It was cold in my apartment, so I boiled some water for tea. In a few minutes, the steam from the kettle seemed to fill the room. The room had filled up with condensation so fast that it scared me. I looked around the room to see what was the cause. Suddenly, the steam and condensation had vanished, and there he was sitting at the kitchen table: a long, dark figure in a trench coat. With a face of blackness, he peered from underneath the wide brim of his black hat. I had no doubt it was the Devil.
"What are you doing here?" I asked
"You have questions for me." He replied, without visibly moving an inch. His voice paralyzed me with chills.
"Questions?" I asked, not able to say more.
"Yes."
I didn't know what else to say to him. I wasn't sure what questions the Devil was talking about. I had questions? For the Devil? Questions? "Cup of tea?" I asked.
"If you insist," said the Devil.
"Sugar?" I offered. "Milk?"
"Arsenic," Replied the Devil.
"Sorry?"
"Arsenic. I'd like to have Arsenic with my tea, please," said the Devil, showing just a hint of impatience. I started stumbling over my words. Did he want me to poison him? Was this some sort of trick?
"Um... fresh out of Arsenic... b-besides, isn't it poisonous?"
"Not to me. To my palette it's pleasantly sour and sweet. I have it with almost everything I eat," the Devil chuckled.
"Well," I said, laughing from my nerves, "I suppose you are the Devil."
"Indeed," he grumbled. "Black then." I poured his tea and passed it to him, sitting down with my own cup. He sipped the tea into his black void of a face and sighed with satisfaction. "Now, ask me what you've been wanting to ask me, so we can get this over with."
I still didn’t know what to ask. I just wanted him to leave, so I decided not to dance around the issue and cut right to the chase. The words just left my lips; "So why are you… such... a jerk anyway?" I asked him. I surprised myself with my bluntness. It wasn’t really the question I meant to ask.
"I'm not a jerk," he said, keeping surprisingly calm. "Being evil is my job. I have no choice."
"Well why don't you quit?" I asked him, even though I knew it was a probably a stupid question.
The Devil let out a chuckle and rolled his red eyes. "Because it's simply what I do," he said. "Pain and suffering is what I love.”
"So you love things?" I asked.
"For me, hate is my love," he exclaimed.
I swallowed hard. "That makes no sense to me. You know you're pretty m-messed up," I said.
"Thanks, he said with that evil smile again. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"Sure..." I responded, not knowing what else to say. I took a sip of my tea. My hands were shaking. I’m sure the Devil could tell that I was extremely nervous and I just couldn’t seem to find the words I ultimately wanted to ask him. I adjusted my chair and asked the next question that popped into my head, hoping that it was the right one; "Why do you always mess with people's minds?"
"Look, if I wasn't around," he sipped his tea, "everything would be beautiful and wonderful all the time, and eventually you'd begin to lose perspective between good and evil things." he explained. "Without evil, basically there would be no good either. Everything would be neutral and boring."
"I see," I said. "I suppose I can understand that.” Perhaps he was simply humoring me by justifying his actions in this manner but I felt it was a sufficient answer.
"Plus I simply just love to hate," he added with a sinister smirk. His glare made my heart sink to the bottom of my stomach. I felt like I was going to be sick.
"That's an oxymoron," I said.
"Not really. I'm the Devil!" he laughed. His laugh was freaky.
Just then, I was startled by the whistle on my kettle suddenly going off and steam filled the room just like before. Then the room cleared. My heart was pounding but he was gone. Thank God. Man, what a jerk, just showing up all uninvited like that. Ah well. At least the tea was good!
