I lift the latch and open the ledge and brace front door. There’s no need for locks, not if you understand, but there are rules to be followed. It’s a bigger than average shed that I live in, it’s whitewashed inside, light and airy, with plenty of windows. Delivered new, erected on the grass of the riverbank by me, I could be sure it was a virgin threshold - evil had never crossed it, and I’m as far from a road as possible.

He stands there with my paints, waiting to be invited in, and I stand, allowing room for him to pass, but being careful not to beckon him. He doesn’t move.

Adrian, he says his name is. I say hello, then walk to my easel, figuring that if he’s who he seems to be, he’ll follow, without asking any stupid questions - surely they’d give me more credit than that after all this time? They’re on to me, I know they are. I’m getting more visitors.

Everything started with a habit I picked up at Art College. I was in my final year, regarding a piece, unsure where to next apply my colour. As I pondered, I went to suck the end of my brush, as you would a pen, and instead of finding lacquered wood, I found the sensation of thickly matted, short bristles between my lips. The paint invaded my mouth and quickly saturated my taste buds, coating my tongue and filling my psyche. Blanc de plomb, I had never tasted anything like it. Pure lead oxide - a base metal for a base view.

That night I dreamed. Dreaming brought vivid, lurid, fearsome visions, but they were enlightening all the same. The following day I found my work changing, becoming more real, more vibrant, more akin to reality. And I sought…craved that unusual flavour once again as I worked the canvas. By the time I finished the painting I had used a full tube of white, but the image I produced was dark and rabid, forlorn and hateful. It was real, yet ethereal - just out of focus.

My new ‘style’ resulted in a heightened interest in my work and, as I consumed more, my paintings increased in value exponentially. They became darker, sinister, almost vicious, if that’s possible.

I remembered reading about artists that drew inspiration from drinking Absinth, but I soon found modern brands a poor imitation of the real thing. Mescaline was different. I needed to drink a lot before it had any effect, but with half a bottle of the amber liquid churning in my stomach with the white oil, I began to see clearly. And that clarity transferred itself to the canvas with barely a need for me to be there - it was effortless, as if my hand was guided.

Through the influence of what I imbibed I found myself able to see the root nature of all things in this world. I became privy to the second layer of sight denied to all but those directly involved in the battle. Faces changed shape before my eyes and morphed to show demons residing within host bodies - sometimes they passed from one to another with an almost graceful ease. Pavements became perilous paths beside the canals of dark, fluid energy we call roads, and I could smell the stifling malevolence of the backwater pools in cul-de-sacs and lay-bys.

Darkness is winning over light, and we are playing out the final skirmishes of the war. The outcome is already decided - the last heroic acts of the good are a mere formality in the overall story of conquest.

I don’t know when it started, perhaps at the very beginning with creation. But I’m sure it’s nearly over - the bright waters of rivers and oceans get duller by the day, and all the while black water flows down new roads that scar the landscape and form moats of evil around towns and cities.

The gateway of hell is open, and cohorts of the damned wander our streets unnoticed. Human drones paw and claw and pour through the black water to their individual hells, perpetuating the cycle of pollution through their quest for gain. I paint what I see. And people love what I paint. There is a certain irony; they pay to possess a rendering of their own gradual destruction - they see it, but they don’t see it for what it is. In pursuit of the painting they assure their continued misery and damnation. If you admire what is evil, either in life or in art, it seems you make yourself a vessel for them - the beguiling servants of darkness. Your reward for complicity is a dropped kerb and a road right to your front door, and a bigger, better vehicle with which to paw and claw and pour in. A big television to watch the world go to hell on, a VCR so you can tape the lowlights, and a mobile phone so your masters can access you anytime. Control and possession. Conquest and consolidation.

White, red and black. Those are the primary colours - good, evil, and humanity is the red meat being ground in-between. I wonder sometimes as I work, if white is good and black is evil, if white is God and black is Devil…God-and-Devil; are they like the paint, can they mix? If a good man does evil, is he a grey man? Or is he black and white? This I can’t see. But if both God and Devil are perpetual in nature, un-taintable, separate entities, then surely good and evil are the same?

I see an absence of good, a predominance of darkness. A single light in the darkness seems powerful, especially if darkness is despair and light is hope. But look again, and the light only goes so far before it is soaked up by the dark; quickly dissipated and dispersed until again there is only blackness. It takes energy to create light, but darkness exists without effort. Perhaps that’s why it prevails.

I catch my reflection; I’m whiter than I’ve ever been, but my eyes are red, and the sockets are black, no doubt influenced by what I see. There’s salt on the threshold and garlic at the windows, but they still try to trick me into inviting them in. Evil cannot enter your home unless you invite it in, but once you do, it can pass with impunity; whenever it wants and in any guise. It occurs to me that I’m a beacon of purity, messianic in appearance. Maybe this is why they’re drawn to me, like moths seek out a glow in the night sky.

Adrian looks like my brother, and says he’s my brother. But he asks if he can come in, and he admires the work on my easel from the doorway, not daring to cross the threshold without permission. I look at his face - the face I’ve grown up looking at, and it’s changing. From behind the familiar features, a demon leers, slick and shadowy, eyes shimmering deep and liquid black.

He shouldn’t have come.

By Blunt.