Anisa opened the door and let the familiar stranger in. He made himself comfortable very quickly as she hurried off into the kitchen to make tea. Anisa had never been able to hold a conversation with the man. She only knew how to cater to him and watch him make himself home in her quiet little space.
For the past few months, the man had been visiting her every day. Every day he would come to move things around, make a mess & steal her possessions. Sometimes she would watch him, and sometimes she would stand silently in her bedroom.
The man had drawn on her walls, & torn down the living room wallpaper numerous times. He had thrown away her trophies and medals. On a few occasions, the man had burst firecrackers in her bedroom. He had torn up the clothes from her closet, her bedsheets, pages from her diaries & her certificates. Sometimes, the man wrote in her diary, modified her entries by adding or removing adjectives & words from them.
Anisa would always clean up after the man. She would try her best to restore her house. She once re-wrote an entire year’s worth of diary entries. On Sunday’s she would try to repaint the entire house. She would always find that she had to do it herself. It was very difficult to find painters willing to help.
Today, again Anisa waited in her bedroom. She listened silently to the noises coming through the walls. They were deafening. They made her numb. So, Anisa stood there watching the plants in her room wither and die. They had been healthy this morning before the man arrived. All the fresh fruits in the bowl had gone rotten soon after the man entered the house.
It’s not like Anisa had never tried anything to make the man leave. She had requested, shouted, begged, pleaded, screamed, and cried. The man never listened. Sometimes he’d shout back and scare her off to her room. Sometimes he’d get violent and dangerous. Sometimes he’d be cold and cruel. But most of the time he’d be quiet & unemotional.
The truth is whenever the man came, Anisa would be too paralyzed to do anything. That’s the effect the man had on people. Anisa was convinced that there was nothing she could do. She was convinced that he was a formidable opponent. Too powerful, too dangerous, and hence, impossible to battle. She believed that there was no solution.
And the world did not help. Every time she spied on other houses, she’d witness the same thing. People, old and young alike hiding in bright corners of their gloomy houses. She’d hear them all whispering and lamenting their fate every day. Their hopelessness was infectious. Every billboard, every advertisement, & every newspaper in the city had the man’s face
It was rumored that the man had stopped visiting a few tall skyscrapers in the city. Somehow, these homeowners had managed to barricade themselves. Anisa had spent her entire life trying to uncover their secrets. Anisa was sick & tired of the man. She has always been sick and tired of him.
The girl had figured out that the man was a demon. A demon who visits houses and destroys them. The demon loves to visit the same houses over and over. He does not get tired of damaging them. Even when the damage caused by a demon is fully repaired he gleefully damages it again. In fact, he loves damaging repaired houses more than he loves damaging other houses.
The girl wondered if there was some ritual or some prayer that would keep the demon out. She read hundreds of books, watched millions of videos, listened to billions of men, and studied every religion.
Anisa had tried out a few rituals. But something always went wrong. Sometimes the salt line would be broken. Sometimes the salt pattern would be wonky. Sometimes the spell was backwards and other times the incantation was illegible. The volume would be too low or Anisa would end stammering through the verses.
Other times, Anisa found the candles used were of the wrong shade of black. Sometimes, the candles would not light. A few times, the house would flood and all her efforts would be wasted. The sacred herbs would rot along with the other sacred offerings.
It was 9 PM now and Anisa snapped out of her trance. It had rained yesterday and she had seen a peacock on the street below. An invisible force guided Anisa to the six hundred and sixty-sixth spellbook. The thirteenth spell in the book was supposed to help her figure out the man’s name.
Anisa did not understand how knowing the man’s name would help her. But a handwritten note on the margin of the page with the spell read - “Know his name, know him, acknowledge him and call him out. Do it one time, two times, every time. Mock him, laugh at him & think lowly of him. See him not as a man but a child. Not as a child, but as a baby. Not as a baby, but a clump of cells. A tiny tumor that can be scraped with a tweezer. See him small, tiny and funny”.
To be honest, Anisa thought that this was complete nonsense. Her intuition and her intelligence laughed at the words on the page. But Anisa was tired. Extremely tired. She had nothing left to lose. By the time the clock struck midnight, Anisa had finished the spell quietly in her room. Suddenly, the door burst open and the man stormed in, his eyes filled with violent rage.
Across the man’s forehead, a word had been etched with fire. The man’s skin was burning and his eyes were filled with angry tears. The sight made the girl laugh. She looked at the defiled demon and read his name out loud - “φόβος”.
The demon took another step towards Anisa but was shocked to see the girl laughing uncontrollably. Anisa was shaking with laughter. Her eyes were wild and her smile was crooked. Her laughter rang through every room of the house. Anisa laughed as she screeched the man’s name over and over.
She watched the man change shape. The man turned into a skinny scrawny clown. His pants dropped revealing nothing and he turned a dirty shade of green. He puffed up like a balloon and floated around the room. All this while, Anisa laughed and made fun of him. Anisa could not stop herself.
Suddenly Anisa’s house began to change as well. Every lamp in the house blazed with light. Every wall was a bright happy color. The music box played music and Anisa’s childhood toys came to life. The house began to do ridiculous things to the man. It burnt the demon, doused it with water, and then set it ablaze again.
The demon was now trying to escape but the house was not done having fun. It tortured the demon for hours as Anisa laughed wildly. Finally, after being torn to a zillion pieces and cooked in chemicals, there was nothing left of the demon to torture. A gust of wind blew away the dust of the demon’s remains and announced the end of Anisa’s torment.
Anisa was finally happy. In fact, she was extremely ecstatic. Her house rearranged itself into a gorgeous and luxurious funhouse. A place where dreams come true and strength is abundant. A place where it's always playtime. Anisa transformed into a celestial beauty. She began to shine with power and madness.
Anisa was finally ready, cured of her paralysis and free of the numbness. She was ready for the demon if he ever dared to return and she was especially ready, ready to live the life she had not begun so far. Anisa then closed her eyes and took her very first breath.
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