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Appearing from the smoke requires at least the following points: before it dissipates, whatever the summoner said to you, do not answer for the time being; try to wear polyester fabric suits, although they will be relatively cheaper, but there will be no particles attached to it; You can use that period of time not yet revealed to organize the instrument.
Approaching the 21st century, the majority of people see the demon and still think we should wear hats with fake feathers for decoration, wearing medieval robes. I straightened my bow tie and found that the man in front of me was no exception.
"I'm not summoning a product salesman." The young man said grimly. Nevertheless, his emerald-green eyes showed the curious and eager gaze of a researcher. Those eyes were quite attractive, and if I didn't have a predilection for other parts over it, I would have probably chosen those two gems as a reward.
Let me make the rules a little clearer. Our eminent predecessor Mephisto signed a contract with Faust to satisfy all his desires for 24 years, in return for Faust's clear soul. In today's world, inflation has already set in, so that the reward for the above condition becomes "any part of the body of the summoner". Perhaps the main reason is that a man has nothing worth collecting souls for in the modern age.
Some of my peers prefer blood, so those who work with them are ready to devote their lives, but I am more merciful and prefer hands. Just as a picked flower wilts quickly even if it is stuck in water, mortal hands can only be appreciated for a few days even after careful care. So the cost of summoning me is much higher, it is not a matter of chanting a few silly runes and doing some random actions to see me, after all 24 years - even for an eternal demon - is not a time that can be spent in a blink of an eye. It would be too much of a bargain to be disturbed all day and receive so little in return.
I listened to the music humans liked, read the books they liked, did the jobs popular in their time, and was no different from your neighbor except for meeting the composers, authors, and entrepreneurs who started those industries themselves. The absence of contractual interruptions allowed me to enjoy my own placid life. As for the hands - I admit there are times when I allowed myself access to them through means other than deeds.
So when I suddenly appeared in front of another person while riding the subway home, naturally it's not pleasant anywhere. Bob Dylan's "The times they're-a-changing" was playing in his house, so I pointed directly at the record player in response.
"Oh." He nodded perfunctorily, "Not quite the costumes and brimstone fires I most wanted to see, but it was still funny, I mean the look on your face when you emerged from the smoke."
"It's not often that someone can be so calm after finding out they've successfully summoned me." I stared a little uncomfortably at his scrutinizing gaze, while noticing that his right hand was moving quickly on the drawing paper to outline the scene, "It seems that you just want to use me as an ornamental object?"
Most of the people I have had the pleasure of dealing with are paranoid geniuses who otherwise would not be able or willing to take the time to crack the code that narrates the method. So they also often make demands that I cannot understand. For example, a writer whose name I cannot reveal asked me to give him the ability to "remember every butterfly he sees", since the process of granting the wish makes no difference to me anyway, I have no time to investigate the motives of these people.
That's why I didn't have to go on too many trips even during the contract, I didn't have to accompany an irritable king to expand the territory, and I didn't have to follow the explorer's figure. Instead, the most common scenario for me is that the summoner, who is lying on the table contemplating, suddenly says to me, who is reading a newspaper, I want to know the formula of pi.
That's the kind of work I like.
"That's right," he said, tearing the drawing off and handing it back to me, "simply put I need an assistant, and as to why I chose 'you', obviously because I relish something challenging, and summoning you seems to be the the hardest."
"Then I think you know the rules well," I looked down at his work, sure that Monk would have enjoyed it, "anything, 24 years, and finally give me your hand, which considering you're a artist, means ...... "
"I know, please let my functions stop aging first."
"You must first formally sign the contract before you can make a request." I said.
His eyes widened in displeasure, "Then how do I know if you're a liar? Just for suddenly appearing out of smoke - the TV show can do that too."
--This attitude of not taking anything seriously is even rarer among those who summon me. Something occurred to me: "How do you know I exist?"
He threw over a book, the cover of which was already shaky. I had never seen it before, and it contained in considerable detail a series of demon names, hobbies, abilities, summoning methods, and the rewards that are often demanded.I quickly turned the pages, respited at the last page for several seconds and gave it back.
"A family origin?"
"I saw it at a roadside stand," he said lightly, and I was sure he enjoyed the "hmm, modern" look I gave him, "I thought it would be useful for fetching material, and I'm surprised it actually worked. "
This totally explains why he took the whole thing as a joke. "But even if I did, you can't see the effect now, and it's always too good to envision hanging on to me for a year before signing the contract." I said, "Change it to a more reasonable request and I might consider making an exception for you ......"
"......really as smart and arrogant as it says." He didn't seem to think I had made any compromises at all, but instead looked at me for a moment like staring at an interesting TV show. "Surely you won't agree to let me have the ability to read minds - so just give me a Montblanc Elvis Limited?"
I took a pen case out of the void and gently placed it in front of him, gesturing for him to open it. The other man took it with suspicion, showing a moment of delight, and then quickly asked me with narrowed eyes, "Did you draw one from all the others, or did you just build the knockoff that devalued the entire product?"
"Neither," I said softly, scooting in his direction until I was no more than a few centimeters from the tip of the other man's nose, "I took it from the second drawer in your bedroom. Shall we begin, then?"
"Hmph," he grabbed the knife that had just appeared on the table and slashed at his finger as I used the small-mouthed glass bottle to catch the drops of blood. "If that's all you can do, I'm going to start regretting wasting time on cracking that code, Kira Yoshikage."
After catching the full amount, I looked at the magical liquid into the light, it gave off a clear shine, and at least for now everything was on the right track. Although a large part of the demon's accusation is to create chaos, I prefer the peace of mind that comes with order. Now that everything had settled, I fulfilled his other two requests and casually turned the box of tissues he had laid out on the table into a couple of Led Zeppelin vinyl sheets.
It proved to be a less than pleasant start, though. The experience was not much different from the previous mode, and during the day I was even able to continue to travel to the company to work, because as a artist he needed a lot of time to collect material, and all I could do was simply use my own identity to make him understand other creatures. This process, according to him, is "impossible to take shortcuts through supernatural forces".
I pointed out that his ability to understand the minds of passers-by and other creatures depended entirely on the magic of demons, and he said, "I'm just saving time by asking questions from their mouths, and there's no need to study the ingredients under a microscope when there are instructions, except for the particularly interesting ones, namely you."
"Studying under the microscope" includes: having my face changed; getting hurt; feeding the cat; going to the coffee shop; experiencing what it's like to be sick; bonding with the people around me; playing chess; fishing; engaging with the creatures in the oceanarium; sitting and wasting an afternoon; traveling; finding the bugs he put in the milk; and resisting the perfumed hands he deliberately put in front of me. I have served many masters who wanted to master natural norms above the devil, or "laws of the universe", which, through the various disciplines that mankind has carved out, actually lead to the same end. But this one is more descriptive, his calling is just a chance to break into other people's lives in a straightforward way.
There’s One thing I had been curious about but never asked. On the first anniversary of my acquaintance with him, familiar enough to be sure that asking this would not cause any problems, I spoke up over dinner. It was a symbolic anniversary, and alcohol clashed a bit with my constitution, so I had to substitute lemonade and no lack of consciousness as an excuse.
"You care so much about comics, why have you never asked me for something like 'wanting to have more drawing talent'?"
He took a sip of wine, and even though he wasn't provoked, I could still detect his eyes widening in displeasure: "What a failure for you to think differently. Why else do you think I summoned you here just to be the subject of a fetch? In that area, I certainly trust myself more than I trust your ...... abilities."
"My talent is not the talent of painting, but the talent of 'as long as I continue to paint, I will keep gaining progress that is unimaginable to ordinary people', now I have painted well enough, but in the future I will stand somewhere else looking down on the present. Do you understand that, I know the 'inevitability' of such things."
After a moment of silence, I drew the glass from his hand, switched it to water with two spoons of honey, and had to assist him as he left. The streets were empty and I didn't have to worry about being watched by extra eyes. It was a bright spring night, and I had a wonderful, though tired, feeling. We had barely talked, but what I had vaguely seen remained in my memory: the white walls of the houses on the side of the road, the cracks in them, the eerie blue light from the vending machines standing on the corner, the floor of the tram station made of grids, the moon running slowly and evenly. He whispered in my ear as I passed our residence that I might as well walk a little longer, when the east was already faintly white. I could have transferred him straight to bed and had a well-planned night, or even a weekend as usual, as I would have done if I had been with anyone else - but I didn't, and I proceeded to step on the flyers sunk into the cracks in the road, avoiding the silvery garbage cans illuminated by streetlights, and stepped into the unfathomable night.
Such a long night never came again, and the same pleasure may have been felt in a dream of a few seconds at dawn, but it was fleeting. The person beside me, the only one who experienced it with me, did not mention it ever again, and even found it extremely humiliating to be frivolous at the time. I looked at his sleeping face and realized that it was indeed unspeakable, not only in words, but even a rose, a kiss, or a symbol representing everything. Nothing can help me to remember that night.
On the whole, the prophecy was very accurate. In my spare time I've looked through his work (at his request), and even though I still think modern art broke off after Wyeth and prefer satirical cartoons like Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal as a pastime, I have to admit that it does have a shocking intensity, after all, it is misfortune that he depicts with indifferent ink.
In fact, I may well need to understand this universal human suffering, that is a requisite to mimic humans, but before experiencing it myself, that is just sitting in a glass room observing some other people's experience.Compared with really let things get out of control with terrible consequences, this shallow taste really should be a better choice. I was sure that fate was on my side, and therein lay the limitation.
Until the end, I didn't deliberately create any tragedy, and the 24 years passed quickly because I wasn't waiting for the end to come, but was finding ways to slow down my perception, treating the immediate as a gift, not an obstacle. The artist's appearance was not much different from before, but as early as 2/3 of the time had passed, I noticed that he never mentioned the end, but passed it off as "It's too early to talk about this, and if it's really that urgent, we should seize the time.”
What does the end look like for him? I am interested in speculating whether he just wanted to "become immortal and then die", as Melville did? Or, because he doesn't know what will happen afterwards, there will be many hesitations. Will he regret his previous decisions, because he realizes that something is more important than zeal, and that zeal is just a noose around the neck that pulls tighter and tighter the further he goes in that direction? The happiness that a mortal can feel is rarely pure, it is always mixed with the restlessness, fear, panic and suspense of the mind - an emotion that I am quite fond of to see on other people’s face.At the moment when he achieves his wish, because it all comes from life itself, and not something that can never be acquired without my help, will he feel and always swim in the emptiness of uncertainty, and nameless joy and anxiety?
I didn't ask any of these. Instead, until the day it officially ended, I pretended that time had never divided into scales and labels.
He said, "Just a moment, please, while I wash my hands." Although not following in form, I could still see the water flow and the light coming in through the window facing the sink caressing his hands, and my view was not only of skin and nails, but also of mottled veins and bones. A ring dangled from the base of his ring finger, a ring that the flesh that wore it was destined to disintegrate and it would lose its meaning with it. I saw the most familiar part of him in a way I had never seen before, enough to penetrate the future, and it made me suddenly want to keep all about him.
The unit of time was severely cut, blurred and shrunken for the immortal, but I was still looking for some moment, some moment like that night, which could stretch into a small eternity, nailing down hard nails in the swiftly passing stream or flame of time.
Kishibe Rohan came to sit in front of me and held out his hand toward me without expression, as if I just needed to help him cut his nails as usual. I moved a little closer in his direction and kissed his knuckle, as well as the ring, with my head down. The moment the ring met my teeth, it quickly changed style.
"Wait a minute ......! Who gave you permission to--" he cried out of breath, and I knew he knew exactly what the cat-shaped skull design represented.On the last page of that old book, in large print, it read: There is only one way to end a covenant peacefully:the devil tells you their names in meta-language, but at the cost of that, you will continue to be bound together.
Centuries would roll by;schoolchildren would yawn at the vicissitudes of my experience, and mortals would soon row again from sentience to that meaningless abyss, but I knew my pleasure would remain: in the otherwise evanescent details that had become orderly, in the diaphanous exactitude of the mirror of an amiable future.