Day 333: Our Nige

Day 333. A portentous day. Halfway to the beast. Not actually in hell yet, but certainly approaching a slip road leading circuitously to its environs. The Greater Hell region. The suburbs of hell. How’s the weather?. Warm. Oh, that sounds good. Well, no, it’s that humid kind of warmth, actually. Clammy, you know? Close. Oh, that’s not great. No, it’s not. Not terrible though. But it does rain a lot as well. Damp and humid. Pretty miserable actually. Accommodation? Not festering pits of eternal torment per se, but… well… condominiums. Thin walls. And your neighbours are always playing bad reggae music. Not at full volume, but you can hear it. And walking up and down stairs late at night. And who are your neighbours? They’re all called Brad. And they’re all social media influencers.

Or maaaybe. 333 is the number of the cut-rate beast. Lay out pentagrams in rat blood on your cellar floor and ensconce yourself in darkened cowl and intone the summoning ritual murmuring “Three-three-three” under your breath and you invoke the spirit of Nigel, second cousin once removed of the Beast. Cloven hooves, blood-flecked flocculent hide, lashing viper tail…. but a weak chin. Varifocal glasses. Has an allergy to dust mites. Needs special slips on his pillows.

“Oh, right, sweet, thanks for answering my eldritch call, Nigel. You going to smite vengeance and damnation upon my mortal enemies?”

“Oh sure, sure,” our Nige replies. “Step one: hack into their work computer with my infernal powers (/lurk behind them and read their password over their shoulders then wait for them to go on their lunch break). Step two: take a screenshot of their desktop. Step three: set the screenshot as their background wallpaper. Step four: move all their desktop icons to the edges of the screen so only one pixel shows, but on the static wallpaper the icons are still part of the picture, albeit non-interactive. Step four… sorry, step five, was it? I get lost in my plans sometimes. Step five: wait for pandemonium to ensue.

“Pandemonium... ensues. You only ever hear those words together, don’t you? You hear pandemonium, you want to add ensues afterwards. It’s like finishing a yawn. You’re not satisfied till you’ve done it.

“Well, anyway, that’s all I’ve got.”

“All right, Nige, I suppose I only bought the candles at Wilko’s, and they were LEDs. And the cowl is the cushion cover off the upstairs sofa. It was… wait… why are you backing away, Nigel?”

“I was going to stick around to exact a terrible toll on you for meddling with powers you cannot comprehend, but I can feel my eyes watering from that cushion cover. Not got an anti-dust slip under that, have you?”

“Err, no, sorry. I wouldn’t even know where to get one.”.

Most department stores, actually. They do them in Wilko’s, you just have to know where to look. You could always nip out and… no, sorry, no… my nose is going now as well. I’d better be off.”

He vanishes in a cloud of… not smoke, more a kind of ineffectual haze.

You turn to head back up to your kitchen.

A wet noise.

A cough.

You turn back. It’s Nigel again: “You, err. You going to eat that rat, or…?”

…….

OK. That’s my skit about the number 333. Thanks for reading. I’m going for a sleep now. Bubyeeeeee x