—3—
I woke in a panic—the contract.
It was on some sort of parchment—signed in my blood. When I had asked for a copy for myself, he told me there were no duplication services in hell, nor carbon paper, and that if I were unhappy, I could tell him then and there and he would rip it up and return 'from whence I came' immediately. He held the document with his hands poised to rip it from end to end.
'Yea or nay' he demanded.
I assumed there was no cooling-off period.
His hands moved in opposite directions, stretching the parchment.
'Yea!'
~
But now, I remembered—how long would I have to enjoy my success? I hadn't looked.
The big luminous hand on my watch pointed to 2, and somewhere near my desk, paper rustled and then fell silent as a Sydney cockroach the size of a Medjoul date flew from it, to land on my pillow with a thud.
Launching myself out of bed, I threw the pillow at a wall, pulled on pants and shirt and socks, and left my room. I tapped on his door just loud enough for him to hear if he were awake.
'Yes,' he answered immediately.
'It's Angela here. Could I please come in?'
'By all means.'
I entered, and this was the first time I had been in the room since Callum, the previous housemate, had lived here. Outside of a table and chair and a mattress without sheets, there was nothing else besides the Devil himself and—by the head end of his mattress, a black bag that looked like what doctors must have once carried, and a small round-topped trunk that was either black or very old, either metal or wood or some kind of skin, and if it had handles, I surely couldn't see them, but various winglike projections stuck out all over it.
He was lying on the bed with his hands behind his head.
'Oh!'
'Do I offend you?' he asked.
I thought about this. 'Nah. I wasn't prepared, is all.'
He spread his knees and smiled. 'I don't carry jahmies.'
'Not many people wear them nowadays,' I said, pulling over the chair.
He rolled over on his side and began playing with his tail. Was this a technique? If so, I was having none of it.
'Can I please look at the contract?' I said ever so coolly.
'Do you like my tail?' he asked, finding my eyes and I admit, holding them in his gaze.
'Very, but is it possible for me to just look at the contract?'
'I'm glad. No, actually. It is against the rules.'
Oh, so this is how it was to be. I needed to clutch something, so wrapped my arms around my waist and tore my eyes away from his.
Trying to gaze out the window, I asked, 'Don't you make the rules?'
'I am merely the administrator,' he said smoothly, running his tail back and forth over his lips.
The hair on the end moved and shone like a shampoo ad's. It was silky and black and long and as beautiful as our cattle's tails back at Wooronga Station. I used to love combing Boofhead's before a show. But never before had my whole life been at stake.
'I have to know,' I said—quite firmly—'just how long I have.'
He sighed. 'You never think it's long enough.'
'But how long? I don't remember seeing.'
'It didn't say.'
'What?!'
He sat up. 'Be reasonable, and look at it from our point of view, Angela.'
My molars squeaked from clenching. 'Alright,' I said, opening my mouth and taking a yogic breath. 'Please go on.'
'Thank you,' he said. 'When you are unhappy, you don't care how long you have to live. You often want to end it then and there. But when you are happy, you want to cheat death.'
'So?'
'So the contract you signed said that your book will be a success. That you will achieve fame. Isn't that what you asked for?'
That was exactly what I had asked for.
'And with that, isn't time timeless?'
'I don't know what you mean.'
'You will, if I remember the words of one of your poets, "not go gently". You will, in fact, want to weasel out of our deal when you think your time is drawing nigh. So we don't put the time down any more, as it is an insoluble dispute in which we find no benefit in taking part.'
The window had no curtain, and the streetlight at the corner lit the room with a greenish glow. The Devil's eyes glowed a contrasting red. I was sitting in an operating room in which my future was on the table—stripped, vulnerable, and waiting for the scalpel.
'I tell you what,' the Devil said. 'I will do something for you that I just don't do. Do you want to reconsider? I will let you out of the contract if you say no now.'
He smiled, showing his molars. 'No hard feelings.'
The patient breathed, innocent of the sharp knives poised. I thought of the state of this patient just a day ago. I thought of the prognosis—thought honestly of the prognosis before the Devil dropped into my room.
There really wasn't much to think about.
'Thank you, Brett,' I remember saying. 'No thank you. I don't need to reconsider.' And I think I might have added, 'Operate.'
Anyway, I got up and shuffled off to bed. I don't know what the Devil did for the rest of the night, but I slept until ten.