IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
A BARGAIN'S A BARGAIN!
By; Gerald A. Polley
The Ancient One and his companions flew far to
the east of their homeland. They again entered into the mountains
where the Darkness dwelled.
"What are we doing here?" The Ancient One's male
companion muttered.
"Gotta pay a debt," The Ancient One answered,
"fulfill a promise."
From out of the darkness before them an old man came. But he was
not alone. There was a younger man and a young woman with him.
But they were hideous, twisted, scarred, covered with wounds and
sores.
The old man smiled at The Ancient One. "Punctual, as
always!" he remarked. "The two I bargained for."
"Good!" The Ancient One answered. "If you'll
excuse us, we must go get it done. There will be other bargains
as I promised." The old man nodded.
"Durga!" The Ancient One snapped, "Take the man
and follow me. Hold onto his clothes, only. Don't touch his
flesh. Ax Man! Bring the woman, Same instructions."
"Must I?" The Ax Man moaned.
"You must!" The Ancient One answered. He took wing. His
companions seized their burdens and followed after him. They went
to the west, into The Ax Man's territory. They descended into a
major city and entered a hospital. Traveling through its
corridors they entered a room where a young woman lay on a bed,
breathing with the assistance of a respirator. "As you can
see," a doctor was saying to several people standing in the
room, "there's no brain activity. She's quite dead."
A young woman rose out of the body and approached The Ancient One
and those with him. A silver cord went back to the body on the
bed. She approached the woman and looked at her curiously, then
smiled. "Don't be afraid," she remarked, "they're
a very good family. It's a very nice body. You'll be quite
comfortable in it."
The twisted woman looked at The Ancient One. "We don't wanna
be separated," she snarled.
"You won't be for long," The Ancient One answered.
"You'll meet in a couple of years and from that point on
you'll only be separated occasionally a few days for the rest of
your lives. You'll live sixty-five years together. You'll have
twelve children, eighty grandchildren. When your journey through
life is done all your debts will be paid, all those you have
offended reconciled with. When you die you will be joyously
welcomed into The Afterlife."
"You promise that?" the woman answered, a little bit
more cordially this time.
"I promise it," The Ancient One answered "as long as you keep your part of the bargain. Remember, no drugs, no hate. Break your word and the bargain will be ended. Are you ready?""
"No," the woman answered, "this is gonna hurt. But
let's get it over with!"
"Durga! Ax Man!" The Ancient One snapped, "Put
your hands on my back! I need every bit of power that we possess
for this."
"Why should we?" The Ax Man snapped. "Why should
they have what we're denied? Why should they be rewarded when we
suffer?" The Ancient One looked at him crossly.
"Because we made a bargain!" he answered, "And
they fulfilled their part of the bargain. It does not matter if
our material agents succeeded or failed, it does not matter our
own circumstances. What matters is we made a promise, and we have
to fulfill that promise! The one thing we have that ensures that
people serve us is that we're good to our word. No matter what,
if we make a promise we keep it, good or bad! If you help us we
reward you, if you hurt us, we destroy you. That can never be
questioned, that can never be doubted. Everyone must know that
they will get what they have been promised."
The Ax Man sighed and put his hand on The Ancient One's back.
Durga did likewise. The Ancient One reached into the disfigured
woman and she gave a hideous cry. When The Ancient One withdrew
his hand he was holding onto a silver cord. He joined it to the
silver cord coming out of the other woman's body, and snapped off
the cord joining her spirit to it. It shrunk into the other woman
but she only smiled. "Good luck, dear!" she told the
other woman.
The Ancient One extended his hand and a blue beam shot from it,
striking the head of the woman on the bed. It lasted only for a
few seconds. When it went out the disfigured woman gave another
shriek and was sucked into the body. One of the women standing
there listening to the doctor suddenly looked at the screen over
the bed and her eyes widened. "Doctor!" she cried,
"Look!"
The doctor turned and looked at the screen. "My God!"
he muttered, "That can't be!" He went over and opened
one of the woman's eyes on the bed and looked at it. "Can
you hear me?" he asked. "If you can, blink twice."
The woman blinked twice. "My God!" the doctor moaned
"This can't be! It can't be! Nurse!" he screamed
"Excuse me," he told the others,"you have to
leave. I'll talk to you as soon as possible. We've got work to do
here."
"Come!" The Ancient One snapped. "Ax Man, bring
her!"
They returned to their own homeland, to a major city not far from
where they lived, and the same process was repeated with the
male, with less argument. When they were done The Ancient One
opened a portal for the two spirits to leave. Before they went
through they took on a form like his. "Damn!" the male
said, "Wish we could've stayed! Can we come back?"
"Only if we're assured mankind is going to survive,"
The Ancient One answered. "There's no sense giving you new
bodies 'til we know we're going to succeed."
The man nodded, and he and his companion went through the portal.
"Come on!" The Ancient One muttered. "That used
most of our power for tonight. But there's still a couple of
small things we can do."
"I know you know what you're doing," The Ax Man
remarked, "but sometimes it really hurts."
The Ancient One nodded. "Can't argue with that!" he
answered, "I most certainly can't argue with that! Come on!
I've got a t.v. show I want cancelled."
"Then it probably will be!" The Ax Man muttered,
"It probably will be!"
They all took flight into the night.
THE END