THE EXCHANGE

Fiona Cameron

Mrs. Sarah Young

December 7 2006

ENGDc

There was once a time when there was a belief of the devil and death. People had said to have seen the devil, as a well dressed man with a big ego and always smoking, as if the cigarette never went out. He always spoke of Death as a friend from the past, present and future, but also as his enemy. But in the contrary of the devil, nobody had ever seen Death. Mainly because he preferred not to be seen, and only in the rare occasions that he appeared, the future victim was alone. But even though that did not stop people from inventing how he looked like and how he did his work: some said he was tall and gloomy, with jet black hair and dashing red eyes that pierced the air taking the last breath of the dying person; other people were more creative and said he was not even human, but became what the dying person loathed most, so it could take the victim with hatred in their faces, and sometimes, especially in injured soldiers, death would rip up the body making it look even more disastrous than what it had been. Both of these creatures were hated by the humans, just because they believed that they were the creatures who really did kill the person, taking them before giving them another chance to live. What they did not know was that just as Death took the souls to hell, so did he take them to heaven, and that really the angels were too lazy to go down and do it themselves, or, as the daemons jeer down in hell, were too weak to stand seeing a dying person.

A form in shape of a man stood in the middle of a huge room, the size of a ballroom, but not at all like one. It was surrounded by pillars that were the colour of coal, and might as well have been made out of it. The walls were a dark shade of purple, and hanging from the four walls were various paintings of people suffering, people who had mad eyes and doing horrible things to themselves or to others. The windows were huge and out of them was a strange darkness, an incomplete darkness. At each end of the windows hung bright blood-like curtains, contrasting horribly with the walls, but not so much with the paintings. In the middle of the room was a table, with what seemed like a magical made mask, which seemed to be made of millions of little fragments, which seemed to be made of million of pieces themselves. There was a huge fireplace where the human-like form seemed to be watching intently into it. Every once in a while the fire would flicker and the form would all of the sudden swiftly move to the other side of the fireplace, where he would study the fire again till it flickered, where he would move quickly to the other side.

And then suddenly it flickered one last time and turned off.

“Ah… your back,” croaked the form, in a crispy voice, and then quite suddenly smelled the air, “and you brought the smell of heaven… I suppose you made a stop before passing by my territories?”

Behind him another form appeared. At plain sight someone would have thought that it looked nearly human, but giving it another look, he who would be looking at it would have gasped and tried to run away as it glided close to the firelight. It had what looked like skin hanging off its main body, and dripping liquid everywhere, but when the liquid touched the floor, it lingered there for five seconds and then slowly it seemed to be sucked into the floor.

“Not just one stop today, I was intending to visit you before, but too many souls were innocent or good people or any of the characteristics that the angels are so open to accept, and I did not get any of the “sinners” or “suicidal” that are the only two that you happen to let apply.”

“You know that the only reason of that happening is because I was given less space than the upper level. They got the whole sky and I only got a river that keeps overflowing,” he replied angrily, “I had to change the rules back in the old times when they gave me too many witches.”

“Yes, but now since the river is calming down you can change the rules again!” His voice had a slight tint of annoyance and irritation in it “I am tired of going to heaven twenty times more than I go to the place where I was created and born in!”

“I do not want to change the rules of the separations of the souls again! It took me many years and suddenly now when the things are finally calming down in between us and the upper level, you want me to go and discuss this ‘new arrangement’ with them because I want to deteriorate more souls than what I have now?”

But just at that moment Death felt the pulling sensation at the back of his incomplete figure that he new only to well and, still angry at Devil, he let himself be pulled in the direction of the death bed, or maybe, if he was lucky, the murder scene. But as he was getting closer to wherever he was going, he felt that their were two deaths, one more that was nearly dead, but as rules say, he could only take a dead person, even though that person was as near to dying as a person can possibly get.

As Devil saw Death leaving the room, he shouted:

“Come back fast, I’ve been waiting for this soul for a long time!”

Julia was a nice girl, as nice as a girl can get if she has abusive parents, not-so-stable siblings, and not enough money to manage one person, even less seven people, who two were under twelve, and her mother pregnant with twins. Julia was the only one that brought the food to the table, but barely, since her job was to be a supermarket employee, and only once did they ever have a snack, and that was when she earned the “employee of the month.” Meanwhile John was a man of first class, but a horrible history behind his false smile. John had done many sins in his life: he had stolen from shops when he was a teenager, raped many women during manhood, and now laughed at the beggars on the street, just to make them realise just how much more he was to the world than they were. He had done many cheatings in his business, and so in his gambling career. How the shooting had attacked such opposites is a mystery.

But on the same night, Julia decided to go and walk her little brother to the park, to lie down on the grass and watch the evening stars, and John had decided to go walking, instead of riding in his million dollars worth limo to the casino, because he felt the stroke of luck. But also, that same night, Howard Dale felt that the depression he was holding inside him was bursting, and he needed to get rid of it. So he grabbed the revolver he had hidden, hoping to forget the hiding spot, but he never managed to forget about it. He dashed down the stairs, trying to convince himself that he should control himself, but the little voice could not be heard over the screaming inside his head. He went outside and in mere desperation he started shooting at the street in front of his humble apartment, hoping deep inside him that the street would be deserted, but his wishes were not completed as there was a girl, not much over twenty, who was in front of a child. She was not pretty, but had a unique beauty with her black hair falling on her dark eyes, and on the other side of the street was an elderly man in his eighties, dressed in the opposite manner than the girl, and indeed was nowhere near handsome. Howard hit her squarely in between the eyes and, as he kept on shooting, injured the boy in the arm. As his shooting got closer to the man, the man had tried to duck, but the bullets hit him at the back of his head, since, by his age, he could not duck as fast as he could some forty years ago.

And suddenly the time stopped and Death appeared.

He looked around at the scene and was somewhat devastated when he realised that he had two “deliveries” to do, in both heaven and hell. And at that moment was when he came up with the idea that made everybody, both in heaven and in hell, to be angry at him. He had mostly come up with the idea because he was angry at Devil for not allowing him to spend more time in hell than what he spends in heaven, and also because he had had too many visits to heaven that day and was irritated and angry to see the angels so many times in a second.

When he came near the girl he sensed the goodness that was being sent to him and knew that she was the one to go to heaven, and when he reached for the man, he discovered why Devil had wanted him so much, for this man was a sinner behind the sins.

He picked up both souls, which were weightless, and concentrated in thinking in heaven and was transferred, so fast that in a blink you would have missed it, and was suddenly on top on the clouds, and through all of it was a spectacular light and Death, thinking that if he did not do what he intended of doing fast, he would loose his wit, and more dangerously, be greeted festively by the angels once again, so he left the soul over a cloud, where it was beginning to wake up, and concentrated on hell and was transferred to a bright place, but not of the pure brightness of heaven, but of heat and redness in the brightness, making it seem a very intimidating place, and placed the soul in the river of souls, knowing that Devil would use his powers to take it out, since he had mentioned before Death had left his headquarters that he was “awaiting the soul” and he says that every time when the soul is a special kind of soul, such as a sinner that should be an example of what all the daemons should be like.

After placing the soul in the river and watching it mingle wildly with the other souls, Death let go of the first chuckle he had done in a century and left for another “job” that had to be done, and muttered “duty calls.”

Freshness. Heat. And suddenly pain in between the eyes. And over again and again it came back. It hurt her a lot, but no matter what she did, these feelings kept repeating themselves in Julia.

It took her quite a bit of time to realise what had happened only a few minutes before, and how come her bed felt icier than usual, and somewhat fluid. Then, suddenly, she opened he eyes and screamed, only that the scream never left her mouth because in front of her were many ripped or decaying forms just simply moving about her.

Then all of the sudden she felt herself being lifted out of the freezing water and being taken to a huge ballroom with no sense of beauty at all. In the middle of the room beside a table, stood a man smoking and staring at her intently with angry eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he practically spat at her.

Julia was hurt by this question. Because mainly she did not know where “here” was, and she was used to be treated in such manner, but the man made her feel more useless than ever before. So she remained in silence.

“I, the Devil have asked you a question, and as a soul in hell, you have the obligations to answer me!”

She could not believe what she had heard and did not want to believe it, but just as she was beginning to complain about what she had heard, when suddenly, as if a film, an image showing how she had died was passed over her eyes. She gasped.

“But… I… why am I in hell?”

“I am guessing because I had an argument with Death, and him, so to revenge himself on me, he put a man that I wanted to see in heaven, and bringing you in his place to hell.”

“So I should really be in heaven?” she said devastated.

“Technically yes, but if you want to go to heaven, and John (that is the man’s name) wants to come down to hell, then you shall have to complete the procedure of an exchange.”

John heard lots of voices around him and smiled, knowing that most places with a lot of conversation meant that surely there would be a gambling table, until he heard what they were talking about.

“… said he wanted an exchange…”

“…haven’t had one in centuries…”

“…supposedly Death mixed them up on purpose…”

John suddenly sat up and all the angels stopped talking, because they feared that since he was a sinner, that he would do terrible things to them. He looked intently at them, but his stare quickly turned into a glare.

“I sinned all my life hard so that when I die I could go to hell and meet the famous devil everybody talked about for centuries and after all that I end up in heaven?”

The angels all started talking at once, and stopped, and then one of them explained to John about the exchange procedure that the devil had suggested on, of how he would have to do one horrible thing in heaven and the other being in death had to do something extremely good at the same time, and then the exchange will be done and both he would go to hell, and she would come to heaven. But John should decide what to do, but being himself an answer came fast to his head.

When the time came for the exchange of souls in between hell and heaven, the angel and daemons had to remain in fast contact to make sure that the two souls did their actions at the same time. The time was decided by Death, who was having a good time seeing them all rush about trying to cure something he had done.

What was to be done is that since angels can visit hell, but daemons can not visit heaven, an angel would go down and when it was time, it would leave hell, and when she would disappear from Julia’s sight, who would be looking at it leave, she would do the goodness she was supposed to do, and just when the angel was out of Julia’s sight, it would come to John’s sight in heaven, and he would do his sin.

Julia was very nervous about what she had to do, and was worried that her good deed might not be up to the exchange level, but once she saw the angel down in hell, she felt a small piece of hope through the hatred all around her. So she positioned herself in front of Devil and waited for the signal.

Suddenly the angel took off and in less than ten seconds it was out of sight and Julia began her good deed by turning and facing Devil.

“Devil, I wanted to thank you for the hospitality you have been offering me for the last hours, and I know I have been nothing but a bother to you. I also wanted to say that you should give Death another chance and not be angry at him for eternity, I am sure that he meant no real harm about it and-“

But her sentence was cut off with the sudden fact that she was flying in the air, heading upwards to heaven.

When the angel appeared John had been over ready, for he was getting tired of the boring and caring angels who did not know how to play poker, if that was possible. And when he saw the angel he dashed towards a female angel, and slapped her with all his force and insulted very badly at her for many seconds, and when he thought that he had no more insults he could think of, he suddenly felt this pulling in his feet, and he started falling downwards, and John knew that if it were not the fact that he was dead already, he would have had a heart attack.

They met in a room which was a light shade of orange and looked like it had not been inhabited for many centuries. The two souls had never met before, but they were both glad to see the other one, and as fast of possible, for they were being timed, they started saying their vows, and Julia started.

“I, Julia, have been mistakenly put in hell by the soul messenger, Death, when I should have been put in heaven.”

“And I, John, have been mistakenly put in heaven by the soul messenger Death, when I should have been put in hell.”

“Pleas exchange and place me in heaven-“

“And me in hell.”

And both pleased kept going in the direction they had come from.

When John arrived in hell, he was received curtly by a grim, but somewhat contented looking Devil, who asked John if he could give a demonstration to the daemons and evil souls about what a sinner should really be like, and John accepted because he was so glad to know that Devil knew how to play poker and gamble.

Meanwhile Julia was greeted by many angels and they feasted for a great time in heaven, and they all wished that such a horrible and rude person like John to never again come to heaven. And they feasted for many more things apart from that, but that shall remain in between the angels and Julia.

THE END

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