The Bargain

Constantine was standing in front of the familiar portal, his head hung in shame and desperation. He had tried his best to negotiate with ‘Death’ itself but failed miserably. Joan was Constantine’s life; he was obsessed with her, with her thoughts. Their brief tryst ended before he could even figure out it was love; but when he heard she was dying of cancer, he could not contain himself anymore, anyhow.

Rushing to the hospital, he noticed a plethora of pipes carrying intravenous fluids within her body; she looked beautiful as ever, sans her silky, blonde hair. Truly, beauty still lay within the eyes of the beholder. Constantine could bear no more, all this looked like a surreal nightmare for him and he was helpless. He reached out to the ‘Devil’.

‘Devil’ heeds prayers faster than ‘God’ does and Constantine sold his soul to him for her life. After all, all Satan wants is a soul to satisfy his insatiable hunger.

As a result, Joan was saved, miraculously treated from cancer and granted a new life. She was aware of Constantine’s iterated visits to the hospital to see her and wanted to give him the good news. Joan had realized her love for him. She wanted to say ‘yes’ to the question posed by Constantine months ago.

Joan was up and running.

Love blinded her and she almost ignored the speeding car until it was too late for her to dodge. Like a rag doll of sorts, she was airborne at the impact. Cognizant of her last moments, she felt the air around her encapsulate her and thought of it as Constantine instead. Joan was tossed into the air and crash-landed several meters apart, crushing to powder most of the bones in her body. A gruesome and cruel death for a lovely girl like her. Constantine was devastated; this time he did not have anything to offer the ‘Devil’ save his life. 

Hell resembled rough, cracked soil, the fissures extending to several meters in length and depth. Crows and vultures were circling high above in anticipation of dead meat. Just behind a thick screen of smoke, ‘he’ sat on a throne made of human bones and skulls decorated with spears, shields, and swords of his victims. 

“My whole life in eternal servitude is a small price to pay for her life,” he grinned painfully as the portal closed before him.

Joan was recovering well, with steel rods replacing her bones. She resumed her office with great difficulty. One day there was a fire in her office…