The Lesser Evil

Entry for Aurelian Ashmore’s challenge, Submit Your Demon

Photo & Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2025.

I am Marasme, Demon of the Lesser Evil.

You have been hearing me all your life, but you just realize it now.

I depend on no one, and I am not here to serve you.

You did not even realize you were invoking me, every time you said, with a miserable forced chuckle, ‘oh, it could be worse.’

You unknowingly summoned me all the times when, out of weakness, you were content with something that was ‘good enough.’

You have adorned yourself with me every second you have wallowed in mediocrity without flinching.

And to thank you, I will not let you feel any pride.

But I am going to spell exactly who I am to you, at every moment of the rest of your faltering life.

I AM…

I am the conciliant belief that you taught yourself early on, and that accompanies every aspect of your life, from the most trivial to the most crucial.

I am the tasteless food that contracts your tonsils, but which you swallow with a polite facial contraction.

I am the color, the only one left in stock, that sickens you just by seeing it out of the corner of your eye.

I am the eternal half-mast, which wastes before you can even dream of climax.

I am the static grin on all the faces you meet, which you call friendly for want of a better word.

I am the pep-talk you use to dress up your false contentment when you lamentably languish in second place.

I am the rise of bile in your throat when you listen, too patiently, to the boasts of your peers, who have better than better-than-nothing — oh, let’s say it, have better than better.

I am the vengeance that enters the dance, no sooner have they disappeared around the corner, leaving you prey to repressed rage, and unspoken murderous desires.

I am the discount vacation you got to ape what everyone else does, and that does you as much good as a magnifying glass shining on you in the sun.

I am the children whom you taught to be careful, but who dangerously disregard your teachings with the mocking glee of a ‘no problem’, a ‘it is alright’, or even a ‘do not worry, lol’.

I am the ballot paper you placed in the ballot box for the politician you had convinced yourself was the least likely to unroll the entrails of your land, and let them tan under Satan's sun.

BUT ALSO, I AM…

I am the scourge that whips your back every time you dare to ask for what is owed to you in public.

I am the regrets and worries that gnaw at you, in the secret of night.

I am the mirror that will never show you anything other than a tolerable reality.

I am the submission of the free fall that lasts, and lasts in a warm and clammy air.

I am the fetid relief of the greatest evils escaped.

AS, YES: I am the thief of every hope on the horizon.

You understand it now; I am the very lowest level of horror, wrapped in the cloak of normality, but poisoning more slowly and surely than a devious venom.

Ultimately, I am the rot in your soul, which consumes it with an evil that is certainly not lesser.

And when I will decide to leave you there, all alone…

… you will be stuck with the contrite smile of a papier-mâché saint, hardened on your face like bad plastic surgery, but with your eyeballs throbbing with the terror of a lukewarm, wasted life.

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This flash fiction has been written as part of a challenge set by

Aurelian Ashmore

, called ‘Submit Your Demon’. Read about it here:

Submit your demon