In life we are taught of the many dualities, on and off, night and day, good and evil, yin and yang. Everything has a counterpart, nothing can exist as a whole without also being a half. We can observe this axiom in the scientific world, as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as matter has antimatter, as the big bang inevitably has the big crunch. One of my favorite illustrations of this concept was the hellenistic myth of tartarus, a tower that expands as far down into hades as heaven sits up above the earth. For a storyteller like me it is enticing to think that every pleasure is met with an equal agony, every virtue met with an equal sin, rinse and repeat throughout our gestalt canon. However, as I grew up, this principle became more than vague metaphysics, and as of my early adulthood it has been fact of life. Little did I know, back in my innocence, that I had known my counterpart so intimately and for so long.

The first time he came to me was the night that my house burned down.

He walked with a cane to correct his significant limp, moving step-drag-step down the forest road in his ashen duster. He kept to the side opposite from the prying suburban eyes, swerving in and out of the trees at a uniform rhythm. Were it not for the embers flung from my house, the flames that devoured that starless night, I doubt I would have ever seen him at all. At first I only caught him out of the corner of my eye, something like recognition was steering my sight. As a young kid my mother had read a book to me of fairy tales reaped from the old country. I knew that this man was the east wind, a spectre who roamed that land lacking any motivation except for his own ill intent. I pulled tighter and tighter the ragged cloth that the fire chief had draped around me and I leaned deeper into my mother’s embrace.

Perhaps the adults would have noticed him if their attention was not also so consumed by the inferno. Despite his apparent disability he could bound like any jackrabbit, yet for a moment he slowed his pace to a crawl. His claws brushed against my mailbox as he lifted his head to mine. Beneath the trilby that squeezed his scalp, sharp eyes shimmered crimson mere feet before me. To many he may be mistaken as old, but his face does not age, it’s just stretched back much too far. He sneered at me, a single drop of sweat crept down his beak before meeting his pencil thin lips just as he turned away. The gust that had brought him here took him away again, and I was left to the tear stains still warm on my cheeks.

The next time he caught me was on my twenty-first birthday.

This was not a milestone for me, I had drunk for years by then, it was just legal now. The one person I had wished to spend that evening with was long gone, swept away by a scholarship and dreams of being a director. My hometown had drained me of my marrow, and I had neither the money nor the peace of mind for college. Therefore, I spent my “special day” alone on a bar stool. I nursed a gin n’ tonic for about half an hour, left alone by the bartender once he checked my ID and wished me a happy birthday. I was still sober enough to notice the jingle of the doorbell and splash of the rain as he stepped in.

He neglected to order a drink, electing instead to limp over to an open booth next to the window. There was no need to pretend, once we found eachothers’ eyes we could both recall our last encounter. He was just the same, as if not a second had passed since then, adorned in the same duster and hat only now soaked in raindrops. I was older, no longer an adolescent, but the trauma of that night would forever haunt my soul. He gave me a passive nod, for he knew my curiosity was enough to send me over.

“Hello again child,” he cooed as I slid into the booth, his voice was both gruff and melodic like that of a blues singer. “It’s a shame I fail’t introduce myself before, but I was tied up in another matter, ya understand. Still, I’m sure ya can tell who I am, ya don’t need a history lesson.”

I nodded. The truth was a bit more complicated than that, for I knew of him, but not his name of the true extent of him. Folk tales told of a stranger who would roam from town to town bringing pestilence, disaster, and misery. The first christians in this land thought him betrothed to satan, if he was not old scratch himself. One story told of a boy orphaned by the storm who chased down the stranger and challenged him with some sort of old magic. They fought in the eye of a tornado until they both fell to a standstill, there they shook hands in a draw and were whisked away into the sky. I read all of these things in obscure pulp novels and penny dreadfuls I collected in between working odd jobs.

“I go by many names now,” he chortled, “but all my friends call me Bob. I think I will be a good friend to ya, son, for I got a proposition I don’t give to most. Saw something in ya that night, an’ I think we could get up to some great things together.”

“Like so many artists ya have infinite potential and zero inspiration,” his plastered on smile stretched even further, revealing his loose, black gums. “Really breaks my heart to see such genius dwindle away, so I have decided’t fill the hole myself for lack’a better term. Act as a sort’a muse, spicin’ your dreams with e’ry succulent morbidity. With me you will find success, pride, adventure, zeal, pain, sin, love, an’ death. You’ll not be stood up by another pretentious stoner, for the men will gravel at your feet. All ya haf’t do is accept my presence, for the pact is already sealed.”

He placed his dusty talons on the table and reached forward searching for a handshake. For a moment I hesitated; only a moment, as I feared what he’d do if I refused. The heat from his touch was like burning iron, but his clutch was too strong for me to pull away. As soon as he released me I brought my hand up to my face, for my palm must have been marked with third-degree burns. It was fine though, he and the pain both vanished at once and all I could hear was the patter of the rain against the window.

My next birthday I was in a much better place. I shared an apartment with my then-boyfriend, took classes and worked as a part-time student, and I had forgotten the man’s existence. In the pit of my mind I knew this life was not my own. This was simply a slight reprise from the cacophony that is reality.

That day followed my set routine just as any other, I awoke with a jolt from some forgotten nightmare, my partner now long gone to his own job. I rolled over by my bedside table and found a sentimental message left on my phone. I texted back a heart emoticon and then jumped into the bathroom for a quick shower. Halfway through washing my hair I heard my phone ring, but I decided to just let it go to voicemail. It was my birthday, after all. I toweled myself off before finally listening to the message.

“Isaac, it’s your brother… look, I know you have every reason not to talk to me, but… I really need you. Dad has been complaining about migraines lately, and I was finally able to drag him to a doctor. Isaac he’s… he’s got a brain tumor. He doesn’t have much time left. I know mom’s death was hard on you, so I didn’t want this to catch you off-guard. You and dad have never had the best relationship, but we’re all the family he has left. Please… just come and see him while you still can. Happy Birthday.”

I couldn’t really process this information at first, I simply put on my clothes and started a pot of coffee. Describing my relationship with my father as “strained” would have been insulting. He was an abusive bastard. He tormented my mother up until the day she died, beat my brothers senseless, and disowned me. The day I left him behind was perhaps the defining moment of my life, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have visited him for all the money in the world. However, a splinter guilt was still stuck between my ribs. There was only so much time left to find catharsis, and deep down a part of me was worried that I was responsible for these circumstances. Growing up beneath my father I had assumed that he was invincible, immortal, yet now his weakness was evident. I turned around holding that pot of coffee and barely heard the shatter and splash that followed.

There he was, the curse, standing no more than five inches before me. He was a wisp from my past made flesh, an accompanying manifestation to those unwelcome memories. For all intents and purposes he was the same as before, but he felt smaller and frail, all of him besides his omnipresent smile. Looking back, I think his weakened state came from my refusal to use his chosen name, for I know that names have power. Much like how a vampire gains power over you once you invite him into your home, similar entities acquire dominion once you accept their name. I am not his friend, he is not “Bob,” and forever he will be nothing more than a hungry beast in my eyes.

“Your father’s dying,” he sneered, “that must cause ya some pain. I’ve noticed that ya avoid the subject with your man, as well as any discussion’a your family. It must be a huge shard’a complex stuck in yo a like a gallstone. Wouldn’t it feel good to just get it all out? Express yourself? In my experience, art is the best way to purge your system.”

He was not a being of many subtleties, and I had already suspected what he was hinting at. He needed me to write. For a year I had refused to even spit out a haiku, but I could feel an itch at the back of my mind egging me towards the pen. It hurt to give it up, for so long the written word was my only refuge from the slings and arrows of life, but if he was to be believed then this was my only way to back out of his contract. I don’t accept his presence. It hurt to lost my passion, but I knew it would hurt even worse to see it taken from me and twisted for the machinations of some corrupt puppetmaster.

“Ya think you’re stubborn?” He laughed, he took a step forward and his face filled up my primary field of vision, I could see the fat sweat drops that glistened down his paper white skin. “I’m the most patient man ya will meet, pal, and ya only got the one lifespan to wait. In an eon or so you’ll be beggin’ to work with me, and that’s good for me. You, though, ya got alot more to lose from stiflin’ yourself than I have to gain from any’a this. Your life’s back on track, an’ ya think that’s some kind’a coincidence? Trust me, son, where I come from those are rare. Therefor, ‘cause I like ya, I’m gonna help ya help yourself. I’m gonna lay out my ‘master plan’ right here, so ya can put all your fears to rest.”

He stepped back and finally my sight was once again my own. I looked to my feet to see that there was no shattered glass, no puddle of steaming coffee; in fact, the pot was still in my hand and weighing down my arm. The man crept over to the dining table and took a seat. I kept my eyes on him as I shuffled to the counter and poured two mug-fulls. Perhaps I was acting on muscle memory, but when I handed him the black coffee he said “thank you” and nodded as I sat in my own seat.

“You’re smart, right?” He said with a sarcastic click of his pointed, ebony tongue. “So I’m just gonna be quick about this, ‘cause I got other things to be doin’. First off, this ain’t some prophecy crap, I chose you out of my own free will, and if ya choose to cooperate it’ll be outta your own free will. Ya know I could force ya, but that would defeat the purpose of why I even went with you. Second, ya can’t really get rid of me, even if I wanted ya to, ‘cause you’re stuck with me. We’ve established that ya can see me, that ya can tell what I am, yet not why ya can do these things. Many call me a god, the devil, a force a’nature, but very few can actually interact with me. The truth is that I’m just as clueless to what I am as anybody, but I’ve picked up ficked up a few things here n’ there. Concerning you, I believe that ya can sense me because I’m a part’a ya. Maybe a small part, since we can only directly communicate on a single day, and I swear’t ya I couldn’t say where that part comes from. However, I’ve never been one to waste a good opportunity, so I’ve been watching ya since that fateful night when ya saw me dance aroun’ the ashes’a your childhood home. O’er the years I’ve realized that my presence has sewn misfortune into your life whether I was physically there or not, but I also saw something arise from that pain: an insatiable need to create. Thus I decided to throw ya a boon. I came to ya last year not in order’t implicate ya in some dastardly scheme, but to help ya mould the raw material ya already have. I don’t have a plan, son, but I might as well have some fun during this whole ‘eternity’ thing.”

He took a final sip of the coffee and offered his hand once more. This time he allowed me to be hesitant, and for a minute I avoided those unblinking raptor eyes. I decided to accept his offer, despite my still ever-present apprehension, despite the assured pain, and despite the hunger that emanated palpably from his being. I wanted to believe what he said, that I really did have the tools to own my trauma and make it into something meaningful, instead of letting it shape me. His grip was still disproportionately firm, but not a steel trap, and his palm still burned, just not as hot. It felt more like a scalding bath than molten metal, and after a while it even felt pleasant. He stood up and limped over to the door of the apartment as the heat from his hand started to fade. He tipped his cap before stepping out, and all at once everything was silent.

I began writing again after that meeting, and it felt like I could finally breathe. For months it didn’t even matter what it was, just putting pen to paper issued a burst of euphoria. My other half could see the change, and he could tell that I seemed more alive than I had for our entire relationship. I got a better paying job, started talking to people in class, even had one of my poems published. In my head I knew my life was finally going as it always should have, and I refused to let anything ruin it.

While all of this was happening I shut out the fact that my own father was withering away. A part of me needed to see him, but another knew that if he smelled anything good in my life he would do everything possible to destroy it. As days turned to weeks turned to months my brother never called me again. The day it happened he just texted me as much: “he’s dead.” I’m sure he hated me for abandoning him to for father alone, but I wasn’t really concerned about that. He and his departed twin never stood up for me as I grew up, choosing to side with the behemoth more often than not. What worried me was that I had lost my final chance to tell him how he had pained, how he still pained me, and to show him that I could live and thrive without him.

The night before my twenty-third birthday I stayed up late writing out a story that had jostled in my head for a week. It was a tale of a man locked up in his hotel room that slowly pieces together how and why he ended up there. By that day I had finally approached the climax, and for hours I sat in anticipation, for this is always most exciting and difficult aspects of a draft. Already the main character had found the body of his murdered lover underneath the mattress, and in a panic he has broken open the window out into the dense night sky. It was half past midnight when I settled on a conclusion: he jumps through the window and realizes much too late that it not a window, but the empty eye socket of his lover’s hollowed-out skull. He understands that, somehow, his former love and the room have merged, and to escape one only causes him to fall deeper into the other. Once I pulled myself from the page I noticed another text from my brother: father’s wake would be in the afternoon.

I failed to get much sleep, but I could at least choke down some coffee and follow the directions to the funeral parlor. I wore my only suit, which thoroughly clashed with my still ink-stained hands and eyebags, both of which stuck with me despite the cold shower I had forced myself into. I steeled myself to see the man again, for I was sure he would be pleased with my productivity. A voice in the back of my head still told me that he hadn’t given me the whole truth, that no amount of explanation could stave off the monkey’s paw. My naivety outweighed my fear, however, so I drove on without caution. It barely registered when I found myself back in the presence of my childhood home.

This was my hometown, but I knew that the address wasn’t the same, that the parlor was a much smaller and somber building; in spite of this, the smell of ash wafted into my nose, the air burned on this otherwise cool autumn day, and I could taste the blood soaked into the soil. I rationalized with myself, promised myself that this couldn’t be the same site, but my soul implored me to shut my car door and drive as far away as my gas could take me. Where could I escape to? How could I be sure that my past would not confront me again? I had squandered my chances for closure as he faded, so I knew that I would not have a better shot at catharsis when he’s six feet under. Gritting my teeth I marched myself up to the house.

The first thing that struck me was the carpeting, the entire chapel was red as raw meat, only illuminated by wax candelabras running the length of the aisles. The casket was closed and the pews were empty, so I assumed that I was the first in attendance. I made deliberate steps and approached that smell of incense set next to renditions of my father’s grizzled face and a gigantic crucifix. However, I noticed that there were other symbols as I inched closer, symbols that I could not recall from the masses of my childhood. All along the sides his coffin were swirling pictographs representing trees, fish, chickens, bears, spears, teeth, and many indecipherable things. In the center of the engraving was a disk with a peculiar scene: two bearded men on a divided plane, one side black as coal the other white as ivory. This all seemed uncharacteristically pagan, blasphemy in my father’s eyes, so I kneeled down next to the vessel in order to get a better look.

As I leaned towards the casket I felt four pairs of hands grab me around the waist, on my shoulders, on my wrists, and around my neck. I gasped and turned back to see no hands molesting me, though as my eyes adjusted to the light I noticed four figures who had been absent upon my entrance. In the front row pew to my right was a slight woman draped in black, and though her face was hidden by a veil, my heart told me that this was my late mother. Two rows down from her on my left was a young man with a shaved head and army fatigues, he wore the perpetual scowl of my slain brother Esau. In the back row was my only living sibling and his expired twin, both identical to my eyes and taking up opposite sides of the pews. I could feel the stare of all eight eyes of my family pierce into me like icicles. They defied me, they did not want me to look upon my father, but whether this was a hallucination, a dream, or a legitimate haunting, I was determined to complete my mission. I pushed with all the might I could muster against the lid, and I felt the coffin hinge open.

What I found within, erect upon the velvet lining, was not the body of my father, but that of the spirit who had come to torment me. He was unmistakable even with his predatorial eyes clenched shut, for his skin was so white it glowed faintly in the dark chapel. He wore the same coat I knew him by, his gnarled cane clutched to his chest, though his scalp-tight hat was missing, allowing all to look upon his greasy, raven-black hair. As always his jagged teeth and black gums were barred out in his inhumanly-wide smile. I expected him to jump up and laugh his deep, ghastly guffaw in my face at my repulsion from his sick joke, yet he remained stiff.

I noticed then a dull sting on my fingers that had grown into a terrible itch. I brought my hands down to my face and saw the tips of every digit coated in a thick, inky-black substance. Without a moment to I bit into my right index finger trying to chew off the accursed ichor. However, even as I felt the flesh tear from the bone all I found beneath the surface more bubbling tar. I turned away from the body and saw that we were truly alone in this chapel, as not another guest was there to see. I had not heeded their warning, and so I was left to whatever fate I had accrued. The itch was burning deep inside me, and as I turned back to my hands I could see the ink creep along my flesh with writhing and ever expanding roots. I cannot summon a description for the sensation that shuddered throughout me as I felt the horrible sap reach one of my arteries and then in a fraction of a second flood my entire circulatory system.

I wanted to scream, scream and scream until all my vocal cords were in ribbons. What came out instead was a guttural laugh, an insane and terrible laugh that was not my own. Before my mind’s eye flashed a series of images that together formed a hellish slide show. Homes torn asunder by floods. Ha. Families suffocated in their homes under a volcano's ash. Ha. Entire villages consumed by unimaginable beasts. Ha. Malnourished children locked in cages. Ha! Soldiers bursting into chunks of meat from an unspotted mine. Ha! The final moments of a deer run down in the road. HA! My own innards hanging out before my body, skewered and rotting on a pike. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Tears gushed from my eyes, the hysteria calling them forth, but I forced myself to read the inscription on the inside of the lid: Czernobog. By this point the ebony matter had spread up to my forearm, and the pain felt like ten million ants chewing their way through my knotted nerves. A part of me wanted to make sense of all this while I was still conscious. A part of me was begging to die so the pain could end. A part of me reveled in it as I hoped this moment would last forever. A part of me was laughing. A part of me noticed his eyes finally opening and swiveling to mine. A part of me thanked god as I was finally blacking out.

“Happy birthday son.”