Damned

“So you want to buy my soul?”

“Well, lease would be a better term.”

Satan was leaning back against my kitchen table, calmly sipping the coffee I had offered him, out of instinct, shortly after he appeared in a flash of sulfuric smoke. I was concentrating very hard on my own cup, a reassuring solid in a world that was so much . . . spongier than it had been five minutes ago.

It had actually been a pretty good Saturday up to that point. I hadn’t slept in too long, I had eaten the healthy, gravel-like cereal instead of the sugar bombs and thus felt quite proud of myself all morning. I had spent a few hours online, knocking a number of banking items off my to-do list, and had just successfully brewed a pot of coffee with the special Christmas gift bag of pricey beans when the devil arrived.

“Why me? Why now? What did I do?”

The devil finished his cup and handed it to me. “That was good.”

“Thank you” I muttered, instantly flushing with the thought that I probably shouldn’t be thanking Satan. It seemed like one of the “nobody cares about the context” sort of rules.

“Let me explain this completely”, he began, taking a seat at my table and gesturing for me to join him. “Part of the answer to my timing is that you’re finally mature enough, old enough, whatever, to make an informed decision. I’ve waited patiently for many years, and I’m happy to tell you that you’re ready. You’re a grown up.”

My eyes darted to my extensive fandom lining the room, and I fought down a smirk. Sure thing, I though. And even if true, what a prize – the Devil.

“I’m here, looking like this, so that you’re under no illusions about what’s going on. I could just as easily look much less threatening, but then I’d be sort of cheating.” In an instant he shifted into a kindly looking old man with a white beard, a stunningly beautiful young woman, and then a radiant angel, complete with wings, halo, and a harp. Then he was back to the form he had arrived in, horns, hooves, and all.

“Here’s the deal – there is a hell, and there is a heaven. And I run Hell, so I’m being very upfront about with you, even though this isn’t even close to how I really look. But for our purposes today, I want you to start from a position of complete prejudice against who I am.”

“Okay . . .”

“So what I’m asking you to do is go to Hell after you die, spend one normal lifetime there, and then you can reincarnate back here to enjoy a brand new life. So no eternal suffering, no tricks in the fine print, just one lifetime there, then a new lifetime here.”

“Uh . . . no?” I felt like I was a very important step behind in his reasoning, even if the initial panic was now subsiding.

“A reasonable response – let me elaborate a little. Make my pitch,” and he gestured to the wall where a long red pitchfork suddenly appeared in puff. My panic grew a little as my brain cramped up trying to reconcile the prince of darkness making prop humor jokes in my kitchen.

“Here’s the deal – people are good and bad. Agreed?” I slowly nodded.

“When the person dies, the bad parts come to me. If the person is mostly bad, then a pretty complete version of them winds up in Hell, but even a saint would send down a wisp of shade, consisting of that part of them that, I don’t know, refused to stand on the right and walk on the left on escalators or something.”

“THAT damns somebody!?”

“Just an example. What I’m saying is, for humans, nobody is truly damned. It’s more like physics. The good stuff in the soul goes up, and the bad stuff goes down. So no quickie salvation for donating a house on your deathbed, and no insta-damnation for robbing a church. It’s more like a weightloss: the gains come or go slowly – like over a lifetime. In the end, there’s even a little bit of Stalin up in Heaven, though to the 99% of him in Hell that doesn’t make much of a difference.”

“I guess that makes sense” I said slowly. It actually did. I had stopped going to church years ago, mainly because I felt more and more hypocritical saying I was a particular religion when I didn’t feel I really believed the important parts of any of them. The whole eternal damnation thing had really soured me on most of the branches of Christianity, though the events of the day were certainly calling the jury back on that one.

“So the big guy has worked a single exception into this system. It’s small, but important. In order to allow for an eventual salvation, or elevation I guess, for those in Hell, one person’s soul, every other generation, is permitted to come to Hell intact. So that person’s good is able to touch the other souls, and spread, and improve the entire system. Hell becomes a little less hellish, and the universe gets a little bit better, from the perspective of net gains. This has been happening since the beginning, and, like compound interest, it’s amazing what little contributions over a long period of time can accomplish.”

“So Hell isn’t Hell anymore?” I asked, now fascinated, but a feeling a pit in my stomach as my mind plugged me into this equation. Me, the “one person’s soul” he was talking about.

“It’s no Heaven, but it’s a lot better than it was. The point is this only happens if the person agrees to let their soul take the plunge. If not, then, when you die, some of you will go down, some will go up, and that’s that.”

“Forever?” The idea that I would be broken down for parts was really bothering me. I had always been a big believer in the whole Star Trek “Enemy Within” thing, where the good and the bad were both important parts of making a full person.

“Forever-ish. Things change, evolve, and, like I said, things have been improving over the millennia. So here’s the deal: if you agree to my offer, you get to keep your soul intact after you die. You spend some time in Hell, then your soul comes back and lives a new life once you’re done.”

“So is this where you offer me money, or my dream girl’s affection or something?”

“Nope. Just the opportunity to be the only human that will remain true to yourself, and the chance to be part of the most important community renewal project in the universe.”

I surprised myself with how quickly I knew, down to my bones, what my answer was. “Deal” I said, and Satan smiled.

“Then we’re done here. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Your memory of this will fade by the time you’ve finished your coffee, and I’ll see you . . . later.” Satan stood up, but now looked like the kindly old man he had previously transformed into. “You won’t regret this,” he assured me.

“Before you go, what if I had said no? Do you get to ask another person?”

The old man smiled at me. “You know, I couldn’t say. I’ve done this for thousands of years and you’ve never once said no.” And with that, he disappeared.