Devils,Devils,Everywhere-ScottLambridis.docVIP

Devils, Devils, Everywhere by Scott Lambridis The cicada’s seventeeen year cycle is the same term of a husband and father before he must go out into the world. With wings flapping, they sound like devils. Devils everywhere. It is the need for change that drives us. It is no devil. It is harmless and misunderstood. It is ill-handled because you fight it instead of working with it. The elephant gets passed with each upheaval, but it doesn’t look like an elephant anymore. Nicolas dwells on horror stories to get his younger brother accustomed to the fright of strangeness. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Nicolas always defends his dad. “Once upon a time,” was how I started the story, but it got scary from there. Pete wasn’t skittish, but something about plants terrified him. “They don’t have brains,” he said, adding to the cliché by pulling the covers up. “Don’t you want the elephant or something, if you’re going to act like such a wuss? He’s just standing sentry right next to you,” said Nicolas as the elephant stood sentry. “It’s crusty. Not cuddly anymore.” “If only you knew where that thing came from. It’s older than me.” “I don’t care. Tell me a better story. No gardens or anything.” “Something with senses, you mean? Maybe something with beady little eyes like the elephant?” Nicolas picked it up. It took a strong memory to know it was an elephant still. I thought he’d mind the cicadas. I thought something would hit home, but the analogy was lost on him. Maybe they had eyes and arms and senses and that was enough for him to think they were human, and hence capable of inhumanity. When Pete climbs into bed, the two stuffed animals waiting for him transmogrify and destroy the world, and everyone in it, one by one, piece by piece, cell by cell. By the time he wakes up, the world has rebuilt itself and they wait for Pete so they can destroy it again. An elephant and a bear. Fur matted with saliva, eyes and noses gnawed and scraped by bone, faces crushed and compr