Demons rushed to get inside me. They crowded inside me in great numbers because they wanted to party. ‘Get out of me you dirty bastards,’ I cried out, but I didn’t really mean it. I was pretending. I was only protesting just for the sake of it. I was protesting for the sake of looking like I was protesting, if the truth were to be known. I was engaging in a peculiar, theatrical, half-hearted type of a protesting. I’m kind of fond of the demons that possess me, you see. Albeit in a rather weird kind of a way. Not just rather weird either but very, very weird. People had told me from an early age that it was deadly important to always obey the rule and I tried half-heartedly to pretend that I was endeavoring to put this into practise. I didn’t pretend very hard though – I was only pretending to pretend, you might say. I was faking that I was pretending that I was trying. It was all very embarrassing for me, as I’m sure you can appreciate. It was all very embarrassing for me because I knew that I wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all myself. There’s nothing more embarrassing than trying to fool yourself and failing, after all. If you can’t do that then you can’t do anything. If you can’t do that then that’s worse than being a loser – that’s ignominy right there, in this case. You don’t know where to look when this happens. You don’t know where to put yourself. ‘Get out, you dirty bastards,’ you say, ‘get out immediately. Begone with you foul demons…’ It’s important to be of good moral character, you see. And if you can’t be of good moral character then it’s important to pretend that you are. It is most important, more important than ever. That’s what I was always taught, after all. ‘And who taught you that?’ you ask cheekily, bored of my endless pretensions, my tiresome affectations and perennial puerile posturings. ‘I taught myself,’ says I, as quick as a flash, ‘I taught myself everything I know…’
