#73: Asmodeus, with Arm

Murph brought bourbon, and that more or less sums up what you're in for. We also welcome Arm for his first appearance, and celebrate the publication of his chapbook! Stories this week feature a history of a town; a wedding, with some death; a dream of an apartment full of secrets; a wedding, interrupted; and a girl building sandcastles. From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Asmodeus. The evil demon who appears in the Apocryphal Book of Tobit and is derived from the Persian Aeshma. In the Book of Tobit Asmodeus falls in love with Sara, daughter of Raguel, and causes the death of seven husbands in succession, each on his bridal night. He was finally driven into Egypt through a charm made by Tobias of the heart and liver of a fish burned on perfumed ashes, as described by Milton in Paradise Lost (iv (1667)). Hence Asmodeus often figures as the spirit of matrimonial jealousy or unhappiness. Alain Le Sage gave the name to the companion of Don Cleophas in his Le Diable Boiteux (1707). Asmodeus' flight. Don Cleophas, catching hold of his companion’s cloak, is perched on the steeple of St Salvador, Madrid. Here the foul fiend stretches out his hand, and the roofs of all the houses open in a moment, to show the Don what is going on privately in each respective dwelling. Could the reader take an Asmodeus-flight, and, waving open all roofs and privacies, look down from the roof of Notre Dame, what a Paris were it! Stories begin around the 14:45 mark. Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.