How Demons Are Made

Contrary to what most people believe, it seldom starts with ‘hello’. At a party in Austin’s apartment, soft music plays in the background, it’s not your usual 23 year old turn up. The light is dim but not too dim that you can’t see a few feet ahead of you. Some of the drinks are alcoholic but not too alcoholic that you can’t walk straight-no one’s going to be drinking that much anyway, because the guests are all more or less Christian. So are you, and so is she, and she smiles slightly when she notices you’re approaching her, she’s drinking a can of Malt, her guard isn’t entirely up because she’s comfortable. You strike up a conversation, and maybe it was a ‘hey’ or ‘how do you like the party’, you can’t remember, but you’re certain, it wasn’t ‘hello’.


Months-a few choice texts, in the nick of time calls, and three splendid outings later- you two realize you enjoy each other’s company more than most others. You hold hands, are able to unlock old bitter memories and invite each other in, your friends begin to notice, Austin quips that he must be best man at your wedding because he basically set you two up, and she’s a Christian girl so of course she’s thinking about marriage, but somewhere inside of you a feet jerks down on the brakes. She doesn’t mention it, and three months become three years of clandestine courtship. She’s becoming increasingly aware of where this is going, so are you but it’s scary.


You begin to notice a shift, at the supermarket where she helps you buy groceries, she’s abandoned you and is playing with a 9 month old baby dangling on an older woman’s back. At your mother’s place her hands are stretched out and pressed upon her knees, she’s seating bashful as your mother talks about God knows what. Often they steal glances at you. The girls in the circle you both move in are starting to treat you like the plague, like you’re her property. You’ve had enough, not of the relationship, but the situation. So you sit her down on a cool Saturday afternoon and tell her you two need to slow down. She’s bewildered, but silent, which lets you know she’s kicking up a storm in her mind ‘We’ve been together for close to four years, and now, you tell me slow down?’ you imagine her thinking, but she remains silent.

You notice another shift. She hardly answers your calls, never really smiles and is always adrift when you’re together, all of the pillars of a secular break-up song. You try to smooth over the creases of the relationship, make amoebic promises that have no time or place. She wilts, and you slowly become callused, ‘Whys she overreacting?’ you wonder. And that’s when things become vicious, your slight abrasiveness and her passive aggression make contact and causes a friction that starts a fire like two small harmless stones being struck together. The fights are loud as sirens with blue and red colored words. She’s tossing and kicking things, you’re sitting exasperated and distancing yourself emotionally, and to her you’re like a stubborn dog that sits when its owner needs it to walk. To you she’s yanking your chain and you need it to stop.


Stop, but you can’t for fear that she’ll kill you. And just like that you’re a Yoruba demon, and she’s a demon-demon, all because you couldn’t carry out the simple management function-define, implement, monitor.