"Deviled Eggs: Chapter 1" by S. E. Worley

Max sat in his office in Dis, alone, like always. He was quite antisocial. Unlike his brother Alex who had a woman (or man) every night. Max sighed and looked around the room. It was furnished very luxuriously: blood red velvet curtains draped over the windows and beautiful oak flooring and bookshelves lined the walls. If Max had anything it was taste and wealth. Having such things never insures happiness as we all know.

Max had sat many days, months, years, decades, and centuries in this room. He knew it by heart. This only made him feel less comfortable and alienated. His brother Alex always got everything while Max strived to match his twin’s level, but only fell farther back.

He wasn’t ever happy with his job. Max had tried to create a utopia for the right brained people, but it failed miserably when the demons rioted back before time counts. Alex was living it up in Heaven, everything went Alex’s way.

Max got up and lit a cigarette he took from his breast pocket. He paced the room before finally walking out into the dim-lit and lonely hallway. Darkness hides loneliness. He wandered down the hallway dragging on his cigarette until he reached a large stain wood door. When he opened it smoke poured out. He entered and shut the door. There were six men in the room, all old, smoking, and well-dressed. These men were Max’s advisors. When Max didn’t need advice they just sat around, smoked, and played poker.

Max sat down at the table and sighed, each man looked up at him.

“What is it, your royal highness?” asked a round man pinching a cigar between two piggy fingers.

“I need some advice,” Max said, sighing smoke from his lungs. If a man didn’t already smoke, just being in this room could get him hooked onto it. Sitting over three feet from a person would make it impossible to see them, since the room was so thickly blanketed in smoke.

One of the leaner advisors spoke, looking over round glasses, “Of course you need advice, your royal highness, this is why you came to us.” Max glared, he hated sarcasm. He often wondered if sarcasm was from his realm or his brother’s. Of course sarcasm wasn’t so bad if it was coming from Max’s mouth.

“Well, men, I’m so terribly lonely here in Dis, I fear it’s not where I belong,” Max stated sadly.

“Not where you belong?! It is your world, you created it!”

“I guess you do not understand what I am saying. All you men have families you go home to, I do not. The only family I have is strutting his stretched out ass up in Heaven. While he adores me, I cannot stand him. Besides Alex I only have my parents who deny they have a son besides Alex, for he is all they care about and their hearts are only big enough for one child.” Max got up disgusted and upset and left the room before he made more of a scene. While Max was not fond of much company, he always seemed to crave attention from anyone he could get it from. Usually this left him ashamed and more alone.

He hurried up to his room and swept past his bed and out to the balcony. Max made his way over to he railing and rest his hands on it. Several stories below the balcony there was the vast lawn and below him was a silvery pond. In this pond was not water, but damned souls pushing and thrashing against each other to escape.

He watched this and stood silent for several minutes, observing the waves of the pond. Slowly he eased down onto the floor of the balcony and sighed. Hell was not where he belonged, and Heaven disgusted him. He was lost in the universe and had no road map. He prayed for peace. Praying proves to be a problem when it is a deity who is praying, for they have no one to pray to except life itself. Praying for them is more like futile hoping.

He thought for a long time, about his life and job. Max wished he had a way to escape, but when you are already dead suicide is not an option.

There on the balcony he fell asleep and awoke only when his manservant found him.

“Sir, it is nine o’clock,” the servant said.

Max yawned and stretched out, “Already?” He whipped the sleep from his eyes and got up using the balcony rails.

He paused a moment, trying to remember the dream he had last night. It was about a woman, and not his mother this time. Max dreamed about his family a lot. They were the only people he actually knew.

Max had many servants in his home, but never took the time to get to know them beyond their names.

Finally, he left the balcony and made his way into his room to change. He clothes had gotten very wrinkly from sleeping on the floor of his balcony.

His manservant, Stephen, had Max’s clothes all laid out already. Max had better things to do than choose his outfit and even dress himself.

Max’s tastes in clothing were centered mostly around the 18th century. His shirts were lined with white lace frills and he wore a lot of brocades and velvets. His pants reached to his knees and his calves were covered by knit white stockings. In short, he was a complete pansy, a very rich one.

It takes quite awhile to dress when one wears so many clothes, which is why he had someone do it for him. Max stood while his servant put him into his clothes and thought. His dream seemed to be at the tip of his mind and he couldn't quite reach it. It was about a woman for sure, but he could not remember what she looked like or who she was. Beyond the fact that it was about a woman he could not remember any other parts of his dream at all.

“Arms out, m’lord.”

Max woke up from his thoughts and put his arms out for his servant to pull his shirt around him. It must of been quite a dream last night to keep him asleep until nine when he usually woke at five to get ready for work.

Stephen finished dressing him and sat Max down. The servant brushed his face with a white powder to make his skin appear more pale. Afterwards, the servant brushed Max’s dark hair and braided it back so that it sat between his shoulder blades.

Max had never been with a woman, or a man, and now wondered what it would be like. He had rarely had the time to think of such things, but now he felt he was engulfed in a sea of dark loneliness and he needed to catch a breath. He made his way to his office.

When he got there he sat down in his large, expensive desk chair. Most things Max owned were large and expensive. Including his house, which was a castle built in the center of Dis. It had more floors than countable, and several basements, including a dungeon. The interior was rich and decorated similar to his clothing: in brocade and velvet. The walls were either covered by old tapestries or paintings and portraits, mostly of Max himself. And to keep up a large building such as this he had over fifty servants employed to do anything from cleaning to dressing him, as Stephen did.

The massive size of his home did not help Max feel less lonely what so ever. The halls always echoed and 90 percent of the rooms were not used, but covered in white dust sheets. Max desperately longed for someone to help him fill the rooms.

Not long after Max got involved into his paper work an unwanted guest invited himself in.

“Ah, Max, I knew I'd find you in here,” a familiar voice pepped at him.

“Of course you’d find me here, this is where I live, Alex,” Max spoke to his twin brother. Alex commonly visited Max in his office, much to Max’s annoyance. Alex always seemed to be so happy about something or another, usually it was because of someone he had slept with the past night. “What is it that you want, Alex? I am very busy you know, I don't just jump rope all day like you.”

“I don’t only jump rope, brother, I do other things too.”

“I do not care to know what those are, because more likely than not they involve you and someone else without your clothing on,” Max finally looked up at Alex and frowned. Alex was dressed in a pink leotard and a very full tutu. In his hand, Alex held a sparkling wand tipped with a star and in his hair there was a tiara, “and what in Your name are you wearing?”

“Oh well, I was feeling quite upset this morning and need to be pepped up, so I found this ol’ thing in my closet and hopped right into it! And look at me now, Max, just happy as a puppy. You really need to try it, I’m sure you will enjoy it.”

“Wearing a tutu and looking like an utter ass?”

“No, you idiot! Being happy. You just sit around and pout all day like a teenage girl in love,” Alex tapped Max’s forehead with the star wand, “all you really need is a hug and a good slap on the bum.”

Max sighed, this is exactly the sort of thing he did not stand for. It was hardly orderly, and made no sense. “Could you please leave, I really need to get some work done, I slept in today.”

“Oh Max! What were you doing up so late last night?” Alex winked in an over exaggerated way.

“Nothing, now go!” Max trusted his index finger at Alex and he vanished, being swallowed up in flames. Max had sent him back to where he belonged, that disgusting hippy land, Heaven.

Finally, Max got back to work. Although not for very long, a peice of paper appeared on his desk, along with it the revolting smell of lilacs. Lilacs were the signature of Alex. Would he never give Max some peace? Max picked up the letter from his twin and read it:

Dear Max You’re such a grouch, you just need a woman in your life. I can get you one, don’t worry, brother. You two will spend long summer nights and--

Max stopped before it made him even more sick than he already was from the lilacs. There may have been long nights in hell, but there wasn’t summer, and how could Alex even assume that Max preferred women, he could have felt more comfortable with men for all his brother could know.

Max crumpled up the letter and tossed it into his waste bin, which automatically shredded it. Although having a magic waste basket that shreds is quite handy, it was not in this case, for shredding the paper only sent more lilac perfume into the room.

He quickly took out a cigarette and lit it to cover the smell and continued working, doing whatever the deity of Hell does.