There was a man who saw spirits. He didn't drink, he didn't take drugs, he just naturally saw spirits. And they were all evil spirits.
If a person told a lie, the man would see a demon dancing on the liar's tongue. Once in a crummy on the way to the woods he saw a great devil perched on the head of a timber faller who he had always liked and admired. The man began to wail and pray out loud, because he knew the faller was bound for hell. ``There's a devil sitting on your head,'' he said. Silence fell in the crummy.
The man had started seeing demons when he was nineteen. He was in love with a girl named Phemie and one summer afternoon she had allowed the boy to make love to her and while they were together hidden in a hazel thicket she started to change. Shrieking like a banshee she turned into a hairy, stinking demon and she flung him away from her and howled away into the deep forest.
The boy was mad after that. They put him in an institution for a while, but he was released when it was decided he was no threat. Over the years he became more rational. He married a woman who remained endearingly human when they made love, and they had four children.
Mostly he did not speak of the spirits he saw. It upset people. But he still saw them. Sometimes he saw great flocks traveling together and he would wonder where they were going and why.
He realized that he could to some extent foretell the future, but only tragedies that awaited people. Not the future that anyone wanted to know.
One day when the man was old he was shaving and looking in the mirror when he saw a demon perched on his own head. He looked the demon gravely in the eye.
``Get off my head and go about your business.''
The demon made a sort of chirping sound and flew away.
``That's better,'' the old man said, and he went on shaving.