I had no idea that Satan (or Iblis to his friends) was a midget, a gossip and a thief to boot.
I was writing at my desk when he came and sat beside me. I’m no giant, but I was a full head taller than him. I was easily able look him over and make out his distinctive features one by one. In profile, his nose appeared to be long. His one eye had no lashes. A seven-pointed star was tattooed at the corner of his lips.
Having thus examined and recognised him, I returned calmly to work. Well, well, a poem about Iblis, I said to myself. The minute I had this thought my companion reacted. I watched a very slender hand emerge from his pocket and place itself on my sheet of paper. Whenever I wrote a word, he immediately added another – with what I must say was a real sense of appropriateness. But if I didn’t like one of his ideas and deleted it, he immediately responded in kind to one of mine.
We wrote and edited for a long time until the phone began to ring. I picked it up and waited for someone to speak. But there was no one there. I slammed the phone down.
Iblis had taken advantage of this interlude to vanish, taking our manuscript along with him.