Sammy and the Devil

It was a bright and shining morning. Sammy went through his usual morning ritual: as always, his morning clothes were neatly folded on the table beside the door to his bathroom, which was beside the shower, beside the sink, beside his toothbrush on the back of his toilet beside the door to his bathroom. Sammy knew that the events associated with these objects happened in reverse order, that this was reverse temporal thinking. Once and only once, he had tried to set up his morning in the correct order prior to going to bed, but it didn't work. He dozed a little and kept waking up in front of the door, wondering if he was late for work. And besides after the table comes breakfast, the best place to start.

Sammy thought about driving to work and nearly lost his breakfast. Certainly, he would have spilled his coffee if it weren't for the sudden thought of the subway. Carefully, he set his coffee down, still shaking, and went to retrieve his briefcase by the door. By the door, hung his dark green jacket. Dark green, that meant it was Thursday. Thursday, that meant it was taxi day. Taxi day, that meant he could bring his coffee. He went back to get it before going out to the waiting yellow cab.

The nice thing about taxi day, Sammy mused, is that the driver knew the appropriate path. He always had the same driver; Sammy wasn't even sure that the man drove cabs on any other day. But it didn't matter, that was the best thing about Thursday morning - things were allowed not to matter.

First the Bank, where Sammy got out and checked his balance as he did on every Thursday. No surprises there, that was good. Then on to his Bank (Sammy kept his own money in a different bank than the one he worked in - otherwise it would be a conflict of interest). Exactly, five minutes early: coat, hanger, briefcase, bathroom, coffee, chair, desk, drawers, books. As much as it displeased him, Sammy had to be temporal at work, at least at the beginning of work and as such, he was always vaguely uncomfortable there. He often daydreamed about everything and everyone moving backwards in time. He was in one of these dreams when He walked in.

The front door to the bank opened and in walked the prince of princes, the Dark Lord, the Great Deceiver himself, Lord Lucifer of the seven hells.

There was an aura of applause that followed him on this day - because he felt like it. It hovered on the edge of hearing, like a lot of people clapping on the other side of a thick cement wall in a building across the street. Everyone in the bank paused for a moment and looked toward the door, even if they were not in line of site by virtue of being three stories up and in the bathroom. But that was Satan for you, if there was anything he enjoyed more than a good entrance, it was that people noticed when you put the extra touches on - they really stopped to take notice. One woman screamed and rushed toward him, the cross necklace she wore out-stretched before her. The Devil merely bowed formally and the woman kept running right through the door, out into the street and beyond hearing, screaming the whole way. She ran all the way to the pier, joined a traveling circus as a show girl and eventually ended up in a brothel in Calcutta, where she keeps her bank security badge framed and hanging above her satin covered bed - but that's a different story entirely. Lucifer liked the way his blue pin-stripped suit crinkled as he straightened back up.

Sammy, who's desk faced the front door, didn't even glance up. He was too engrossed in a vision of clawing his way out of his grave, to grow younger by the day, like someone had pressed the rewind button on the remote of his life. The vision was so real, so vivid, that he could nearly feel the dirt under his finger nails and the slight wrinkles around his eyes and mouth stretching out.

The Devil frowned. Those closest to him fainted and one man's hair caught on fire.