Flash story "Burden"

[mightyfastpig]

My flash fiction piece Burden is now live on Everydayfiction.com, my second piece to be published there.

It's a variation, hopefully original, on the Deal with the Devil motif. I noticed that the lives of Christ, Buddha and Mohammed have incidents in which the holy man goes out into the liminal space, e.g. the wilderness, the crossroads, and is

Comments

[fdedio]

in mythological terms, this is a really common element, of course. in hero's journey terms (campbell, not vogler!) it represents the atonement with the father, and a necessary step for the coming apotheosis. the interesting thing in religious terms is that the devil aspect and the aspect of the father are two sides of the same coin.

and i don't think the devil would cheat people. the purpose of the devil is to show god the flaws in his creation. if he needed to cheat, that would exonerate humans, as opposed to showing god their flaws, no?