A Deal with the Devil in the 7-Eleven

“Get your damn mouth off of that!” I shouted. Damn kids.

The kid had already guzzled a mouthful from the Slurpee machine, and there were no signs of stopping. Blue liquid was flowing down his cheeks.

His mother stopped the conversation she was having on her cellphone and pointed at me. “Don’t you dare talk to my son that way!”

“His mouth is on the damn nozzle,” I said from the register. “We have a health code here.”

The mother grabbed her son by his shirt. “C’mon Aidan,” she said. “We’re leaving.”

As she dragged him toward the door, blue liquid spilled out of his mouth and splashed down onto the tile floor.

“I just mopped that!” I shouted, but the damage had already been done.

The mother stopped at the door. “After the election, things are gonna change,” she said. “People like you will have to go back to your own country.”

She kicked open the door, yanked her son through it, and slammed it behind her.

She was already out of earshot before I could muster a word.

“I was born here,” I said to no one.

My shift at the 7-Eleven was over in twenty minutes, and the boss would be in for the afternoon. If the place wasn’t clean, it would be my ass on the line.

I went into the back, filled the mop bucket, and sighed. Election coverage was running on the 6-inch TV screen that the boss kept in the back for break time. Sit on the dusty folding chair, watch a little TV, and enjoy your 15 minutes of break time freedom. Then back to work. It was the only joy of the day. A break from the monotony of mopping the floors, freshening the hotdogs, and refilling the coffee machine. But it wasn’t break time. It was mop time.

I took the mop in my hand, closed my eyes, and ran my fingers through the filthy strands, thinking, wishing, it was someone, anyone. Eight hours behind the counter, fifty customers, and I was still lonely. My life was going nowhere. Regardless of what the mother had to say about the election, right or wrong, nothing was going to change. Nothing ever changes.

I opened my eyes and stared at the television, wishing that I was worthy enough to be on it. I was old enough to be president. When the hell did my life go so wrong?

I remembered all my days off, sitting on the couch in my slippers, having woken up well past noon. I remembered my robe feeling damp from sweat after doing nothing. I felt so insignificant. I’d wasted so much time, so much life. I felt so powerless.

I wanted power so badly. I wanted to be significant. I wanted to be interesting. I wanted to make a difference to someone, anyone.

I flipped the mop, dropped it in the bucket, and wheeled it out. Duty called.

“I’d like to make a purchase,” a man said from in front of the register. He wore a sleek black suit that matched his slicked back hair.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’ll be right with you. I just need to—”

I looked down. The floor was clean. The blue Slurpee puddles were gone. But how?

“I took care of it,” the man said. “Consider it a sign of good faith.”

“Thank you,” I said passing behind the counter. “Good faith for what?”

“A transaction,” the man said. “A deal.”

I looked at the counter, but the man had put nothing on it. “What are you looking to buy? Lottery tickets?”

The man smiled. “No, it’s not my lucky day today. It’s yours. I’d like to purchase your soul.”

I laughed. “My soul? It’s really not worth anything. You might have better luck with someone else. With someone who matters.”

“All souls matter,” the man said, pulling a scroll of paper from inside his sleeve. He rolled it out on the counter.

“Who are you, the Devil?”

The man nodded. “Yes, and I can give you what you want. No more mops. No more kids. No more lonely days and nights here. I can give you power. I can make you matter.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I said. “There are better people to prank than me.”

“No prank. No joke. Just sign and see what happens. What have you got to lose?”

I looked at the scroll, but the text on it was illegible. “I can’t read this,” I said. “What language is this in?”

“My language,” the Devil said. “Don’t worry about the details. You get what you want, and I get what I want. You’ve got a few minutes. The floor’s clean. Test me. Ask me anything.”

“Who will win the election tonight?”

“You,” the Devil said, pulling out a fountain pen from his breast pocket and tapping me on the forehead with it.

I brushed him off. “Bullshit,” I said.

“Go on, sign it,” the Devil said, pressing his fountain pen squarely into my palm.

“And you’ll give me power?”

“Not forever, of course. Nothing lasts forever.” The Devil smiled. “Well, maybe not nothing.” He grabbed my wrist and moved my hand over the contract. “You want power? I’ll give you power. You can rule a nation. You can call the shots. People’s lives will be putty in your hands. So, do it. You want this. You need this. Do it! Do it!!!”

I signed the contract.

“Good,” the Devil said.

In the blink of an eye, he was behind me, behind the counter. He placed his hands over my eyes. “Power is now yours,” he said. “Use it. Wield it. Treasure it. I won’t last forever.”

“How long do I have?” I said, still blinded by his hands.

“Thirty-six hours. Not a second more.”

“Why thirty-six?

“Isn’t it obvious?” The Devil said. “Three times six is…”

“Eighteen?” I said. “Because I work at a 7-Eleven, and seven plus eleven is—”

“No,” the Devil said. “Pay attention now. Three times six is 6… 6… 6.”

“I guess,” I said, shrugging.

“Don’t worry about it," the Devil said. "That’s my job. Your job is to do what you want to do.”

“And what should I do?”

“It’s your life. Enjoy it while you can.”

The Devil’s hands fell away, and I opened my eyes.

“Welcome to power,” the Devil said.

Looking around, I found myself in a round, elegantly dressed room, behind an oak desk. On the desk sat a closed laptop computer.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Don’t you know where you are?” the Devil said. He reached over my shoulder and flicked my chest. There was a metal clank.

I looked down to find myself in a blue pin-striped suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. The metal clank was the sound of a brass name plate affixed to the breast pocket of my blazer. It read PRESIDENT.

I looked over my shoulder to find the Devil himself dressed all in red, in a suit fitting much better than mine. His own brass name plate read VICE PRESIDENT.

“This is power?” I said.

The Devil smiled and stepped to my side. He ran his fingertips across the top of the closed laptop computer. “Open it. Your audience awaits.”

I flipped open the computer and the screen lit up. All it showed was an image of me.

I waved at the computer, and the image of me waved back in unison.

“This is happening?” I asked. “Like, right now, happening?”

“Yes, right now,” the Devil said. “Remember, thirty-six hours. Don’t leave the people waiting. Your nation is watching.”

“But… what do I do?”

“You rule,” the Devil said. “The people bring you their problems and you solve them.”

“How is that power? It just sounds like work.”

“What you say goes. Your word is law. Change the world if you want to.”

“But why do I need to solve other people’s problems? I’ve got enough of my own.”

“Your power is judge, jury, and executioner, and that doesn’t work without people. Give it a try.” The Devil ran a finger along the top of the computer screen. “Ah, I think we have our first life to be changed.”

A white box popped up at the bottom of the screen, and a name and message appeared.

Lucy Wilcox: I’m sick of politicians gaming the system to stay in power. I wish they would all just go.

“So, is she looking for me to set term limits?” I said. “I’m not quite sure what to do with this one.”

“You’re not understanding your power,” the Devil said, pointing at the screen, at the word go. “She wants all politicians to go, so make them go.”

“Am I a politician?” I asked.

“You make the rules.”

I stared at the screen and spoke. “All politicians, minus myself, must--”

The Devil coughed. “Ahem,” he said, tapping his own brass name badge.

“Right,” I said. “All politicians, minus myself and minus you, must go.”

“Where must they go,” the Devil said.

“I don’t care,” I said. “They just need to go. Isn’t that enough?”

The devil dusted his hands. “It’s more than enough. And they’re gone.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” The Devil pointed to the white box at the bottom of the screen, and a flurry of names flashed across it, each one giving thanks. “The people approve.”

“So, they can see me? They can see what we’re doing?”

“Yes, and you’re giving them what they want.” The Devil scratched his chin. “How about another?”

“Well, hold on,” I said, pushing the computer away from me. “How do I know that these things are actually happening?”

“Let me show you,” the Devil said. He placed his hands over my eyes, and everything went dark.

When the Devil peeled back his hands, I opened my eyes to find myself some place new. It’s looked like a theater with countless arched rows of seats. A flag hung behind a large, tiered podium in the front. The blue carpet, admittedly, was a bit much.

“It’s empty,” I said. “I did this?”

“Yes,” the Devil said. “The seats in the House are empty, and they’ll stay empty. In fact, all the seats in the Capitol are empty now, across the whole nation as well. The people asked for it, and you made it real.”

“So, who makes the laws then?”

“You make the laws.”

I nodded.

The Devil placed his hands over my eyes. “Time to get back to work.”

I was back in the round office, back at the oak desk, staring down at an image of myself on the laptop screen.

“How about another question?” the Devil said.

“Okay,” I said. I was finally getting used to things.

Another question popped up in the white box at the bottom of the screen.

Roy Conly: I want there to be absolute peace in our nation.

“That’s a tall order,” I said. “How do I solve that one?”

“Well,” the Devil said, “all you need to do is remove the troublemakers. Anyone who stands in the way of absolute peace needs to go. Sensible, right?”

I nodded. “I guess… but… only those that are standing in the way of peace, right?”

“Yes,” the Devil said, placing his hand over his heart. “Of course.”

“Fine,” I said, placing my hands firmly on the desk. I needed to brace myself for this one. I closed my eyes. “If you stand in the way of peace, you need to go.”

I almost expected myself to disappear, but I didn’t. “I’m still here,” I said.

“Of course,” the Devil said. “You’ve brought peace to the nation. You’re not the problem here.”

I looked at the computer screen. The white chat box was blank. “But… then… why is no one thanking me like last time.”

“Well, there’s no one left to thank you,” the Devil said. “If there are people, there will be conflict, so they had to go. Peace cannot exist if even two people are left. But you’ve fixed that. There aren’t even two people left. There’s only one.”

“Me?” I said, pointing up at my own, surely confused, face.

“Yes,” the Devil said. “You are now the most powerful, most significant person in the nation. You’ve made such a difference in so many lives.”

“But what does it matter if there’s nobody left to rule over?”

“Ah, it’s seems you’ve learned a lesson,” the Devil said. “Faster than most, I’d imagine.”

The Devil snapped his fingers and a digital clock with bold red numbers appeared on the desk. The time was counting down. It read thirty-five hours and forty-nine minutes.

“It’s only been eleven minutes?” I said. “What the hell am I supposed to do with the rest of my time?”

“If you’d like,” the Devil said, “I can get you a job transfer.”

I was feeling lonely already. The people were gone, and I was all alone again, behind a desk and growing increasingly bored by the second. “Will I still be in charge?” I asked.

“Of course,” the Devil said. “We had a deal, and I’m a man of my word. This will only take a moment.”

The Devil covered my eyes, I took a breath, and we were gone.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Stale meat. Dirty mop water. Mildly fresh coffee. I was home.

The Devil’s hands fell away, I opened my eyes, and I was back behind the counter at my 7-Eleven. The Devil stood beside me.

“Welcome home,” the Devil said. “I thought you might like this. You’ve done me quite a service today. You’ve given me more sheep for my flock, but they need to be processed. And it might take some time. I know I said thirty-six hours, but how would you like to be in power a little longer?”

“What do I need to do?”

The Devil snapped his fingers, and the front doors flung open. A stream of people poured in. They lined up at the counter, and the line seemed to extend infinitely beyond the door, through the parking lot, and into a hazy distance.

“It’s simple,” the Devil said, pulling a tall stack of paper from beneath the counter and slamming it down in front of me.

The top of the stack reached my eye level. There were names on the top page.

The Devil continued. “These people need to be admitted. They’ll tell you their name, and you’ll check it off this list.” He placed a fountain pen on top of the stack of paper and set a rubber stamp and ink pad on the counter. “Once you have them checked off, you give them a stamp across their forehead.”

“What does the stamp say?” I asked.

The Devil tapped the rubber stamp onto the ink pad and pressed it onto my forehead.

I looked down at the reflective glass set into the countertop above the lottery tickets. I could only read it backwards, but I could read it well enough. In bold red letters, it read DAMNED.

“Well, you’ve got about a couple hundred million people to process here,” the Devil said. “You’ve certainly been a very busy boy.”

“And where do they go?” I asked.

The Devil pointed toward the back corner, back by the Slurpee machine. The doorway into the backroom had a sign hanging above it. It read HELL.

“You can come along when you’re done,” the Devil said. “Feel free to take your time. You’ve earned it.”

With that he was gone, vanished in an instant.

I stared out at the line of what surely must have been hundreds of millions of people, if the Devil was to be believed. Everything single one of them had to talk to me, and I had to talk to them.

I turned to the first person in line. “Name, please?” I said with a smile.

“Lucy Wilcox,” she said.

“Hi there Lucy,” I said. The name sounded familiar. “Just a moment. Let me find your name.”

I started flipping through the stack of pages in front of me. The top page was the A’s. The second page was also the A’s. The third, fourth, and fifth pages were also the A’s.

“This might take a while,” I said, lifting the rubber stamp and pressing it onto her forehead. “If you’d like a cup of coffee, feel free to help yourself right over there.” I nodded over toward the coffee pot beneath the drip. “I’m sure I’ll find your name soon enough.”

I continued flipping through the pages.

Still on the A’s.

Still on the A's.

Still on the A's.

And, in that moment, I was happy. Unusually happy.

I had a purpose.

I felt significant.

I had power.

I wasn’t alone.