XV

Tonight I am many people. You would be surprised.

Tonight I am Kali, Goddess of Destruction.

Who dares to stand before me? Who dares to feast upon my great and terrible beauty? Insolent dung beetle! Stinking canker! I am carnage made flesh! The very manifestation of rage! I am unending annihilation! Your ignorance of my catastrophic power angers me. You are nothing but pus and spew, rot and spoil! I am indestructible and infinite, ceaseless and measureless. I will vivisect you! I will lay you open, slice you into quarters, then feed your moldering carrion to the pigeons in the McDonald’s parking lot!

 

But first, can I tell you what I’m wearing?

I look really hot. My face is a molten shade of vermilion, buffed to a high gloss. My eyes are golden, and so are my lips. I have five pairs of number 201 eyelashes on each eye. I’m wearing a lovely set of horns, all curly and ramlike. I just had them glittered gold recently, and I think they look rather stunning. Especially jutting out from a waist-length black wig. Oh, and I’m wearing a stretchy gold cat suit from, I’m guessing, the seventies.

Anyway, where were we?

Oh, yeah. You clot! You blot! You less than senseless thing! What are you looking at? You are a worthless, foaming curd and a polluted tumor! I am numinous and all encompassing! Glory to Shiva!

 

Yes, yes, tonight I am many people.

Tonight I am also a Vengeance Demon called to this dimension for the simple reason that if people won’t punish THEMSELVES for their trespasses, then SOMEONE needs to do it for them. Otherwise the balance of the universe is thrown off-kilter, and eventually it will wobble off its axis. Last time that happened, Tony Danza got a talk show, Paris Hilton became a star, and Philip left Days of Our Lives. Those were three signs of the coming Apocalypse IN ONE WEEK. So we don’t want THAT to happen again.

 

Just so you know, Vengeance Demons and Destruction Gods look a lot alike. But the vengeance demon opts for a skullcap of silver scales instead of the wig and horns, and he sports a silver cape to facilitate balance during interdimensional flights.

Anyway. Hm. Hm. (Clears throat.)

Obviously, we have a situation on our hands. That’s why I was brought here. Regarding . . . (Shuffles through notes.) Yes, yes. Bernie Balch.

As a vengeance demon, my advice is to cover him with hundreds of blisters—painful, oozing, abscessed blisters—then roll him, naked, down a gravel road for a couple hundred years.

That’s Option A.

Option B is a little harsher. Okay—first you give him a TOTALLY FLAT FACE. Like a pounded veal cutlet. I mean FLAT. So his head is like a meat-loaf pan. Then. . . .

Hmmm?

Oh.

Huh?

I’ll be damned.

That’s the first time THAT’S ever happened.

 

Then, at the risk of sounding like a bleeding-heart demon, this boy is clearly suffering already. I’m not sure I can do much more.

With that, I was gone.

 

ALSO HERE TONIGHT:

Who’s this?

Look at me. Gaze upon my face. Do you not recognize me? I am Eve. I am the Fall of Man. (Not the UPN star.) Take. Eat. I bring you your downfall now in delicious turnover form.

Look at me now: I am Mary Magdalene, the only hooker in heaven. It pays to be connected.

I am Lilith; I am Delilah; I am Bathsheba; I am Salome dancing the dance of the seven veils. I am wicked and wanton, and I make my own destiny.

Who else might I be? I am every woman who has been picked on, beaten, or betrayed, who then rose up to smite her oppressor. I am Aileen Wuornos, but a prettier version, one that looks more like Charlize Theron, and who likes men, and wears nicer clothes.

I am every woman of power. I am Cleopatra, who totally ruled a third of the world in slutty, kohl-rimmed eyes, and drank pearls dissolved in wine for my complexion.

I am Lindsay Wagner, TV’s Bionic Woman, and I can hear you, bitch. I will crush you in slow-motion.

I am all the women whose wicked glamour is both terrifying and inspiring, whose rotting souls and taste for evil only make them MORE glamorous, MORE bewitching, and MORE compelling.

I am the White Witch from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe .

I am Cruella de Ville.

I am the Wicked Stepmother in Snow White.

I am Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Colby Dexter Rowan.

I am Nicole Richie.

 

And . . . um . . . that’s it. I’m really tired.