The Love Machine & Other Contraptions by Nir Yaniv

glass solidified, of course. And now we stand there, and the recording films run again, and Huey approaches the wall, a giant hammer in his hands.
    ~
    On the way from here to there, all three of us disappeared. One moment we were busy with the exact tuning of the recorder, and in the next we weren’t.
    For one moment, everything stopped.
    “Pass me his plate,” someone said to somebody else. “I think he finished eating.”
    “Say,” said someone. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd...”
    “What?” said someone.
    “That he, like, disappeared?”
    “No,” said the demon, and blinked. He looked as if he needed glasses.
    “Excuse me?” said someone.
    “Not someone , sir,” said the demon. “ You .”
    “Me?” said someone.
    “You. You know perfectly well who you are,” said the demon.
    “That’s possible,” said Dewey, “but what is it to you?”
    “Thinking in the third person isn’t going to help you.”
    “Get off it,” I said.
    “No,” said the demon. “You’ve gone way too far. You’re going to stop this moronic killing spree. Right now.”
    “I think you have a small problem with your perception of reality.”
    “I only have one problem,” said the demon, “and it’s you .”
    “Leave me alone!”
    “I can’t,” said the demon. “I’m a part of you.”
    “Now I know you have a problem with your perception of reality.”
    “I really don’t,” said the demon. “And not just that: you, along with me, are stuck in the loop.”
    “There’s something to your twisted logic,” I said. “But there you go...”
    “You’re not right,” said the demon.
    “Don’t exaggerate,” I said. “I did a very nice job with the wall today. Doing is everything.”
    “Wait!” said the demon. “There you go again! That’s not what I meant!”
    “Don’t be a pain,” I said. “Let me finish off here.”
    And I went away.
    ~
    A skyscraper in napalm. Billboards burning in the wind. “What You See Is What You Get. Nokia.”
    ~
    And was brought back.
    “You’re not going anywhere,” said the demon. “You’re staying here with me, to the end.”
    “The end?”
    “Yes. Until you realize that you’re one, not three, and stop getting out of control.”
    “Of course I’m one,” I said. “I never thought otherwise. And I’m not out of control.”
    “A hundred and two victims would testify otherwise.”
    “Will you stop it with that?” I said. “There are no victims. Dewey and Louie are practicing art, and I’m helping them. That’s all.”
    “Yeah?” said the demon. “What sort of art, exactly? Mass murder?”
    “The aesthetics of burning,” I said.
    “Murder,” said the demon.
    “There’s no connection,” I said.
    “Murder. Don’t have any illusions.”
    “Say,” I said, “Who are you, anyway?”
    “I,” said the demon, “am the only element in this story who isn’t you yourself.”
    “Seriously,” I said. “Why are you banging on about murder?”
    “Because you, apparently, don’t perceive those you kill as human beings.”
    “I don’t understand why you keep insisting I killed people.”
    “Mr. Kalmanson, for example,” said the demon. “What happened to him?”
    “I have had enough,” I said, “of this conversation.”
    And I went. And was brought back.
    “As I said, you’re not going anywhere. We were talking about Mr. Kalmanson.”
    “He wasn’t a human being,” I said. “He was an asshole bourgeoisie, that’s what he was.”
    “And the children in the park?”
    “A symbol of the moral decrepitude taking over our youth.”
    “A symbol?”
    “Of course,” I said. “Remind me, who are you?”
    “I am your artificial conscience,” said the demon. “It looks like you can’t be stopped any other way.”
    “The establishment has never looked favorably on alternative art,” I said.
    “The establishment has never looked favorably on genocide,” the demon said. “Now you tell me—who are you ?”
    “I’m Huey,” I