven divorced before the banns were published.
Ah me.
Who would know? The devil would know. Foul thoughts scare me now. I must go and charge my phone. That and lock in the shed the temptation of a shiny spade.