Every week, readers send me questions about relationships, career problems, family disputes, supernatural incidents, neighborhood feuds, and the occasional eldritch inconvenience. This week’s letter comes from a sleep paralysis demon questioning his career after one particularly impossible assignment.
Dear Jyl,
I have been employed as a sleep paralysis demon for nearly four centuries, and until recently, I had an impeccable performance record. Unfortunately, my current assignment has become impossible.
My responsibilities are straightforward. I wait until my assigned human falls asleep, create an overwhelming sense of dread, manifest just long enough to leave a lasting psychological impression, and disappear before they can fully comprehend what happened. I take pride in my work. Terror, like any profession, requires dedication.
My human refuses to maintain a consistent sleep schedule. They consume enough caffeine to qualify as an industrial solvent, doomscroll until two in the morning, insist on creating what they call “memes” for the “group chat” instead of sleeping, and eventually fall asleep with murder podcasts or horror audiobooks playing at full volume.
Sometimes, they wake themselves up remembering something embarrassing that happened fifteen years ago and somehow manage to generate enough existential dread all on their own that I’m beginning to question why I’m even here.
Last Tuesday, my human finally drifted off, and I spent nearly an hour constructing an exceptionally unsettling scene, with my masterpiece lurking in the corner. Before I could savor a job well done, they startled awake because they suddenly needed to know the answer to a question they could have easily looked up tomorrow. They glanced at my work, said, “How fun!” took a picture for social media, and went back to doomscrolling.
Demon Resources insists I need to “adapt to changing market conditions” and “think outside the nightmare,” yet I’ve somehow still found myself on a Performance Improvement Plan that includes measurable goals such as increasing 2 a.m. panic episodes by 45% and reducing instances of humans mistaking my work for “cool aesthetic lighting.” Last week, I was enrolled in a mandatory professional development seminar entitled Haunting in the 2020s: Adapting to the Modern Human. I have endured exorcisms with more dignity.
Am I failing as a sleep paralysis demon, or have humans simply become impossible to haunt?
Sincerely,
—Exasperated in the Ethereal Plane
Dear Exasperated,
Or should I say…Steve? I don’t know how you thought I wouldn’t know you were writing about me. We’ve discussed this so many times. I’m only answering this publicly because maybe seeing it in writing will help, and honestly, because I’m a little hurt.
We’ve known each other for years. You have your own World’s Okayest Demon mug in my kitchen. Around 2:30 every morning, I hear that familiar sigh from the corner of my bedroom and know it’s time to start the coffee. I’ve made you countless late-night snacks while you complained about budget cuts in the Department of Sleep Paralysis, proofread your résumé when you were thinking about changing careers, and listened to your argument that becoming a poltergeist would be a better fit because, in your words, “at least they get daylight hours.” I even let you eat the last cinnamon roll.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped being a sleep paralysis demon and his assigned human and became friends. I say this with love, but you stopped being frightening somewhere around the third pot of coffee and the conversation about whether haunting still had a future in the age of smartphones. These days we play board games until sunrise while you complain about management and I explain, for what feels like the hundredth time, that your problem isn’t your performance. It’s people like me.
You never actually wanted to work in Sleep Paralysis. You ended up there because it was stable, the benefits were decent, and your uncle knew somebody in upper management. Every time we talk, your eyes light up when you start describing what you’d do as a poltergeist. You don’t get that excited about quarterly paralysis analysis. You love talking about creative expression, architectural storytelling, and the proper dramatic timing of a well-thrown teacup.
Maybe it’s time to stop asking whether you’re failing at the job you have and start asking whether it’s the right job in the first place. The afterlife is too long to spend it trying to be exceptional at something you were never passionate about in the first place. For what it’s worth, I think you’d make an excellent poltergeist, and I think it’s time for you to find your joy.
And if you need someone to proofread your résumé again or help you practice throwing household objects without overdoing it, you know where to find me.
The coffee will be on.
—Jyl
Have a question, problem, curse, feud, haunting, career crisis, cryptid-related concern, or suspicious situation of your own? Send it to letterstojyl@gmail.com. Anonymous submissions are always welcome. Recurring correspondents are encouraged.
PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.