A Demon's Day at the Office

By Hope K

Ascaroth cursed himself again for getting sloshed and losing that poker game with the military guys back in the 20th century. Now look at him, stuck in a cubicle underneath a scrubby mountain in New Mexico, reading teen texts and penis enlargement spam.

He rolled his chair from the monitor, lit a cigarette, and reminisced. For thousands of years, he’d roamed the globe, administering aid to spies and informants. It was a plum job with good benefits and free travel to exotic locations.

Overlooking the Bosphorus at sunrise, Roth once had facilitated the meeting between one of the Sultan’s men and a politician whose wife had slept with Constantine. So much for the Byzantine Empire.

Now all he had was the internet.

Roth rolled his broken chair back to his computer and opened an encrypted messaging app (total beast to install and navigate) where he had gotten friendly with some journalists. Every member of the group was present, he noted. Unusual.

He typed the customary “Hello friends.” Maria, the cute one from Managua, wrote “Hola Roth,” but the rest were deep in conversation. Scrolling through the text, he saw something incredible. Roth leaned closer to the screen, fascinated by what the two Americans had to say.

A feeling he hadn’t experienced in decades washed over Roth: hope. Elimination of the internet would mean the most vital information would have to be passed on by other means. Oh, the places he would go.

Roth wondered if it could possibly be true.

Reading the messages as they popped up, the intricacy of the plan along with his thousands of years of experience convinced him it was true. The details were accurate and the sources were credible. Roth was thrilled.

There was only one problem. He had to tell somebody what the conspirators were plotting. It was part of his job description, and if he slacked off again, his boss might send him to an even worse place, a place far hotter than New Mexico in the summer.

He thought of something. The day before, Roth had read numerous social media posts by a human called Mothman who appeared to have florid schizophrenia. Mothman spent his days pounding out Chelsea Clinton fanfiction in all caps.

Nobody would believe that guy.

Roth cracked his knuckles and got to work. He tracked down Mothman on Blather and wrote him a personal message describing this situation and the dire nature of it. Without the internet, Mothman would have to write his stories with pen and paper, and who knows if anybody would ever read them again?

Roth was also sure to include the phone numbers of the one U.S. Senator and two Representatives who hadn’t been blackmailed into total submission yet.

“That should do it.”

Roth leaned back in his chair and laughed. Where would he go once he was free from his bondage?

Nicaragua sounded nice. He imagined visiting Maria from Managua while she was sleeping, running his fingers through her hair and reading her mind.