She Owns Him

[ 1 ] Are you there Satan? It's Me, Alice.

Are you there Satan? It's me, Alice.   

I tried calling God but He wasn't answering so I thought I'd reach out to you before I die.

But for real - What's the point of talking to you when each time I want to talk, neither of you respond?

Like, I always question why we naturally reach out to higher powers when we're hopeless and desperate.

You still there, Satan? 

I want to make a quick confession - I heard people do those before they die. Confess their sins and stuff.

I want to say it now in case I die in the next fifteen minutes.

Look, I don't know if I deserve to go to Hell or not, but you should know my side of the story to how the world actually ended;

I heard you evaluate everyone's lives before you let them pass through your flaming gates so I wanted to make sure you got the right version.

Now let these pages show that I, Alice, will speak from the bottomless pit I call my heart, and will the tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.

You still there, Satan?

Good. Because it's one hell of a story.

P.S. Ever thought about getting a fun voicemail? Like:

Hi, you've reached Satan at Hell Services. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Bet you're wondering where we are. Well put your mouth up to the phone, and leave a message for when we get home. If you make your message rhyme, I'll call you back in half the time. Beeeeeeep! 

+++

It starts with a prank call.

"Best way to answer the phone:

Mario's pizzeria and abortion clinic, your loss is our sauce."

"We're about to die and you're making prank calls?!  Gimme that cell phone!"  I snatched it out of her wrinkly hands that smelled like dish soap and stuffed the phone between the car seat and my butt. 

"You suck up our data plan like a starved teenager returning from a weekend camping trip in Boonie land.  Now load up your fucking gun," I snapped.  I jerked my head to the front of the car. 

"You suck the joy out of everything," Bones grumbled.  The heavy ker-chunk of her gun cocked behind me, and I relaxed my fingers on the steering wheel. 

Unlike my heart strings that were being yanked around, doing a frantic number on my pounding chest—I was almost okay.  

Bones scratched her nose, skin always a deep copper, burned and freckled under the summer's sun.  "I'm supposed to be saving the world right now, but instead, we're waiting for Lettuce Head," she ranted.  "Can we just leave him?  We can take on the destroyer of our planet with just the two of us girls."

My voice remained calm unlike the mental voices screaming in my mind.  "His name is not Lettuce Head.  We went over this." 

Bones snorted.  "Like his real name is any better." 

If Morgan Freeman took an acid trip, smoked six packs a day and had the mouth of a trucker, you'd have Bones. 

Or picture Michelle Obama drowning herself in the fountain of old age, and then carrying around stab-tastic knitting needles and a metallic cane to hold up both her dead weight and ego. 

Back when it was the simple life, this eighty-year-old chainsmoker first introduced herself as Baby Bones.  "But most people call me Baby," she told me when returning my rent forms.