The Rendezvous

         Mr. Jensen walked from his car under the dark amber light of the setting sun, the car’s cooling engine clicking a manic melody as it cooled. He readjusted his collar, a futile action since he generally took off his suit once inside anyway, but Jenkins was that sort of man: he mastered life through repetition. He unlocked the door to his modest house and walked into the dark interior. His dress shoes clacked on the hardwood floor, and he flicked the light switch to his left. The sudden illumination Jensen was expecting…did not come. The room was lit only by the lines of crimson light emanating from the closed shades, bisecting everything in the room. He saw his couch, and the duo of chairs that populated the front room. Nothing was out of place. He flicked the switch a couple more times, then shrugged, and walked forward into the dark, making for the fuse box. A voice stopped him in his tracks. The voice was not abnormal in any way, but was rather nasal and certainly a man’s. It carried with it the cold conviction of someone certain in his purpose and in the inevitability of his part to play in the coming actions.
“Mr. Jensen. Please take a seat.”
Jensen’s whole body sagged a bit as he let out a sigh, and he looked like a marionette with his strings cut.
“You should not be here.” Jensen said, choosing his words carefully as he slowly turned, his shoes squeaking slightly on the floor.
He beheld something that hadn’t been there a moment ago. A silhouette in the waning red light struggling to shine through Jensen’s closed blinds. It was a man, wearing a suit like Jensen. He was six feet tall; the austere lines of the man’s neck and head made him look emaciated. His face was lost in darkness, and his cufflinks shined in the darkness with reflected light. He stood at the corner of the room, in front of the blinded window. This apparition addressed him again:
“That being the case, you should sit so we can finish our business quickly.”
Jensen did as he was told, being that sort of man. He sat in one of the chairs. The silhouetted man did not sit, but instead remained where he was. His raspy breathing was the loudest sound in the room making Jensen wonder why he hadn’t noticed him before.
“Will I be alive at the end of this business?”
“You know who I am.” The mysterious man said as he fingered his cufflinks.
“Yes. How could I forget? I just never expected to see you again. I hoped I would never see you again.” Jensen realized his hands were shaking, though his voice was calm.
The man uttered a hoarse and humorless laugh and spoke.
“If wishes were fishes, everywhere would smell like rotting tuna. Regardless, I think you understand the magnitude of your culpability. You have nobody to blame but yourself, or God, depending on your preference. There is most certainly hell to pay.”
Jensen’s voice quavered only slightly upon hearing this last statement, but he willed himself to stay composed:
“I’ve been expecting you since I heard you survived. When Dr. Earnhardt…passed, I thought it was just coincidence. It was you, wasn’t it? You know, I was a different man then. I didn’t believe in…the same things. I wasn’t successful yet, I had no prospects.”
The mysterious man walked forward, his shoes making no sound on the hardwood floor. He still did not sit, but instead leaned on the back of the other chair. His voice rasped, like that of a sick man, but he was just as menacing despite his infirmity:
“Haven’t you realized? Your success, your very survival, is the fruit of our arrangement. It’s the only thing you have going for you, really.”
Jensen responded with almost childish indignation: “I…I can change. I have changed, really! You can’t know what I’ve experienced these last few years. I’ve made contributions. I’m guilty for what I did. For what I did to you.”
“I don’t need to know what has happened to you during all this time. I only need to know what happened to me. Do you know what it’s like to wake up and discover somebody has stolen a part of your soul? And that it was stolen, not by the Devil, or some diabolical demon, but an accountant and a crooked doctor? I’d heard of heart transplants, lung transplants, but a soul transplant?”
“You know what afflicted me. It would have been worse than death.”
The shadowy man nodded, the red light framing his body. “Yes. I’m sure. But the fact remains: you never asked me. How much did you have to bribe Dr. Earnhardt? A hundred thousand? More? I hear it’s a very expensive procedure.”
“I didn’t know what it would do to you. I didn’t know how you’d have to live afterwards!” Jensen shouted, his whole body shaking.
The mysterious man just shook his head: “And you know what the funniest part is? If you had just bothered to ask me, I probably would have done it out of the goodness of my heart. I didn’t have that long to live anyway; after all, that was why I was in that hospital. But no, you didn’t want any complications. So instead of getting brain surgery like I was expecting, I became a soul donor! You just can’t make this stuff up, real life stranger than fiction and all that!” Jensen could only just make out the man’s nose and the glint of his eyes in the fading light.
“I thought you were dying, that your time was up. I still had potential. I still had good to do!”
“Ahh, you wanted to steal my soul so you could commit your life to humanitarian service. Well I’m sorry to say that I did make it, a ‘miracle remission’ they called it. And all the while, can you know how it felt? Do you know what it’s like to be three quarters of a person?” The man rose into a standing position again as he spoke.
“I’m so sorry. Earnhardt never told me anything. He said you had a week to live.”
The shadow ignored him: “…And you know what really gets me? What really puzzles me in all this? You thought it would make a difference! Didn’t you know that playing God probably wouldn’t amuse God himself! You think a quarter of a soul will help you when you get up there?”
“I…I didn’t know!”
“Yes. You did. Let’s begin our transaction.”
The sun began to set, the red light no longer issuing from the blinds. As darkness fell, Jensen recoiled back into his chair, while the standing man slowly advanced, step by step. Their business did not take long.