Another day, another post. Sophia was on a roll this week. And where was she getting all this stuff? She couldn't possibly be visiting the folks this often and even if she were, would they have brought these particular things up? The chance was laughably small. So where was she getting her material? Was she actually hearing from the "Voice of the Spirit"? We'll find out, I guess. And there was that strangely compelling gibberish again!
Néd ükisa lun dába badeva. Dá äsh nu bav Bazeru.
***
"I'm going to go in the other room. You stay here and talk to your friends," her daughter joked while walking away. She started to laugh, but the laughter soon died on her lips. The joke wasn't funny.
It was Christmas Day, 2008, the place: Weston, Connecticut. There was snow on the ground, but she was getting hot. These visitors that her daughter couldn't see were giving her the creeps. There was something...off about them. They smiled at her now, but there was no warmth in those eyes. Not anymore. Was it just her imagination, or were they...dimming? Their eyes were growing darker, their skin turning gray, their hair falling out. Soon they started to smoke, leaving a putrid stench in her nose. The flesh melted off like wax and where she formerly saw polite smiles, she now saw sadistic grins and long, serrated teeth. A hole opened on the floor, darker than midnight. She peered down it and began to scream. She could feel her vocal cords ripping under the strain, but that didn't matter anymore. Her visitors were laughing now. One of them shoved his rotting fingers into her eyes and mouth as into a bowling ball, pulling her out of herself and dropping her like a bag of trash. Down she plummeted, into the hole. Her visitors jumped in after her, laughing all the way down to the fire at the bottom.
***
Shaking, Esperanza rubbed her eyes. She was home, thank God! What a freakout, though! Who had she been in that...vision? Below the offending line of text, she found another song she knew well: "I Want to Be Evil" by Eartha Kitt. A chill ran over her. Had she just witnessed Eartha Kitt's death? Naw. Hell naw! She winced. Hell: another joke that simply wasn't funny anymore. The stern visage of Gandalf came to mind. There are many magic rings in this world, Bilbo Baggins, and none of them should be used lightly! She snickered. Now that really was funny. She clicked the link. Would this one sound just like she remembered, for a change?
I've posed for pictures with Ivory Soap / I've petted stray dogs and shied clear of dope / My smile is brilliant; my glance is tender / But I'm noted most for my unspoiled gender / I've been made Miss Reingold, though I never touch beer / And I'm the person to whom they say, "You're sweet, my dear" / The only etchings I've seen have been behind glass / And the closest I've been to a bar was at ballet class / Prim and proper, the girl who's never been kissed / Well, I'm tired of being pure and not...chased
Like something that seeks its level / I wanna go to the Devil / I wanna be evil, I wanna spit tacks / I wanna be evil and cheat at jacks / I wanna be wicked, I wanna tell lies / I wanna be mean and throw mud pies
I want to wake up in the morning / With that dark brown taste / I wanna see some dissipation in my face / I wanna be evil, I wanna be mad / But more than that, I wanna be bad
I wanna be evil and trump an ace / Just to see my partner's face / I wanna be nasty, I wanna be cruel / I wanna be daring, I wanna shoot pool
And in the theatre, I want to change my seat / Just so I can step on everybody's feet
I wanna be evil, I wanna hurt flies / I wanna sing songs like the guy who cries / I wanna be horrid, I wanna drink booze / And whatever I've got, I'm eager to lose
I wanna be evil / Little evil me / Just as mean...and evil...as I...can...be!
She sighed. No such luck, of course. Now she had to know: did that vision agree with available records of Eartha's death? A quick search brought her to an account given by daughter Kitt McDonald:
I was with her when she died. She left this world literally screaming at the top of her lungs. ... The doctor told us she will leave very quickly and her body will just start to shut down. But when she left, she left the world with a bang, she left it how she lived it. She screamed her way out of here, literally. I truly believe her survival instincts were so part of her DNA that she was not going to go quietly or willingly. ... She started to see people that weren't there. She thought I could see them too, but, of course, I couldn't. I would make fun of her like, "I'm going to go in the other room and you stay here and talk to your friends."
Her jaw dropped. Were those lyrics the words with which Eartha had sealed her fate? Given that Eartha still had a good deal of her life ahead of her when she recorded it, Esperanza liked to think that the song hadn't been a death sentence all by itself, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget what she had just seen and compared with secular sources. It may have been possible to nullify the words of the song, but if she had never repented...what was there to stop the hosts of Hell from using it as a signed contract with which to claim her as their property? From that arose an even more chilling question: Just how closely had she tied herself to Beelzebub?
Would the prayer she had said at nine years old be enough to keep her out of his clutches when he finally came to collect, with so many brazen transgressions tarnishing the years afterward? Could she afford to play chicken with eternity?