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If one had asked Stanley to describe his life, he would have marked it down as frighteningly mundane. He walked through an office building, playing out the same scenarios with the same narration every single day. He couldn’t remember much about his life before the Parable, but he imagined it had been much the same—the Narrator had told him about his boring life pushing buttons and coming home to a very ordinary wife more times than he could count.
All in all, there was very little mystery to it. Just Stanley and an office building he knew like the back of his hand. He had discovered all the secrets already, tried every possibility, gone around and around in circles, and now he could recite the entire story with his hands, before the Narrator even read it.
The only mystery Stanley hadn’t solved was that of the Narrator himself. He’d thought that the Narrator was simply pre-recorded audio at one point, but then he’d learned that the Narrator could read sign language, and now they talked frequently. But Stanley still knew very little about the man—he didn’t even know the Narrator’s name. And with how much the Narrator knew about Stanley, and how much time they’d spent together, Stanley figured it was about time for an interrogation.
The wording conjured an image in his mind of him shining a light into the Narrator’s eyes and the Narrator getting antsy, and it was so out of character that it made Stanley laugh. But it then brought to mind another question: was the Narrator even physical?
“Stanley?” And, speak of the devil, there he was. “What’s so funny?”
Stanley shrugged and waved a hand dismissively. “Thought of something silly,” he signed. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” He was sitting in the employee lounge at that time, reclined across one of the blue couches. It was a very relaxing room—though not as relaxing as the zen room, it was much easier to get to. And easier to get out of. Stanley liked the colour blue.
“Of course,” answered the Narrator. It was interesting, Stanley thought, how his voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was outside his head and yet inside at the same time. Sometimes, if the Narrator spoke low enough, Stanley swore his voice actually shook his cranium. “What would you like to know?”
“What’s your favourite colour?” Stanley asked, deciding to start small. He could butter the Narrator up a bit, before leaping towards the bigger questions. He did have a lot of them, after all.
The Narrator seemed a bit taken aback. “Er… yellow, I’d say. It is a very nice colour. Lots of potential meanings. And it’s a very underappreciated one, in my opinion. Nobody values a good yellow in this day and age.” He hummed for a moment. “Oh, and it matches my eyes.”
“You have yellow eyes?”
“Often.” Stanley could practically hear the shrug that accompanied the word. “As I said, it’s a nice colour.”
“So, you’re a shapeshifter?” Stanley hoped the question wasn’t pushing it too far. He didn’t want to be invasive—he just wanted to know a little bit more about his companion.
The Narrator gave a small sigh. “You could say that, yes, though I don’t really think the term suits me,” he answered. “There isn’t one that does, honestly. I am the only one of my kind.”
“Well-” Stanley hesitated, then continued to sign. “Who are you?”
There was silence for a long moment, and Stanley worried he’d messed up. Then the Narrator took a deep breath and answered, “Some people call me Nick.”
“Nick.” The name felt strange in Stanley’s hands. “But you only said ‘some people’. That’s not your real name, is it?”
“I have a lot of names,” the Narrator replied vaguely. “Nick is the one I like the most. Other than ‘the Narrator’, I suppose, but since that one’s unique to you, I don’t really count it.”
“Do you want me to call you Nick?” Stanley asked.
The Narrator snorted. “Oh, gracious, only if you really want to. I quite like being simply ‘the Narrator’. It has a certain air of mystery and grandeur, don’t you think? And—this is the most important part—it is completely and utterly only used by you. And that makes it special. I don’t want you to become just one of the millions of people that call me ‘Nick’, I want you to be one-of-a-kind, Stanley.” The fondness in the Narrator’s voice surprised him, and the sincerity of his words as well.
“I won’t call you Nick,” Stanley decided. “I like calling you the Narrator, too. ‘Nick’ just doesn’t really… fit.”
“I accept this graciously,” replied the Narrator. “The Narrator it is.” There was a small pause. “Now, would you like to get on with the story, Stanley?”
With a small, near-silent groan, Stanley stretched out his arms and got up from the couch. “Sure,” signed Stanley. “What’s next?”
Every so often, the Narrator left the Parable. This was normal and Stanley was used to it—plus, it gave him a great opportunity to have a nice, long nap. The Narrator never told Stanley why, though, other than that he had a ‘meeting’. Stanley figured that was to be expected—he was clearly a powerful entity of some kind, and to expect that he had no life outside of Stanley would have been overzealous.
Still, Stanley was a bit jealous.
And so he slept, and dreamt of a man with yellow eyes.
It was not the first time he’d dreamt of the Narrator. Far from it, in fact. The near-omnipresent being was omnipresent in his dreams as well. His mind always tried to humanize him, though, and so Stanley often found himself interacting with a nondescript blur of a human being. No distinct features, nothing Stanley could hold onto once he awoke. But the voice was always the same.
This time, there were the eyes. Burning acid-yellow and slit like a snake’s, boring straight into Stanley’s soul as the Narrator spoke in his familiar drawl. Stanley felt hypnotized, almost, as he leaned toward the Narrator. Maybe those eyes should have been creepy. But Stanley could never be scared of the Narrator.
“Hi,” signed Stanley, and if he had been speaking he thought he would have sounded breathless. “Narrator…”
The Narrator smiled back at him, a sharp grin with too many teeth. Stanley felt like prey being sized up by a predator, but he still lacked any fear. “Stanley,” said the Narrator. “You really need to find something else to dream about.”
Stanley laughed. “Why would I, when I enjoy your company so much?” he shot back. “Besides, there are things I can do here that I can’t do with your real self. Dreams don’t have consequences. And you have a physical body.”
“Mm,” the Narrator hummed. “That is true. My real self is a very complicated, busy man. I’m all yours, Stanley.” He spread his blurry arms, welcoming Stanley in.
Stanley closed the gap and brought the Narrator in for a kiss, finding the fabric of the Narrator’s shirt with one hand and the curve of his hip with the other. It was a soft kiss, just how Stanley liked it. Then they stayed there, embracing gently, until Stanley woke up.
The real Narrator still wasn’t back yet, so the office remained dark, and most of the doors remained closed. Stanley removed himself from the bed in the false apartment that the Narrator always allowed him access to in his absence, and made his way back into the familiar expanse of monotonous off-white walls and blocky desks. He yawned, wishing he could have stayed in the throes of sleep for a bit longer, and pushed open the door to his office.
For as much as the Narrator liked to tell him about all his time spent in this room, Stanley really didn’t occupy it that much. The story was always much more amusing than anything this tiny cubicle could provide. But he powered on the computer anyway, exiting out of the usual inputs tab to investigate the rest of the barren desktop, in an action similar to opening the fridge half an hour after you last checked it just to see if anything new had appeared.
Nothing new had appeared, so Stanley simply resigned himself to a game of Minesweeper. He didn’t particularly understand how the game worked, and so it frustrated him, but at least he could attempt to figure it out while he was waiting for the Narrator to return.
And while he thought of the Narrator… perhaps it was just his half-asleep brain dredging up old superstition from his youth, but there was something determinedly odd about the conversation they’d had, just a few days (he wasn’t sure how time passed here, exactly, but he measured everything in approximate days to stop himself losing track) earlier. It was in his use of the word ‘millions’.
‘Some people call me Nick’, he’d said. And then, later: ‘I don’t want you to become just one of the millions of people that call me Nick.’ This meant that the Narrator wasn’t just some random unknown entity, but someone people were aware of.
And then Stanley realized with a gulp that there was one entity he’d always been warned about as a child. One that his grandparents had called Old Nick. One whose name was never spoken, even by the preacher on Sunday morning.
The lights flickered back on, and Stanley jumped.
“Stanley!” called the Narrator, pleasantly. “Stanley, I’m back, did you have a nice sleep?”
No, it can’t be, thought Stanley. He’s much too nice to be… that Nick. And he tried to put the notion out of his mind. “I did,” Stanley signed. “How was your meeting?”
The Narrator groaned. “Oh, terrible as always, Stanley. I hate these damned meetings. They’re entirely pointless. They just want me there to approve their something-or-other and watch them argue,” he whined. “I wish I could get them all to just leave me alone so that I can focus all my energy on my story, but no-o-o.” Stanley could practically hear the eye roll the Narrator was probably making.
“Why do they need you there?” Stanley asked. “What do you do, anyway?” The only thing he knew about the Narrator’s ‘real life’ was that he got dragged away to these meetings, nothing more.
The Narrator sighed. “I’m- I’m a businessman, Stanley. Of a sorts. I’m not human, you know, so it’s a bit more complicated. And I’m a sort of- what do you call someone who’s in charge of a company, again?”
“CEO?” Stanley offered.
“Yes, a CEO. Even my most trusted, er, employees, who handle everything while I’m here, need my approval on things every so often,” the Narrator explained. “And so they have to come and bother me. Honestly, the lot of them are mostly useless, it’s just that they’re much less useless than the rest.”
“So that’s why you’re so desperate for my company instead, huh?” Stanley joked.
The Narrator laughed. “If you ever met them, you’d realize instantly that any company is better than theirs,” he replied. “But yours is particularly nice, Stanley. I haven’t spent much time around a human since… well, I’m not quite sure.”
“Are they annoyed that you spend so much time here?” Stanley wasn’t feeling jealous anymore. In fact, he was feeling proud. The Narrator was shirking his responsibilities to be here. To be with Stanley!
“Oh, horribly annoyed,” the Narrator said. “But there’s not much they can do about it. I’m their boss, and if I want to spend a few hundred years writing a story about a human, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Stanley blinked. “Narrator?” he asked.
“Yes, Stanley?”
“How long have I been here?”
The Narrator was silent for a long moment. Then he answered, “Oh… three hundred and fifty years or so. Fifty-six? Fifty-seven? I’m not quite sure, I haven’t been counting. Barely the blink of an eye, really—not even half a millenium!”
Stanley gaped at the ceiling. “Three hundred and fifty years?! That’s a blink of an eye to you?!” It was hard to express shouting in disbelief through sign language, but he hoped his exaggerated gestures got the point across. “How old are you?!”
The Narrator had to consider that question for a moment as well. “If I’m being honest, I never really started counting. Time wasn’t really a concept before the sun and moon existed,” he admitted nonchalantly.
Stanley’s hands fell to his sides. He was utterly, figuratively, speechless.
“…Stanley?”
“Am I dead?” Stanley asked bluntly, once his hands were responding again. “Please just tell me the truth. Is this the afterlife? Is that why I don’t die, or age, or need to eat, or drink, or sleep? Is that why everything is just a game?”
The Narrator let out a long sigh. “Yes… I’m afraid you are dead, Stanley. I was hoping you would stay in the dark for a bit longer… people are always happier when they don’t know that they’ve died, you know?”
Stanley had to sit down. Then he realized he was already sitting, and just slumped down more in his chair. “How did I… die?” he signed numbly.
“Heart attack,” the Narrator answered readily. “It was the seventeenth of October, 2013. You were forty-two.” He paused for a moment, then sighed, and Stanley could feel the Narrator’s eyes on the back of his neck as he stared at his knees. Stanley wished he could cry, but the tears just didn’t come. “Oh, Stanley… I wish I could come down there and comfort you.”
Stanley raised his head to reply. “Why can’t you?” he asked. “You’re a shapeshifter. Become a human and get down here.” Maybe he was being demanding, but by God, he’d just discovered that he had been dead for three hundred and fifty years. He was allowed to be a little pushy.
The Narrator considered for a moment. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be right there, Stanley.” There was a soft click, as if something had been turned off. The Narrator’s microphone, Stanley assumed. Then Stanley’s office door opened.
“Hello,” signed Stanley, just for something to say.
“Hi,” said the Narrator, voice sounding strange only coming from one direction. “Why don’t you come out here and we can sit together?”
Stanley nodded and got up, before stepping out with the Narrator into… the employee lounge? That wasn’t usually right outside of his office, but he figured the Narrator was making an exception. It did have the best couches, after all.
It was then that he looked over and studied the Narrator’s chosen form. He was shorter and stockier than Stanley, though that wasn’t hard. Stanley had always been the tallest and lankiest person he’d known. He had neatly-combed brown hair with streaks of grey, a pair of square glasses sitting on his nose, and was wearing purple- yes, purple suspenders with a yellow-and-black striped tie. And his eyes were yellow, with small black slits for pupils—just as Stanley had dreamed them. The Narrator was also slightly tanned, and there was a tiny layer of stubble on his chin. Overall, Stanley quite liked the look. It fit the Narrator’s voice and attitude perfectly, he thought.
Stanley took a seat on the couch and tried to bring his thoughts back to the shocking revelation he’d just had. Three hundred and fifty years! That explained why he couldn’t remember much about his life before the Parable.
The Narrator sat down next to him, and awkwardly put a hand on Stanley’s knee. Stanley had to restrain himself from flinching—the touch wasn’t unwelcome, but it had been so long since he’d come into contact with another human being…
“Stanley,” said the Narrator, his voice soft. “How are you feeling?”
“Shocked,” Stanley replied. His hands were moving slowly as he tried to figure out what else to say. “So… if I’m… dead… is this Heaven? Or Hell? Or somewhere else?” He was scared of the answer, but curiosity still urged him to ask.
The Narrator sighed. “I knew that question was coming next. What do you think, Stanley?”
“I don’t think Heaven would be an eternal loop of the same office building for eternity,” Stanley answered. “But… this isn’t exactly torture, either? Is it Purgatory?”
“Er… well, you’re right, this isn’t really torture,” the Narrator said, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “But… it is Hell.”
Stanley attempted to sit back and process that information, but when he did, the Narrator yelped loudly and moved away from Stanley with a noise that sounded suspiciously like… wings?
“What’s wrong?” Stanley asked. “Did I hurt you?” As far as he’d known, he hadn’t been anywhere near bumping into the Narrator, but it appeared like he’d hit… something.
Before responding, the Narrator reached behind himself and laced his fingers through seemingly empty air. “Mm- no, just a few jostled feathers,” answered the Narrator. “I wasn’t really expecting you to sit so far back.” And as he continued to run his fingers through the air, like ink spilling over paper, black feathers washed into view. First one wing, then a second on the other side. Then another, smaller, pair beneath. They were all the colour of dusty charcoal, and the state of them…
Stanley couldn’t stop himself from moving forward and running his hand over the Narrator’s wing, making it snap away from him, and the Narrator jumped again.
“Stanley!” cried the Narrator, sounding scandalized. “What are you doing?”
“Who hurt you?” Stanley asked. The Narrator seemed confused, so he pointed at his wings, then signed again. “Who damaged your wings?”
Because they were clearly damaged. They didn’t hang in the right places, some of the feathers were pushed out of order, large chunks were raw as if they’d been burned away, and the dusty grey sheen seemed thoroughly unhealthy. Stanley wondered what they’d looked like before.
The Narrator turned sheepish. “Ah… that’s a long story. An old one, too. This is ancient damage. Nothing I’m not used to by now,” he insisted, waving a hand vaguely. “I think we were talking- talking about Hell?” His voice stuttered as Stanley brushed his hand against his feathers again. “Stanley!”
“You’re blushing. Does it feel nice when I do that?” Stanley asked.
The Narrator blushed harder. “Yes, but- we’re having a serious conversation here! Stop playing with my wings!”
Stanley stopped. “Why am I in Hell?” he questioned.
“Agh! This whiplash is too much for me.” The Narrator threw up his hands in protest. “I can’t be answering hard questions while you’re acting like this to me, it’s not fair!” Then he stomped his foot—actually stomped, like a petulant child, and Stanley swore the room shivered.
Stanley patted his head gently. “You can get rid of the human form if it’s easier,” he signed.
“It’s- it’s actually less of a human form and more of a human disguise,” the Narrator admitted. “The rest of me is still here, just hidden. Like you saw with the wings. But I don’t want to scare you-”
“I’m in Hell,” Stanley deadpanned. “Scare me.”
And so the Narrator sighed. And ran a hand through his hair. And, to Stanley’s shock, two long, curved black horns sprouted from the Narrator’s forehead, at the same time that a tail uncurled itself from behind the Narrator’s legs. His fingers sharpened into claws and his canines lengthened into fangs. Most surprisingly, he was suddenly taller than Stanley, and towered over him with an even amber glare.
“Wow,” signed Stanley, craning his neck to meet the Narrator’s eyes. “You’re…”
“Horrible? Demonic? Evil? Satanic? Monstrous? Because you’d be correct on all accounts,” the Narrator said, sounding almost dejected.
“Hot,” finished Stanley.
“What?” The Narrator paused, looking shocked. “Stanley, you had a wife and kids-”
“So? I’m dead now, aren’t I? ‘Until death do us part’, right? And I think you’re hot.” Who knew he could have so much power over the Narrator simply by telling him how he felt? The entity was tomato red and his wings were fluttering around like bustling bees.
“You don’t even know who I am,” the Narrator protested. “How do you know I’m not the worst person in the entire universe? Because I am, Stanley. I really am, and you shouldn’t-”
“You’ve never been horrible to me,” Stanley pointed out. “I think that counts for something.”
The Narrator went silent.
Stanley stepped forward, pressed his hands against the Narrator’s chest, and signed, “Nick.”
The Narrator flinched. “Ah. Right. I assume this is the part where you realize the truth and get mad at me for lying to you, even though I’m not capable of lying, and call me a monster and…”
Stanley shook his head, efficiently shutting the Narrator up. “You said you had other names? Can I guess?”
“…go ahead.”
Stanley hesitated. “Lucifer?” he signed slowly. The Narrator’s wings shuddered, but he didn’t say anything. “The Devil? Satan?” He reached out and brushed the Narrator’s wings, over a particularly sore-looking spot. “Were these injured when you were cast out of Heaven?”
“Mm. They were,” the Narrator answered quietly. “Stanley, I-” He paused, looking baffled. “Frankly, I just don’t understand.”
Stanley shrugged. “I don’t really understand either.”
“But- you just said it yourself! I’m the Devil, damn it, and you don’t even care!” The Narrator exclaimed. “You’re still right here! Touching me!”
Stanley shrugged again. “I like you,” he signed. “You don’t seem evil, or mean, or cruel. I’m in Hell, you’re Satan, and you’re not torturing me. So clearly all the stories must have been wrong.”
The Narrator just gaped at him.
“Now, I have another question,” Stanley continued. “What did I do to get sent to Hell? I don’t really remember… anything about my life upstairs.”
One of the Narrator’s wings brushed Stanley’s head, and he realized that they were drooping. “You sold me your soul,” murmured the Narrator, sounding almost sad. “You asked me to make sure your family had better luck. You wanted your wife to finally get her promotion so that she could make enough money to live on, and your kids to get accepted into university.”
Stanley didn’t sign anything. It was his turn to just stare, now.
“Usually people beg for more time when I tell them how long until I collect their soul. ‘Ten years,’ they plead. ‘Just one more, one more year?’ And they always run when I come for them. It’s rather annoying.” The Narrator’s voice was still soft. “You asked for a week, Stanley. Just so that you could say goodbye. And you didn’t even close your eyes… you just lay down, and looked at me with this melancholic gaze…”
There was a lump in Stanley’s throat. He swallowed it.
“You can’t go to Heaven if you sell your soul to the Devil. That’s just how it is,” said the Narrator. “But I couldn’t bear to torture you. Out of every human I’ve ever met—and oh, I’ve met billions—you are the only one to ever stand with me as an equal. And the only one to do something so damn selfless with your soul. You weren’t even scared! You still aren’t scared! And it eludes me as to why!” He shook his head. “So I decided to study you instead. Make a little box that could easily pass off as some form of isolation torture to my… loyal subjects, and then study you. And damn me, I couldn’t resist getting so self-involved, and now here we are.”
“But I’m just… normal,” Stanley signed. “There’s nothing unique about me.”
The Narrator scoffed. “On the contrary, Stanley,” he said. “You are the first and only human to ever catch the Devil’s eye.”
“What do you want from me?” Stanley asked bluntly. He didn’t entirely know what the Narrator meant by all of this. The Narrator just wanted to watch him exist, forever?
“I don’t want anything from you, Stanley, I want you,” said the Narrator, and when those amber eyes met Stanley’s gaze, they were burning. “I am supposed to be far above the realms of human emotion, and yet here I am. My heart, ensnared by a simple human. What do you want, Stanley? A palace, a crown? Gold, jewels, silver? The head of your worst enemy? Your wife’s soul? Your children’s? Now that you… know… I will do anything for you to be happy again.”
“I am happy,” replied Stanley. “I don’t care about any of that. Or the fact that I’m dead, and in Hell, and my only friend is Lucifer.” He thought the air was getting too thick with emotions, so he added, “I wouldn’t mind a new shirt, though.”
The Narrator threw his head back and laughed. “You know, you’re right. It is an awful shirt, Stanley. I can’t believe I let you wear it all this time.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Anything else?”
“I said I was perfectly happy,” Stanley insisted. “I like you being here. I don’t need other stuff.”
“You’re not even going to ask me for your freedom?” the Narrator asked.
Stanley paused. His freedom. The Narrator was offering him… a way out of the Parable. “How would that work?” Stanley questioned, skeptical.
“Well, I own your soul, so no demon would hurt you because they’re terrified of me,” said the Narrator. “I would just break the lock on this box, set you up in a guest room in my house, and let you live your own merry life in Hell under the protection of yours truly.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And you would be there?” Stanley asked.
“If you want me to be,” the Narrator answered.
Stanley rolled his eyes. “I just told you multiple times that you’re the only thing I need to be happy. Of course I want you to be part of my life!” he signed. “Besides, you own my soul, I can’t really escape you.”
The Narrator chuckled. “I suppose that’s true.” He clapped his hands together. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Right now?” Stanley questioned, shocked. “We’re leaving- now?”
“Stanley, you’ve been here for three hundred and fifty-eight years. And now you don’t want to leave?” the Narrator shot back.
“I just…” Stanley couldn’t find the right signs to describe how he was feeling. “Narrator…” And then he realized that it wasn’t a sign he needed. It was a different gesture entirely. “Come here.”
The Narrator took a step towards him. “What is it? Is there something wrong?” He paused. “Stanley, I-”
It was at that moment that Stanley reached up and pulled on the Narrator’s shirt collar as hard as he could, effectively mashing their faces together and cutting the Narrator off with a loud mmph!
They kissed for a long moment, before a strange burning sensation spread over Stanley’s lips, and he jolted back with a noise of pain and surprise. “What the hell was that?” he demanded, before rubbing his lips with his hand.
“Ah- side effect of kissing Satan, I’m afraid. Fire and brimstone and all that.” The Narrator gave him a small smile. “In fact, all extensive contact with me likes to start hurting after some time—the time depends on the contact, you see. I suppose there has to be something about me you can’t stand.” He laughed, though it was clearly forced.
Stanley considered for a moment. “I survived the Zending,” he signed. “I don’t care about some stupid burning.”
“Actually, I think the point of that ending is that you didn’t survive-”
But Stanley had already hooked his fingers under the Narrator’s shirt collar again and dragged him back down for another kiss. Damn the pain. He was going to show the Narrator his affection one way or another.
And this time, when Stanley felt like he was on fire, he simply dug his fingers in deeper. Inhale, exhale. And he tilted his head into the kiss.
Maybe he was in Hell. Maybe the man he loved was the Devil. Maybe it hurt to kiss him, maybe he would never truly be free again, maybe he was damned for all eternity. But Stanley didn’t care.
He had the Narrator. What else could he possibly ask for?
Nothing, thought Stanley. I wouldn’t change a single thing.
And even though it hurt. Even though the Narrator’s claws dug into his skin. He took the Narrator’s hand, and walked through a new, open door. To real freedom, whatever it might look like.