Fire Dancing

The night sky was looming above him, warped and wonderful, like a huge black velvet juggler's hat with stars like shiny silver bells at the tip of every cone.
Everything was spinning: The sky, his body, his head.
He looked at his hands. Spirals of fire shot out of them like sparkling catherine wheels.
He looked at his feet.
He was dancing.
Dancing in space and the spaces in-between.
He was strong.
He was beautiful.
As he gazed upon the multi-coloured wheels of light that were flying out from his hands and disappearing above the city sky, he felt just right - for once.
This was his purpose.
This was his goal.
He felt the warm grass beneath his feet, and suddenly became aware of the Earth he stood upon.
This was his home. This caring blob of iron, mud, water and love that he travelled through life upon.
He never thought about how much he loved The Earth before.
He felt endlessly in love.
As he kneeled down to kiss her, the grass seemed to caress his whole body, and he closed his eyes and felt eternally safe.
Both at once, and forever.
He slowly awoke from lying on the grass, for a moment or the whole of eternity. His whole being was filled with bliss, and everything seemed to shine. He felt one with all that is, and an endless love for the whole Universe.
As he opened his eyes, he noticed the girl.
She looked at him with envy in her eyes.
She didn't like what she just saw.
What he just did.
She was jealous.
He decided not to care, got up, and walked back to the house. He felt wonderful.
He could feel the warmth of his own body, his own soul, his breath moving in and out of his lungs.
He was reconnected to the source.
Once again part of the dance.
When he got back, the house seemed different somehow, although he couldn't tell exactly how it was different.
The girl followed close behind him.
Her eyes were dark, and she was still alone in the world.
As he got inside, he noticed the darkness of the whole place.
He'd been in here every day for the last three years, but had never really seen how dark and sad this room really looked. It was as if it had no light at all, even with all his little lamps still on.
As he got up from the chair and walked over to the sink to make some tea, he noticed some little black flies that were buzzing around in the air beneath the big lamp in the middle of the ceiling.
It seemed as if they were dancing too.
He decided to try something: he stood right under the lamp, and then he started moving his arms back and forth with fingers outstretched.
He waved them in the air just below the flies in a set pattern, and in a moment, the insects started moving in the same way.
He changed the pattern, and the flies changed their movements, too.
He was now conducting their dance. He had become the Master of the Flies.
No! They were responding to him out of their own free will, that was it. They were dancing together with him, not because of him.
Or both.
This was fantastic.
"This is fantastic!" he said to himself, the flies, and the empty room.
He had forgotten about the girl.
He turned around.
She was standing in the far corner, like a dark void in the middle of the brightness, and had been watching him all along.
"You're leaving me." she said, with piercing, black eyes.
"I guess I am." he answered.
She laughed a short laugh. Not the merry kind of laugh, but the kind you spit out between your teeth. The sarcastic kind.
"You're so evil." she said.
"No I'm not." he answered.
He looked her straight in the eye. Her dark, bitter, envious eyes.
"It's not that bad. I'm only leaving. I have other things to do now that I'm free."
She just looked at him. It was obvious she hated him now.
He looked back at her intensely. Her face seemed to blur out the longer he stared at her. None of them said anything. Out loud.
Something strange was beginning to happen now. Instead of the figure he had just been looking at and talking to - the girl he had known for quite some time now, and finally seemed to have decided to leave - there stood a very different creature.
It was not as if she had changed shape as much as it was as if she had swapped places with something else. The creature had great black tinted eyes like dark rifts in the fabric of matter. It raged in the room like it was very tall, still it took no more space than the girl had done. It had greenish skin, like a snake, and everything about its being told Vix it was evil. Evil like nothing he had seen before.
It was a demon.
Not just any demon, but the Master Demon.
It was The Devil.
Vix stood speechless and stared at the creature. It was the scariest thing he had ever seen and all his senses were on overload, all the hairs in his neck sticking right out of his frozen skin.
"Who are you?" Vix said in a shaky voice.
"I am behind all this." The Devil finally said, without moving the narrow lips of its wide grin.
"You?" Vix thought back.
"Yes. I trapped you, and made you suffer for all this time." The Master Demon said, and laughed at him. Still soundless.
"But..." Vix couldn't think the right words.
"You're such an easy prey." it grinned.
This made Vix' bubble burst.
"You? You were behind all my misery? This feeling of confinement? The notion of always moving in the wrong direction? The detachment from other living things?"
"Yes." The Devil said matter-of-factly, and smiled its ugly lizard-like smile.
Vix felt the most overwhelming feeling of anger building up inside him.
"You fucking bastard. You fucking sick, shitting, nasty, fucking arseholebastard!"
The Devil seemed very pleased.
"I fucking hate you." Vix finally thought.
"Well, thank you", The Devil said.
"But why? Why do this?"
"Why not?" the creature said.
"Just to be evil?"
"As you wish."
Vix couldn't believe the pure spitefulness of this thing. And the nerve it had to admit it all to his face, and even make sure to let him know it enjoyed every minute of it.
"But what did I do? Why me?"
"Oh, I guess it's just in my nature." The Devil said.
"Your nature. What a fucking splendid explanation." Vix was shaking with fury now.
"That, and the fact that you sold me your soul."
There was a deadly silence.
"Sold you my soul? What the hell are you talking about? Why would I do that?" Vix shouted at the hideous demon, now standing motionless staring back at him.
"To get advantages in life? To gain power? To cheat and get ahead in the big Game? How should I know? I'm just buying and selling. I'm no fucking personal advisory service." The Devil spat back at him straight into his mind's eye.
"This is fucking outrageous!" Vix said, and moved towards the demon as if to give him a good beating.
The Devil did the same.
They were standing very close now, staring eachother out. The air was charged with a terrible feeling of all-encompassing negativity.
"What kind of advantage have I ever gotten? I've got damn all money. No power, and when it comes to the Big Game you're talking about, I'm not even a player."
"As I said, it’s not my business to ask personal questions. I just do what I do. You sold me your soul, that's all I know. If you didn't get what you wanted out of it, I've only got two words for you: BAD DEAL!" The Beast laughed out at him. "But to stretch my jobdescription a little, I'll tell you this: What you say is not right at all."
"Not right? How is that?"
"You've got me here, for starters."
"Got you? What do you mean?"
"Well, I am here. I am evil. I have cheated and misled you all your life. I have done every little thing to meet your expectations of what I should be – that is, if I am not totally out of touch with altered reality."
"This is such bollocks!"
"Is it, now?" Satan moved one step closer, and Vix could feel the dark wind of his eternally damned being flowing against him. "And how is it 'bollocks', if I may ask?"
"It's just not true. Why would I want you to do that? Why would I want you to torment and punish me?"
"Hell! Who knows? I’m not the designer of this Game. I have no comprehension of why humans do what they do. I just do what you expect me to do. I am merely the mirror of your own darkness. Your will is my command, Master."
Vix couldn't believe his own ears. Here he was standing in the middle of his own house, speaking with Satan himself, who, to his great surprise addressed him as "Master". What on Earth was happening? He almost panicked now. This was freaking him out thoroughly. The demon radiated pure evil. Such deceitfulness, betrayal, spite and horror that for one second the only thing he wanted to do was to charge at him and become the angry animal that The Beast seemed to want to lure him into being; to rip the demon apart with his own hands and devour his flesh bit by bit and make him go away forever.
Then he remembered the girl. What would happen to her if he killed The Beast who had taken her place?
His heart was beating like mad and he was breathing heavily, fighting hard not to be overcome by fear and the urge to lose himself in rage.
Finally he managed to say:
"Prove it!"
"What?" The Devil said.
"Prove that I'm your master."
"And how would you have me prove that?" The demon hissed at him. He could feel The Devil would rather he'd attack him and try to rip him apart for some reason.
"Sell me my soul back." Vix said, gaining some calm.
There was a long pause, and the air stood still between them.
"And what would you offer me for it?" Satan finally said, sounding quite interested, and looking quite amused.
Vix thought for a second. A second that seemed like a damned eternity.
Then he said: "You can have all my fear. All my anger. All my regrets and bad conscience. Every tiny bit of hatred that hides at the bottom of my heart. My endless pessimism and all my bad habits. I'll even throw in my teenage jealousy for good measure. I guess that's the kind of stuff you thrive off."
Then he added.
"And if that's not enough, or if you run out of the stuff, you're welcome back for a top up. Anytime."
There was a short silence,
"Deal." The Devil said, and disappeared.