Back to the Mephisto, Part Three

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An empty wind billowed through the vast black curtains that were threshold to the Prison. The wicked stones of the tower, who for centuries had been peddled nothing but unending blasphemy as they were torn free from the bedrock of Heaven, groaned under a weight far greater than brick and mortar and earthly sin. No bars or guards stood ready because the Prisoner did not want it so. Indeed, there was just one thing keeping the Prisoner a prisoner.

Love.

Inside was his mother; the being of such everlasting darkness and inevitable futility that, for their own safety, God gave all goth kids a free pass into Heaven. It was said that in the earliest days of creation Satan and God and all their armies combined had been brought to the brink of desolation by her - the glue between realities, dripping through the cracks. That was until Satan, the hero that he was, had slipped between the planes of Heaven and Hell and shagged her into letting them all live.

One day, Mephisto would sorely like to hear that story.

He swept through the ichor of the curtains, and puffed out his chiselled chest as an unfathomable weight descended upon him. A lesser man would have peeled right out of existence, but Mephisto had been subject to this ethereal pressure on enough occasions to know it for what it was - a hug. He did his best to return it, which was difficult considering nothing but air flowed around him, before he strode purposefully towards the pedestal in the centre of the room.

Atop the pedestal sat a simple ceramic jar, no larger than a man’s head if a man’s head could contain the entirety of the unknowable void. Some men might make that seem like the case by attempting to look inside, but Mephisto was not party to fools; he strayed no closer to his mother than he needed to not shout. She hated shouting.

Son. It has been many eons since I saw you last. Do you perhaps need your laundry done? she shouted, right into his brain. Sarcasm was not his mother’s forte, nor was being subject to the all-too-reasonable rules of time and space.

“I visited just last week, mother. And you watch me everywhere I go. It’s a bit creepy, in all honesty,” said Mephisto, while thinking dry and stringy thoughts. His brother had gone a similar way - one moment chatting with their mother, the next just a pile of clothes and his favourite buttplug.

Is it wrong for a mother to worry? I only wish the best for you and for the death of all living things. Now tell me are you seeing anyone? Have you got a girlfriend? she asked in a thunderous whisper. She knew the answer. She knew every answer. But she still enjoyed the questions.

“No, mother. Not right now. I have someone waiting for me back in the mortal plane, but she’s more of a girlenemy than a friend. It’s complicated,” said Mephisto, and quickly. He almost stumbled over his own tongue as the words raced to the finishing line.

She was like a kid, fast forwarding reality to get to the part where Leia appears in the bronze bikini.

That is too bad. Do you know who was always a nice girl? Melady. YOU MUST FIND HER AND MAKE AMMENDS, she commanded, tipping her hand in the same way that a tornado tips a house upside down.

Unfortunately for Mephisto, he’d never gotten to experience the rebellious side of youth. His other brother had tried it once. Mephisto had no memory of what happened to him - she’d eaten that too.

“Fine. I’ll talk to her. You know, if I see her around.”

Do not worry. You will.

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