Scenarios

On a beautiful, crisp morning, Poe looks around his workplace at a fast food restaurant just to hear the furious roar of a luxurious car parking in front of the store. A suave man enters the store and heads straight for Poe, as he smiles at the customer.

"Hello, what can I do for you today?" greeted Poe. " It's actually the other way around." said the stranger. "Oh really?" asked Poe. "Oh yes. I got your call." said the stranger. "My call?" asked Poe, a little perplexed. "Does twenty-thousand dollars ring a bell? You asked me for that large sum of money. You didn't think I was listening last night when you were asking for my help at three o'clock in the morning?" stated the stranger.

The look on Poe's face as if he just had won the lottery. He trys to remember last night. That cold, dark, stormy night when he was weeping on his bed scattered with countless lottery tickets. "Useless! Utterly useless!" exclaimed Poe. "I've prayed to you God and you have not delivered. Over the past five years I have spent twenty-thousand dollars. I now ask the Prince of Darkness himself to refund me the money I could have spent towards my mother's medications that would have prolonged her life. In return, I give you my soul." said Poe. He feels ashamed, both in giving up on his religion since childhood and the realization that his mother could still be with him had he not gambled the money on lottery tickets.

Shaking! The entire house is shaking. Poe scurries under his bed for cover. After a minute that felt like an hour, the madness comes to an end. Poe is not at all phased by what occured. "I moved to California for the fame, not the earthquakes." Poe looks confused as his room is untouched. As if there wasn't an earthquake at all. "Serioulsy? I wish all earthquakes were like this". All of a sudden a black book falls off his bookshelf. "Nevermind".

Poe picks up the impressive, hardcover notebook. "Scenarios?" The word is indented on the front cover in fancy gold coloring in impressive SignPainter font. He flips through the book and skims through the history of Moleskin. He flips through the book again and stumbles on a page that writes, "Hello, Poe. I have received your request to achieve twenty thousand dollars in exchange for your soul. You have to first confirm that you relinquish thy soul onto me."

"Okay, here goes nothing." says Poe. "I, Poe, hereby, relinquish my soul over to Satan." writes Poe. He looks somewhat confused. "What now?" He closes the book and shakes it as if that woud work the same way a little kid would shake a magical eight ball. He opens the intelligent, magical book and it writes, "Return the book to me and the scenario is yours." Scenario? What could that possibly mean? "But where would I find you?" asks Poe. His eye spies a fly leaf. "Ah hah. There you are. "In case of loss: Return to 401 West Valencia" reads Poe. The young man looks quite shocked. "That's my work! I don't know any of my coworkers that would own this book."

"Jesus kid, I didn't ask for your origin story." says the stranger. "Wait, so that means you're him. I didn't recognize you at first." states Poe. The stranger sheds a grin on his face. "Yes. It is I, the Devil. I come in different shapes and sizes. You don't think I wanna look like Al Pacino forever, do you?" asks Satan. "Who?" asks Poe. "Sorry, Milton, right?" says the Devil.

Poe is filled with glee, " You actually granted my wish for twenty-thousand dollars?" The Prince of Darkness looks quite offended. "Wish? Wish? I look like a genie to you, Aladdin?" Poe is dead set on his money. "But I have the money now, right? Is it in my bank account?" asks Poe. "I don't make things happen. It doesn't work that way. I set the stage just like the others, but just so you know I started this service." confirms Satan. "Service? What service?" asks a confused Poe.

"Welcome to Scenarios where the clients are offereed a chance to get whatever they desire in exchange for whatever the Directors want." recites Satan. "Directors?" asks Poe. "Yes. That's what we are named. Lights. Camera. Action. We set the stage." answers Satan. Poe is a walking, talking human form of questions. "What did you mean by the others?" asks Poe.

"Unfortunately, there are others who offer the exact same service and it pisses me off." says Satan, who looks a little unsettled. "Why? 'Cause you used to have a monopoly on the service, but others came along and used your idea?" pokes Poe. "Scenarios is highly profitable. It's an industry." says the wise Satan. Poe has another question to squeeze out, "Others? Like who exactly?" "A few powerful beings like me, but the most popular are you puny humans who run a discreet organization." replies the Devil.

"Called?" questions Poe. "Scenarios. Very original." confirms Satan. "Most popular? But everyone knows you." says Poe. "Yes. Everyone knows me, but some don't want to believe in me." says Satan. "You're saying there's a difference between knowing and believing?" debates Poe. "Yes." replies Satan. "God and I find it funny that it's when a person needs something that they all of a sudden believe in us whether they want paradise in Heaven or what some one banished in Hell."

"Does God do Scenarios?" asks Poe. Satan is just a tad phased he was asked that question. "I don't know. Maybe you should ask him yourself." Satan pulls out a lottery ticket and begins to play. "What exchange would directors want?" asks Poe. "Well, if you're good all year, Santa will give you presents." replies Satan. Poe looks quite shocked and excited at the same time. "Wait. If you're real, then does that mean Santa is real, too?" asks Poe. Satan patiently waits, blinking so Poe can ask another question like he always does.

"What do you want in exchange?" asks Poe. "I already have your soul." confirms Satan. "Right." says Poe. He glances at Satan finally realizing he is playing the lottery. "Why are you playing the lottery? Aren't you rich already?" asks Poe. Satan simply nods as his focus is on that ticket. "Wait. You must know all the winning numbers. Can you possibly increase my asked amount to a humble two-million dollars?" asks Poe.

"I'm not here to make you a millionaire. You sold your soul for twenty-thousand dollars, however, you can get another scenario to become a millioaire if you yield another soul." states Satan. Poe looks very confused. "How could I possibly obtain another soul?" asks Poe. Satan grins," Take a life. You take a life, you take their soul."

"Nevermind that. I am grateful for my twenty-thousand. So how's this gonna work? What's the scenario exactly?" asks Poe. "You can't know how I operate. The scenario has to be a surprise to you. It's like Inception. I'm the architect and only I can know the layout, but that won't be needed for you. Just buy this lottery ticket." says Satan as he lends the ticket to Poe. He grabs it, "Really. That's all?" Satan nods, "All you have to do is wakeup." Poe looks quite confused, "Wake up? But we're at my job." Satan looks around. "You see anyone else here?" he asks. "But if I'm dreaming, then where is my subconscious? Where's the people?" asks the question lover. "You think this is Inception?" Satan says as he walks away. Poe replies,"But you said..." Satan waves. "See you later, Poe."

Poe walks inside a gas station that isn't quite busy at the moment. He wastes no time and heads to the cashier with the biggest smile on his face. "I'm here to buy my winning ticket." The cashier recieves the "golden" ticket. "I have not known a customer as confident as you, however, I will be getting a lot of business courtesy of you if your ticket actually wins." says the jolly cashier. Poe looks outside. "That earthquake recently was strange, am I right?" asks Poe. The cashier wears a perplexed face. "Earthquake? California hasn't had an earthquake in ten months." the cashier says, while Poe looks rather confused. He knows that he wasn't dreaming when that rumble occured.

The cashier strikes back, "Speaking of the weather. It rained heavily this morning, but then I prayed to God and five hours later he cleared the skies." The cashier completes Poe's winning lottery ticket purchase. "He really listened to you. What did you give him in exchange?" asks Poe. "Exchange? I don't think God would ask for anything in exchange." confirms the cashier. "Did he mention anything about an impressive black Moleskin notebook or Scenarios?" Poe asks curiously. "Scenarios? What's that? I didn't actually have a conversation with him, you know? Just a simple prayer." Poe nods both assured and confused. "Nevermind. Have a good day." says Poe as he exits the gas station.

Poe sits in his desk ten hours later. It is time for the winning numbers to be drawn. He constantly refreshes the page over and over. The man without a soul is also without patience. All of a sudden...it's official. He actually won the twenty-thousand dollars! He screams in absolute joy! He continues through the website to see how he can get his money. He spots a phone number and calls it. "Hello. Thank you for calling. How can I help you tonight?" says the operator. "Hello! I just won the lottery!" exclaims Poe. "Congratulations!" the operator replies. "How would I obtain my prize?" asks Poe. "Just come into any of our lottery retailer stores to cash in your prize. Do you require anything else?" the operator asks. "No, that'll be all." Poe says.

"Well, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night. Too bad taxes are taken out of lottery winnings. That's the only complaint about winning the lottery." the operator states. "Wait!" Poe shouts. "Taxes? I won twenty-thousand dollars. How much will the taxes take out?" asks Poe. "Well, that much money will require the top federal tax rate of thirty-seven percent, so that percentage out of your twenty-thousand will let you take home seven-thousand and four-hundred dollars." the operator confirms. Poe turns pale. The same exact feeling he got when he just learned that his mother died. He smashes the phone into a thousand pieces.

Poe storms into his work place and spots Satan sitting comfortably at a table. The Devil lays his newspaper to rest. "I didn't get my twenty-thousand. Instead, I got seven-thousand and four-hundred dollars." Poe complained. "That's taxes for you, son. It's one of the reasons why I stopped playing Monopoly." Satan teases. "But we agreed upon twenty-thousand dollars. I sold my soul for it. Couldn't you have just magically rigged the system in which taxes could not have been taken out of my cash prize?" cried Poe.

The Prince of Darkness rises out of his chair to lecture Poe. "I don't make things happen. It doesn't work that way and what did I say in our first meeting? The clients are offered a chance to get whatever they want." Satan said. "This is what I get for making a deal with the Devil, isn't it?" Poe snarled. "If you thought this would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention, however, you got several thousand dollars in your pocket because of me. Look at it this way. Scenarios is like a restaurant. People are too lazy or don't have the time to cook for themselves so they go out and get food. You gave up and sought out a service to do the work for you. Didn't you say you were grateful?" asked Satan. "I said I was grateful for twenty-thousand." Poe stated. "But ungrateful for anything less. You are pathetic and undeserving." Satan said. It is depressing when a person does something to disgust Satan, the most evil being of all time. The Devil walks away and leaves Poe to rot with his ungrateful self.