Demons and Angels

One night, while he slept, six black demons visited Micah.  The angels shouted at him using a hurried language he could not understand.   They tore off his arms.  They set scorpions free on his bed and then pressed their blackness into him.

Micah woke at the softest shoulder of morning.  Five tall, white angels surrounded his bed.  They sang the birthday song.  At the end of the song, the angels began clapping.

“If you clap,” one of the angels lilted, “we shall set you free.”

Tail curled, a scorpion suddenly flitted across Micah’s chest.  Just then, something Micah’s grandmother used to say came to Micah.  “The devil,” she would say, “is in the details.”

--Mitchell Hegman