When Dining with the Devil, Use a Long Spoon

Jasmine sits at the kitchen table, fork in hand, staring at the pieces of pulled pork latticed through silver talons that glint in the harsh LED downlights. She frowns. Pushes her chair back, it screeches across the wooden floorboards. Lights off. That’s better.

The darkness permits the moon’s heavy-lidded gaze to glow through the valance curtains - and Jasmine finds herself caught in diffused light. It’s just bright enough to see flakes of dust dancing through the room, piercing the stillness. 

It’s so quiet, Jasmine thinks. So quiet that it’s loud. She squeezes her eyes shut as fire flickers behind her eyelids and the tinnitus roars up to a bellow.

A scream.

With trembling hands, she places her half-eaten plate on the floor, just by the door. The hinges seem to sigh as the door relaxes into a swing, and the cold night air is granted entry at last.

‘Honey, don’t feed it - it’ll come back,’ Paul had always said. 

But she’s so lonely.

Jasmine crouches down, and whether through the sudden chill or the fear that lingers in the back of her mind, she’s suddenly conscious of the way her shoulders have crept up beside her ears, and her gnawed-at nails scrape the floor methodically - like a demented morse code. 

Her bones protest as she unravels her spine, raises her prideful chin and stares unblinkingly into the night. The thump-thump of her heartbeat builds to a crescendo as, through the thick trunks of the oak trees that line the meadow, a magnet pull of twin eyes meet her own.