The Trade
- Jun 28, 2024
- 2 min read
by Chad Sullivan
I traded my soul for a cigarette.
I have a written receipt of the transaction: Here you go motherfucker, one soul, it reads. It’s signed and dated, with a witness’s initials — D.W.
I was twenty.
We were in the kitchenette of D.W.’s seventh-floor apartment. There were bare white walls and freezer waffles on the counter.
Jibiddy, the first alcoholic I knew, stood by, red-faced, laughing.
Everyone was laughing.
I was laughing.
* * *
Topher took good care of my soul. He framed it and kept it with his socks. Sometimes he displayed it on his dresser. Sometimes I’d stop over and he’d let me sit with it while we played video games.
I’d perch it on the recliner arm and shoot at things.
It was a cheap frame, but still.
* * *
I owed Topher money, that’s how this started.
* * *
Did I feel differently without it? Did my behavior change? Did food still taste good? Could I get hard? Could I laugh? Were drugs still fun? Could I still find beauty?
No. No. Yes. Sometimes (goddamn booze and antidepressants). Yes. YES! Yes.
* * *
My soul has a pinhole from when Topher pinned it on a bulletin board.
This was before the frame. It gives it character.
* * *
I owed $105.63.
* * *
Topher consulted a priest after many years with it among his socks. I know this because he told me. He wasn’t worried about my soul, but his. Topher always put himself first. I don’t know what the priest said.
Maybe the priest said: What kind of person asks for another’s soul?
To which I would have replied (if I were Topher): What kind of person shirks debt?
* * *
Correction: I owe $105.63.
* * *
After the priest, Topher gave my soul back.
He called me a fuck up and we stopped being friends.
* * *
Did my shadow leave? Was my reflection gone? Did dogs hate me? Was I followed by dialtones? Is the soul a third-party signal? Are there trade-backs?
Kinda.
Chad Sullivan is a father, husband, and heavy equipment operator who lives and writes in Elburn, Illinois. His work will appear in upcoming Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y, and Maudlin House issues. He exists quietly, running in the woods and roughhousing with his two children.
