devils’ day

They come once a year, small and red as blood and the size of your finger, though they never grow much taller. Their little, thin forked tails hanging behind them, the tiniest black horns protruding from their likewise tiny heads, heads with devilish black eyes and a mouth that bares a tiny set of fangs for teeth - sharper than dogs' - a mouth that is twisted in a disturbing, neverending smile. In their little hands with fingers and nails almost as sharp as their teeth, they hold tiny pitchforks that do not even extend to the size of a dining fork itself - yet it is thin and black and looks like it has murdered a thousand.

They come once a year... at first by tens, then by the dozens, then by the hundred. You can tell they are coming by their laughs, their evil giggles, which will hear from over a mile away - that's how many they are. And as soon as you hear them, you shut your windows and bolt your doors and make sure nothing - not your money, not your parents, not your dog - is left outside.

They come once a year, running around the streets and wreaking havoc upon the city, their endless, evil little cackles always and forever echoing in the drainage of your ears; you lock the door, and watch with horror at the window at what they are doing - little as they are, they tear apart signs and billboads and cars until they bleed gasoline that is red and starts a fire - they swing from tree to tree and climb up and down on its trunks and wait for innocent people to walk around the corner so they can jump on the passers-by's heads, and tear at their hair and at their scalp until they ran around screaming and hit a tree or wall, and only when they are unconscious and rushed to the hospital by an ambulance do they detach themselves from the person's head... only, once again, to climb into the ambulance as well.

Yes, you lock your door and watch with horror through the window all that they are doing - nobody can stop them. And they increase in number, and soon somebody is banging on your door. A mere child you are, but you are not ignorant enough to open it; you already see them swarming at the window, thumping and throwing their fists against the glass in hopes of getting in... you huddle up in a corner, and pray for safety - only - at the panic of the moment - you forget how to pray... You know, yes but... you must retrieve it at the back of your mind somewhere....

They have played with the keyhole and you hear the lock click - then the door creaks open to reveal a pack of little demons, by the hundred, disturbing grins and evil laughs etched upon their face...

You push yourself against the wall and, at the last moment, you manage to whisper His - God's - name. They stop, and their leers drop off their faces like a ball drops to the ground, then suddenly they dissolve... the room dissolves... everything dissolves. And you awake again - for the day has ended. The day has ended...

Oh, you dream the oddest dreams, as a child... especially on that dreaded day, once a year, when you forget to say your evening prayers.