In the recesses of the brain, there sits a red demon, legs crossed. Somewhere in the creases and folds of silly putty dough of the right hemisphere, it swirls a dust devil back and forth across neurons, causing a stir, making us forget who we are from day to day. To solve the puzzle of this flesh and rock structure of living anew. To remind us that our careful, tottering order only exists as a testimony to the joy and destruction of chaos. Moths to flames -- one, two, three, a spark of fuzzy wings and a fizzle! We start again to find new ways to burn.

Mephisto told me once that the queen of his realm looked much like a moth, taking this form to pay tribute to this ecstatic phoenix game of life on the physical planes. I thought this was beautiful -- Mephisto replied that Oleandora was merely a poseur and deserved none of my respect.

I have always thought he was bitter with his queen, but I don't yet know why. My guess is that it has something to do with his pendant, because he fingers it whenever he talks of Oleandora. I even have a few speculations as to why it could be, but nothing solid.

"You take too much stock in the beauty of things." Mephisto told me this once when I met him in Flowgran, my astral cafe. He was examining an elaborate blown glass vase sitting on the table. It vibrated and changed colors in his grip.

"I would think you of all people would appreciate beauty." I was hurt by his lack of interest in my imaginative creations.

"You mistake me," he said with a characteristically undecipherable expression. "Your obsession with beauty is your downfall."

"Then what should I be obsessed with?"

There it was, that eternal smile, equally hard to read for it's frequency. "That's what I like about you. You always have a knack for asking the right questions."

"So what's the answer?"

"Straightforward answers are not my forte. Besides. If I gave you the answer, you'd be satisfied and I would have no amusement."

Time and again I'd claim to myself that I loved Mephisto for his cruelty, yet each time it glowed blue in the moonlight, I found myself only bitter -- milk turned sour.

So I would be cruel in return.

"Why did Oleandora cast you out?" A hunch manifested itself in words. He always talked about her in the past tense. I suspected he had not seen her in some time.

He merely arched his brow, a white pupil rolling to the left a bit to take me in. It seemed to grow larger and smaller within the dark chasms of his sockets, menacing. There was a great meaning behind the motion, but I couldn't for the life of me make it out.

"Your assumption is that she alone has such power." He looked at me knowingly, as if waiting to see if I would solve another puzzle. He betrayed himself by fingering the amulet. So ritually casual, except for this small movement.

"You were probably a big pain in the ass. Meddling where you don't belong." Perhaps this is why I loved him for his cruelty. It gave me opportunity to sharpen my own blade.

There was a small measure of disappointment sitting in the corner of his mouth.

A ghostly bus roared past, nearly drowning out his response. "I meddle only where I belong. While you feel you belong only where you can meddle." He looked as if he was simmering, another unlikely betrayal. "In your arrogance, you decide that the meddling is the means and the end. That trouble is beauty. And thus you learn nothing."

"So you answered me after all."

Instead of making another betrayal, he left. Only a crumpled piece of paper marked his departure. I opened it up, my sadness over his exit mingling with the rattling of the paper. It felt as if it would take me forever to get to the center.

"Don't suppose you understand."

I looked up from the paper.

I looked up at the ceiling.

My mother's face loomed over me, large and full of demands. Did she growl?

"I swear to fucking God, if you make me late for work again, I will disown you."

I squinted awake quickly and watched her waddle out of the door. I looked around, but Mephisto was nowhere to be found. He rarely was. I wondered why I always searched so expectantly for him after spending so many hours with him at night.

I had the power to call him in my dreams, but when awake he operated on his own terms... in his own time. Ironic that he should do so in what I had always assumed was my domain.

I think he knew that I wanted him most of all in wakefulness, needing some acknowledgement of meaning and depth in an often blinding world. But he had other more worthy loves, other duties, dodging my daytime affections like shameful secrets to be brushed under a dusty rug. Resisted my fleshy reachings in obsessive, self-inflicted loneliness. He wouldn't let me too close when I was awake, as if by doing so he gave me the power to sap away something precious or awaken something terrible.

Sometimes I suspected that in the harsh light of day he was more vulnerable, more apt to betray the real answers and emotions that he kept so well hidden.

"Hurry the fuck up!"

I pulled on my only clean clothes, presenting myself to the mirror, unmatched and haggard-looking. I thought to myself, "Your assumption is that she alone has such power."

I've never known for sure if it was my mother or my own sick self that brought out more of my self-hatred. At that moment, I longed for Mephisto's cold, distant presence in a way that made me feel even more despicable and stretched. And I knew the more I longed, the longer it would be before I saw him again with my eyes opened.

A vicious cycle in which not wanting was the only way to bring what I wanted. I felt like a snake eating its own tail.

A mirror to my thoughts, he appeared within the dislodged glove compartment of my mother's beast of a car. She glowered and muttered as she drove. Mephisto grinned at me pint-sized, saying nothing and observing all.

Mom pulled up to a gas station and left. There was my chance. "What are you doing there?" I asked, trying hard not to let on to my excitement at seeing him.

"Lovely day out, isn't it?"

"No, no it's not a lovely day. It's actually awful. Humid and hellish. What brings you?"

"The same as always." He noted my mother's return with an arched brow.

I crossed my arms in frustration. "That's fine. Be a bastard. It suits you."

He winked at me and disappeared. Mother plunked into the car, skirts arustle. "Sons a bitches wouldn't take my card! I don't know what the hell is wrong with their machine. I know I paid that bill." She thwacked the dashboard as if she might coax the gas light to go off, or the tank to magically fill.

A mile down the road, the car ran out of gas and I ended up walking to school, five miles in the hot, summer sun. Like a good magician, Mephisto never revealed the secret behind his tricks. Like a good author, the plot twists were unpredictable, causing the heroine great pain and great lessons.

At that precise moment, I could give fuck-all about his goddamned lessons. And yes, I could go on indefinitely without seeing