Things That Go Bump in the Night

Succubus: A female demon thought to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.
Incubus: A spirit or demon thought in medieval times to lie on sleeping persons, especially women, with whom it sought sexual intercourse.
Devil: The chief evil spirit, a supernatural being subordinate to, and the foe of, God and the tempter of man.

I had planned to write something today about the existence of evil. I found myself distracted by the image of the Good little man on one shoulder and the Bad little man on the other shoulder. Actually, neither of them seems too intimidating. A tiny red dude with a tiny pitchfork telling me to leave a 10% tip or to put a buck in the basket -- instead of two bucks or five bucks, which should be the standard donation for most of us drinkers of three dollar cups of coffee -- doesn't strike fear in my heart. I'd flick him off. It seems too easy. There must be something more there.

So I look up some definitions. First of all, as a shallow man, which is a contradiction in terms if you think about it, the succubus doesn't seem all that bad to me. I'd have to learn some more about what else the succubus does, what kind of specific evil deeds and all that. Otherwise, I'm personally going to go with the succubus if I have to be tormented by a demon of some sort. The other stuff the succubus does is going to have to be pretty bad to make up for the major succubus fault, which actually seems like a positive quality. Maybe we need more succubi running around. It might occupy the men who seem to be the major source of the world's problems, anyway.

Then you have the incubus who apparently is not always successful in getting laid, which I would think would be the main goal if you're a demon. I'm no demonologist but I'm guessing there are a lot of drawbacks -- living in Hell, being consumed by fire, bad coffee -- so sexual intercourse might be as good as it gets. And what is this laying on top of people? That doesn't' sound comfortable or pleasant at all. I'm a demon I'm going to blow flames out my nose, not sneak in and lay on somebody.

Silence in the Garden of Good and Evil.