The Devil Buys a Couch Online
The Devil stood in Jane Honey’s apartment. He was tall and lean, fading to shadow at the edges of his being. He had a pointy, black goatee and horns. He was mstar66@hotmail.com, and his profile picture was a baby goat. Jane didn’t think anything of it until he appeared in her doorway. He gestured to the couch. She could tell he was speaking by the way his lined face moved and sharp teeth flashed, though the words did not register with her ears. They appeared within her, echoing inside her chest then fading to dormancy.
I am here for the couch, the Devil said. Will you help me carry it?
“Yes, of course!” She said without the belief there was a choice. She positioned herself to lift, hoping her wrist would hold.
Jane had begun clearing out the apartment before moving in with her sister. The couch previously belonged to David’s dead mother from whom they’d inherited it; now the Devil had purchased it for one hundred dollars despite the wine stains, which David would have had something hateful to say had he been around — the judge made it clear a person cannot be compelled to testify against their spouse. Jane took the stand anyway, the prayer on her lips was cut short by the prosecutor gleefully seizing upon her pain, leaving her feeling used and ashamed.
Up, the Devil said, and they lifted together. Jane’s right wrist shook as pain shot up her arm. It hadn’t properly healed from when David slammed it in a door. Each step sent the pain further, she pushed through because she wanted to be rid of it. The Devil ignored the whimpers and cries that escaped through her gritted teeth as he walked backward down the steps without looking. His colorless eyes glanced lazily about the stairwell, sometimes resting on her, sometimes not.
They reached the landing and stepped out into the moonless night. The Devil led the way to a double parked, rusted out, red Dodge pickup truck with peeling bumper stickers that said, Nuke the Whales and Pray the Rosary. The tailgate screeched open when they approached it. Lift, the Devil said. Jane loosed a final cry as they raised the couch and slid it along the truck bed. She looked at her arm expecting to see wounds where the pain gouged its way toward her heart. There was nothing.
The Devil handed Jane five crumpled twenties and leaned in to say, David will not survive this night.
“What?”
He will be found hanging tomorrow morning. The Devil bent his left wrist and pinched his long fingers to dangle something unseen. He released it and got into the truck, cruising away in a choking cloud of exhaust.
Jane coughed and wiped away tears as she walked to her car. She didn’t need anything else in the apartment, they could toss everything into the street for all she cared.
Nic Elie is a writer from Washington, DC. He received his MA in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and is currently working on his first novel.
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