The Black Evil

(One day… you meet it, and invite it inside.)

The upstairs window was large and old. Its antique handmade panes distorted the landscape by day and the faces reflected in them by night. From there, he could look out over the village nestled at the foot of the little hill where the house had been built.
The window was his only link to the outside world. From there he watched everything: the changing seasons, the people, the cars and bicycles, the craftsmen at work in their shops, the tourists who happened to pass through that place, the clouds, the wind… everything drifted past his window.
The window was like a giant television, forever switched on to a TV show he could neither change nor turn off, yet one that still managed to hold his interest.

There had been a time, before the Black Evil, when anyone looking through that window would have seen Him walking among the other villagers, living that very TV show himself, with the astonishing freedom to change it… to decide, at least, the course of his own life.
Then one day the Black Evil arrived. Silent. Reassuring. Gentle. Enveloping.
He invited it in. He welcomed it into his home. He invited it to sit down.

He never sensed the danger, least of all those hands: small, timid, red, cold… and without fingernails. Hands that did not know how to scratch, that seemed incapable of hurting anyone… yet knew how to caress, gently, slowly, ever so slowly, until they wore you down and consumed you.
He noticed nothing and became close friends with the Black Evil. From that day on, it never again left the house… and from that day on, neither did He.

The Black Evil disliked the great window. It disapproved of that bond with the outside world… the possibility of leaving… the freedom to choose… hope itself. It would never allow such things. Hope would never again find its way into its new friend’s heart… its little hands would see to that.

Its endless caresses upon his eyes and heart slowly robbed the great window of everything worth looking at. Day after day, the world beyond grew duller and grayer, as gray as his own eyes in the mirror. He did not remember them being that color, but perhaps they had always been that way… It no longer mattered. The outside world meant nothing to him now. It no longer called to him.

No one saw him standing at the window anymore, gazing at that meaningless grayness. Instead, he lay on his sofa beside the Black Evil, surrendering to those gentle little hands as they brushed against his body, stealing every last trace of strength, wearing away his flesh, feeding on his warmth… Each day he drifted off to sleep wrapped in the embrace of those small, cold, reddish hands.

Then one day, the front door opened.
The Black Evil came out… alone.
Slowly, lightly, gently, it made its way among the people of the village. Many failed to notice it, as though it did not exist. Others greeted it. Only a few invited it inside.
The Black Evil chose its new friend and quietly settled into its new home.

Several days passed before the open door of the house on the hill stirred the curiosity of the villagers.
Inside, they found only a body staring back at them with lifeless green eyes.