Red Hot Deals

Retail is hell. I can’t tell you how annoying it is to be called up at any god-forsaken hour of the night just to buy a soul. What they don’t tell you about eternal damnation is that it’s no cakewalk for me either. I need rest. I can delegate all day to lesser demons but this is still a 24/7 job. At least, thank God, there aren’t any ear-splitting harps playing at all hours. Do you think a cherub can play the harp well? Have you seen their little sausage fingers? With all the musicians down here we at least have some nice variety, a little rock and roll, some disco on Fridays. We save the smooth jazz for purgatory. The point is, even I need a break sometimes and yet people are so eager to give me their eternal spirit at any given moment of the day. 

Honestly, I do get bent out of shape by the hypocrisy I face as a dealer in souls. You sell your soul to me and you are going to get a face to face interaction. It’s just good business. People know that the Devil will show! However, with God anyone can just throw up some old prayer about the most trivial nonsense. If my team makes this goal, I will give my soul to Christ. I will live a life of virtue if You can get this turd to flush. If I pass this dental hygiene exam I will become a nun. Just these endless empty promises given so freely and then rarely bound to any cosmic consequence. But it does go both ways. Really though, the fact that God rarely delivers on these deals seems just as diabolical to me. He is so specific. Dear God please save my big toe from the gout. Well you didn’t say which toe, so He saves the left one for you instead of the right one as it was the more attractive of the two. It’s exactly this kind of nitpicking that I can’t tolerate. I have my fun as well but at least I have a pretty high satisfaction rate. You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Until later, of course, you might get upset later but hell isn’t for everyone. 

You truly don’t have to waste time on a crossroads either, I really wish I could get that message across. Call me up in your living room, maybe a nice restaurant or a day spa. I would love a little foot massage. I’m just so relieved that the blues are no longer popular. When the blues came around it seemed like everyone wanted to sell their soul in the middle of a damned corn field just for some good licks on the guitar. Have you ever heard of practice? As mentioned, I love a musician, but even I can’t take credit for a lot of that skill. The popular phrase is God-given talent, ok? Sometimes He takes a toe, sometimes He helps you learn the oboe, I don’t begin to understand the guy. 

So God has a big advantage with the Bible. I’ll give him credit where credit is due for advertising. Even though I would like to point out that there are some pretty wrathful sections, He comes out in a pretty favorable light. Believe it or not I too have attempted to get my name out there as a pretty reasonable fellow. Have you read the Codex Gigas? I’m thinking that no, you haven’t, because I tried to get it off the ground but publishing in the Middle Ages left a lot to be desired. Let me tell you, I got called up one day around 1204 in Bohemia, really a swinging time, to help out this monk who was being walled in alive just for breaking his vows. Frankly it seems like he could have probably figured out a way to escape from a partially built wall. Anyway, he said to me that he had to finish this manuscript filled with all human knowledge before midnight for the glory of his monastery or that he would be killed. So he offered his soul to me if I just wrapped the whole thing up in a timely manner. Sure, fine, done, I just cranked that one out, riffed a bit off the bible, threw in a calendar just for fun, just full to the brim with great information from Lucifer himself. And you know the thanks I get? The guy includes the most unflattering portrait of me. First off, he drew me crouching, which is a horrible angle for my thighs. I look completely crazy with my claws in the air because my damn hands hurt after writing literally the thickest book on Earth in order to save his stupid life. Also he drew me in some kind of diaper. I have to say that I was wearing nothing at all! I don’t need any clothes but he felt compelled to draw this unflattering loincloth around my nethers. He got the horns right though, really nailed those. He’s down in circle eight now and when I see him I always bring it up. The guy just shrugs at me and goes back to writing endless, eternal drafts of Murphy Brown fanfiction. 

Now, another thing that really gets my goat are the perceptions people have about the folks I bind to eternal hellfire. I feel like it isn’t fair. Some asshole can ask for forgiveness a million times but you make one deal with the devil and people suddenly get the wrong idea about you. A lot of them have been really great guys, not even very sinful! This reminds me, and I know it is probably wrong of me, but I do have my favorite souls. My dude Sly is a fave, he prefers to be called Pope Sylvester II but his original name was Gerbert. Honestly I can imagine someone selling their soul just to get away from the name Gerbert - it’s just awful, truly terrible. People say that I helped him become Pope, but I actually met him when he was just a dumb shepherd kid in the middle of podunk France in the 10th century. He was this bright young fellow, but just incredibly, painfully bored. Now up until this point almost everyone had asked me for an emergency favor or a second chance at life, for riches or fame or talent but this guy, this guy just asked for the opportunity to learn! I was gobsmacked! Yes, of course, absolutely! And off I send him to Spain to learn about languages, math, the stars and the heavens. He goes on to create the first mechanical clock just so that people can get to their prayers on time! I mean, what kind of nerd invents a clock just to pray? He’s a real kick. Anyway, he’s being poked forever in the butt just a little bit with a hot stick, somewhere level five. You ask him, he'll tell you it was worth it. 

There are some real asshats though and I don’t even really want them here because they get on my nerves so badly. Everybody knows Faust. I blame him for a lot of the bad rap. People will tell you he was also looking to plumb the depths of human knowledge and earthly experience but to tell you the truth this guy was just horny. A real dweeb, big overbite, terrible personality, not a fan of soap, just the kind of person you cross the street to avoid. So he wants to get with this girl Gretchen who, honestly, also not a catch. I give Gretchen some nice jewelry, talk Faust up to the girl’s friends and family, just trying to hold up my end of the bargain. Next thing I know - manslaughter, bastard child, infanticide, murder - just a whole gamut of unnecessary drama. Could I have just left him alone? Certainly! Do I encourage people? Maybe a little bit. You don’t drive all the way to the store for pudding and then leave with no pudding. I want a little treat for my efforts. People claim he was saved at the very last moment, but I should be so lucky! The guy is still a horndog jerk. I feel compelled to reveal that he is way the heck down there, a devil always pulling out his thumbnails or his teeth turned to jelly or something, I don’t even care. 

I'm rambling now, which is a circle ten level sin, right next to the yappers. People ask me when I'm going to retire, when I will stop collecting. But as much as I complain about it I do believe in the benefits of retail therapy. There is a certain satisfaction in gathering up the riff-raff of the world. When I buy a soul I get that clean sheet feeling, a sense of all the crumbs swept up from the floor. And where is the intrigue if not for me? My efforts may not be desirable but at least they are interesting.  In any case, I must go, there's a 13-year-old girl in Barcelona who would sell her soul for bigger boobs. You know where to find me.