Black D: So you’re finally here. After all this time, I get my due. You’re finally dead, and you’re mine.

Red D: (looks disoriented for a moment) Let’s just go over this one more time, I’m sure you can understand why I’m a little dubious.

Black D: Of course. Your partial amnesia was a necessary condition, at your request, of course. And before you ask, no, I’m not your brother playing a prank on you, not the man who’s face you stole to escape earthly punishment. You’re done with that. You’ve had this coming a long time….

2 young boys and a girl are playing horseshoes in their backyard. One of the boys is cheating. Stepping over the line just a bit, to get that extra edge. It sets up a notable modus operandi that will be a characteristic of young Dwayne Ritchie for the rest of his life. A horseshoe flies way off and through the back window of a large house. When the parents arrive to scold the children, the older boy takes the blame for young Dwayne, knowing his little brother is one more incident away from a father’s exhausted wrath.

Dwayne smiles at his escape and decides to take a stroll. That’s when he meets a tall man who observed Dwayne’s escapades and is impressed with him.

“Young man, with an attitude like that, you’re bound to go far in life, and get ahold of everything you could want. You just have to reach out and take it.”

“So?” the young man says, “ I already have everything I want, I’m rich. And you’re an asshole, bug off.”

“Oh”, says the tall blond man, “ but I have something money can’t buy. Something you’ll never be able to take.” He pulls something out of his chest pocket and shows it to the boy, obscured from the camera. The boy is visibly taken aback.

“You can have this. Its for you. And it won’t cost you anything that you’ll miss”, he hisses.

“What do you think I am, some moron? I watch tv, I’ve read Faust, and I’ve heard ‘the devil went down to Georgia’. Just because I’m young doesn’t make me stupid. No deal, asswipe.”

The tall man’s eyes glittered with amusement, and an evil grin spread across his face. “Now boy, you’re right. I should have known better than to try and trade your soul for this item, you’re too clever. But what if I just give it to you? I can do that, can’t I? As a reward for being so smart?”

The boy’s eyes widened as his ambition strangled his good sense. “You’d just give it to me, and I’d never have to give it back? Wait…what’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”

“Right you are, Dwayne, but its not a catch, more of a condition. A maintenance cost, sort of like having to change your oil every few thousand miles.” The tall man was making wild gestures with his hands, going into car salesman mode. “Why its hardly a price at all! Its natural, normal, its my very essence!”

Dwayne looked at the deranged man and said “get to the point, you old bastard!”

The Tall man’s black suit and blond hair smoothed as he composed himself. “Do you know what a sin is? A sin is when you enjoy yourself. When you accept that you’re an animal, a being of this earth, and do what animals do. Eating a delicious cake is a sin, looking at a woman is a sin, being an ass to your good hearted brother, all of it. The essence of “SIN” is to enjoy yourself. As long as you enjoy yourself, my boy, as long as life has fruit and candy to offer you, I will never come near you. You’ll practically be doing my work, and loving it. Does that sound like too much a price for this lovely, one of a kind item?”

Dwayne’s mind raced. Life was one big joke to him already, and all he had to do was be himself and he’d never have anything to fear? What a bargain!

“But” the tall man growled, “If you ever decide that you’re not enjoying yourself, that life is no longer about pleasure, and the joke is no longer funny, then you have failed to meet the condition of this GIFT, and whenever you die after that, your soul is mine to keep. But that couldn’t POSSIBLY happen, now could it?”

The boy eagerly nodded his head, confident that he would never tire of feasting on all the pleasures life had to offer. And with all his money and freedom, there was nothing stopping him.

Black D: And what happened? What ALWAYS happens? The inevitable. Reality. Surprise, life is not all lollipops and rainbows, even for rich, evil assholes like you. Your tastes refined and grew more expensive, more exotic, harder to please. You wrang out every bit of joy you could have in life, and exhausted them one by one, because your very nature, my/our nature is never satisfied.

Red D: And then I screwed up and then died. Only I hosed you.

Black D: Yes. You felt yourself drying out, drained of anything meaningful, and you sold your soul to someone else, because of the loophole.

Red D: Exactly. Before I met the condition of your GIFT, when I felt myself starting to slip, I went and sold my soul for a sandwich.

Black D: (starting to get angry) And then you sold it again to another for an evil parrot, but you did it before you finished the sandwich, again keeping your soul safe just long enough to cut another deal. And when they found out, they had to kill each other because only one could collect on your soul. So I had to wait for that to happen. Only by then you had aligned yourself with a modern pagan goddess of scientific truth and ultimate finality, Entropy, and she kept you safe from me. (His eyes glitter) But she’s not here anymore, is she? No more protection for Dirge What did you have to give her for that brief respite? Hmm? What was that price?

Red D: My idiot brother. He did my time in the mental institution because of the plastic surgery I got to look like him. Then I mangled his face and pretended he attacked me. He’s never getting out. I traded him to buy time, and to forget. Life was a bit on the depressing side. Vincent seemingly crippled, Johnny over the deep end, Brimstone wallowing in loss. Everything was gone. The joy had finally run out, to the last drop.
So how did I die?

Black D: Appropriately. Your stupid despondent ass sat down to watch a VH1 celeb-reality marathon and you didn’t move for 10 hours, and you suffered, much like people whose blood pressure gets dangerously low after sitting still in an airplane for a long flight, a blood clot. You died on the operating table during a quintuple bypass, arteries hardened, probably from that stupid sandwich you sold your soul for. Told you, nothing comes without a price, meathead.
And now, seconds after declaring the world a better place without you in it, the doctors are filling out the paperwork.
Your thrice-damned, cursed, self-destructed, dead ass, now belongs to me.

ZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Red D: GRAAAAAAHHHHHHHOUCH!!

Black D: What the hell? You don’t feel pain until I give it to you, do you understand me?

Red D: To be honest, I’m not much for listening to people…..ZZZZZZZZZTT!!
AAAAAAAAHHH! HEY! I remember now! Brimstone and Vincent were coming over to watch that Unreal Life marathon….
I guess that’s them.

Black D: No, you’re not getting away that easily, you’re done, mine!

Red D: You’re humped. By the time you get me I’ll be at least twice dead also. I have something new to live for, fucking you over. And good luck next time, because I feel something…..the joke. The ultimate punchline. I have something to live for again, which means I have to give up again before you get rightful claim to me.

Black Dirge: WRONG! When you die again, you’re mine, and I’ll send them after you, you won’t be able to rest. You’re out of family members to sacrifice, out of tricks to pull. No one else will take your soul because you’re legitimately evil. You DESERVE HELL.

Red D: But if I die happy, you can’t collect on your contract and I’ll be waiting in Limbo for eternity. Not bad, compared to hell…..ZZZZZZZZZZZZYYYYYYEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!

Brimstone: OK, this time I’m putting the paddles on either side of his head, and you dunk his feet in the water.

The Artiste: I don’t know, I think he’s gone. I think we finally lost him. We’ve been at this for 2 minutes, you don’t come back from that.

Brimstone: Then we DRAG his ass back.

The Artiste: One more for the road. Gawd help us.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZAPPPPPPPP!!!!!

Dirge: HA….haha…..HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brimstone and the Artiste are at first overjoyed that their family member has returned, but when they see his evil grin turn into a contorted mask, his deranged laughter and bulging eyes expressing something truly beyond their experience with him, they actually feel uncomfortable. For the first time in their lives, they are seeing something they can’t fathom in Dirge.

“The joke….oh, its sooo good….haha…. “

He slowly gets up, smiling. “I need to eat. I need to eat something still alive.”

The Artiste looks at Brimstone puzzled. Brimstone helps Dirge up, The Artiste steadies him, and the three slowly walk out of the hospital. As they leave, they pass by newborn babies who all suddenly grow silent in their cribs. Something inside them senses one like themselves, newly birthed, but already damned.”

END TRANSMISSION