Years Only Change the Details

The irony of a bar that is both in the middle of 4 colleges and some of the highest property values around is that you can find the same people but 20 years apart. 

The privilege that shows in 21 year old college kids only slightly morphs when they are in their 40s and at a youth hockey fundraiser. 

Moms who used the same cutting technique on their boyfriends ts for homecoming parade around with suddenly adapted youth hockey ts. Off the shoulder. Deep v. Same style. Different moments. 

Dads who used to proclaim their future or dream university in their headwear - a local fave or a recent national champ - or even some obscure smaller school who’s mascot can be some sexual or penis inuendo - now proudly wear the hat from their last expensive vacation, Vail, Banf, or their business or preferred golf brand affinity. 

They haven’t forgot the bars of their college years. There is no such thing as a fire code, crowd as close the bar as you can. Then act as if you’re in the pit on Wall Street. Wave money, yell, gesticulate like you’re helping to land a 747. Whatever it takes to get the bartender’s eye. 

And when the drink is ordered, it is no longer both an order and a recipe. While rum and coke or vodka cran may have been enough for them at 21. Now those words are simply the beginning of half negotiation, half status. 

“Oh is that your rail?!” I’ll take *insert brand name* 

Anything to remind the world that they have evolved from 21. They are well pass the rail life. 

Once the drinks are obtained, then the real social battle begins. Pair off in twos and threes. Years ago this was all about flirting and sly smiles. A brush of the arm or giggle. A comment a bit too bold. 

But now the game has changed. No longer is the battle about carnal needs or pursuits. 

Now it is about status. The last trip. The new promotion. What junior did on the ice this week. Why the offspring is primed for a big year. Perhaps it was a skating camp or a new techy tool to improve hand eye coordination. 

A sea of established white people talking. Proclaiming. Posturing. 

And not a single one listening

The Devil's Details

You expect things from stock characters. You expect them to follow rules. And that leads to assumptions. And assumptions are never good for those that assume.

I made a deal with the devil last night. At least I thought I had. I promised him things - he promised me things and I thought we had an agreement. Namely that in the exact moment when everyone stops thinking of me, when I cease to exist in anyone else’s mind - any mind, then poof!



I would be gone.



I would be his. He could take my soul to fuel whatever he needed. Bonus for me, I would not have to live on this earth knowing that I was not being thought off. I convinced myself this was a great deal because if no one is thinking of me then why should I exist? It was going to be a relief because my pain would end. If the thing that drove me so crazy – thinking everyone judging and caring and not caring would end. If no one was thinking that I would just be gone. In my mind, it was simply a formality. If I was in no one’s mind, I was gone already.


The thing about making a deal with the devil is you always think you’re the smarter one and you never are. I should’ve chosen my words more carefully. I should have maybe brought in a lawyer or a Demi Gorgon or even a specter they could tell me exactly what I was doing wrong but I didn’t. I believed that I knew what I was doing and so I made my deal with the devil I looked in the eye and gave the parameters for what I thought would be my great release from this life the fact that as soon as no one thought of me I would be free. In my head, I thought – well, if you’re not thinking of me then I don’t deserve to be here. What is the point of going forward if you’re not in someone’s thoughts or dreams and nightmares or regrets?



The worst thing about life isn’t to be loved or hated it is to be forgotten. So, I looked up into those eyes. Those strange red-eye restless eyes and somehow, they looked happy. I said to myself, that’s because he knows soon, he’ll have another soul to fuel whatever machinery, nonsense, or evil he wants. He’ll have more power. He’ll have more fuel. That’s why he’s happy


Now, I know it wasn’t about the fuel it wasn’t about getting another soul it was about the fact that I didn’t use the right words.


I thought it would be tonight - I thought that this is the time - a Tuesday after a holiday when there’s so much going on. there’s so much life and work to deal with and no one has reached out to me I said roughly 1145 that’s when it will happen. Enough will be asleep, no one will be dreaming yet. At that magic moment, I will not be existing in anyone’s mind. I will float away from this plane to whatever realm of eternal damnation I am given. My soul will be used as fuel for his next machine conquest or evil action.


But the thing about the devil is that as evil as you assume he’s so much fucking worse because I do use the wrong words I had said as long as I am in no one’s mind the moments that no one is thinking of me that moment when I am out of everyone’s mind I will cease to exist in my soul is yours.


Who knew the devil was so Damned literal.


Because at 11:45 on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend when everyone was asleep or tired and no one was thinking of me I was convinced that this was the moment. I yelled out and said “Now, now is the time. Take me now!”


From the darkness, instead of the sweet release of no longer existing or even of death, I heard what could only be described as the devil…giggling.


Here is the evilest creature in existence, the god of the underworld, the claimer of souls - laughing like a sixth-grade kid who just heard someone say the word butt.


I was furious I couldn’t understand why I clearly at this moment when I had been forgotten by everyone and no one was thinking of me when we were between falling asleep in a hurry, I’m like that couldn’t be in anyone’s dreams like I should have been given freedom.


But this literal motherfucker just kept cackling.


I had said when no one is thinking of me when no one has a thought in their head that pertains to me then I will be free. You can take my soul.


Yet at that moment when I thought I would be taken, I was wrong - I was only thinking of myself. So the contract was not complete and I have been so close to being free but it has it’s that as the evil kept giggling I truly understood the bargain I would never be free I would never have my grays release but every time I wasn’t allowed to leave this plane - I would fuel something of his.



I had become an eternal rechargeable battery of pain and suffering and anguish and selfishness and rot. And my bargain with him had turned me into a continually rechargeable power source that would fuel more of his plans, as my soul slowly began to erode.


He kept quickly giggling, and it turned into laughs and for a creature that doesn’t exist on a mortal plane look like he was gasping for breath, and somewhere amid all the giggles and the laughs and the gasps he muttered,



“This is so much better than Sisyphus and that silly rock!”