STEPHEN WEIR - 4th YEAR CREATIVE WRITING COURSE - TWO PAGER SEPT 2022

 Doing a Number One on Mister Two and his Three Wishes

ⓒ Stephen WEIR, weir31@ September 19,2022. Toronto/Windsor, Canada

Dear Paul:

My news is devastatingly bad, but I do get to gloat. 

I know that I can’t out wish Lucifer, that Old-Scratch. It is a well-known fact that when one gets three wishes and Wish Number One is to demand three more, punishment comes at you Big Time. A Satan Slap Down. He is bound by God to make people like you and me pay for our avarice and sins. 

Kidnapped. Beaten. Raped. Theft. God knows we have tortured more than a few angels in our time.

Or maybe he will get all humourous and transfer me into the body of Helen Henny the chicken singer with the Chuck E. Cheese Band. In between playing that maddening Happy Birthday ditty He will force-feed me day old pineapple pizza until I break down and wish back those extra wishes. It could take decades, but Mephistopheles doesn’t care, he revels in timeless torture. Wonder what he will do to you?

You know I have always done my homework. Before I paint a bull’s eye on the back of my next target, I must know everything about her. Height. Weight. Corn Flakes or Captain Crunch?

And so too now I study the Prince of Darkness. No Not Mick Jagger. What does he do for female companionship since Lilith, wife Number One, turned to dust? Is he lonely? Seriously.  I’d make one fine Bride of Hades.

I wish I could have Wish Number One  all over again. I asked for eternal life (with a rider for being of sound body and mind). Hate to admit it, he got the better of me. It doesn’t pay to skip the small print but then again, I can’t read Aramaic.

The Devil is in the details, so now I am just 6 inches tall with a here-to-eternity wardrobe of Barbie clothes. I will spare you Ken’s stats, unfortunately he isn’t anatomically correct – I checked.

Oh, and the apartment. Wish Number Two.  More size issues.  I am sure the Borrowers would put their souls on the market too if they could buy this place. I now live  in a spacious two-floor unit  (14” ceilings)inside the walls of ratty drafty musty old house. Electricity spliced from a nearby wall outlet. No fridge, just a devilishly clever ice cube that keeps it cold but never melts. 

No TV, just a spy hole through which I get to see the Big People’s TV (When will the horrible Little ‘Uns grow out of Sesame St?) Last week I climbed out of my unit down the budgie cage ladder and slipped out of the rat hole. scoffed a smart phone with, as you can see, email. I call it Hell-mail 

The food literally stinks here. I dine on the bait an eternally loaded rat trap. I will get the hang of getting the cheese off the trigger - but why always Gorgonzola?

The unbearable stench of my meals is why I lost my cool and any chance to get a reparational replacement Wish Number Two.

“I wish to God I could eat a Whopper whenever I want to” I yelled to the heavens.

“ YOU dare to call His name,”  growled the Devil. “He knows all. He watched you kill those girls. Poisoning your sister didn’t get you Brownie points either. Kidnapping.  Sexual Abuse. Anthropophagy too.  He signed off on all your wishes – He was the one pushing the stinky rat trap cheese. “

I won’t let myself hate the Evil One. It would only bring him boundless joy and the game is still on. My revenge is best served dead cold. 

Wish Number Three?  I command the Devil to eat my heart and absorb my soul.  Happens at midnight, Friday the 13th. I tell you Paul even Beelzebub won’t be able to withstand the pain.

 

Signed In Blood

Karla Hamolka

Author's note. This story by Stephen Weir is copyright protected. Do not copy any part of this story. Contact stephen@stephenweir.com for publishing rights information