Time Sheets and Damnation

 

Tablo reader up chevron

The alarm clock buzzes. 6:30 am. A voice in my head groans Already? I sit up in bed, stretch my legs, then my arms. I put both feet on the ground and stand. Alright, I’m up.

In the kitchen I make coffee and check the morning’s Facebook updates. I didn’t used to be like this. I was the chief salesdemon of the Soul Trade Consortium, Eastern Division, for 732 years running. To say I was good would be a gross understatement. I was the best, the very best. On average, I trafficked and sold approximately six hundred sixty some odd harvested human souls a quarter. Call me old fashioned. I was the envy of every salesdemon in the Consortium, on a first name basis with the Prince of Darkness, and even the president of my HOA. All was as it should be. Yet, despite all of the success and privilege, as the centuries passed, I grew to want something more form existence. It was in the souls I traded. There was something desirable, almost delicious about them. Well, obviously they were desirable. That’s why they sold. But I wanted to experience one, to feel the depth and the pleasure it could give me. I wanted to feed on the raw terror and fear of a human being. So I quit my job, signed myself up for the Demonic Outplacement Program and trained for possession, which is what led me to be sitting at a red light at 18th and Peterson.

Let’s go already, my victim whines into my thoughts. I consider it. A small burst of sparks falls from the traffic light. It turns green. I drive on as two cars in the cross street collide with each other.  I walk into the office ten minutes early, per usual. I punch the clock.

“Good morning, Carolyn,” I say to my coworker.

“Morning!” she chimes back.

The doors open. The first line of people shuffle in, each taking a slip of paper. We begin calling numbers. A person comes up to me. “Good morning and welcome to the Department of Motor Vehicles. How can I help you?” This is but the start of a long day.

Dot the I’s and cross the T’s my host’s singsong thoughts swim through my consciousness as I file my paperwork. She’s actually enjoying this. I could have planned this better. When she had opened herself up to possession, she was an unemployed community college dropout living in her mother’s sewing room. The plan had been to ruin her, to bend her life upon my will, feed on her fears and devour her soul. I tried the spinning the head and walking on walls, but her mother put us on anticonvulsant medication. Furthermore, I had been gainfully employed for the better part of a millennium. I couldn’t sit around and watch reruns until she died. I needed to stay busy, so I got us a job.

I looked at the clock. Five hours to go.

 

Comment Log in or Join Tablo to comment on this chapter...
~

You might like Theo Skiev 's other books...