text: Caution swearing. Read at you're own risk... I loved my new glasses. The thick black frames lounged on my nose. The plastic arms touched, not clutched. The lens allowed my peripheral vision to relax. My eyes watered a little but they had to no longer try, try real hard to read. I could even see a large protruding, unplucked hair on my upper lip! I did not have to rely so heavily on my tactile sense or memory, or my hearing to inform me of my blurry world. After drinking a couple of coffees and finding my last cigarette filter, from crawling on all Fours, under the Cain frame of chair, I rolled my defiant cigarette, without washing my hands, and lit it. With my phone balanced on my left thigh and right hand free, I typed Reedsy Prompts into Google search, then password then reveal. The deal with the Devil prompt amused me! I chuckled. Near the outdoor furniture, an unfinished painting wanted my attention. I gave it some! The thought of phthalos blue crusts under dissuaded me. The stuff stains and dries slowly and hard to scrub off and out. The colour is transparent- beautiful- like the tranquil sea in the afternoon kissed by the sun. It's the sort of colour one can paint happy fish in, or mermids- whatever- I wondered, did I want to spend a few hours writing a contentious story that would probably have the most righteous hitting my story and then sharing, to prove my unworthiness of having life and a different viewpoint. Also, then- there's the implications of some stupid person might go there, based on my supposition! Did I need to be responsible for that? Did I need all the Karen's stalking me and sucking my physical energy from their precipice of self righteous, rigid thinking? Looking up from my device, some sort of shadow seemed to forming in the corner of my right eye. As forementioned, my eyes were hypersensitive, learning, remembering, they had overworked and then upon recognition, telling my tactile sense it had over felt! My notification bar, pinged. It was not a loud ping, but my hearing had still not conditioned to its new status, as my etes and tactile sense forgot to pass on the consensus! I was able to easy read, a Spam email- "Sell your soul" Once again, I was amused and to further my own merriment, I read it! I always read T's & C's. They say a wise person learns from their mistakes! Well, I learnt after loosing several hundred dollars twice! Pussy-cat, seeing my mental focus, jumped for joy, squished my tummy and settled on my lap for a very reliable two hour sitting, or perhaps more? She always looked forward to that time- when I got passed the idea download, to a point of decisive action and then work. I guess any writer knows that sequence of ideas, of decisions and then real WORK! She widened eyes, at the expanding shadow, exhaling, muscles relaxing, purring, she happily welcomed sleep. One of the contract conditions was, "Write this week's Reedsy Prompt" I thought, "How fucking corny is that?" The other conditions sounded like a practical joke! By now, I realised that Reedsy was hacked! PING, another email, this time from Reedsy! "We have been hacked! The site will be down for twenty-fours hours, while we update and strengthen our firewalls. Sorry for the inconvenience!" I checked the Reedsy Prompts for this week, sent two days prior. Yes, there was one prompt called, "Making the deal with the Devil and unusual T's and C's..." When rethinking the generated Spam, I rolled my eyes, "Some smart asses out there!" I tightened my lips, now, what sort of T's and C's, the small print, would the Devil- if the Devil was real- Would (he) impose? And what would a person selling their soul want for such a cataclysmic idea?The notion of, THE Devil, singular, belongs to a paradigm. That notion of good and evil belongs to morals and the dogma- the daulistic third-dimensional reality. How could I write such a dinosaur idea? PING! This time, a Text! "Congratulations, Rose Lind you just sold your soul!" I was annoyed now! I'm really sick of hackers. I stayed cool when my phone company was hacked twice, taking all our personal data. I stay pleasant when having a few hours off work last month, lining up in huge serpentine lines, to apply for a new driver's licence. I shrugged my shoulders when the same phone company had an outage for twelve hours. I turned off the news, on my car radio, the uproar in Australia parliament as a result of the forementioned could be understood, some people had medical issues, businesses lost money, hospitals were out! I answered that texted, "Fuck off!" To my surprise another- PING- occurred! Email- "Compliance Communication! YOU HAVE VIOLATED CONDITION 15 (iii) " This was getting under my skin- I typed "Remind me please - " PING -another email! Breathing in and out a few times, I regained a quiet smile. The remaining muscle tension was channelled into a raised eyebrow! 'CONDITION 15 (iii), Thou shalt not swear!" I saw a contact tile at the bottom of the email and tapped it. On their site, I mocked, "Isn't the devil, the baddie? Isn't the devil the Jester?" Princess my customer service officer rolled, "..."- "..."- "..."- And finally an the automated thinking gave a reply, "I make the decisions, not you" I signed out. I really needed another coffee after that! But should I move and wake Jija, the cat? Would my normal musing writer ground to centre? I deliberately pressed both feet into the wet earth patch. It had rained yesterday and my feet were bare, as my old slippers in their dreary frumpy existence waited for their nightshift. I imagined roots going deep to earth's core. I imagined fire burning away the emails and texts natter- disappearing! Pussy-cat cat feeling the regained vibe, purred deeper in her dream. Her little paws flickered like she was running. Maybe she was chasing a butterfly, or a feather on a stick. I dont know? What I do know was she was happy! I began to type, "Read at you're own risk!" I looked at the funny swirling mist in front of me and continued, "If the Devil really existed outside of a pluristic irresponsible, protectory, transferring, persecutory, punishing paradigm, then (he) would be the exact opposite of good. I reasoned- Mmm, sooo- if there were T's & C's- they would be the opposite of what you- your lower self- youre mortal physical mind- would- umm- think of as good-" The mist turned to fluoro pink, green and blue! Persisting I wrote, "For example- You believe goodness is making your bed and ironing your clothes? Then you would be told to not make your bed every morning, or iron your clean clothes!" The annoyance of the Spam emails, texts etc returned to my mind, "So when you're dancing with Hell's domiciles, the talk of bed making every morning would be - leaving the sheets open allowing the sunlight and fresh air to destroy bacteria etc instead. OR- not ironing your clothes saves electricity and saves the Planet, thus, forcing the state of allowance, to see human vanity" I realised, I needed a disclaimer- "Be careful- The Unseen world can be dangerous! The Devil may not be real to me, but to you- it might be! Tread very, very carefully, naivete still has beautiful soft flesh and bones to become a yummy dinner for something looking at you from another dimension! Protect yourself with whatever you believe in. Live in the guidelines of what your believed protection asks. And keep a strong mind- good mental health! If you need help chose the professional help of the path you choose!" My phone rang, "Accept or Deny" tiles gave a choice- speak or be spoken to? I chose silence. It rang through to message bank! A sound of a smashing glass mirror removed the sunspot from my eyes! The played recorded message spoke in some unknown tongue. I pushed Google translate, "You're application denied. We believe- you don't believe!" Reedsy Site reappeared, I posted my boring story. 🐇