Empathy for The Devil

by Mark Colbourne

The only time I ever met The Devil was within the period I felt it prudent to withdraw to Prague. On the occasion in question, I was slumped - somewhat poetically, it thrills me to imagine - atop the Charles Bridge, forcing down the pack’s last cigarette and spitefully flicking ash into the Vltava. Dusk had accepted an invitation from the Old Town, its arrival accompanied by a soft, orange glow which warmed from the antiquated street lamps and traditional Czech taverns. The Devil - quite disappointingly – failed to play to any anticipated type against this gothic fairytale surround. The Devil, as he ambled across the cobblestones towards where I stood, looked, in fact, distinctly shabby.

He joined me to my right and perched with elbows resting against the bridge railings. A sudden brace of wind from the river prompted a coughing fit to take hold – commanding my full attention – and as I asked, fairly sullenly, if he was ok, he waved away my half-hearted concern and nodded between chokes that he was fine. He didn’t look fine. Oh no - he looked like a spiv. The Devil wore a black suit faded to dirty grey with a noticeably fraying collar; his worn shoes were scuffed and a threat of silver encroached around the temples. To the left of his lower lip a vicious shaving cut, presumably acquired during the procedure undertaken to shape his intricately pointed goatee beard, glistened painfully against the flesh.

Assessing this spluttering, semi-shambolic figure, I nodded to demonstrate that I’d accepted his breathless protestations and recognised my help was not what he desired. You have to be gentle with people when they’re in that condition. I could empathise completely. Prague, you see, represented something of a personal end of the line. Yep - London hadn’t worked out, I’d hit the wrong time of year in New York, and my Barcelona experience was, to be cowardly blunt, just plain frightening. Prague had constituted the final spin of the wheel, and following this there remained no place to turn except back home with my tail tucked firmly between both legs.

“How you doing, then?” The Devil croaked as his hacking fit subsided.

“I’m pretty shitty, Old Nick,” I replied, my gaze now returned to view the night roll onto the river. Far behind me, the strip clubs, burger bars and neon drag of the New Town would be warming up for their sprint to dawn. “How about you?”

“You know,” he smiled with a weary shrug. “Trying to keep myself busy.”

I made a vague grunt of recognition and tossed the cigarette butt down into the water. 

“It’s not been going too great for you, has it?” The Devil seemed to state this as a fact rather than the submission of a question.

I’ve always held the opinion that it’s not really worth lying to The Devil. He’ll only catch you out in the end. That’s what, I suppose, The Devil does best. “You could say that,” I agreed.

“You lucked out in the Big Apple, huh? Shame. Nice town. Good place for an ambitious young chap to ride a few years at the top.”

“I don’t think the city was playing my song.”

“And how about those gangsters in Barcelona? I bet it’ll be some time before you’re free to take a stroll down La Rambla again, my friend.” The Devil indulged a mocking chuckle at this recount of my Catalonian debacle. “What was it they said to you? Oh please, remind me.”
“They said they’d rip off my English nuts and force feed them back to me as tapas.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” The Devil leered. “You’ve got to hand it to them there. That’s very inventive.”

“Look – are you just here to take the piss?” I turned angrily. Wallowing in my own failings was one thing, having a mythical fallen angel rub them blatantly in my face was quite another.

“No, of course not.” The Devil‘s demeanour swiftly changed to reflect that of a serious business consideration. “I’m here to make you a deal.”

“Hmm, we’ll hardly at a Delta crossroads, are we?”

“And you’re hardly a blues guitarist,” The Devil reminded me. “Anyway, I’ve always liked it here. There’s an aesthetic which wholly appeals.” He absorbed an encompassing sweep of the City, the raising archaic turrets and hum of hidden nightlife.

 “So what are you proposing?” I asked him.
 “I’d like to buy your soul.”
 “And what’s it worth?”
 “You tell me.”

I thought for a second before explaining that I wanted to be rich, powerful, and irresistible to the kind of women my mother used to warn me about. He could have my soul for this bargain. He was, in fact, extremely welcome to it. The Devil, however, merely laughed.

“You people,” he giggled. “Oh, you warm my cockles. You all say exactly the same thing, do you know that? I must admit, it’s the only reason why I ask. You’ve got to allow for a little humour in your work, haven’t you?”

 “That’s my price,” I insisted.

“No, it’s not,” The Devil firmly shook his head. “Who exactly do you think you are? I don’t want to burst any balloons, my friend, but you’re not what I’d describe as prime desirable real estate and it’s a buyers market down on this rung of the ladder. Oh yeah, all the good souls can name their price. All those souls with the metaphorical clutch of en suite bedrooms, three-car parking and an indoor pool. That’s their prerogative. Especially with the Japanese interest. Those fuckers’ll spunk yen till the cows come home if they catch a taste of something that sets their juices flowing. And then there’s all that money gushing through the former Soviet states.” The Devil huddled more intimately towards my confidence. “You know, I saw all of that coming a mile off. I remember telling Reagan about it in the ‘80s. ‘Ronnie-baby,’ I said, ‘get this Glasnost shit sorted and you’ll be up to your pluckers in a newborn open economy.’ That idiot didn’t pay a jot of heed. Too busy listening to Nancy flapping about how she’d just met the cast of Grange Hill. And now look what’s happened: crooks and gangsters and all that lovely cash in the hands of just those very few.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in favour of all that?” I asked. “Crime? Robbery? Injustice? Ordinary people suffering? You know, generally all the… bad things?”

 The Devil raised an arm to reveal the flash of a white “Make Poverty History” wristband beneath his jacket sleeve. “Of course not,” he protested. “Have you ever tried to corrupt the poor? They’re so righteous. Honestly, it’s like pulling teeth. Now, corrupting the rich – that’s a whole different ball game. The more you have, the more you want. Greedy eyes growing even larger than the greedy stomachs to which they belong.”

“But I’m not rich,” I explained. I was, in fact, apologetically far from it. “Why do you want my soul?”

The Devil sniffed and stifled what I believe could have developed into a fully-fledged squirm. It was disheartening to witness the Prince of Darkness adopt the telling body-language of a second-hand car salesman as the bumper embarrassingly drops off the wonky cut ‘n shut he’s attempting to palm off on you. The Devil calmed his involuntary tic. He looked to the sky and then gradually back down to the water, almost as if he was searching for the answer himself.

“You know something,” he began to explain. “It’s not easy being me at the moment. I mean, people think it is, but, oh honestly, I’ve never had it tougher. I remember the good old days – I had a monopoly on the whole deal back then. A couple of Golden Delicious and a few fig leaves and there the job was done. But look at it now…” The Devil ruefully shook his head. “People aren’t selling their souls to me. They’re giving them up to TV executives, to record producers, to conglomerate companies, to wars in the name of whichever god they pick out the hat. No one has to strike a deal with me to get what they want. The market’s flooded with options and opportunity. Think about it - what can I honestly offer a man in this world you’ve all carved for yourselves?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, because, when he explained it like that, I honestly didn’t. The hole I was in, however, I certainly needed something.

The Devil looked up and began to smile like you’d imagine The Devil should: a charming, sexy grin with a twinkle in the eyes that could make you drop your pants.

“I can’t offer you money,” he coaxed. “I can’t offer you fame or influence – but, I suppose, I can give you happiness.”

I must admit I was a little stunned. Although no expert, I was fairly sure that the “happiness” business was not one in which The Devil was traditionally involved.

“How about this, eh? Try this one on for size… I’ll give you a nice little legitimate job, a solid suburban house, a girl you fall in love with and marry. You’ll have children and you’ll all grow old together. You’ll take holidays in quaint cottages and enjoy DIY. You’ll cuddle and kiss and live a healthy normal life. They’ll be no more debts to drug lords, no more gangsters threatening you with castration, no more dingy basement nightclubs and bad sex with horrid sluts off their brains on crystal meth.”

“A normal life?”
“That’s right. A normal life.”
“And, in return, you’ll get my eternal soul?”
“That about sums it up. So - what do you say?”

The Devil waited for my response. The riverbanks loomed towards me and the water swirled beneath. I thought of a plane home, a square meal; of clean sheets and a lengthy period of recuperation.

 “Ok,” I whispered, and bowed my head.

When it rose again, The Devil had disappeared. I shook myself, as if struggling from a heavy sleep, and began to walk along the bridge towards the Old Town. Thinking still of The Devil and his deal, I ignored the stands offering photographs and trinkets which were dotted along the sides until one curiously and distinctly took my fancy. On a fold-up table, a series of small postcard-sized paintings were displayed, protected by a heavy sheet of clear plastic. In the centre of these, a gentle watercolour depicted an intriguingly out of focus couple holding hands at the very spot upon which I was at that moment stood.

Suddenly, to my side, the stall owner appeared. She was young with blonde, tied-back hair and vaguely student-esque attire. She asked me, her South London accent unmistakeable, if there was anything I liked.

 “You’re English?” I blurted, naively surprised to discover another countryman abroad.

She nodded, and laughed that obviously I must also be.
Smiling gently, I held out my hand to introduce myself and, as she reciprocated, realised amongst the city dusk and half-light that this girl was the most beautiful, perfect woman who I’d ever had the fortune to meet.

 

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~ This piece was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 and was filed under Blog, Writing, Short Story, Featured. You can make comments on it below. ~