It’s common knowledge the devil wants our soul but it is not fully understood why.
Optimists believe souls are the electricity of hell, powering streaming services like Hellflix, social medias like Instaheck, charging infernal vehicles like the Edison Cybertruck, or even brewing a nice cup of matcha at Dante’s Divine Come-teas.
Cynics believe our man, Lucifer (Lou to his friends) is accruing souls to build an army so on the day of rapture, they’ll burst forth from the molten firepits deep within our core spreading throughout our lands making earth nothing more than a satellite office for the underworld in which all those whom remain will be stuck in meaningless jobs, toiling away as expendable paper-pushers struggling to find meaning in their damned lives, while starvation wages run rampant, a biased media wearing horses blinders professes we’re doing great and the only place to vent is a mythical land magically connecting Hell-Colony-Earth not physically but spiritually through some kind of world wide web which we use to scream at one another with the rise of the all cap letters sentence. Our food will be laced with plastics and chemicals that have no business being one with our flesh, the water will be polluted beyond recognition as we over fish the seas and we drown out the din of an overpopulated demonic world by falling asleep to the peaceful recorded woes of a whale singing of loneliness in an emptying ocean. Realists believe this is just our current everyday life.
And if this is our current everyday life we should be properly distracted. Which brings us to the greatest romantic comedy never made. We answer the question, why does Lou want our souls? Easy, like a child with a deck of cards, he’s playing match. Specifically, matching souls. The acquisition of souls through making deals with the devil is not nefarious at all but rather Lou’s way of playing matchmaker.
Who better to find our soulmate than the one collecting the most souls?
As love transcends time and space, so do Lou’s efforts, maybe the reason you’re floundering in the dating pool is because your love lived during the times of Ancient Egypt. Lucky for you, Lou’s been holding on to Imhotep’s soul for you this whole time! Why do you think hell has so much fire? He’s gotta keep those souls warm for you. Looks like a deal with the devil isn’t one big pyramid scheme after all.
Picture this.
You’re filing papers for what feels like eternity and every time a coworker asks how you’re doing you say “living the dream” which is obviously a plea for a lifeline before you completely sink into the slow working quicksand of madness when poof, there’s good ole Lou in a nice expensive suit leaning on a metal filing cabinet. His smile isn’t a snake-oil grin showing off his pearly whites, it’s a glint of his halo shining through even after all these millennia.
He offers you riches, you’ll never have to file anything again. But, he says, in exchange, you have to give him your soul. Thinking the worst, you turn him down. He sighs, shoulders slumped in defeat, he disappears in a cloud of brimstone. The rest of your filing day smells like a hint of sulfur. At home he plays fetch with Cerberus while wondering why his win-win negotiation tactics are failing. Why does every one think it’s a win-lose?
Throughout the course of the tale, you continue to experience the emotional rollercoaster that is life with all its trials and tribulations. All the while, Lou pops in to see how you’re doing offering you deals to make your life easier but you keep shooting the handsome devil down. All the while, our main man Lou is getting more and more frustrated as he scrolls through his souls like a pokedex seeing so many singles without matches yet. But fueled by passionate hellfire, a hopeless romantic heart and heavenly stubbornness he persists until you finally acquiesce in his handshake deal. Rich beyond your wildest dreams (which actually weren’t very wild if we’re being honest) Lou happily grinning from ear to ear disappears once again in a puff of brimstone but as the smoke clears there is someone else there. A man named Jebidiah, a farmer from earlier American colonial days, your soulmate, the perfect man to start a homestead with. He won’t be chicken to raise some chickens with you.
Roll credits. You can file that under true love.
Why do you think we FALL in love? Was Lou not the first that fell?