The gentleman returned to the table with a proposal:
— If you want to experience everything, let’s do it this way: I’ll grant every wish of yours, secret and open, right up to the day you say: «My life has had it all.» Agreed?
I nodded.
Heh, what a character. I’d never say that! He’d practically handed me the loophole himself, with that bit about dining with the Queen of England and conquering the South Pole by dog sled.
— Do you agree?
— Yes.
— Louder.
— Yes!
— Read it, — he held out a stack of papers. — These are the terms of the contract.
— Read all of it?
— Not necessarily, we’ve agreed on the essentials, but if you want to...
I skimmed diagonally down a couple of randomly chosen pages, noted a paragraph about «all wishes of the Client, secret and open, shall be fulfilled by the Provider within the timeframes stipulated in clauses 72.1, 72.2, 72.3...» and looked back up at the gentleman:
— If I sign the contract, what do I get?
— Everything you’ve ever dreamed of before, and everything you’ll wish for afterward. Guaranteed.
— And if I never say, «My life has had it all»?
— You will. You’ll say it, without fail.
— And how do I get back here? Die?
— There’s no other way.
— Will the death be hard?
— Not at all. You can specify in the contract exactly how you’ll return here. If you don’t specify, you can choose on the spot. Clause 258. By the way, do you like Madeira?
— No. Fortified wine makes me sick. Where do I sign?
— Give me your hand.
I held out my palm to the gentleman. He gripped my wrist firmly and, with the nail of his little finger, nicked a vein a bit higher up. Blood ran down my arm, dripped onto the flawless surface of the table. The gentleman ran his index finger over the cut, and it closed up.
— Well then. One last chance to remain master of your own fate. You can say «no.»
— I won’t.
— You’re selling your soul in exchange for earthly goods?
— Yes.
— So it shall be.
He pressed my palm into the blood spattered on the table and smeared it into one large stain. Then he moved my palm onto a sheet of paper and pressed down so hard my knuckles cracked.
It hurt. A wave of unbearable terror washed over me.
The gentleman pulled my hand away. A handprint was left on the paper.
— That’s all there is to it. This paper, — he pressed the sheet with the print into my left hand, — has to stay with you, as a reminder of our little secret. If you lose it, you’ll come back here ahead of schedule. So take care of it, if you want to enjoy your life. It may be the only inconvenience you’ll get out of this.
The gentleman pulled another blank sheet from the stack.
— And this copy stays here. From now on, I’ll be writing your fate onto it. Goodbye. Go on.
The sky flared orange, then yellow. A many-forked bolt of lightning tore through space. I closed my eyes and fell into an emptiness, cold and terrible. Inside me, too, it was cold and terrible.
Had he said, «Goodbye»?
Well then, Satan. See you soon.
