My story is the story of a young man who went to the crossroads at noon to wait for the devil: he planned on selling his soul, but the devil never showed up. A black child walked by carrying some groceries for her household and he asked her, "Are you the devil?" "No," she said, "the devil lives in the south. Are you waiting for the devil?" "I want to sell my soul," said the young man. "Why do you want to sell your soul?" she asked. "Well I guess it's like this: I would rather live the devil's life for one brief moment, have my glory, live & love life for a good while, and then go off into darkness forever, to pay for what I have done. How many people will do the right thing in this life--live the simple life of obscure toil & daily bread, have nothing but grief--and then get to heaven, where they do nothing but delight in the screams of the damned in hell. That's not the kind of man I want to become--I don't want to get to heaven just so I can say Ha! to the world, a bitter man who never got nothing, and so he has to take it out by living in the gardens in the stars while the ones who had a good time in life burn. My heart isn't like that: I want to do the crime, love the crime, and then do the time like a man. So I'm not sure yet what I want to ask the devil for, but I want to sell my soul to the devil." "Well," said the little girl, "you won't find the devil here--he's in the south. Just take the south road till you find him." It wasn't till the little girl left that this young man realized he didn't have a compass, and didn't know which of the four directions the roads went off in was south. The sun in these parts just circled the horizon like it does in Alaska and Siberia in summer--but it wasn't a cool sun like it is there; it was burning hot out. Finally, he set out on one of the roads. He walked and walked, until he grew so tired he didn't think he could take another step, and yet he kept walking. Finally he came to a little hamlet. He asked the first man he saw, "Where is the devil? I'm looking for the devil." "Oh," said the man, "he's in the south." "Then this isn't the south?" asked the young man. "Well," said this middle-aged fellow, "I suppose this is the south, as the land here stretches on to the north for quite a ways; I suppose the fellows over there would call this the south, seeing that it's south of them: but the devil, he's a little farther south--you won't find him here." And so the young man was so weary he said, "Where is there a kind family that will take me in?--I am so eternally weary I feel like I will pass out if I don't find a bed." "Well," said the paunchy, bearded man, "there are plenty of houses in this here hamlet that have yet to find owners. Ye see, people are coming and coming into this town, but whoever built it has done gone--probably south to the devil for all we care. But though people come to this town every day, there are still plenty of houses with beds in 'em where you may stay. Empty houses--this little town is full of 'em--why don't you claim one as yours before they all get snatched up?" And so the young man went and found an empty house, and took some of the cord wood from out back, where it lay in plentiful stacks, then baked some bread from the flour stores, ate, and slept. Well, he felt so comfortable in this little village, never having to toil, everything having been left by the town's founders when they went off into the horizon and disappeared--yes, he felt so comfortable here he thought he'd stay. And so he ate of the corn stores, the grain stores, the flour stores; he drank of the wine cellar with its wine and barrels of beer--he lived a life of plenty, in this house he had claimed before anyone else. The years crept on and on, he got older and older--and he never toiled so much as to lift his finger an inch. And one day as an old man, the devil came, and said to him, "See, now it's time we reckoned your debt. You sold your soul to me forty years ago, and I have kept you well--fed you, clothed & sheltered you, given you everything God said human beings would never get but by the sweat of their brow when he punished Adam--and now it's time for me to claim your soul." And the man said, "When did I sell you my soul? I went to the crossroads, but you were not to be found." "Well," said the devil, "if you won't surrender your soul, I'll let you wait as long as you please--certainly in forty more years you will be ready to reckon your debt." And so forty more years went by, and the man was very elderly by now. And he had been living his life of plenty so long he was weary of life, and could not stand this nothingness of living life one day more. But he knew there was only one option for him that could possibly set him free--surrendering his soul to the devil. And the devil came at him again, and said, "Well, now it's been forty more years of comfort & plenty for you--are you ready yet to reckon your debt?" And the man was terrified, and said, "What torture it is to be in this prison of a house! And yet you give me no option for escape, but into hell. What a cruel & unforgiving thing you are after all! I sold my soul for this torture of a life--and as repayment I must go to hell for torture again. What kind of deal is this?" But the devil, ever patient, only said, "I will give you another forty years to contemplate your debt. For I will not force you to surrender your soul, but that you feel you must pay your debt like a decent man should. So I will give you forty more years to contemplate what you owe, to see if you change your mind." And the man said, "Stop! Stop! I cannot stand forty more years of this!" But the devil had already gone back under the earth, and he was left to forty more years of a life that was nothing at all--an endless plain, a desert, empty.