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Red Leicester Devils
The devils were eating the cheese again. They put it in their mouths, grinning so wide, the red skin of the cheese complementing their skin. I tried to shoo them out of the office, but they wanted the cheese, and were not afraid to poke me for it.
My office is clean, thanks to my land lady, but she doesn’t like the devils. She wants me to evict them.
Sometimes, the devils are playful. Other times, they creep up on me as I work, and make loud banging noises behind me that make me jump. But mostly, they are busy stealing the cheese.
“Why don’t you get rid of them?” my land lady asks, “They’re a nuisance and they scare me.”
But I shake my head sadly, I know that the devil is in the detail, and that is my job. I am a detailer, and so I must have the devils.
One particularly hard plot problem generated fifteen Demons, and once they are here, they just hang around the office laughing at me.
Sometimes, I get so fed up, I have to go for a walk. Out in the street it is silent, no chattering demons with red leister mouths grinning at me. These days the streets are quiet, no longer the chaotic places that used to exist in my youth. People are in their homes, looking at computers, and most of them have bugs but no devils.
I am one of the last of the detailers, the details don’t matter now, people think outside the box, but only if the thoughts are not too dangerous.
Soon, I return home.
The devils are playing games in a corner, climbing on each other, as I sit in front of the details, painting them one by one. Each time I finish a model, I pack it up. Some of them may end up on the internet, being sold by a web page. I miss the model shops where people who loved the details used to hang out.
I’ve finished the last model for the night, painting it in shades of red, and watch the devils cavorting around, taking notes. One day soon I will know every last detail, and then I will make a model of them.
Until then, the red Leicester cheese is in a devil of a load of trouble.
As the night falls, I draw the red duvet over my body, listen to the laughter, and dream of better times. When the morning starts again, I go back to work, looking through the magnifying glasses, as the devils spark off the surface of the model.
Then, I go back to the sketches, and draw the devils that surround me, making them more and more realistic.
One day, my land lady says, they will come and take me away from here. But I don’t know what she means. And she makes me feel uncomfortable here, so I go back to the devils, and the detail, and the cheese.