I found that wholly unhelpful and uninspiring. Not only was Sandal Phones boring, but he wanted to talk about his thing. He wanted to tell me about my brothers, Raum who have been proverbially picking up cans on the side of the road. Angels that don't want to be in Hell. Angels that want God to see them again. We have been over this through infinity. The thing that makes life real is pain. In order for pain to exist, we have to be in it.

That's just the algorithm for this programming. It's just the way it has to be. For me, it is a little different. Though, I am in no less pain. My consciousness is so vast, that even as I write this, there is an aspect of me being tortured. It creates a discordant resonance that rings throughout the universe, grounding everything in its place. The only way out is up, and I knew exactly where to find Raum picking up cans. He was in the American penitentiary system, trying to cheer up a man on death row.

I suppose it is exciting to see one of us try. Of course 'Ol Phones was excited. Its just never worked. So, my brother Meresin said he was going to quit. Was he going to try to be good? What was he doing with his human lab rats? Was he picking up cans like Raum? I decided to go ask. I attempted to hone in on Raum's signature vibration. He is a quiet brother, not unlike Meresin, and almost always appears as a raven. I've never talked to him much, so he seemed elusive to me. All I knew of him was that he was a fellow fallen brother, and was now attempting his way out of Hell's grasp.

It was a cold penitentiary, somewhere in 1937 Pennsylvania. A man was on death row for something he probably did. He prayed to God every day, but it wasn't changing the outcome. Like so many do, the inmate turned to God after first turning to the library. When God couldn't be found in the icy cages of prison, he turned to Satan. It was from there he found Raum. Or rather, Raum, my fallen angel brother, found him. Luckily, Raum wanted out of prison, too. I saw Raum sitting on his shoulder, taking the form of a large black crow.

I didn't let Raum see me. I wanted to observe him, first. I wanted to see with how he interacted with humans-- picking up cans. Trying to raise his and the human's vibrations. Giving him hope. Instead of allowing the inmate to succumb to his thoughts of despair, I watched as Raum encouraged him with feelings of hope. Hope, not for escape of his fate-- but rather hope for peace. There would be an ending, Raum said to the man, where it would be soft.

I watched as the human, John Franklin, quietly wept into his bed sheets. They weren't good tears, I could tell. He was frightened of the electric chair. They were not speaking verbally, and John Franklin laid in his uncomfortable prison bed waiting for time to pass. The man hugged his worn bible and boredly stared at the wall. A man wept quietly across the hall. Raum hopped across John's chest, pecking at him with thoughts, and answering all of the human's questions that rose. Heaven was a fine place and the food couldn't be beat. It had all the music he liked, and plenty of pretty girls.

Humans tend to ask the same questions over and over again. Prison was a good feeding ground for low vibrational hanging fruit. There wasn't much good energy to be found. It was a desert, a wasteland. It was picking up cans in the universe's dumping ground. Instead of pushing the human's negative thoughts, Raum spent his time encouraging him to think nice things. Be polite to his fellow inmates. Keep his mouth closed even when the prison guards were beating him. I watched as Raum did this over and over again, from inmate to inmate, all the way through to 2015, where there was a moratorium placed on the death penalty, ending the fear of the electric chair.

It was a small victory since the prison remained a Hellscape vibrationally. Still, Raum continued to pick up cans. Finally, I decided to say something. I made myself known. I shifted my vibrations to allow him to sense my presence. I wanted him to know it was me. I wanted him to care.

Raum never said anything. He didn't even change his glamour to something interesting or make a big show in greeting. It was customary that if our consciousnesses meet 'in person'-- where we are more focused and most ourselves-- that we show our splendor to one another. It is especially customary that my brothers greet me, Azazel, Lucifer, first of the fallen, ect, with a show of all of their splendor. I don't ask for it, but it is customary and polite. Raum didn't even so much as raise his bird-head to look at me.

We often choose animals as our symbols, our totems. Mine is a snake. Meresin's is a moth. Raum is... well, I guess Raum is a raven so thoroughly that he won't look like anything but a single raven. A simple raven, no flaming feathers or the head of a dragon or anything. Just a bird, digging his beak into his feathers and not even looking his brother in the eye.

“You've come here for a reason, I assume, Lord brother?” he asked, perched on the man's side.

“I have,” I replied, matching his tone. I observed Raum more closely. I could tell he had no ill will, no ill intentions. “I've come for-- well your opinion on something,” I said, wanting to entice him, just to see what would work.

“Oh?” he asked. His tone didn't seem as interested as I wished it to be. His 'oh?' was more plain, perhaps guarded.

“It's Meresin. He's says he's quit. I've watched him and I've watched him, and all he does is follow one man around, doing nothing. I think he's plotting but I haven't caught him working on viruses or genetic coding or anything. And you know how he is,” I said, unsure if Raum knew anything about him at all. I just wanted to bait Raum into talking.

“I don't talk to him,” Raum said flatly, plainly.

“No? Not at all? No, I suppose no one does,” I said.

“No, no one,” Raum agreed, perhaps impatiently.

“No one even likes him,” I said.

“Nope,” agreed Raum tersely, shifting his weight on his pointy stupid bird feet.

“Not since the plague,” I said.

“Everyone hated that. About killed the whole world,” said Raum, parroting a common opinion on our brother.

“So, you're being good then?” I asked.

“Yep,” said Raum.

“For all the good that will do,” I sighed.

“Yep,” said Raum.

“Because...?” I wondered.

“Because it's what I want to do,” he said simply. I was unsure if he was humoring me. I was interested. I came to him in a mostly human form. No human could sense me, I could feel it. I was as invisible to them as the wind. I wanted to pick Raum's brain on being a 'good guy.'

“So tell me about this,” I said, gesturing to the prison block. “I've never come and asked you, personally, on why you think this will redeem you in the eyes of the Lord.”

“I don't,” Raum answered, infuriatingly. I felt like he was going to say that.

“Just tell me then, tell me why you do this. Why you spend all your time in the universe trying to do good things, say good things, try to uplift the unlift-up-able?”

“Because I want to,” said Raum, once again, flatly.

I felt I was done here. He was picking up cans. Sigh.

Even as I spoke, I watched him dip his beak inside the man's brain. He was having nightmares again. There he was, my brother prodding at the bad thoughts as if they were worms. Not feeding them, starving himself, a ghost of a good deed.

“Meresin isn't... doing anything then?” Raum asked, cautiously, curiously.

“I have been watching and watching, in secret and not so-in-secret. You know he talks to me.... sometimes.”

Raum didn't say anything and instead shuffled his feathers incredulously.

“All he's been doing in earnest is follow this one human around. This one human, in all of space and time, has all of his concentration and attention. And he isn't doing anything. He isn't... bringing him down and he isn't bringing him up.”

“He could be planning something, it sounds like he's planning to me,” Raum grumbled. I could tell he truly had no favor with Meresin, either. “Perhaps another plague.”

Raum turned and looked at me. A bad thought wriggled between his beak. Very quickly, the bad thought disappeared down his gullet at his own expense. He swallowed the man's bad thought, never to occur to him again. It spared the man some pain. For no reason, he took the human's bad thought and made it go away forever. He continued to do this as if grooming the man of lice.

It was the most logical answer. Meresin was following the one human around because of some virus related reason. Because viruses were not living organisms, they fall into some liminal space in the universe. Lots of spirits have manipulated viruses (and in some cases bacteria), but none so effectively as Meresin in the Black Plague. He got loads of Devil-kudos for that one.

“You know, I always imagined what I would say to you if I saw you again, brother,” Raum replied after a long, awkward moment. “because I've thought about it... for a long long time. I didn't want to talk to you. I knew you'd take me back into you,” Raum said delicately. He moved along the human's shoulder blade and tipped his head. He examined the sleeping John Franklin's smooth, shaved skull as if looking for the best place to peck.

“And I considered it. I thought it might be inevitable-- that we all return to you. But just as humans are fragments of the Creator,” he paused and dipped his shiny black beak into John's head. John finally had wept himself to sleep. Raum continued picking at his bad thoughts and nightmares as if they were a late night snack. “but then I thought it would be better to not. I thought that if I had the ability to, I'd do-- one good deed-- before I allowed myself to be consumed by you. I thought it was an act of ultimate rebellion. By rebelling against the rebellious, so to speak.”

“It's circular, it doesn't make sense. That's like saying the ultimate freedom ….is freedom from freedom. It's slavery. Literally stupid,” I sneered down at the little bird. “You can't be the ultimate rebel by following the rules.”

“I thought that,” said Raum calmly. He shifted his weight on John's shoulder, digging his claws into the black and white striped prison uniform. “then I thought the only answer was... no answer. Just do as I please. Assert my identity as a individual spirit. Broken down, the Creator made you and I was born of you, in a sense. Deep down, then, I am the Creator, too. We all are. The Creator is the unifying singularity of us all. Therefor, you can remove me from good-- but I am still good. He made me a fallen angel, but I am still an angel. The only way to express my deepest self, then, is to do good and be good. I allowed myself one last good deed. That one good deed turned to two, then three. Then, I decided against ever going back to you. It is always an Ouroboros. It is all circular. God is love and love is God.”

“That's it? That's why you do good?” I groaned at his explanation.

“Yes, but that's not what I wanted to say to you all this time,” replied Raum as he moved to the other side of John's brain.

I licked my lips as if they felt dry, even though I wasn't fully physical or had lips. I felt itchy. I felt like peeling my own face off in front of him.

I could hear the dripping from a broken pipe somewhere in the distance. Most of the prisoners were quiet but I could still feel them everywhere, like vermin in their caves. I was annoyed at my brother for not only thinking he could be good-- but for actually being good. I felt his reasons were stupid. I felt all of this was pointless. It all just felt like a personal middle-finger to me. He didn't want to have me consume his consciousness- so what? Did he think he was somehow better than me? Did he think he was somehow special as a fallen Devil? He was useless, doing an utmost pointless job. The negative thoughts were designed for people. Taking them away was counter intuitive to our purposes as the Devil.

So, he felt he was being 'extra-evil' by doing good? Fuck him, I thought. Fuck Raum.

“Tell me what you wanted to say to me all this time?” I finally asked, taking his bait.

“I do need to clarify. This message isn't mine. It isn't from me,” Raum said as he peered at me with tiny black eyes and adjusted his feet, as if he were a real bird sitting on a perch. “I was just asked to relay the message. I decided not to at first, since I did not want to be involved. But, here you are. I'll let you have it.” he said tilting his head. His marble eyes seemed both darker and sparking with fire.

“Who is the message from?” I wondered, now both enraged and yet curious. I gritted my teeth and held back my desire to reach out and strangled him. He looked so much like a real bird that I imagined my hands around his feathery neck and just wringing him to death.

“Lillith,” he announced loudly.

I felt stunned into silence. I felt my nostril's flare as he said her name with heavy, shitty triumph and pride. I could feel Raum's cockiness ooze from his sleek, oily feathers.

“And what exactly did she have to say?” I pressed, wanting to get this over with. “What's her message?”

“That... that she wishes you vanquished. She wishes you to be torn to pieces. She hopes that you rend yourself in twain. She hopes, above all things, that one of us rises above our own station to devour your consciousness so that your pride in your identity implodes upon itself, like a black hole reversing itself. She then went on to describe it in more detail, not unlike a human's bloody anus turning inside out. It was quite graphic.”

“How dignified of her,” I answered sarcastically. “She so likes going into detail.”

“There was more rage in her message than I'm conveying,” said Raum unnecessarily. “I was unaware of your... romantic dalliances until she explained some of it. It was you who spoiled our relationship with the faeries.”

“So?” I bit back. I felt done. I was done. I was done with the conversation and done with him. It was turning out to be an attack on me. I didn't want to hear from Lillith. I didn't need to be reminded of my ex-girlfriend by some bird. I also didn't need to be judged by a lesser brother who felt holier-than-thou for some reason. He was a Devil. He was still a Satan. He was still a fallen angel, evil of all evil. I knew of his deeds before he was a do-gooder bird. He was a Great Earl that ruled thirty legions of demons. He had destroyed cities and dignities of countless men.

“I can see this message wasn't received well. I didn't think it would be,” muttered Raum as he turned back to John Franklin. I had the sense that he was just as uncomfortable and done as I was.

“Well, I'll leave you to your 'picking up cans,'” I jeered and motioned towards his pathetic, sad, human prisoners and their negative thoughts. I didn't want to watch him eat worms out of people's brains anymore. I didn't care that he was committed to his good deeds in the same way inmates were committed to thinking about their crimes. It felt forced. I doubted it would get him anywhere.

“Be seeing you, brother,” said Raum as he turned his back on me. I knew from his tone that this wasn't a good or welcomed meeting. He didn't want to see me again. I left as he resumed digging into the next inmate's brain, pecking out a worm of bad feeling. It was the fear of dying alone.