After My Soul Danced with Mephistopheles

I don't really believe in personified evil. I do believe in "original sin," in that I believe we are born selfish and have to learn to be aware of others, and I believe most evil in the world comes from selfishness. Of course, Dick Cheney does make me wonder if there is pure evil personified, but a real devil would have a smile. Which brings us to Mephistopheles and his human toy, Faust.

Faust meets his match in Mephistopheles. Imagine Faust--very smart. Smarter than everyone around him, and oh, so lonely. He has no one he can confide in who really gets what is going on. He toils away, day after day, yearning for something more.

And along comes Mephistopheles. Brilliant, funny, warm. And Mephistopheles acts like he cares about Faust, and all of a sudden, Faust meets his equal, or maybe his more than equal. Faust is challenged, and Faust feels wholly alive. 'I was born to do this' exclaims Faust and he starts to see ideas in new ways, and his mental landscape starts to shift. The dance is ecstatic. But it can't be maintained.

In Marlowe's version, Faust dies unredeemed. In Goethe's Faust breaks with Mephistopheles just before death. But in my version, Mephistopheles becomes bored with Faust. Stops calling. Poof. In a puff of smoke. Gone from his life, just like that. And Faust thinks he should be relieved. But he misses Mephistopheles with a deep, deep ache.

Quotidian life, that used to seem joyous seems drab. 'My soul danced,' exclaims Faust. 'I didn't know my soul could move, much less dance, fly, become fully alive!'

'What did I do wrong,' Faust asks? 'Our souls danced--didn't Mephistopheles feel that too? Does Mephistopheles ever think about me? I wonder what he's doing now.'

And Faust goes back to his books. But it isn't the same. Not after dancing with Mephistopheles. It doesn't matter who Mephistopheles is, it brought out a side in Faust that changed him. Even if Mephistopheles got bored with the game and went to find another new shiny human to play with. Faust has a hard time wanting to let go. And even once he wants to let go, Mephistopheles haunts his dreams and taunts his tears.

And that despair, Faust realizes, is why Mephistopheles is a fallen angel. That is the dark side, and following that ecstatic communion will be a fatal end. And that's when the war happens in Faust's soul. Does Faust want to let go of Mephistopheles? How? How can Faust have that peak experience? How does Faust regain the joy of the quotidian? The wonder of being alive at a visceral and not an intellectual level? Letting go and moving on means never dancing with that angel again. And let's be honest, its the only angel Faust has known. Chances of meeting another one are bleak at best.

If Marlowe were to write this version, Faust couldn't do it. Faust would explode in rage, or overdose on drugs, attempting to find a chemical substitute for the emotional excitement. If Goethe were to write it, Faust would become a Buddhist monk, and meditate on letting go. Become wiser and more grounded. And less intense and less joyous and less vital.

Both seem unsatisfactory endings to me. But I don't know how to write a sequel.