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Marezedotes
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Dozedotes
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Leetlamzedivy
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Keedlidiveytoo

Wouldn't you?

short story

The wind animated everything that afternoon. No thing was without life. The trees swayed and spoke, fallen leaves scurried close to the ground like rodents and plastic bags flew with the battered sparrows. Even the gravestones were bullied to attention by the gusts.
The only dead article in the whole cemetery was an item even the wind couldn’t touch—a non-corporeal, invisible, immaterial item—a relationship.

Two figures walked slowly between the stones, wrapped tightly in wool then cotton then nylon to keep out jealous fingers of icy air. There was nothing to say. Even if there had been, the wind would have stolen it as the words passed their lips. Any meaningful commentary would have been lost to the landscape.
But they both knew. That was all.
They parted wordlessly; each knowing where their paths would diverge, neither knowing where the other was headed.
The man turned at the edge of the road to watch his last two years, three months and fifteen days walk away. Her scarf came undone and attempted an escape but was pinned by her collar. Its free end struggled vainly, mixing its bright color with the dull brown of her hair. Up close, he knew, these locks held a rainbow of reds and blonds and golds and even some silver but, from far away, this remarkable head of hair was entirely unexceptional, especially when juxtaposed with the brilliant orange of the fabric. Her hands reached up and tamed the jumble, pulling the scarf back into place, fastening the struggling mess to her head.
She never looked back, just disappeared into the growing dusk.

Demons

People are fundamentally good. In fact, human beings are corporeal angels. We are not even fallen; we have simply been drafted and shipped out. This reality we inhabit, these very bodies we live in are a huge battlefield. Good vs. evil. The fight never ends, and never will until we recognize that every person is an implacable warrior of goodness.
So-called 'human' fallibility comes not from us ourselves, but from outside influences. The word 'demon' finds use here. Not demon in the traditional Christian sense; not horned goat-men wielding pitchforks and flame throwers. Instead, they are invisible tormentors, found in cruel words and negative experiences. They push us, prod us and slowly have driven the human race mad. We have come to identify with our demons, making them our identities. We have become feral and violent, crazed and cruel. The demons are artful wordsmiths, whispering words of lust and crime in our ears constantly.
But words are fundamentally flawed. Words inherently create miscommunication. There are simply too many of them and too many interpretations of each and too many connotations and insinuations and subtleties involved in every sentence. Words are the language of lesser beings than ourselves. We degrade ourselves by using them. And yet, they are a necessary evil. We exist here to gain victory. No other reason. And we must use every tool given us to achieve that end.
What we need is some sort of spiritual fly swatter with which to shoo away these pesky demons flapping their turbulent ideas into our brains every second. They never let up and it's killing us from the inside. They feed on our faults, nurse our defects, defend our sins. They are the bad guy but they are master manipulators and have turned us against each other.
We must be a united front, we must recognize that our differences are irrelevant and our congruencies are what is important. We are all on and all the same, all trying our very best to do what is right, responding to ever-changing, ever-challenging circumstances with bravery and vigilance. Human beings are perfectly flawed and beautifully convoluted. To recognize and act as such is our duty. We are soldiers fighting a battle. The war has already been won.