Page 9 of Lost Souls

“Well, every childexcept one.Guess who?” And I point to Arnie Garth, with a friendly little wink. Just to lighten the mood.

“What!” Arnie gasps, looking not as lightened as I might have hoped. “Why didn’t I get a friggin’ soul? Who screwed up? I demand a manual recount!”

“Arnie,” I explain, with a sympathetic sigh, “I don’t give ’em out, fella, I just take ’em back. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about demarcation. I mean, you wouldn’t ask your make-up artist to fix a camera that goes on thefritz.”

He has to nod at this – the man may be almost irredeemably gross and seriously repellent, but an idiot he is not.

“So, I really don’t know why they didn’t give you a soul. Could be a lot of reasons. There was a baby boom, the guys upstairs were overworked, they got distracted some, they plain forgot. It’s like they say in the Bible, shit happens. So, imagine my surprise when you have the fatal stroke and lethal heart attacks, triple whammy, I come down for your soul and – whoops –hello?”

“But what’s it friggin’ matter?” demands Arnie Garth. “Who needs a soul, for God’s sake?”

“Ever wonder why you’re such an irredeemable bastard?”

The man in the bed looks outraged. “Me?Arnie Garth? Come on – people love me!”

I’m sorry, call me unprofessional, but I shake my head so hard at this, I nearly fall off my chair.

“Trust me, pal, you’re a shit. A total shit. A shit from Shitland. Everyone hates you. Even people who haven’t met you hate you already, ’cos it saves time. And you know why you’re such a shit? I’ll tell you why. You are such a shit because you don’t have a soul.”

Arnie ponders on this for little more than a beat. A beat in which several thousand people around the world may have died, such is life, but just a beat nonetheless.

“I can live with that,” decides Arnie, not offended in the least. “Who needs a soul?”

“Let’s see,” I ponder. I do a good ponder. “You wanna go somewhere hot and excruciatingly, skin-meltinglypainful for all eternity and beyond when you die? And I am not talking Palm Springs.”

“Er, no. Not really.”

“Thenyouneed one, you schmuck. By the end of the week would be nice.”

“End of the week!” He pauses for a second as a thought strikes him, like something he only noticed in the edit. “Hold on, did I hear you sayfatalstroke?”

“Andlethal heart attacks. Bubeleh, you don’t look this way from a head cold. Actually, you shoulda died today. But hey, fair is fair, this is our mistake. An embarrassing one, I admit.Nostra culpa.” I wink at Arnie. People like a wink. “So, I know some people. I pulled a few strings.”

“What people? What strings?”

“Such impatience.Tsk tsk. To continue – I bent a few rules. At, I might just add, some heavy personal and professional risk. And I got you… wait for it…da daa!An extension.”

“Wh-what kind of an extension?” Arnie is staring dumbly at me. Right now, he looks so pathetic my heart almost melts. Almost.

“Okay. Here goes,” I commence. “If you retrieve your soul by midnight Sunday, we’ll overlook the stroke and the heart attacks – which are on hold for now – and possibly even your godawful personality. (Did I mention you’re a shit?) So, you get to live out the rest of your natural life. Which actually mightn’t be that long; I’ve seen the inside of your arteries.”

“Sunday?Six days?Just six friggin’ days?”

“Arnie – heaven can’t wait.”

The man in the bed looks suddenly chilled. “And… ifI don’t get it back? This soul thing.”

“You’ll die and go straight to hell. Okay, that’s you. So, you wanna hear my Humphrey Bogart impression? It’s a killer.”

“Screw your impressions! Tell me what you people did with my fuckin’ soul!”

“Now this I know!”

But I don’t tell him straightaway. I give a sort of a pause, like I’m weighing up the best way to break it. This is what you call dramatic tension. Okay, pause over, here we go.

“We gave it to the little girl who was right behind you in the line.”

Arnie just stares at me. This I was expecting.