Screwy letter
Photo Courtesy of Richard Bryant
My dear Wormy,
There is a certain inevitability to the entropy of the human soul, a slow unraveling that mirrors the decline of civilizations and the collapse of structures that once seemed immutable. You must understand, dear Wormy, that our work is not so much an active destruction but a gentle nudging of the soul toward the edge until it can no longer distinguish between the abyss and the horizon.
Consider your patient, adrift in the mundanity of daily life. Their fears are not the grand terrors of war or poverty but the subtle anxieties of an unremarkable existence. They fear irrelevance - fears that the ripples they create will disappear before they reach the shore. And this, my dear nephew, is where you must strike.
Encourage in them the need for validation, the constant craving for acknowledgment. Let their worth be tied to the opinions of others so that their every action is weighed against the fleeting approval of their peers. This is a delicate art, for you must ensure their desires are always out of reach. If they feel accomplished, even for a moment, they may glimpse the futility of it all. But if they are perpetually dissatisfied, they will be blind to the truth.
As they scroll through the endless feeds of social media, let them see the curated lives of others and feel a quiet despair. Not the dramatic, life-altering kind, but the small, nagging sense that they are missing something, that they are not enough. Feed them the myth of perfection, the idea that they would be complete if they could only achieve this or acquire that. Of course, we know there is no such thing, but that is precisely the point. The more they chase this illusion, the further they drift from the Enemy.
Remember that the best deceptions resemble the truth. Do not lead them to outright lies but rather to subtle distortions of reality. Let them believe that their restlessness is a sign of ambition and that their envy is a desire for self-improvement. This way, they will remain convinced of their righteousness even as they spiral deeper into our grasp.
Do not overlook the power of nostalgia. Let them look back on their past with a sense of loss, as if the best parts of their lives are already behind them. Make them believe that their current dissatisfaction is a consequence of time's passing rather than their choices. In this way, they will become resigned, accepting their fate as something beyond their control and never considering the possibility of redemption.
Wormy, ensure that they are always busy, constantly occupied with trivialities. The more distractions you can place in their path, the better. Let them fill their days with meaningless tasks and their nights with the hollow pleasures of Netflix and reality television. Keep them moving, always moving, so they never have the time to stop, reflect, or question their path.
If you can manage this, dear nephew, you will find that your patient will arrive at the end of their life not with a cry of defiance but with a sigh of resignation. They will have lived a life of quiet desperation, convinced that they were doing all the right things, only to find that they were, all along, merely drifting toward the abyss.
Yours, in demonic cunning,
Screwy