BLACK FRIDAY DEALS!! HUGE DISCOUNTS ON YOUR SOUL!!

"Welcome to Hell, please take a seat in the waiting room down the hall."

I frantically turned my head. I was in more of a tunnel than a hall. Claustrophobically small, near-pitch-black, but just visible enough to see something at its end.

"How did I get here?" I cry out, unable to move a muscle.

"Please proceed to the waiting room," said the ominous voice from nowhere. It was a cheerful, carefree female voice.

I had to crouch to move forward. I couldn’t see a thing.

“AH!” I screamed, running forward, unable to stand properly. I continued crying out in pain, and tumbled, my knees and hands instantly burning. Finally I hit carpet and turned around, seeing the coals that made up the “hallway”, barely three feet tall.

When I was able to weakly stand, I realized I was in what looked like the average dentist waiting room. Magazines, drab wall decor, and an elderly woman behind a desk. The walls were dripping with blood.

This had to be fake; I must’ve passed out and woken up in a haunted house.

I limped to the desk, feeling my feet blister along the way. "Uh... hello?" I said to the woman behind the desk. 

She smiled and handed me a clipboard and a pen. "Please fill this out and we'll get you registered."

"Where am I?" 

"Hell."

I paused, waiting for more information. It didn’t come.

"Uh... am I dead?"

She kept her quaint smile and lively voice as she giggled and said, "Of course you are! Why else would you be here?" Can't argue with that logic.

I took a seat in a remarkably uncomfortable chair and started filling out my registration form. 

After my basic info - name, birthday, gender - came the... weird part.

"What Sins have you committed? (Circle all that apply)."

Last I remembered, I was in line at Costco. I mean, it was Black Friday, the only day of the year I could justify getting myself a Lego set I really didn't need... I circled "Greed". Well, I did want that big shiny new computer I couldn’t afford. "Envy". I did do my usual Sample Circuit, queuing for a solid five minutes to sample a singular meatball. I circled "Gluttony". 

I considered Pride - I was pretty pleased with myself for managing to snag the last copy of the Lego set. I circled it. 

Sloth? I wasn’t a particularly lazy person… Oh, wait. I splurged, ordering an Uber home when I could’ve made the 10-15 minute walk. Check, I suppose.

Lust and Wrath remained. I circled the former, having hit on the cashier (to no avail), and considered the latter.

Was I someone who caused Wrath? I wasn't a particularly angry person, nor was I want for conflict. 

Suddenly, I remembered my very last moments in that Costco. My heart raced and I turned to the woman behind the desk, who immediately noticed my anxiety.

“Oh, usually it takes a while to Go Back,” she said, joyous as ever, “It’ll be a bit of a pinch but don’t worry!”

I received a shock to my nerves that was a pinch and a half to say the least. And then I was back in Costco, embodying myself as I moved through the checkout.

"Mommy, that man has the Spiderman Lego!” 

"Shh, Cooper, he got it first. You can't always get what you want."

"But he's an old man, he doesn't need it!"

"Maybe he's buying it for his son. You got the science kit, you'll have fun with that."

"But I wanted the Spiderman!"

"I know. Maybe there will be more when Christmas comes and Santa will bring you the Spiderman Lego."

"I don’t want to wait till Christmas! It's not fair!" 

Though I knew what happened next, I was powerless in changing anything. I tried to swing my neck back, but my body was unable to move differently than I had in real life just minutes ago. 

And then, before his mother could stop him, little Cooper grabbed my shirt. I'd pretended to ignore them, but I never would've realized just how small he was. He spoke in regular sentences but didn't look a day over 4.

"Hey mister, can I have that Lego you have? I'll trade you for the science kit I got," he said boldly, but his cheeks turning red, betraying his shyness. He held up the box to show me.

"Cooper!" his mother said, grabbing his hand and jerking his tiny body toward her. "I'm so sorry, don't mind him."

Without a second thought, I’d tried desperately to craft my argument as to why I should deprive a child of a toy I didn’t need. “I'm sorry, Cooper..." I couldn’t come up with a good reason. I went with a fake reason: "My son is dying, he loves Legos and this might be his last one." Oof, I went a bit far with that one. Maybe a bit of Wrath peeking out…

"What's he dying from?"

The mother once again scolded the child, but he didn't seem fazed. His question wasn't out of morbid curiosity or a kid saying the darndest things. He knew I was lying through my teeth. 

I hadn't been thinking thus far and continued my streak: "He's... in a coma."

"Then how's he gonna build Legos?"

Dammit, I'm being outsmarted by a toddler. 

At that point, the mom kinda pulled back from being mad at Cooper. After a moment, she raised an eyebrow at me, waiting for my answer.

In for a penny, in for a pound: "I hope that building it next to him will make him wake up." I imagined my beloved kitten Socks being hit by a car. It worked; I pushed a few tears out. Wrath for sure.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said the mother. She once again scowled at her son. "Apologize to the nice man, Cooper."

I knew, somehow, this tiny child had seen through my every word. He stared into my soul and I knew he was ready to be grounded for a year for whatever he decided to do next. 

"Next please!" called the cashier. 

I was stunned by the bombshell blonde operating the register. 

Oh, no… my last words…

“Hey babe, it’s Black Friday, can I get a discount on your phone number?”

And then, I received a blow to my balls.

"COOPER!" 

I cried out in agony and collapsed to the floor. 

"Wait!" I yelled, bringing myself back to the present, in the Hell Waiting Room. "I died from a kick in the nuts?!"

The secretary smiled and said "Yes. The impact created internal bleeding.”

Really?! Finally, I circled "Wrath". It was my only emotion at the moment. A goddamn child ended me with a tactical testicular takedown over a Spiderman Lego set.

I turned in my clipboard and the bespectacled woman's smile dropped as she scanned it. "Oh my..." She pushed a button and her voice rang out over a loudspeaker: "Code 7, repeat, Code 7!"

She then faked her smile again and told me to take a seat. 

"Alright, what's going on? Is this some kind of game?"

"Uh... please take a seat," she repeated, looking increasingly nervous. Then suddenly, a wave of relief seemed to wash over her. I turned around.

"Hello."

The Devil himself cast a tall, dark shadow over me. The 20-foot-tall monster, besmirched by scars and deformities, let a toothy grin come across what passed for his face. He was Frankenstein's-Monster-esque, with various body parts seemingly fused to his intimidatingly wide torso. He had limbs in all the wrong places. I stood in petrified awe.

"Why am I here?" I managed to say timidly. "Wasn't I good enough to go to Heaven?"

The Devil let out a bellowing guffaw. "Far from it, peon.” His voice was commanding and boomed in my eardrums.

“What did I do wrong?”

He laughed again, this time hard enough to shake blood off the walls, splattering across the carpet. “You committed all Seven Sins in less than an hour.

“The people who come to my Kingdom are processed based on their Sins and moved to that wing of the facility. On the Lust ward," he said, grinning, flashing what were his black tusks of teeth,, "All subjects have their genitals violently removed, only to grow back and be removed once more each day."

My eyes bugged out. He laughed once again, this time knocking the glasses of the secretary clean off her face with his incredible bass.

"However, some are offenders against both Lust and Greed, or Wrath and Envy. They require specialized torture. 

“Occasionally we find some that are guilty of three, even four Sins."

My face must've betrayed my absolute terror.

He flashed a toothy smile of no less than four rows of crooked fangs. "Every few decades we get someone who has committed all seven Sins. That's you."

I gulped. "W-what does that mean? What am I... in for?"

For once, The Devil let his smile fall to a grave, intense stare. My heart raced, expecting the worst possible punishment. Somehow seven times worse than perennial penile protraction.

"You have two options," he said, almost growling each word. His disgusting, monstrous body leaned closer to me. "You can be held in the deepest of my pits of fire and pain. You will never sleep, you will never eat. You will only be disemboweled and amputated and burned and skinned alive. Then your bowels and limbs and skin will very slowly and painfully grow back. And then you'll be gutted again. You will wish for death and it will never come."

I was shaking. 

"Option 2: give me your soul and return to your life."

I froze. "What?"

The Devil suddenly dropped his furious, evil facade to sigh and say, "I know, management decided on this deal, Black Friday and all. It's my national holiday, so I get it, but usually a soul is worth at least 35% more." He took a seat across from me, somehow contorting his various limbs to fit in the chair. “I kept telling the shareholders that's too good of a deal, but they're all about marketing and PR these days. We weren’t expecting a 7-Sinner today, so you’re getting an incredible deal.” He sounded exasperated. Maybe I could get an even better deal… 

"What's the catch? I can go back to being alive, but without a soul? What does that mean?"

The Devil crossed one of his legs over another. "Your life will be the same. You will go through the motions of aging and working and living. But you will never feel another emotion again. You will have life, but it won't be a life you'll even be capable of enjoying." With that, a deep, creepy smirk managed to present on his warped face.

I started realizing the bias The Devil had - he thought this was too good a deal to pass up. Was it, though? What’s a life without feelings, without joy?

I realized I had something in my pocket. "Okay, let me think about it," I said, donning a mask of thoughtfulness.

I caught the brief flash of surprise in his several eyes before they contorted back their default intimidating stare. "You will toil in a pit of fire for eternity. You will be tortured and chained and beaten!"

Just like convincing Cooper I had a dying comatose Lego-loving son, I pulled out my best bluffing body language, embodying a much bolder being. 

"I mean, have you lived up there? It's already a pain in the ass… without emotions? I don't know if it's any better than infinite suffering..."

"Okay, just... give me a second," said The Devil. He sauntered over to the secretary and exchanged words, and was handed a phone. I felt like an athlete waiting on the refs' decision on whether my last goal was offside or not.

Finally he turned back and said, "I’ve been told that we can make an exception. However, there are  conditions."

He resumed his seat across the waiting room from me, now holding a clipboard in one of his claws, a pen in one of his tentacles.

“What are your conditions?”

He consulted the clipboard. "Well, because each Sin was committed within one 30-minute period, you will go back to your life before Sinning. You will relive the next 30 minutes. However, this time, you must not Sin. Should you succeed, your emotions will be reinstated."

"Th-that's it?" I said, buzzing earnestly. I didn't wait for an answer. "Yes, okay, send me back. I won't Sin."

Instantly, a halo of light descended around me from the ceiling. 

The Devil said with a mischievous look: "There's one more thing."

The halo had reached my knees and I felt my body floating upward. "What? What else?!" I cried before I was swallowed up by the light. "I'll do anything!"

With one last evil smirk, The Devil said, just as my body was returned to Costco, "You must relinquish what you desire most..."

"DAMMIT!" I screamed. Shoppers all around me whipped their heads toward me. I was in the Lego aisle, surrounded by kids. All the disapproving parental eyes made me physically shrink myself as I profusely apologized and turned into an empty aisle of Barbies. 

"Mommy!" I heard a familiar voice from the next aisle. "It's Spiderman! And it's the last one! Please? It's on sale!"

"Okay, but you know you can only have one toy, right? Are you sure you want it?"

"Um... I don't know. Can't I get them both?"

"Sorry, honey, you'll have to pick."

"Okay... I want Spiderman." 

"Okay, let's go put back the science kit."

I felt a sudden rush of understanding wash over me. I didn't do it on purpose... this is how it happened before. It wasn’t Greed, just opportunity. I saw it was the last one and scooped it out from under poor Cooper because his mother instructed him to do the polite thing and return the other product to its shelf first.

“I can’t believe I got the Slaptop 200 for half off!” said someone walking by. I remembered that moment of envy - I couldn’t afford the best gaming computer on the market if it was 99% off. But what would I use it for? Playing The Sims at a slightly faster frame rate?

“Barbeque sauce meatball, $7.99 in aisle 12!” called out a sample provider from a few aisles over. I recalled housing the Spiderman under my arm as I gorged on various tiny tapas. I had an entire lasagna at home ready to go. Gluttony wouldn’t tempt me in meatball form when the cost was my very soul.

My phone buzzed. My Uber was on its way. I could walk. I cancelled it.

I was waiting on Cooper to come back and grab the Lego. Wait - would seeing him get the set fill me with Pride?

I grabbed the Spiderman Lego. I knew I wasn’t committing the Sin of Pride because this time, I was truly not proud of making a purchase I knew would upset an innocent kid.

I picked a male cashier to check out so I wouldn’t say something Lustful.

I had to be near the end of my 30-minute Sin Limit by now… 

“But what if there’s never any more Spidermans?” 

As I took my receipt I noticed Cooper and his mother in another line. 

“There will be,” she said, “I promise.”

“You don’t know though!”

In my attempt to avoid the Sin of Pride, yet again, here I was causing Wrath.

Wait - I can fix it. I have to give up - “What you desire most”, the Devil’s words echoed in my head.

"Sorry, excuse me," I said as the mother and son were headed for the exit. 

As is understandable, a woman being approached by a strange man had her pull her son away from me and shoot me a look of apprehension.

"I accidentally bought the wrong Lego set," I said, pulling the Spiderman set out of its bag. "Would you want it by any chance?"

Cooper lit up, literally jumping for joy and grabbing the box out of my hands. For a moment, his mother was guarded, but I did my best to exude wholesomeness. After seeing her son respond with such elation, she relaxed and cracked a smile - something, I realized, I hadn't seen until now.

"Thank you," she said as Cooper started pointing at things on the box with excitement.

Suddenly, a waterfall of emotion overtook me and I had to excuse myself back to my car. I made good on the deal and had won back my soul. 

No, I’d won a better soul. One that gets nourishment not from Legos but from letting go.