You probably imagine the Devil as a short, stocky, red and horny character. Imagine, now that you think of it, is the good word, for the Devil is an invention, or at best a metaphor... Or so you think!
The Devil exists, I've seen It. A long and thin creature, with Shirley Temple-like blond hair, the Devil is in charge of the budget in the high school where I worked for two years.
The Devil's nervous smile can't conceal Its mechanical aridity. The Devil has been trusted with a public wallet, and It deals it with an extreme sense of a mission to accomplish. Each cent is considered Its own, and will only be spent if the end is perfecty justified... the room where the students have their lunch won't be heated above the necessary level, the number of phone calls outside the school (students' parents, work-experience tutors, professional trainers) will be tightly controlled. The drinks and snacks offered to the staff will be rationalised: open bottles will be served again, even after a few days, and the cakes will be sliced thin.
The cleaners and handimen who work directly under the Devil are terrified: extra-hours in the Devil's flat, cautious polishing of plastic floorings, pregnant women exposed to detergent fumes, the Devil knows what she wants.
A very gifted penny pincher, the Devil is ready to find in others bouts of crookedness. I have myself experienced her zeal. I have been accused of guile, of unashamedly swindling public money, of altering the number of worked hours, of petty calculation... but I must have broken the camel's back when I forced her to fire me. Getting fired is the only way for me to benefit from State allocations during my time in the journalism school. I had informed the school administration of my intention to simply not come to work until they fired me, and they sent me, quite literally, to blazes.
And then the Devil saw red. A vile sponger, I was putting my ever-so-nice employers in an uncomfortable situation, and was a despicable example to the rest of society.
But when the Devil meets an obstacle, she gets up from her chair. And that's when we, poor mortals, can discover with a sudden surprise the Devil's uncommon dress sense.
"Toilet blue" twin-sets, skirts matching the curtains of a countryside retirement home, dresses that the ladies from Abba wouldn't turn their backs to, shoes you had no idea were still manufactured, the Devil has something incongruous about her that still can't make her seem more human.
The Devil must have seen in me a potential rival, and somehow, she's quite right. An asserted egoist, I sometimes fear that my sensitiveness might dry out completely, that my consideration for others might turn to ice. But I have the pretension to believe that, should I one day be taken over by my own blockhausing, I would still have managed to not fall into the easy mistakes of old lady fashion.
The Devil exists, I've seen It. A long and thin creature, with Shirley Temple-like blond hair, the Devil is in charge of the budget in the high school where I worked for two years.
The Devil's nervous smile can't conceal Its mechanical aridity. The Devil has been trusted with a public wallet, and It deals it with an extreme sense of a mission to accomplish. Each cent is considered Its own, and will only be spent if the end is perfecty justified... the room where the students have their lunch won't be heated above the necessary level, the number of phone calls outside the school (students' parents, work-experience tutors, professional trainers) will be tightly controlled. The drinks and snacks offered to the staff will be rationalised: open bottles will be served again, even after a few days, and the cakes will be sliced thin.
The cleaners and handimen who work directly under the Devil are terrified: extra-hours in the Devil's flat, cautious polishing of plastic floorings, pregnant women exposed to detergent fumes, the Devil knows what she wants.
A very gifted penny pincher, the Devil is ready to find in others bouts of crookedness. I have myself experienced her zeal. I have been accused of guile, of unashamedly swindling public money, of altering the number of worked hours, of petty calculation... but I must have broken the camel's back when I forced her to fire me. Getting fired is the only way for me to benefit from State allocations during my time in the journalism school. I had informed the school administration of my intention to simply not come to work until they fired me, and they sent me, quite literally, to blazes.
And then the Devil saw red. A vile sponger, I was putting my ever-so-nice employers in an uncomfortable situation, and was a despicable example to the rest of society.
But when the Devil meets an obstacle, she gets up from her chair. And that's when we, poor mortals, can discover with a sudden surprise the Devil's uncommon dress sense.
"Toilet blue" twin-sets, skirts matching the curtains of a countryside retirement home, dresses that the ladies from Abba wouldn't turn their backs to, shoes you had no idea were still manufactured, the Devil has something incongruous about her that still can't make her seem more human.
The Devil must have seen in me a potential rival, and somehow, she's quite right. An asserted egoist, I sometimes fear that my sensitiveness might dry out completely, that my consideration for others might turn to ice. But I have the pretension to believe that, should I one day be taken over by my own blockhausing, I would still have managed to not fall into the easy mistakes of old lady fashion.
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