He's behind Ben now. And the tense has shifted. No idea how he got there. No idea how he did that. He’s only a character in the story and he’s shifted the tense!
His hands are on Ben's shoulders grinding him into that too comfortable red satin chair. His fingers are grinding into Ben’s flesh. They’re like claws, but somehow it’s comfortable. How is that? This story doesn’t make sense. I want to stop telling it now, but for some reason I can’t. Can you stop reading? Try it. I bet you can’t do that either. This is the power of the man in the shadows. (He’s the Devil in case you hadn’t figured it out. Ben should have figured it out by now, but he’s never been very superstitious, which will be his greatest achievement and greater still downfall. So you kept reading shame on you. No it’s not your fault. You couldn’t help, you and I are under his spell as much as Ben is.
"Great things are going to come from you, son! My son! My grand son! My grandest grandson! My most grandiose of all my grandest grandchildren!” Ben barely registers the dig about his weight. The man’s words are like a spell. And his digging clawing fingers are magic as well. No, not fingers anymore…just talons. “Truly great things! Ah what a destiny!" They are on the tip of mountain now overlooking the most magnificent mountain. The Devil’s voice, I mean the man’s voice (so far as Ben knows) echoes madly down the mountain, shaking the ocean beneath creating massive tidal waves below. And the man in the shadows is still entirely hidden in shadow, despite the fact that there are none. It’s not real of course. It can’t be, can it? But it looks so real. “We are real men, Ben! This is what real men do!”
And they leap from the mountain, and we leap with them, and they fly through the air with their fists out in front of them. Like Superman before there even is such a thing! The man is encompassed in brilliant golden flames, and Ben grows giant magnificent wings.
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