It was about three years ago [2009. –Wh.] when I started to recognize what was going on. I’d be at work, at the grocery store, at a restaurant, and all of a sudden I’d get these…impulses. My hands would curl around a knife without me even realizing it, and I growled under my breath whenever I wasn’t thinking about anything else. My friends started to become really afraid, and I thought about seeing a psychiatrist. I bought some manners tapes, you know, the kind you leave on while you sleep? They didn’t help, though. It just got worse and worse. I even considered going on some sort of medication, but you can’t do that without a prescription, and I was confident that I could solve my problem on my own. But it started to interfere with my job…I can’t tell you how many clients I scared away. They complained to my supervisor of “a wild look in my eyes,” and said they just didn’t feel safe near me. [I would like to add that I felt perfectly safe and comfortable with Mr. Hansen. –Wh.] Still, I soldiered on, changing my diet and exercising. It came to the breaking point one night when I woke up in a cold sweat, and found that I had torn large clumps of hair from my legs. I resolved then and there to seek some sort of counseling. On the way to the psychiatrists the next day, though, I stopped at a convenience store to get a bagel. When I saw that they didn’t have any cream cheese, I flipped out. [The purpose of these words in boldface symbolizes that I am unsure exactly of what Mr. Hansen said. Though I attempted to type a full transcript as he spoke (why do you think baggage clerks spend so much typing?), I found it at certain times impossible to keep up with his verbosity. Therefore, bear in mind that he may have actually said any of the following, being as I am unsure both with the slang of the day and American vernacular in general: “reneged,” “angsted,” “went (psycho, nuts, crazy, postal, Schwarzenegger, medieval),” “lost it,” “exploded,” or “got really mad.” -Wh.] I started flipping over anything that could flip, and threw the cashiers off me when they tried to stop me. They called the cops, and when they tried to arrest me, I got pretty violent. I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t even know if I was conscious. I was just swinging my fists. I don’t really remember what happened…I may have broken one of the cop’s wrists. At any rate, I would up in jail with a thirty day sentence. I decided not to opt for bail, even though I could have afforded it. I needed the time to think, to try and figure out what was happening to me.
It was a pretty nice cell, compared to some of the movies I’ve seen. I had the standard toilet and sink, but my bunk was a lot nicer than I expected. I had two pillows, and there was a heater under my bed. The other inmates weren’t much for conversation, but I spent most of my time sitting and staring at the wall, just like them.
On the tenth day or so of my sentence, I saw something that I’ll never forget. The guy two cells down had just received a visit from his wife, and it must have been pretty bad. He was chewing on his lips, and he kept shaking as they brought him back to his cell. I didn’t think anything of it then – prison can mess anybody up, right? But that night, there were some weird noises coming from his way. I tried to sleep, but nothing helped. The next morning, they found him suffocated under his bunk. He put his head against the heater and wedged it under with the pillows. After that, they took our extra pillow away.
All I could think of was how less comfortable it was without the second pillow. [Try sleeping on a baggage cart, Mr. Hansen. –Wh.] I started to feel really bad about it…I could remember a time when I would have tried to talk to anyone who looked like that, tried to make him feel better, or at least laugh. I wanted to know what had happened to me, that I was so callous. Some of the other guys had a good idea of what was wrong. I heard them saying that the dead man’s wife had left him. He was serving a four-month sentence for public drunkenness, indecent exposure, and evading arrest. Still, she had been thinking about leaving him for a long time, and the interment was all the incentive she needed. I kept thinking about what I would have done in his place, and how much of a wreck he looked the last time I saw him. That image just kept running through my mind.
On my twentieth night in prison, I woke up to a strange sound. It sounded like this voice, repeating over and over, “it could be me, it could be me, it could be me.” This had been a thought running through my mind a lot lately, so I figured it must just be overtiredness making me hear things. I reached for a cup of water, and felt my hand bump into something soft and leathery. The voice stopped whispering, and I heard a muffled thump [This, Mr. Hansen chose to express as sound rather than easily reproduced onomatopoeia. Therefore, I have chosen what I feel is the most suitable word for the sound Mr. Hansen made. However, he added a “squishy” noise at the end, one for which I have been unable to locate an acceptable verbal simile. Therefore, at your pleasure, you may add the word “meaty” rather than “muffled” before “thump,” to taste. –Wh.] Leaping out of bed, I pulled the beaded metal string hanging from my cell’s single light bulb. There, on the floor, was a tiny, reddish…what I can only call an imp. It was an imp. It looked up at me, and I looked down at it. After a few seconds, I crouched down to get a closer look. Once on my hands and knees, I realized it was rubbing its knee and muttering a steady string of curses. I lowered my nose to the ground, until I was eye to beady eye with the little devil. It let out a few more moans, then got really quiet. I guess it realized I was looking at it. In a flash, it was gone. I looked around, then stood back up and splashed some water on my face. I was on the verge of believing I really had gone out of my mind. [By this point in Mr. Hansen’s story, I was on the verge of believing him to be out of his mind as well. However, his bags had not yet arrived, so I suffered him to continue. I am not sorry in the least that I did. –Wh.] I shook my head, (I remember this part really clearly) and turned out the light. A few minutes passed, and I heard the whispering start again. I decided to test a theory that my exhaustion had suggested.
“I hear you,” I said, “so do you hear me?” The whispering stopped. I tried again.
“Listen, I just want to talk.” There was a rustle by my ear, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
I tried another tactic. “How long have you been whispering in my ear? And how would you like it if I whispered in yours?”
I heard a curse, and then the lights came on. The little demon was hanging from the light bulb string, using it as a sort of swing. I sat up on my bed, and faced him.
“Lizten,” it said, “I zcrewed up. You’re not zupposed to know I’m here. Howzabout you juzt forget you zaw me, and I’ll go back to doing my job?” His words were really persuasive, but I always prided myself on being difficult to convince. I focused on his strange accent, [Notice here that Mr. Hansen jumps to the assumption that the demon, if it can be called such, is male. Presumably, when hearing the voice in an open forum, Mr. Hansen rationally judged it to be masculine. However, when I pointed this out to him at a later date, he admitted that he was actually unsure which gender the diminutive devil boasted. Perhaps the world may never know. –Wh.] and tried to listen to his words rather than his tone.
I didn’t want to let it go that easily, though. I suspected that this thing was responsible for my life dissolving, and said so. [Here, Mr. Hansen said so. I felt it redundant to include the quote. –Wh.] The demon looked taken aback.
“Zo you don’t know what I am?” I blinked at the thing a few times, then leaned closer, and whispered to him.
“Are you my conscience?” The demon blinked back at me, then burst into laughter.
“Juzt the opposite!” it chortled. “I am your own personal corrupter! I am here to lead you down a path of amoral callouznezz, hopefully to land you a much more permanent zell somewhere down the line.”
“Once I die…” I ventured, guessing correctly. So, the little bastard wanted me to burn in a pit of fire and brimstone? I decided to rise to the challenge. I cut a deal with the devil.
“Listen,” I started, “I’ve only got ten nights left in here. You’ve got ten nights to try to convince me to not care about other people, and only live for myself. That’s what you’re pushing, right? OK. At the end of my sentence, if I buy into your philosophy, you can have my soul. Otherwise, you get out of my head and never come back. Deal?” The tempter floated stock still for about five minutes before it even started to answer. I figure, how often does the devil have a soul promised to him before the donor even cashes his chips? [Here, Mr. Hansen inserted a colorful colloquialism concerning the purchase of agricultural land. However, as I consider that phraseology rather archaic, I replaced it with a more lively American phrase. Perhaps I was influenced by Carson City’s proximity to Las Vegas, but I hold that my editing has only improved on the original. –Wh.] The demon nodded, mumbling something about needing to get ready, and disappeared again. Satisfied, I went back to sleep.
Table of Contents
Prelude
The First Night
The Second Night
The Third Night
The Fourth Night
The Fifth Night
The Sixth Night
The Seventh Night
The Eigth Night
The Ninth Night
The Tenth Night
Epilogue