Thatahshavha Moham Bashir had run the shop for as long as anyone could remember.  Even the eldest in the tired urban district could not, for all of the lines and winter hair dying, recall a time when the Tarboosh had not been.   It was a smallish shop/cafe where “The Bashir” as he was known, blended chic peas and oils into falafel.  He roasted strange and wonderful meats into a variety of kebobs and exotic saltine treats that kept even the most reticently anglicized sneaking back for a taste and perhaps a shared smoke of strong eastern tobacco and mud thick coffee, behind the elaborate gold and red lace curtains to the rear.
         Now it was widely known, and even more commonly accepted, by those who lived in and abided by the laws of the community that, aside from the delicacies the old wizard purveyed, beyond the curtains in the small but ornately decorated anterior ante-chamber, certain “Other” businesses and various transactions were conducted.  It was not unusual, surprisingly perhaps, for a local enjoying some dish of rolled spices and meats, to witness a fully uniformed officer of the law approach the counter and, when asked by the Bashir as to his particular taste for the day, that he would desire, and if at all possible, something...”Other”.   The Bashir would smile his wizened smile and the two would quietly disappear behind the curtains while one of his glorious daughter minded the counter , much to the delight of every male (a secretly a few females) within a twenty block vicinity.   If you were to listen carefully, of course trying discreetly to mind your business while slowly picking at your food., you might the hear quiet murmuring from behind the softly undulating curtains.   There was often a smell of incense and perhaps some burning under-opiate derivative that would slowly reach out from under the tapestry of golden temples and jade elephants that protected the secret place of secret business.  After a time, from mere minutes to long as tray filling hours depending on the case and specific need, the customer would emerge, usually smiling, or at times crying, but whichever the case, the Bashir would be at their side with a leathery hand placed upon their shoulder and a priestly love within his eyes.  Often, this strange and wonderful love was seen to be openly shared by the customer.
         I remember one winter, as slow motion snow fell and covered the streets and the steps and roofs of the two story walk-ups, that a neighbourhood gang, being young and foolish and, as such, unwise to the often secret ways of the sometime world, took it upon themselves to make the front three tables of the Tarboosh their new hangout.  The Bashir never spoke to them, but rather, simply looked to the nervous or annoyed patrons and smiled to heaven as if to say “ahhh...whatever will I do” and seemed to, for the most part, let the matter rest.   The verbal affronts to his various daughters were unimaginative and generally illiterate but sufficient enough in sheer volume to reduce ne of the poor girls to tears.   The Bashir neither took immediate action nor notified the authorities.  He smiled his knowing smile and looked again to heaven.  Perhaps for solace or intervention or a combination thereof and returned to his duties.
         The youths continued their unwelcomed behaviour for near a full week before a Saturday shut the city down to the such and extent that only those on foot and hale of heart would dare the small warmths and comforts of their homes.  As always, somehow, the Tarboosh remained open.  Four of the youths entered the cafe, brushing thick snow from their tattered denim jackets and baggy, pocket dragging pants, ordered coffees and commenced to loudly and rather offensively make various and elaborate suppositions as to the mating habits of the eldest daughter who was unfortunate enough to be minding the counter at the time.  Oddly, given the inclement atmospheric conditions and the drawing very late of the hour, just as the poor girl was about to rouse the Bashir from his secret contemplations in the annex, the door swung inward and with a rush of snow and biting wind, in walked Tyler Richardson.  He paid no mind whatsoever to the boisterous lads, ordered tea and a kebob and sat himself calmly at one of the windows, seemingly content to watch the sleepy sheets of snow covering the city. He gave off an air of not having a care, or perhaps a purpose, in all the world.
         As the youths continued their general misbehavers, the door chimed again and in strode Omar Khan, the local bricklayer, a dark an muscular fellow know and generally well liked throughout the community.  A his side was Peter Valk, a quiet young man who worked at the local pharmacy, swallowed prescription methadone by the bowlful but who, other than being somewhat reclusive and perhaps too introspective, was generally seen in a kind light as a man of deep pain and hard earned redemption.   They ordered coffee and strong tobacco , seated themselves at the table adjacent to Tyler and began a quiet but intense conversation concerning the perceived “Americanization” of Ice Hockey.
         Before they were even halfway through the first of their blackish oily cigarette treats, again, the door swung inward with a wash of bitter cold, revealing the intimidating form of off duty constable Moore and his beloved and somewhat renowned canine partner “Friendly” the German Shepard.   Both were out of uniform and seemingly quite casual as Friendly shook himself to the amusement of the Bashir’s daughter, ridding his thick coat of accumulated snow and scampering quickly behind the counter, jumping up upon the laughing girl and excitedly licking her face in anticipation of the ritual treat to which had long since become accustomed to.  While Friendly and the girl were thus engaged and the youths stated several possible uses as to the manoeuvres and location of his tongue, Officer Moore quietly locked the door behind him.
         As if on cue, the other three men simultaneously finished their coffees and or stubbed out the last or their smokes, and stood.  Friendly appeared from behind the counter, smacking his lips loudly as he consumed his little reward and jumped right onto the middle of the table where the youths were sloppily arranged, sending cups and ashtrays scattering about.  He stared directly at the suddenly frightened leader of the group and commenced a low guttural growling that could not be mistaken for anything other than the canine version of “I am anything but pleased”.
         Omar casually took off his watch and gave it to the girl for safekeeping.  Tyler closed the curtains and Peter removed his jacket, revealing several tattoos which adorned his sinewy arms, and placed it neatly folded over the back of a chair.   Officer Moor calmly walked to the table and patted the growling Friendly upon the head.
         “Boys.” He said softly
         “It seems we’ve had a little problem”
         The youths feigned a momentary bravado which quickly evaporated when Friendly lunged and grabbed the leader by the jugular, holding fast to the lad as a snake upon the frog.
         “HAD!!! is the operative word here young gentlemen” Officer Moore said as he rolled up his sleeves revealing the muscled forearms of a man long accustomed to various and strenuous labours.
         The snow blew violently outside and the wind screamed at a decibel as to drown out almost all the other sounds of the sleeping city.   Had you passed by the Tarboosh at that precise moment you might have seen the occasional bulging rustle and odd clamouring at the closed shutters, but little else.  None of the lads were killed, or seriously hurt for that matter for, being young, it was felt that lessons were best taught for learning and that the dead or maimed had little chance to apply newfound knowledge towards the betterment of themselves and their brothers.  Suffice it to say that the problem was solved and, as Officer Moore had so aptly stated, the entire situation was left properly in the paste tense.  Just another little secret stay tucked away behind the veils of normallacy and order mankind rears as battlements upon his societal consciousness.
         Now, I was familiar with most of these happenings when I took it upon myself to one day enter the Tarboosh and, in an unusual break with routine, abandoned my usual order of marinated kebob and tea with honey and lemon and suggested that I was, in fact, in the mood for something entirely “other”.  Now let me make it perfectly clear that, even given my knowledge of events as just described, I still had no idea as to the precise nature of the “Other” products and or services provided, but, as a man in some measure of great difficulty reasoned, and rightly so, that I had little to lose and, in the very least, and oh how I prayed, some small measure to gain.
         As anticipated, with the utterance of that one simple word, I was quickly ushered at long last, behind the curtain and seated at a round table which looked as though it had been carved of bone.  The room was completely circular, with shelves spaced approximately a foot apart, one atop the other from floor to ceiling, circling the enclosure in a perfect thee hundred and sixty degree feat of masterful carpentry.   The shelves were filled with large ands small paraphernalia which, though immediately discernable as beautiful, defied specific recognition.   Jars and vases of liquids and lights.  Small bowls of dark sands that moved quietly. Perhaps hiding tiny private pets from secret, long ago deserts.   I cast my eyes over the assortment holding my breath and came to notice a pair of disembodied eyes suspended in an opaque liquid.  They looked here and there and then back at me as to cause a certain measure of uneasy electricity to sneak into my upper spine.
         The Bashir brought coffee, strong and black, in tiny cups etched carefully with strange gold characters that defied my literacy.  He seated himself casually across from me and smiled.  Trials of smoke wafted lazily from his nostrils and hung at the tips of his long whitish, yellowing moustache.  He touched the side of the table and a plate slid back in the surface as a large sphere rose from the darkness of the concealed centre and lit the room in warm. Crackling electric glow.  The Bashir’s eyes reflected the soft power that emanated from the globe.  He reached forward and clasped my hand in friendship and comfort and directed it to the glowing ball.  I let it fall slowly and come to rest upon its surface and was filled with a high electron spike that quickly warmed and comforted m to my toes.
         “Now friend...what “other” would you ask of the Bashir?  You have been a good and faithful patron and in this. As all in like kind, I owe part of my family prosperity to”.
         “I...”  It was hard to speak of it , for, until that very moment, I realized I had never before shaped my mouth around the words that had come to dominate the totality of both my waking and dreaming consciousness.
         “You are with the Bashir friend. Open your heart.  Closed vessels offer no hope for cleansing...
         “I...I have a demon”
         “Yes...”
         “He lives inside of me...”
         “They do prefer the interior warmth of the soul...this is true.”
         “He directs the very voyages of my dreams and so steals a third of mu life to his various hells and, in so doing, hardens my heart to even the simplest elements of the waking world.”
 The Bashir pulled long and hard on his cigarette and leaned forward in dark conspiracy , a look of belief and complete seriousness.  There was no question to him doubting my words...even given the supernatural natural of their significance.
         “And what is its nature?”
         “It is torment and twisted pains to no other purpose than plain suffering tot its own end.”
         “And most often...how does it manifest so that you perceive its appearance?”
         “I rarely see it.  He is dark shadow and hate made real and elusive.  I have glimpsed, at times, horns and moving red equine muscle, hooves, crimson fires and the bosom of some twisted, greasy harpy bitch.  I am chained to it, always and forever, in the deep darkness and follow the lead of the leaden links to nightly tortures and strange discoveries of deepest despair.  The demon remains in shadow and twisting half light and its form seems to shift at will within the tired straining of my muddled mind.  Only its voice remains the same.
         “And the voice...?”
         It is the voice of final doom.  Of legion screaming burning hail through a speaking trumpet.”
         “And by wait name does the wailing of legion name you?”
         “It calls each night in terrible shifting whispers and the muffled screams of drowning children just out of reach and birds lit to searing blaze aflame trapped above waters near and forever removed.  It calls me Job.”
         The Bashir touched his hand to mine and removed it slowly from the sphere.   There was a tear in his eye and he seemed to look at me in a new light of shared pain and friendship.  Despite myself, I was shaking as he rolled a strong herb into fine paper. Lit the end and inhaled deeply, offered it over in friendship and sharing.  I took in the rich smoke and, for the moment at least, my dread and unease were forgotten.
         “Why have you not sought help sooner?” he asked.
         “I am ashamed”
         “He laughed.  A deep and hearty laugh that defied the frailness of his build.
         “This, sadly, is always the way with ones such as these.  In this fact their true power resides.  They make you believe that you are their secret mother, as if you birthed them yourself and must forever be remiss for the very act of it, though the act itself never transpired.   You have not consulted a physician?”
         “No...The demon is real.”
         “Of course...and it is but a shame of our age that most of the recognized shaman cannot see the truths of both worlds which, in reality, combine to make the totality of what we perceive to be real. "
         ”I need the comfort of sleep.  The succour of dark without the darkness as it were.”
         “No...You must battle still more before true sleep will allow you the fruits of its gift.  You are not married?”
         “No...?
         “Why?..”  He was still smiling his wry and loving smile.  It was polite and kind, but pleasantly mischievous within the same moment.  I was surprised with the ease with which my answers came.  Especially so given the depth of their truth and the deeply personal dimensions of their nature.   The Bashir I thought, had a special gift indeed>
         “I cannot love.  The Demon slaves me to the dark until all light is but a dreamed memory and so, none left have I to share.”
         “So you have suffered in silence and a self imposed solitude.”  It was a statement of fact and not really a question at all.
         “Yes...I...I am ashamed”
         “You are a warrior” The Bashir slammed his palm upon the table adding to the effect f his persuasive voice.
         “No...It is stronger...too stronger.”
         “NO!!!!”  This time he slammed both hands upon the table.
         “You are a warrior who has allowed his own inherent strengths to be turned against him.  You are tethered.  Leashed by your own strength.”
         “What can I do?”
         “You Fight”
         “I have been...” I was choking on silly tears that wouldn’t come, and in the sticking of them in my chest, was made ill and weak as from some great and secret flu.
         “ I know.  But all of us who walk the earth, no matter the mettle that makes us, may need of help from time to time.  Accepting the help of those willing its offer gives us greater power still.   You must open yourself back to faith in things outside of your own suffering.  Return to the acknowledgement of others and in the reckoning of it, let it battle for you.”
         “How?”
         The Bashir rose and studied the shelves for a moment.
         “I know this demon. He has been called many things throughout many long ages.  He is Agororg of the Nile.Bnaatt Llaxxitt the Usurper.   The ancients of my culture call him Thanathava Barzhool...eater of the hearts.  Many times have I been called upon to cast him down to the a hell which seems incapable of holding him.  But not in many long years...
         “Why?”
         “Well...he’s been quite busy locked up inside of you hasn’t he!”
         We laughed and the Bashir pressed a small knob of bone on one of the shelves causing the one second from the top to slowly spin.  He looked and patiently waited and then, seeing the object of his scrutiny finally before him, brought the spinning to a slow halt.   He stood shakily on his old toes and reached upward, removing a small black box from its hiding place amidst the endless clutter.  It filled the space of his palm and there was a white “P” painted on one of its flat sheenless surfaces.
         “This is one of my little pets.    You have but to call upon him in your dreams and he will come.  You must have complete faith that he will...for it is in the very essence of his central nature that, if you do not, he will not. Also, before you sleep you must feed him, as he will not do battle for a master that would leave one charged to their care to the slow mercies of hunger,”
         “Feed him?”
         “Yes.  Open the box and attend to it before your next slumber.”
         “How?”
         “Call him.  It couldn’t be more simple.”
         “Call him?”
         “Say his name aloud, for even as the demon. calls upon you, so too must you.”
         “What’s his name?”
         “Pete”
         “Pete!!?”
         “After my third cousin in Des Moines, but that is of no matter.  Take him home in faith and feed him before sleeping.”
         “What does he eat?”
         “Oh...He’s really not fussy if the truth be known.   Raw meat, blood, eye of newt, wing of bat...a frozen eggo in a pinch.   It is the act that matters, not the substance.
         “And that’s it?”
         “You expected something else?”
         “How do I...I mean..How do I pay you?”
         “You have...with your years of patronage and, perhaps more importantly, with the simple love you hold for the second of my daughters.  Go home.  Feed Pete, kill the demon and bring the box back here so that we may properly discuss the marriage with a clear conscience on both our parts.”
         “Marriage!!! I was astounded by his insights.”
         “You warriors” He laughed “So stupid at times in your psychological stubbornness. She is quite taken with you as well, though most likely you have not noticed or let your self believe give nth current nature of your infestation.  There are some things that cannot be hidden my young friend.  Smoke on the flatland, an open fire at night, silly honest love.  They are plain for all to see no matter what our efforts and intentions.  Go home.  Dream and hunt through the very dreaming of it.”
         I left the shop and could not help but notice that the eldest daughter giggled upon my departure.  I took no offense for, by the very melody of her tone, I knew that it was a mirth of hopefulness and not of accusation.   I returned to my flat, walking up the brownstone snow washed steps and unlocked the intricate icicle works laden door with some measure of shaking difficulty and anticipation.  I entered the one bedroom space which was dark and stale, and drew tight the blinds sothat I made my way through habitual familiarity rather than by sight.  I turned on the smallish, dull white light at the beside the tattered bed and sat upon the mattress contemplating the little black box.  I rolled it over delicately in my hands as some great and mysterious treasure.
         “Pete” I said aloud, making myself jump as spoken words within the solitude of my abode were uncommon and the strangeness of it struck deeply at me.  The top of the little cube slid aside and I peered into the dark interior.
         Pete was an ugly little dock spider.  Exactly the kind that, no matter the size, had secretly given the screaming willies at the summer cottages of your youth, the scampering sight of which made you shiveringly aware that, for the most part, you were pretty much buck naked and wet.  The Spider looked up at me and patiently waited.   I was completely fascinated by its gaze and I guesss, as such, al little too much idle time slipped by for the charm’s liking and he took it upon himself to finally break the silence and manage a trick of speaking a little voice inside my head.
         “Hey!!!”
         “Hmm” I was strangely calm.
         “Feed me.  Its time to kick satanic ass and chew bubble gum as they say...and I’m all out of gum brother.”
         Intuitively, I bit down upon the soft flesh between my thumb and forefinger, breaking the surface of the skin and bringing tears of sweet pain to my eyes.  The blood dripped dropped into the box with audible plinks.  Pete quickly cocooned the droplets into tight silk woven packages and commenced to suckling at them.
         “OK lover boy” he said “Hit the sheets!”
 I put the box upon the bare surface of the dusty nightstand and drifted to sleep to the sound of quiet suckling sounds of the spider’s priestly little feast.  I dreamed.
         I saw the suspended image of a past love, hung and drooping limply, lifelessly, in living silk, far above me.  Her arms were outstretched and her head bent downward from the shining twine, letting the god carpet of her black on black hair stream down towards the floor.  I moved towards her, bent perhaps on unleashing my pain and rage upon the constricting dream weave which held her in an eternal bondage, suspend from the living world and from myself.   Even as the first clap of my footfalls echoed across the cold stone, there was a flurry of hurried and scuttering peripheral motion that froze me suddenly still.  From across the corners of the blank darkness and streaming quickly through the a latticework of infinite webbing, a multitude of great and terrible spiders came.  Quick and shiny Black Widows with pear shaped obsidian sheen and swiftly silent scamperings.  Great furry Tarantulae which frenzied downward as a legion of tactical repellers falling from the undisclosed rafters of my hidden mind and coming to rest and scamper upon the flesh of my dreaming desire until all before me was but a moving maze of web, fur and a seething sea of an incarnate black morass beyond the literal realms of my descriptions.  Before my mind could work towards a notion of some serviceable action or plan, the legion had finished its deftly dark work and filtered silently back into shadow and away from sight, leaving only the giant, slowly breathing, pulsating sack of my love cocooned and seemingly forever removed from me...from time.   There was the slow echoing roar of my forever nemesis that swept though the cavers as multitudinous waves of grafted voices and urgent whispers that played a terror havoc upon my senses.  A million crazed Latin Parishioners chanting backwards chaos and the blowing of hit icicles through some metallic, rusty breathing organ, came upon a stinking wind and ran the course pf the hairs of my body from head to ankle and set them ablaze, and, with a small blast of thick, oily burning smoke, they incinerated and once more I was birth naked.  My feet sank impossibly into the stone floor and came to rest solidly and most firmly implanted within dense matter reaching halfway up my shivering thighs.
         “PastlovesJobweakweakweaknessessssssss” the dammed whispered.   There was a frantic melting of the last of the light and ,despite all the efforts of my greatest raging, it fled easily and died easily before its time in the coming of the demon.
         “My Jobssssss...My lovesssssZZZZ”   The demon called as always and upon the twisted annunciation of the word love, I sank further still afoot or more into the stone and darkness and was washed with memories that, despite all my intentions and long harbored pains, simply would not die and take their proper place in a quiet past.
         I remembered a love from long ago.  A time of school and early spring.  We had taken to the soft banks of a river and lay together in grassy sands.  There was cheese and grapes, a half emptied smooth bottle of red wine that we sipped and traded the tastes of back and for the between our lips as might slowly fell and the insects of the wood their soothing songs of courtship.  Easy water trickled and played over softened stone run eternal smooth and we shed the last of our clothes and facades and played at God’s secret hiding in the bliss of our flesh and the burning power of the consciously intangible behind the closed lids of our fluttering eyes.  So close to some god, and yet, as close I had come at that precise moment in my youth he/she/they/it had escaped me for, even then, the demon had laid his hand upon the openness of my youngish heart.
         The underbrush roared with a coming rage and before we could reach for some clothing and protection, cold electric light blinded the loving of our eyes and something heavy struck a blow upon the left of my temple and I was cat down immobile and stunned and twitching as the first of the beasts broke into the false circle of light and took to my love as some great humping swine, maddened and crazed and she screamed but once.  There was a flash of dull steel and they cut her.  Then only her muffled sobs as they turn after torturous turn upon her. I fought, but those not engaged with her form took it pleasantly upon themselves to kicking and stabbing here and there and soon I was dazed beyond hope and at a loss for blood and I remembered some great brutish thug lifting me finally skyward and for a moment I flew through the crisp night air and then a cold bubbling, dancing darkness which took me downstream and it was the last time I saw my love, a broken plaything upon stained sand, legs splayed and bleeding, her head at an impossible, almost comical doll like angle and her tongue swollen and bulging from the mashed pulp of her mangled lips.  I tumbled forever in the waters with a mantra of screaming dimensions floating through my confused mind which seemed to have as Styrofoam suddenly bulging with heavy water, screaming over and over and over again
         “Weaker and weaker and ever the seeker...Weaker and weaker....”
         Again I was helpless and as the images faded from my dream mind, a long leather flail unleashed itself from the dark and whipped around my right wrist, drawing blood and fastening through to the bone, pulling my arm up and tight, outstretched to the point of tendons tearing, towards and invisible sky forever and always beyond my reach.  Another whip cracked and pulled my left arm in the same fashion so that I was laid bare and helpless, straining towards heaven yet bogged in stone to the upper thigh.   I imagined I looked to be pleading an invisible mercy where none could ever be considered, yet alone granted.
         “Jobsssszzz.   Bleedssszzzz for m Jobsssszzzz” There was a crack of whips and corked, jagged cutting woods and frozen splintery leathers that worked as quick fire across the front and back of my exposed torso.
         “Yesssszzzz...Sufferssszzz for me Jobssszzzzzzzz.  It isszzz I fine thing to feed the vanitiessszzz of your makerssszzz issszzz it not?  Fill the webssszzz with the very tearssszzz of your living yearssszzzzzzzz.”
         “Through the clouds of agony I could fathom the suspended sack growing and bubbling and as a swarming of wasps began a crescendo of buzzing and stabbing stinging barbed bites upon the bones of my soul, I hear worse even still.   The demon impaled the sack with a hollow steel protrusion of his own malleable flesh and there was a screaming, as from the river’s past, and the breaking of a neck and an issuing of contained juices let free and demon began to sickly suckling.
         “Weaker and weaker and ever the seeker...Weaker and weaker and .....”
 Some Sub-demon Succubus appeared before me naked and oiled and, for all the good left in my soul, attractive and diseased within the fetid perfumed breath of the same heartbeat.  She had long hair which burned crimson fire red and across the glorious shimmering golden brown of her skin, octopine disks of bone razor made a strange display as she commenced to slid up and down my bare body arousing me and simultaneously raking and gouging quarter sized chunks of flesh that the disks gorged and chomped hungrily up and down upon with sensual relish and still I became increasingly inflamed with dread and a hard, sweating desire.
         “Lover boy” she cooed “Lover boy!!!
 She managed a small incantation and raised me slightly from the stone so that my genitals were completely free and she worked and evil magic upon them with burning oils and the impossible dark sensuality of her mouth.  The act was devoid of love or sharing and ,as such, kindled a new and special fire all its own.  Every stag film, testosterone fantasy fulfilled and yet I cried even as she took me between the odd comforting of her breast and worked a new and wonderfully decrepid trick to which I had no defences nor restraint.
         “Defile me lover boy.  Make game of your seed and paint with pretty necklace the pearls of my wanting”
         It built and built until finally there was no hope of control and she was showered in an impossibly abundant issuance and she screamed in delight and transformed from her mysterious beauty into the figure of a six teated sow and began to roll and play in the wet mud of my disgrace and shame.  There was a thunder of heavy hooves that shook the earth and the coming of the demon filled the halls with tumultuous power and shaking. The Styrofoam of my mind bloated strangely and everything seemed at once too large and too light for their own dimensions.  I saw only a flash of fantastical muscle and a komodo dragon tail of red fire as the majestic strength of him filled the light of the wallowing of the succubus and before the minds eye could catch and make reason of the form of him, she was rent in quarters and bled sloppily through newly opened cracks in the stone and quickly disappeared as if she had never really been.   He slaughtered even his own for that, above all things great and small alike, was his primal nature.   From the dark was the voice of doom once more,
         “Each and every night Jobssszzzz.  Until only time itsszzelf withers the falssszzze flessszzzsh from your ssszzoul and we can forever play uninterrupted by the tediumssszzz of the waking world.  Till the end of time and ssszztil you are mine.  What say you my beloved Job?  Tell me of your weaknessszzz...feed it to me as mile through the passzzzture.  Feel the empty power of your weightlessszzz ssszzzoul and ssszzzhare with me the grandnessszzz of itssszzz impotencssszzz.”
         “Pete” I said.  The Spider scampered lightly and inoffensively out of my left nostril.  He ran down my torso as white magic and bandaged the raked flesh and disk sores of the Succubus in glorious bandages of silken grace.   He ran the length of my arms, made short work of the leather bonds and freed my arms, bandaging the bare bone of my wrists which I quickly brought with relief to my chest and cried for the simple comfort of him.
         “You know something blood friend” he spoke inside my mind
         “What” I cried
         “You are really...seriously...pregnant moth fluttering panicked vibrations in the webbing..fucked up.  I really mean it...WOW!!!!”
         The darkness exploded in waves of fire and we would have been burned to the heavy ground but, as fast as the crimson wind flew, a silken shield was spun around us and the gale screamed by and past into an echoing emptiness.
         “Excuse me” Pete said calmly inside my brain.
         “Duty calls”
         He scampered in the general direction of the maelstrom, incredibly small and light and, for all appearances, a tiny thing of great fragility and weightless insignificance in the shadow of the demon.   There was a silence for a moment and I fathomed I could hear the light scurrying of my little spider god across the stone. Then, Hell itself broke loose in time and unleashed itself before the terrible burning of my tired eyes.   Crimson flare and their was the aged screaming of an endless procession of hidden and lost souls left to a lamented aria of wailing.  The stone cracked with the hooves of the demon pounding and seeking in vain to vanquish the seeming insignificance of my rented David.
         Soon there was another storm, but instead pf bloody fire, it was a frenzy of crisscrossing silken snow that wrestled with, and finally overcame, the raging of the dark enemy.   The light grew and grew and then the shimmering of the new web was visible before me and I rose, suddenly unfettered from my heaviness and rose up and out of the floor.  Giant cocoon, some thirty feet tall and ten abreast, hung in the middle of the marvel of the web, a long red tail flicking and twitching uselessly this way and that , out of one side. Pete slid a snowy wire and came to rest in mid air looking back at me in laughter and joy in the face of my obvious stunned confusion.
         “Well” He spoke
         “Well what?
         “Make your peace”
         “How?”
         “Take back that which he stole”
         “I don’t understand...”  I was trembling though I could not fathom the reason/s why
         “Touch him...touch him and let yourself remember...”
         “I am weak”
         “You are a child of the Universe.  Of god.  A warrior.”
         “I am afraid”
         He laughed at this.
         “As all the crazy brave”
         I stepped forward and was daunted by the breathing of the great sack.  As I contemplated the mass of it, a small hole tore open in the webbing, exposing the muscled red wall of the enormous heaving chest.   Pete dropped to the floor and fashioned a silken steel knife.
         “Touch his heart and remember brother”
         “I...I am too weak...”
         “As any in time...REMEMBER AND END THIS USELESS NIGHTMARE”
 I picked up the knife and with a tumultuous trepidation overcome by sorrow and bitter rage, cut into the chest. Marking a deep “X” across the hiding place of the beating heart.
         “Take it back”
         I reached into the incision and plunged my hand inside the very burning core of my antithesis.
         “REMEMBER”
         I was cast in a tidal wash of memory.  From the love at the river, to the morning stubble of a drunken father forgotten, all love and caring buried in protection and isolating bourbonized granite.  I remembered it all.  The hopes, the dreams, the simple childhood pleasures and reckless fantasies and every   failure of my life caused not of happenstance but of my own perceived inabilities fears and shortcomings.
         Fault...
         Guilt...Guilt...Guilt...It went on and on forever and forever more as the and endless road to some cerebral forgotten Oz.
         “Brother?...”
         “Yes...” Pete thought...”Remember”
         How had I forgotten him?  I was transported back in time some two decades, back to a Christmas eve of Sixteen year old magic.  Hot wine and crazy Scottish Broom ball cheers and steaming whoops of frivolity amidst and endless passing of bottles.  Lights, bright and of every hie, shunting the darkness of winter night and bringing to a grace of warm life the encapsulating snow of a Badland December.
        I remembered returning home to the tree and gifts awaiting.  Candlelight and the pouring of warm egg nog and heavy rum to wash down a last game of chess by the crackling magic of the fire.  I remembered the last time...the very last second that ever was I at peace with my god, who, though still hidden, seemed happy and involved in all things real.
         “Brother?”
         “Feel it Job...Let it come”
         I remembered a forsaken ghostly image in the resemblance of my Mother, coming down down the stirs with panic and grief beyond an eternity of weeping upon her face.  She stumbled down the stairs to where Father had taken up a half drunken slumber for the night and then...the thunder of his heavy footfalls as the door from his lair cast wide and he roared up the stirs to the bedrooms of the second floor and I heard him fling open the door to my brother’s room and the words that ingrained themselves upon the heart of my waking and dreaming soul.
         “My son...”
         In my greatest guilt, I knew right then and there, no further explanation required,that he was dead.  I hadn’t even heard the final resounding gunshot blast that had taken his young mind and cast it as a macabre painting across the ceiling and the walls, but still I think of it often and it remains with me deep, as old scar tissue, tough and unforgiving with even time as an aid.  I did not need for Father to dial for the Police and ambulance, did not need to fathom the forever meanings behind his words to the operator...
         “Gunshot victim...No...No assailant...No...He’s dead.”
         I remembered crimson lights and sirens whirling across the whiteness of Christmas snow and strange uniformed men and women invading the private sanctity of the Christmas home as if they belonged their and had always been.  And at last...at so long last..I remembered my brother.  Tears came, decades in hiding, as a flooding from some mammoth levee long erected and maintained against an inevitable wash.  His face returned to me, young and innocent and yet so very pained in forlorn in his quiet, secret suffering.  I reached further into the chest of the beast and my fingers touched cold porcelain.   I pulled through the veil of my tears and ripped the urn from the heart of the monster.
         “Brother” I cried
         Pete led me quietly through the twisted catacombs of the caverns of my mind which were endless and for so long had seemed to me as being devoid of any clear path of returning.  We cam to final lit opening and the whiteness of it took the sight from my mind and added to the tears which bled from my eyes.  After a painful adjustment we saw, and were greeted by, a vision of an Alberta winter, bright and crisp forty below snow sparking as diamonds in the cold.  The Bow, the great and ever present river of my youth stretched before us in a quiet but deeply powerful rumbling of ice water and sun.   I opened the urn and cast the ashes into its stealthy waters, which swallowed him with relish and quickly churned the last of his essence back into a oneness with all things.  A flock of winter geese took to the snowy sky, honking as if in recognition of the absolution and I fell frozen to the ground and watched as my guilt and weakness bled quietly into the land and down the river where it was carried away...softly but inevitably...as all things in time.
         I awoke back in the small, unadorned bareness of the chamber of my room.  Funny that I had never before noticed how devoid of feeling and colour it was.   The little black box with the “P” was on the nightstand, but I felt no need to open it.  I felt as though I had slept for a hundred long years and a wonderful hunger pulled me from the sheets.  I dressed and made my way with some urgency to the Tarboosh.  I entered and was greeted by the knowing smile of the eldest daughter and I made a conscious effort to smile back.   I went behind the curtains where I found the Bashir smoking.  I handed him the box and, without a word, he returned it to its place on the shelf and spun the device until its position was lost amidst he clutter.  The curtains parted and the second daughter took a seat beside her father and looked to me with an easily discernable hope and loving.
         “I believe you know my second daughter...Rema” He said.
         We shared tea and laughter and in so doing, started proper, a courtship so very, very long overdue.