Whatever--It's Just a Book, Right?

The snakes knew this woman’s plans. They watched her at an art exhibition, talking to some guests about her artwork. “Yeah!” She pointed at the wall with some flowers and a glass vase sitting in a portrait. “It’s one of my best! I even accepted it to be hung in an art gallery in Chicago.”                       

As the guests congratulated the woman on such a feat, the snakes slithered their way over to the girl. When the girl touched the painting, the paint stuck, like it wasn’t dry yet. The girl cringed a little, and she dismissed herself. “Excuse me!” She grinned, cheeks burning.  “Yes—let’s move over here.” The father dismissed his wife and daughter from the scene, and the woman crinkled her face as she studied her finger and the painting before her. “I thought…”

“that you were doing such a good job—right?”

The woman turned around. “Huh?” She cocked her head. “Are…two snakes talking to me?”

The two slithering reptiles nodded, spreading innocent grins. “Yeah!” One nodded dopily.  The other smarter, more focused, cleverer of the two shot him a snarky look but then looked right at the woman. “Yes, but we can transform into people.”        

And they did. One man wore a midnight-blue tuxedo with a pure white bowtie, while the other—extremely skin, almost skeletal—snake wore an evergreen suit with a midnight-black tuxedo. His hair was trimmed very neatly while the other snake’s brown hair stuck out all over the place like that of a Japanese anime character’s spiky, wild hair. One of them, the smarter one, stuck out a gloved hand. “Please—come with us. We’ll show you to your seat, ma’am.”

The woman lost herself in thought.       

“Time is being wasted. We must go. You don’t want to lose that next conference speech, right?”  

“Yeah…” She slowly followed them, waving goodbye to the family beside her. Confused, they asked why she was leaving in the middle of her art show. “Oh, a few friends—”      

But before she had time to explain herself fully, the woman was yanked away, disappearing.  She found herself at a table, like one of those dining tables at a gala or other special event with the white tablecloth and pretty chair. She also found a scarlet purse hanging from her arm, a gold chain for a handle. She looked around: satin red curtains hanging on either end of the stage, a table with a pretty yellow flower in a pretty vase—              

“Don’t you want to paint as beautifully as this? Weren’t all your dreams about beautifying your pictures as much as possible?” The two men sat, folding their hands neatly on the table.  The smarter one said something about how she had envied all the great artists out there, but she didn’t always want to just be the next big artist. She wanted everyone to love her beauty. The beauty of the picture was what counted—not what it was about, or who it had in it. Just—   

“Don’t get lost in thought. Just make it beautiful. Tear all your paintings down and start over. They’re could always be better, which is what you need to do to become the best—make beautiful paintings. Didn’t you always want to be beautiful for your parents?”

The woman stared at these two fools. Who were they? Did they spy on her? Apparently! But, she saw, maybe they were friends or something. With their suave looks and gentle hand on her shoulder, they could be lost lost—whatever. Whoever they were, they nodded helpfully. Unlike her parents, who just smacked her over the head and argued against her smart points. Which made her doubt her every move.

She smiled. “No, I don’t.” She sat up to the table. They were friendly. They removed all trace of nightmarish memories of child abuse in her life. They made her want to befriend them forever.

 She looked into these men’s eyes. The smarter one’s was envy green, while the other’s was a dumb boring brown. But it had a tinge of silver mixed in. “Well, paintings are nice, but if they’re in the art gallery, then they are the best, right?”     

“How do you think all the masters’ paintings became so instead of gathering dust in some art gallery that will be renovated into an art classroom no student could care less about?”

“How do you—”

“Stop asking questions! You always repeat me.” The smarter one squinted frustratingly at the other one, who nodded meekly and pulled back, and he continued, leaning forward, taking her hands in his. “Please—take my word for it. You don’t want to be forgotten, right? I mean, think of all the things you could inspire others to beautify in reality all around you all because of you!” He smiled warmly. “Yeah?”

“Hey—that’s my line!” The grumpy other snake leaned forward, but the woman was leaning towards the other one like they were sharing some personal secret. “I—”

“Guess.”

The woman smirked, mocking this snake, and agreed with the first one. Then she gathered her purse, got up, saying she had to hurry to her art show next. She wanted to continue her art exhibition show, but it looked like the time had come for the next event. “Sorry, Mr. Got to go!” She hurried off stage. The two turned around, watching her.   

The less intelligent snake sighed, almost like he wanted her to stay and reject everything they’d ever talked about. “You’re always ruining the moment, Yellows. Why?” The extremely skinny one got up, slammed the chair against the table. The table and flowers all broke into a painting. “Here, help me.”

“No. You’re too much a bully to say anything nice.”    

“Please!” He sounded tortured.

The other one turned into a snake, chuckling. “Hah! Nope—I’m a snake!” And it wiggled its tail in front of the man, slithering over to him, shaking its rattle annoyingly under his nose. The annoyance was thrown off literally, as the snake got grabbed and whipped over to the other side of the stage. When the snake yelled at the other snake, the lonely man sorted the painting into one giant one, and carried it—surprising himself by his own strength—by himself to the woman’s show, blending in amongst the throng of people until he found her at her art gallery show. But he couldn’t get close, so he watched her talk to the ginormous crowd about her art paintings.

“You know what! I’m someone else.” The former heavyset man, the other man turned to see, had turned into a very skinny person too, a blood-red tux on him very handsomely. “Hey!” He leaped up, grabbing the other snake into a bear hug, but the other one struggled to pry him off.

“Get off, you big oaf!”

“Mokay!” The other one’s right cheek was pressed against this guy’s chest like he hadn’t seen his long-lost beloved brother in years and years, finally let go. The other one glowered at him a minute and then grabbed his hands, holding them warmly and gently.

“Hey man, she needs to sell this painting.” He showed him, and he stood back, admiring it. “Isn’t it the best? Please?”   

“Okay!” He said, nodding profusely.

The woman, they watched in the crowd of many, many people, sold her art, her paintings, her show’s making her money all the time and she even made a documentary for her art.  At the break was when the two snaky men filled her head with images of mini pyramids of money, neighborhoods full of mansions, limos and valets waiting on her. The woman admitted she wanted all that, but when she said she was content with her house and mortgage paid off, she said she didn’t want it after all. The money would run out somehow and the other stuff—whatever—would go away. She’d be alone with her paintings again. So why do all that—betray her friends and family and in-laws—if she were going to just land on the bottom of the ladder with nothing but humility to learn and a content heart to have?

Her heart hurt. She always had wanted something bigger—a bigger house, a bigger life. Yes, she was given money. A ton of it. She woke to breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, bringing a snack with her to the office job she worked every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for nine and a half hours, getting every other Monday and Tuesday off. But she wanted to use her money for good.

She agreed, running the whole show like she was going through the motions. She didn’t really mean what she said after explaining she’d love to demonstrate generosity towards others—something her parents never did, as they wasted their time on drugs and alcohol and casino lotteries. It was all for show.

The snaky men knocked on her front door that night.

“See—this is how you really get her to go with the flow.” The man’s gloved hand moved slowly through the air, suave-like. The other one jerked his top hat, like he was being a polite footman agreeing. The other one winked at him, and said, “Watch, sir!”

He knocked again, his hand being a closed fist of glove and whiteness and politeness.  Pure politeness.  Waiting with a rim-rod straight back, he exhaled patiently, eyes half-closed. The woman answered the door, looking up at her two guests.   

“Yes?” Eyebrows went up.

“Ma’am, I—”  

“The same men I saw before.” She looked over at the other one, and stared arrogantly. But then she pursed her lips and then slammed the door. She flipped on the TV and jumped right into her amazingly plush couch after sending a couple of emails to her boss about quitting her job to paint forever.  When her boss ignored those emails, as she must come in very early tomorrow morning, she replied that she didn’t want to work so early. The boss said that if she quits, she can’t get the promotion she had earned a while ago, which would promote her regional manager. She needed to advance to make more money, as she poured all her paycheck into taxes and bills. She was more than that. I’d rather see trash decorate your canvases than your paints, Rain.

The parents moved on to bigger cities and brighter lights, but never kept in touch with her ever again. She tried convincing them to grow up and be her loving mother and father, but failed. She soon gave up, but told herself she’d show them.

Once I get that regional manager promotion, they’ll be sorry!  

She emailed her boss to say she’d love to come in very early tomorrow.    

Getting up extremely early, she was blocked by two strangers in tuxedos and handsome smiles and handshakes (warm hand over hers) and cute smiles as they strived to get her to stop  to talk a little bit about her choice to get up, yes, extremely early, to work today (today was Saturday). She had no idea why they were even with her—she was getting annoyed by this point—and then when she got in the driver’s seat, she slammed the door right before  Yellows had his finger jammed in the doorway.

“See why you’re stupider than I?”

The other man, their backs to the house, waved friendly-like to the woman as she, completely ignoring them, went to work. The first man, infuriated with Yellows for ruining his plan to deceive the woman into using her hard-earned money to earn herself things instead of generously give to the needy and suffering (as she had said right before bedtime she’d give to the poor to show her generosity when really they’d generously think of her and her artwork they’d pay her to see), grabbed his collar and shook him like a sack of empty potatoes. “You idiot! We had our chance—we had our time to make her dreams bigger and brighter by telling her she could get that promotion, climb those stairs to her coveted title as regional manager and then she could freaking climb all the way to the CEO of her office job. Just thought I’d get a brain in your head, but, no, you’d ruin it all!”

He smacked the living daylights out of Yellows. “Go back to the fat, French Fry-eating loser you’ve always been!” Stepping on his toes so he howled in pain so loud the other guy slapped his hands over his ears like someone trying to get rid of gnats.

“Just—go do something realistic.” Sighing in extreme frustration and irritation, the first guy stormed inside the house after kicking the door down. He stole her paintings, making a run for it. When she came back from work, all smiles, the woman freaked when she saw her paintings were stolen!

“Wha—who did this?”

She looked outside.  A very skinny man wiggled some fingers at her in a way that said hi. She widened her eyes and shook her head very slowly, staring, frozen, as someone with a shovel approached from behind. Hitting him right on the back of the head, the guy roared with wicked laughter and ran for it, screechy laughter emitting from his ugly handsome face. The second guy looked stupid for a minute and then turned into a snake and slithered away. The girl, having thawed, sagged.  What is going on?!

When there was a knock on the door, the woman resisted, yelling for the intruder to beat it. When she saw through the doorway that it was her parents, anger threw her into a rage, screaming out all these memories of hurt and pain. When they showed her her paintings, adding they had seen the ugliness of their treatment towards her, she whipped open the door, snatched those paintings from them and then slammed the door in their faces. She wasn’t angry; only very hurt and saddened. She stored her paintings in glass cases, hoping they wouldn’t be stolen. Then a thought came to her: what if the glass cases were stolen?

The woman bought herself a mansion with a secret place for her paintings.  But she thought. The guy who had stolen them before had snatched them right from under her nose. She made it so they had look-alikes.

Back on stage, the guy blamed Yellows on stealing these fake portraits. Then he magically had a knife with him and, raising the hilt in a hand, murdered Yellows. Lying on the ground in his own blood, Yellows apologized profusely.

Standing above him with arrogance blazing from his eyes, the man shook his head, lamenting falsely, “If only you were smart!” A final stab to the chest, inserting the knife deeper and deeper into it as the other man’s hands and arms flailed sporadically and his legs kicked like they were trying to keep him from slipping onto the floor. Finally, the man lay still, the knife plunged down to the hilt. The other man let his shoulders fall, sighing happily like he was relieved the world was off his shoulders.

Like I had done something I should’ve so long ago.

The demon followed the woman around for years, tempting her to throw all caution to the wind. What about your won freedom, the life you’ve always wanted? Don’t you need it to secure a firm relationship with others, a tightness with your own clients and employees? The woman succumbed. She threw herself into all her money, gathering it all literally with her rake-like fingers, gluttonously wolfing down all comments and praise and welcoming in all crowds. The children in third-world countries didn’t matter anymore. The money was hers because she deserved it. what a life she lived—a mansion, a secret compartment for her paintings and a yacht, acres upon acers of land for her golf, tennis, badminton and cricket tournaments she hosted every Olympic year as well as two Olympic swimming pools she owned and hosted throughout the years as well as two snowing peaks she owned and hosted throughout the winter Olympics. She also had trainers come to train the newbie Olympic wannabes, seeing them perform, she being paid from the spectators.

The money was so green in her eyes she didn’t even know the difference between the grass in her own backyard or the green on the dollar bill. She felt that if she could step on the money, it’d be like stepping on her neatly trimmed, cut and de leaved lawn.

Every—

She had everything—the mansion, the yacht, etc., etc.

 She gave and donated money away from her arts and out of her hefty paycheck, a generous act. She had learned that stinginess wasn’t the way to go. Reversing her greed, she had taught herself the way of money. How green really should be seen.

Humbly?

The demon didn’t think so. And he was right. Right??  

Wrong. And she knew it. All smiles, the woman jerked a nod, continuing with her speech.

The demon watched, white faced jealousy description of his green-perfumed eyes.

She dripping with humility while he wallowed in his own jealous, angry hatred of her.

Everything just happened mentally. Too bad he couldn’t deal with it.

Like urine in a toilet that hadn’t been flushed enough to have it stink the whole house, the demon’s failure had stunk as much. He soon switched to new plans to evade ignorance again. Hope she was ready.

With her beautiful paintings!

He brought another demon—a woman this time. She wasn’t stupid. Smart, maybe just as smart as he.

They were out to antagonist the protagonist. What a job. What a freedom.

All for—

Her.  

They weren’t just in her mind. Actually, he had just messed with her mind. And won.

But lost.

But this time, they’ll win.