The Land of Strange: A Devil's Tale

I am a devil. This is my story. This story will not make you feel good because I do not care how you feel. I do not want to feel that noose around my neck that you humans love so much, where I restrict and limit myself until you can feel ok, and only then, will you let me be.

I do not like humans. I cannot stand them. They are needy and clingy. They always have feelings. They always want something from me that I cannot give. It is just the way they are made. They want. They talk. They feel. And I cannot NOT see it. Every movement, the way their bodies shift, the neediness. And then, beyond the neediness, the disappointment and resentment and exile.

Believe me, I have tried. When I was new to this world, I was silent for many years. I tried to be the good son, I tried to be a nice little boy, I tried to be human. I never said anything that wasn’t actually just saying back to them what they said to me. I hid my true nature. I never disagreed.

But even that was not enough. Humans want everyone to be like them, to see the world they see, to do the things they do. Humans love sameness. They love a huddle of agreement. They love the cotton wool of “we”, some strange retreat into a collective tangle. They cannot tolerate difference. They are threatened by strong emotions. The do cannot tolerate disagreement.

My life in this world has been one of hiding my true nature. And what is that, you may ask? That I am evil? That I am a monster? That there is something deeply wrong and defective in me? Well, for many years that is what I believed. You see, in the beginning, I did not know that I am a devil. I thought I was human. But with time I realised that I am not.

And as I grew up, I started to believe there was something wrong with me. I realised that what was happening inside of me was very different from the cult of humanness. I found myself again and again in places with people who were dripping with empathy and feeling and believed they are mother Teresa. And in the beginning, I was seduced by this. I thought they will understand.

But they did not. Because all of those words of acceptance and caring and feeling are reserved for those who are the same. There is no place for saying what you think, for being different, for disagreeing, for speaking directly. Ahh, the disappointment each time. And then, the judgment. Defective.

Humans are not benign. And I am not speaking of the humans that other humans dislike, I am speaking about the humans that see themselves as caring and nurturing. They love those words. And those words make me sick. They make me sick because there is a tiny clause in the contract. And the clause says you will only be loved and accepted if you say the right things, if you feel the right things.

There is no bigger sin in this world than the sin of saying “I don’t like you” and “I don’t agree with you”. Humans want softness, kindness, gentleness. Or so they say. And for a very long time I could not see the difference. Which is why I was convinced there was something wrong with me. But if you dig deeper, you see that all of this is a veneer of self-protection, a desperate attempt to make the world other than what it is. To reduce what it means to be human to something nice and sweet and candy floss.

So, with time I realised that I am different. Fundamentally different. Because there was no one who ever said these things that I felt. No one who challenged all these “nice” people with their sickly-sweet emotional vampirism. And this is how I learned that I am a devil. I am bad.

And so, I lived my life. Knowing deep inside I cannot be what people wanted me to be. I can only be a shapeshifter who changes his words and actions to soothe those around him. And this was my life, although every now and then my true nature will come out. And this would have been my story if I did not meet another traveller, and in speaking, realised something that changed everything for me.

All humans are devils, they are just better at hiding it from themselves. There are no humans left in this world.