Ellie McLanahan was watering her flower bed one morning when she heard her neighbor Tim Donnelly’s front door open. She watched the chubby car salesman from under her wide-brimmed straw hat as he exited his home, walked to the end of his yard, cupped his hands to his mouth, and yelled “Satan!” with the full force of his lungs.

The water from the hose in Ellie’s hands made a muddy patch as she sat motionless, watching Tim wait for a response. Clearly her young neighbor was out of his mind. She was about to call the proper authorities, when, with a poof, a giant, hulking behemoth the color of blazing embers appeared in front of him.

“You called,” said Satan.

“Yeah,” said Tim. “I want to sell my soul. You’re the guy, right?”

Satan eyed him for ten seconds and then poof, he was gone.

Tim cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled out, “Satan!”

Poof. “What.”

“I want to sell my soul.”

Satan sighed. “Listen, kid … I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

“Why not?”

“A puny mortal like you wouldn’t understand. The buying of souls was a terrible business for me to get into, and I regret it every single day. I’ve cleaned up my act since then. I found Jesus. And when I found him I asked if he would die for my sins. But guess what? He doesn’t do that anymore either. But I digress. The point is, selling souls was a part of my youth I’d really like to forget.”

“Aw, come on.”

“What do you want to sell your soul for, anyway? Souls don’t come cheap. If you sell it, you most likely won’t get it back, and if you do it’ll be thoroughly used. Trust me, you don’t want your soul back after some sicko’s been wearing it for a while.”

“I won’t want it back. I’m just not using mine, and I would like to capitalize on that. You got a problem?”

Satan was skeptical. “You’re not using your soul? Really?” He looked across the street and saw Ellie McLanahan’s flower bed, so he walked over to it, plucked out a handful of jonquils, and returned. Ellie watched this from inside her house, having fled at the first sign of the Prince of Lies. Now she closed her drapes and hid, because when the Dark Lord defaces your flower bed, the best thing to do is let it go.

Satan held the flowers up and said, “Look at these. Just—just look at them. The beauty. The majesty. The frail, yellow-on-white splendor of this plant represents the harmony inherent in the—”

Tim spit on the flowers.

“Hey!” cried Satan, wiping the spit off his kilt made out of the concentrated screams of crypt-ghasts. “What the heck?”

“I don’t care about flowers. They’re just the sex organs of plants.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you—ew, sex organs?” He dropped the flowers. “Well that doesn’t mean you don’t use your soul. What are your feelings on music?”

“Organized noise.”

“Oh, whatever. What about knowledge?”

“Overrated.”

“Beauty?”

“Meh.”

“Meh. You’re saying ‘meh’ to beauty.”

“Meh.”

“How about chocolate?”

“Never cared for it.”

“What! You don’t even have a soul.”

“I do. I told you, I just don’t ever use it.”

“This is bananas,” said Satan, rubbing the temples down under his horns. “You know, there are soulless people all over the world who would be one-hundred percent grateful for even a fraction of what you have. Somewhere out there is a bar trivia host thinking, ‘If only I had a soul, my life would be different.”

“Well, give that guy my soul, then. It’ll work itself out.”

“Hey, I’m not a charity organization, alright? I’m pretty sure I’m the opposite of a charity organization. What if you want to use your soul later?”

“Then I’ll be S-O-L. Deal?”

“No, it’s not a deal! I never said I would do it!”

“Then why are you still here? Either pay up or go home.”

“You’re going to talk to Lucifer that way?”

“Put up or shut up.”

Satan sighed like he had when that one pilot crash-landed and saved all those passengers, forcing him to return a whole shipment of new chairs he had ordered specifically for the event. He had a feeling this could go on for a while. “Okay, fine. Tell me what you want in exchange for your soul, and if it’s good, we’ll see.”

Tim blinked a few times. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“You don’t even know what you want to sell your soul for?” cried the Devil.

“Whoops.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

Tim snapped his fingers. “A swimming pool,” he said. “An inground swimming pool.”

“You want to sell your soul for a swimming pool?”

“Maybe … no. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

“Well take some time to think, man.”

Tim took the time to think. As this long process played out, Beelzebub checked his watch, sighed, checked his watch, sighed, checked his watch, and sighed. He was just about to start the foot-tapping when Tim looked up and said, “I want a new soul.”

Satan said, “Okay, now that makes no sense. You don’t use your soul, so you want to trade it for another soul? That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever …” Satan looked at the paunchy little man in front of him for a moment, and then he checked his watch and said, “You know what? Screw it.” A contract materialized with a poof. “Sign on the line and it’s a deal. Just let me get back home to my family.”

Tim Donnelly signed his name with Satan’s magic pen, which siphoned his blood for the ink. He said, “Well that was a new experience.”

The contract and pen disappeared. “I’ll just take your soul now,” said Satan, and he reached into Tim’s throat and extracted a slimy blanket-looking thing. “And we’re done. Your new soul will arrive in fourteen to twenty-one business days via UPS. Now please leave me alone.”

And poof, he was gone.

Ellie McLanahan, though now unsure whether living on Prudence Drive was a mistake, continued to tend to her flower bed every day. She planted new jonquils, and things were beginning to look a little more symmetrical. Soon she would be a contender for the city’s annual “Best Flower Bed” contest. She was thinking about where she would place the blue ribbon when a big black mail truck with the words “Underworld Parcel Service” drove up the street and parked in front of Tim’s house. Ellie watched the bored twenty-something gargoyle as he delivered the package and drove off.

There was a half-hour of peace. Then, Tim Donnelly burst through his front door and ran across the yard, screaming “Yeah! Yeeeeaaaahhh!” and jumping into the air and kicking his heels together and picking up a rake and using it as a guitar. She watched him do this for around ten minutes until there was a familiar poof and Satan was standing in the yard again, his beefy arms crossed over his chest like a barricade. Tim ran around until he found himself in front of the Prince of Darkness and said, “Hey buddy! How ya been?”

“Don’t ‘hey buddy’ me, you confidence man,” said Satan.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you sold me an empty soul. There was nothing in it—no substance, no energy, no nothing.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah. And I traded you a child’s soul for it. You don’t get higher quality than that.”

“Sorry man, I didn’t realize my soul was so worn out.”

“’Worn out’ nothing. That thing was as worthless as it gets. I just want to know how you ruined it so thoroughly.”

Tim thought for a moment. “Well you know, I’m a car salesman, so maybe …”

Satan threw his hands up in disgust. “No, I did not know that. Of course your soul’s dead. If I had known this, I’d have skipped this whole ordeal. In fact, part of me thinks that you pulled a fast one over on dumb old Satan, that this was your plan all along. I’m leaving. Don’t ever ask to do business with me again.” He left with a poof, then returned with another poof. “Oh, and don’t go around telling people you can summon me just by calling my name out on the curb, either. If people start finding out about this, and suddenly I’m called to every house in town, I’m coming for you, punk.” He disappeared with a final poof.

Satan had barely left when Tim began running all over his yard again, and when that wasn’t enough to quell the vitality and optimism of his new soul he took off down the street, and it was two days before he showed up again, drunk and married.

Ellie McLanahan was outside long after this altercation took place. She watered her flower bed, but it, the only thing in her life besides her persistently absent grandchildren, was for some reason no longer enjoyable.

Or maybe, Ellie thought, it never was.

Five minutes later, Ellie tossed her trowel, apron, gloves, and stupid wide-brimmed straw hat into the trash can, walked to the end of her driveway, cupped her hands to her mouth, and yelled, “Satan!”

Her next-door neighbor, a single mom named Sissy Lawrence, watched her do this as she smoked on her porch.