Angle: Meatballs

I woke up in an alley. I was lying on my back on the cracked and filthy pavement, and rain was falling on my face. I hate it when that happens. Sometimes the demon will find a cardboard box for me before it leaves, but not this time.

But at least I still had clothes. That was something. It was also not freezing. That was another good thing. But, as usual, I was tired, filthy, hungry, and thirsty. And, also as usual, I had no money. The demon never takes care of my body or my stuff. It just uses it all up on a wild party and then leaves, and I have to pick up the pieces.

I staggered out of the alley. I was not in an inner city. I was either in the outskirts of a city, or in a smaller town of some kind. That was a mixed blessing. It meant less chance of being the victim of a crime, but it also meant that help would be harder to get.

It took me three hours before I found a soup kitchen. I paused outside the door, looking at the beings filtering in. I can tell who is really a human, and who is an elf in disguise. I like to talk to the elves. I can also tell who has been possessed by a demon, like me. But there were no such people that night. Everyone was just a human being, driven to poverty by craziness, stupidity, or a lot of ordinary bad luck. Not like me.
I went inside, found the bathroom, and washed up as best I could. When I was in no worse shape than the rest of the crowd, I came out, joined the line, and waited.

The mean of the day was spaghetti and meatballs. When I was about to be served by a kindly-looking old lady dishing out soggy white pasta, I felt myself begin to black out. I whimpered, and said, "No, please not now!"

I came to and saw that only a few seconds must have passed. Everyone had backed away from me, and the serving lady was looking at me in horror. Nobody looked hurt, so I guessed the demon must have just yelled a lot of profanity. It does that sometimes.

I quickly said, "I didn't mean that. That wasn't me who said that. It was the demon. I would never say anything bad."

The old lady recovered her composure and said, "That's all right, dear. Here is your spaghetti." There was compassion in her face, but not understanding. She obviously assumed that I was just another lunatic.

I know that I am not bipolar or anything like that. I know what the demon does to get money, and how the demon spends that money. There is no way I could do those things without getting arrested or worse. I simply do not have the skills. The demon never does anything that would ruin me permanently, but it also prevents me from getting any kind of help.

I can't fight the demon. It has removed all hope from me, all desire to take care of myself. Any money I manage to save up just gets wasted. If I ever get a job, the demon does something to get me fired. And worst of all, I can't make any friends because the demon loves nothing more than hurting the people close to me. And it also loves moving around. Usually I wake up in a different city. I guess it does that to dodge the police and the mafia, or maybe it just gets bored and wants new scenery.

I thanked the serving lady as politely as possible, and then turned around to look for a place to sit. Then I saw them. They were humans, there was no doubt about that. But Power was with them. They glowed with more magic than any elf ever had.

They were all in their mid-twenties. They were dressed in shabby old clothes, but even with ordinary vision I could tell that they did not belong in a soup kitchen. Their bearing was too confident, their actions too calm and self-assured. People like that could succeed at anything they tried.

I sat as close to them as I dared. They did not notice me. I started listening to them as I ate my food.

"Look, all I am saying is that we really need to change our Mantid contact protocols. Waiting for them to make the first move is leading to all kinds of problems. I am sick of cleaning up after their clumsiness."

"But there really is no alternative. You know how they react when they feel threatened."

"Yes, but a good contact team will make themselves less threatening than the random stuff the Mantids find in our world. We should send a team out the instant we see one of those energy patterns."

"Do you know how many of those blips we see? There would be two or three false positives every night."

"And besides, most of the Mantids who come in leave without causing any problems."

"I agree. We have more important things to spend our time on. Like the dragon infestation."

"Yes, we really need to get to the bottom of that. It is getting out of hand."

"Yeah, I remember when dragon meat was a rare treat. Now we have so much that we dump the stuff on soup kitchens."

"I still say we should have sold it on the black market. Lots of people will pay top dollar for something like that."

"We already have more money than we need. Our goal is to help people. And nobody needs magical healing more than the people here."

"Also, anyone with enough knowledge to know what dragon meat can do, and enough money to afford it, is already a potential threat. Such a person could become truly powerful after they get that boost to their strength, intelligence, and magic. We don't need people like that running around. But when you feed the stuff to the people here, all it will do is restore them to normal human competence."

"Is this place part of our organization? Do they know what is happening?"

"No, they think the meat is venison from that state program. And they think we are social workers doing a study."

For the first time, I paid attention to what I was eating. The spaghetti and sauce were standard soup-kitchen fare, but the meatballs were different. They were very spicy and very gamey. They left an odd burning sensation at the back of my throat, and they made my scalp sweat. I have eaten venison, and this was not venison.

I ate all of the meatballs. Then I got up and, when the workers were not looking, dumped the soggy noodles and thin sauce in the trash. I then went back for seconds. I asked for extra meatballs, and got them. People did not seem to like their taste, so there were plenty for me.

I returned to my seat. The people were still talking.

"Speaking of mysteries, did anyone figure out what that zombie meant when it said, 'Sophia is waiting.'?"

"It doesn't matter. We got rid of it and it hasn't come back."

"Unlike those vampires in the Pine Heights development."

"What kind of vampires?"

"Just the dumb jock variety. I could probably take them all out by myself."

"That kind of thinking will get you killed or worse. You know that we should have at least three people to take on a vamp nest, no matter how weak they seem."

"I know, I know. But this would be a good one to use to train those new kids."

"I agree. But take all five of them, and make sure they have top-notch gear."

"That reminds me, we need to have one of them clean the meatballs out of the dumpster behind this place tonight. We don't want to create a brood of scaly fire-breathing rats."

"Would that really happen?"

"Probably not, but they would get boosted. And leaving magical stuff lying around is never a good idea."

I finished off the meatballs, dumped the pasta again, and went back for another helping. The server was a little suspicious, so I told her that I could not remember the last time I had eaten a decent meal. It was true. I had no idea how long the demon had been inside me, and it never bothers with good nutrition.

When I sat back down, the people were getting up to leave. I almost stopped them to talk, but decided against it.

I managed to eat five plates of meatballs that night before they stopped serving me. It has been nearly a month since then, and the demon has never taken me over, not even for a few seconds. I think that I may be cured. I do know that I feel smarter, stronger, and healthier than ever before.

If the demon is really gone, I will be able to build my life back up again, without being afraid that it will all be taken away from me. I have a job and a small apartment. They think I am an illegal immigrant, but around here that does not seem to matter too much.

I looked myself up on a computer in a public library, and found that I was declared dead long ago. My family must have moved on. It would be cruel to show up again so many years after I disappeared in a haze of madness and pain.

So the best thing to do would be to marry this really lovely elf I met last week.