The Devil's Final Chapter

So he calls me up a few days ago to chat about some writing we've been doing together. We talk and laugh and exchange stories and notes for an hour. He yet again reiterates how great he thinks I am, how close he feels to me when he reads my writing, etc. etc. He then gets all excited about the possibility of coming down to my part of the world for a few days to help me with this project. "I'd LOVE to work on this. Do you need someone to take a look at it?" he says. "I think I have time. Let me just check my schedule. "There's one thing I would have to drop out of but I could make it over for five days here... But wait, what do YOU want?" He asks.

As if it matters.

I tell him of course I would love it if he came down for a few days, I'd love it if he could work on this project, I'd love to see him again, so soon.

He says, "I should tell you something." He tells me that being with me has changed his life. That the time we've spent together was so wonderful, it made him realize that he didn't want to be dating all these different women he's been with recently. He wants to have a girlfriend. And I've inspired him to get serious. Beat. Beat. Beat. With this other girl.

I'm not kidding.

After another hour on the phone of being in shock, listening to him talk, I hang up. I receive this text message on my phone: "This time I mean it. I love you."

Okay, let's analyze the syntax here. "THIS TIME I mean it." Cause the other times I really didn't. But now, now that it's too late, now that it's MEANINGLESS, I'm going to mean it. Gee, thanks. That makes me feel better. In fact, I feel so great that I want to have a few shots of tequila and lie down to celebrate, except that I'm immobilized with grief. Maybe later.

From here on in it gets a little dramatic. We are both rather dramatic personalities - him on the surface, me deep down. He writes me a letter the next day AGAIN going on and on with the "...thank you for changing my life I love you I'm in love with you and even though we can't be together I will always have you in my heart I hope you remember how beautiful and wonderful you are thank you for everything you've given me I'd do it again in a second and when I read your last letter I cried where I sat you broke my heart again when I thought it couldn't be broken anymore..." etc. etc. etc. Seriously.

What is the point of this? Why is he telling me about how I broke HIS heart right after he told me how he loves me so much that he's going to be with this other woman? And he says we can't be together as if this is something that has HAPPENED TO US, as opposed to a choice he made.

He's lost his mind. And I am shattered. He calls me his Viola, and now I am truly shipwrecked; at sea. And he's making it worse. Actually, forget Viola, I'm Rose, floating on an icy door from the Titanic in the middle of the Atlantic, and Jack has managed to slip into a lifeboat while I was asleep. He's shouting over his shoulder from the lifeboat as he's paddling away from me, "It's breaking my heart that I won't see you again - I'll never forget you!" while I tread water going, "Wait! But I'm not dead yet! Come back!"

Further dramatics; I send him a letter telling him of his unspeakable cruelty; I call him my Chupacabra - Mexican Vampire Bat. I tell him that to thank me is grossly inappropriate and cruel, and that it would be better if he just said, "I'm an ass." I tell him the gods are kind - I had spent four days with him, while auditioning for a job I didn't get, which at the time seemed like a drag, and now seems like a blessing. I tell him how the gods have spared me the "daily humiliation of your happiness." Seriously. I say that. Because apparently I'm living in a Dostoevsky novel.

We engage in a battle of literary wills. I ask him, the Devil, to answer one more letter where I goad him to be funny and cruel, and explain how he's "Just Not That Into Me." He refuses to play along, and sends a self-serving missive about how he loves me SO MUCH that he's letting me go. Because he has a Higher Purpose for me on earth. So apparently the novel HE'S living in is "The Yearling," or "Born Free" where he gets to love me and set me free and cry because he misses me. Only in this version of the classic animal tale, I was doing just fine until he came along, lured me home with lumps of sugar, then broke my leg and THEN tried to set me free. And there I am, confused and limping in circles around the African Veldt while he drives away in the jeep, crying and singing, with his arms around the pretty gazelle in his lap that he's taking home instead.

Ah, but stop with the metaphors already. What happens next?

I get a text message saying, "I'm an ass."

It helps.

The devil's last letter ends, "See you in the hereafter," which if I understand it correctly, means,

See you in hell.

- Falcon.