RE: Let's tell spontaneous stories.
06-25-2012, 03:02 AM
Now, Sarah Sorenson was just about the grumpiest old cuss you could ever hope to meet. You ask anyone in the tri-state area, they'll tell you the same. They say when she was born she was just about the only baby in living memory that didn't come into this world laughin' or cryin', just a-scowlin' away like she already knew she had nothin' to say to that doctor. That's the way it was, and that's the way it's been since – weren't nobody or nothin' ever good enough for old Sarah, and it seems like that's just the way she liked it.
Now, you might be tempted to imagine her as a wrinkled old biddy, sittin' in a rockin' chair on her front porch with a shotgun on her lap, wavin' it at kids who get too close to her land. And you'd be right to think that, too. But folks around here, we don't remember her like that. No, you say her name to us, and the only thing that comes to mind is the time Sarah stared down Old Scratch himself.
[[I'm doing this orally and just transcribing it as I go, so I'm imagining this whole piece as an interp like I'd do back in my speech team days. This is where I'd put an intro if I was competing hello! Witticism title author's name.]]
See, most folks, when it comes time to meet their maker, they're ready one way or another. Them as aren't, well... The powers that be have their ways and their ways. They say if you're good and pious in your life, an angel will appear to take you off to kingdom come, but most of us just get that old bony feller with the sickle. The sweetest and saintliest among us get plucked to the next world by the very hand of God, and the worst... Well, the devil claims his own.
And so when Sarah's time came, she was just sittin', and rockin', and watching the world with dissatisfaction. And from the woods, up comes a man in a dark red suit, and in a black tie, because there wasn't a neighborly, Christian bone in Sarah's bitter old body. And he's all smiles and sharp teeth and smooth as a city boy afore tells your farm belongs to his bank now. And Sarah, like most of us around these parts, she don't have no time for no city boy, be they man or demon, so she just keep a-rockin'. And the devil, he just strolls up as slick as you like.
By now, of course, he's used to some reaction, but in all his long years he's seen many a brave soul, so this ain't too strange to him. And so he walks up her path, and he walk up her stairs, and he walks up her porch, and he stands, a-loomin' over this old woman, and he says "Sarah Sorenson. You know who I am."
And Sarah, she still don't have no time for 'im. She just keeps rockin' away, like she ain't got a care in the world. And the devil, he ain't too happy about this old woman ignoring him, so this time he says louder "Sarah Sorenson, you know why I have come."
And of course, Sarah still don't have the time. She just rocks, and she just watches, and the devil, he's really fumin' inside now. But he don't show it, and he holds out his hand and he says "Sara Sorenson, you are comin' with me."
And now Sarah looks up, and she looks at his sharp teeth and his sharp eyes and his slick suit. And she chews on a big old wad of tobacco. She bites through it once, twice, and then she moves it, slow as you like, over to the other cheek. And then she bites it again. And then she stares up at the devil and she says
"Ain't."
Now, by this time, most of the ones that don't come with him right away are yellin' and screamin'. "Begone, Satan!" they say, or "You'll never take me!". Maybe they tell the world that they don't deserve this, but the world don't listen and neither do the devil. But never before has someone simply sat and said no, like they knew better.
And so the devil, he lets his smile drop a bit, he lets his horns show a bit, and he stretches his hand farther out. He says "I didn't make you an offer, child. You will be comin' with me."
Sarah, she just mushes that tobacco around, and then she moves it on back over to the other side, and then she mushes it around some more, like she's thinkin' somethin' over. And slow as anything, she blinks once, twice, and she says
"Ain't."
And the devil, hoo boy you shoulda seen him. Suddenly there's no more smooth and no more suit, just horns and fangs and tails and the smell of smoke. And he's furious that she can just sit there like he don't even matter, and he yells and howls and he screams "You'll be comin' with me if I have to drag you the whole damned way!"
But here's the thing you gotta remember about the devil: all his power comes from people fearin' him. Even good folks like you and me, filled with the love of the Lord and the light of Heaven, he can turn that against us because he stands for everything we hate, and he can use it to pull us all the way down to Hell with him. It takes someone like Sarah, who couldn't care less if he's Satan or Saint Nick to stand up to the old boy like that, and boy do he hate it, 'cause he knows he can't do a thing to her.
And in the middle of all this smoke and threats, Sarah just sits, rockin' back and then rockin' forth again, chewin' on her tobacco. Mush mush, moooove, mush mush. And finally, she opens up her mouth and she says
"Ain't."
But the devil, he ain't one to give up without a fight. So he spreads his arms wide, and he brings forth a coupla demons, things of flesh and blood as much as fire and brimstone. He brings 'em out 'cause they're realer than all his smoke and trickery, and 'cause grabbin' old women ain't no kind of job for a Prince of Lies anyhow. He yells at them "Take her!" and they jump.
Quicker'n you can see, and quicker'n anyone should be movin', Sarah brings out her old shotgun and she pumps their chests full. And once they're down and her porch'll never look the same again, she looks at the devil and she says
"I ain't goin' nowhere with nobody."
And the devil, well, he's a crafty one but he knows when he's beat. So without so much as a pardon me he disappears and leaves Sarah all alone with herself. But he's not done with her yet, not by a long shot. He ain't never lost a soul in all his days – 'ceptin' a few he don't personally count – and he don't plan to start now. But he's gotta bide his time first.
And so, the poor old preacher who tends the flock the old nag's part of, he's heard that Sarah's taken awful sickly of late, and he's made a point of visitin' her regular so as to hopefully save her before her time. And it just so happens that he's come come up for a visit not an hour after the devil came for his. He sees Sarah just rockin' away, and he makes sure to hold up his hat so she don't take it into her head to chase him off like she do kids and rabbit and revenuers. She tolerates him comin' and he walks up and asks her "How are you doin' today, Sarah?"
"No better for your tresspassin'."
But that's just her way, and as a man of God he feels like he's gotta give her his all. So he comes around her porch, and what does he see but a pair of rottin' demons, just as nasty and as dead as you please. And he drops to his knees and he prays to God above and he says "Sarah, what happened here?"
"The old boy came for me hisself, no thanks to you."
And the preacher, he just doesn't know what to do. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, and finally he just says "Well spit in my eye and call me a Baptist!" And, takin' him at his word, she gobs right in his face and screams
"Well then get the hell out of here, you Baptists sonovabitch, 'cause he's comin' back tonight!"
And sure enough, she was right. That night, he comes back for her. Of course, he don't do it obvious. That's not his style, to keep tryin' somethin' that don't work. No, he's too smart for that, so he puts on his old halo and he takes up his old wings, and all of a sudden he ain't no Lucifer. Nope, you'da had a hard time not droppin' to your knees and genuflectin' like a dang Catholic in front of him, and you'da sworn up and down it was Gabriel himself.
So in the light of the moon and not much else, he comes back to her old house, shinin' brighter than just about anything. He descends like an angel of old, and he says in a voice like milk and honey "Child of God, you have done well to resist the temptations and trickery of Hell. Your reward is to take your rightful place at His feet in the kingdom of Heaven."
And he stretches his hand out for her like before, but he's a canny old thing so he remembers not to let his teeth sharpen or his horns show. But Sarah, she ain't havin' none of it. She raises her gun, and she spits on the ground, and she says
"I told you before, you old bastard, I ain't goin' nowhere with nobody!"
And if it had been anyone else, they wouldn't have been able to hightail it out of there so fast, and she'd have filled 'em fulla shot. But the devil's as quick as he is clever, and he's gone before you could so much as blink.
Now, as you can probably guess, Sarah weren't never one for bein' too sociable, but she'd be damned – again, I suppose – if she was gonna let somethin' like all that happen and not rub salt in the old boy's wounds. So she takes an old knife the next mornin', and she cuts the heads right off those demons, and she parades 'em around the town for everyone to see. And the preacher weren't too happy about it, on account of how much Sarah flew in the face of his "live righteously and ye shall be rewarded" message, but he couldn't do a thing about it. After all, how many demons could he say he'd exorcised?
And so it went on like that, for days and for weeks, with the devil tryin' every trick up his sleeve and every trick, in his book, but Sarah's just too smart or too stubborn to fall for a one of 'em. And every day, she'd come down and she'd tell us all about how she'd beat him that night, right up until not a one of us could be afraid of the old goat anymore. You might be wonderin' why such a miserable old woman would be so set to go on livin', and to be honest, I don't have much of an answer. It couldn'ta been because she was too happy here on Earth to leave, 'cause not even the oldest old folks could remember a time Sarah so much as cracked a smile. And it couldn'ta been because she was too afraid of Hell, 'cause Sarah used to go bear-baitin' for kicks, and Hell and all its angels aren't a patch on a big black bear comin' down on you like a frieght train. No, I gotta figure it was all just pure cussedness, spitin' Satan just as much as she's spite anyone who came on her land.
But of course, you gotta there can't be a happy endin' to a story as unhappy as Sarah. And, of course, you can't live forever. So one night, after wrackin' his brains for longer than he cared to remember, Old Scratch had a thought, and he smiled to himself more the more he thought about it. And provin' that the simplest plans are always the best, he waited until night came around again, and he crept up on her while she was sleepin'. See, she hadn't properly died all those months, so she still had to get her shuteye in. And when she was asleep, she couldn't refuse him. And if she couldn't refuse him, well, he could just do with her whatever he pleased.
And so the next day, we all waited for her daily parade through town with a demon skull in each hand. And we waited past breakfast, and we waited past noon, but time came and went and it seemed to have taken Sarah with it. We knew what had to have happened, of course, but we all went up to her house, holdin' our breaths and hopin'. But on her front porch was an empty rocker with a skull on each arm, and a black necktie draped over the back.
These days, hardly nobody goes up to the Sorenson place. We cleared out all the demon bones and the preacher burned the tie and told us all about the pitfalls of Hell again and we all pretty much stopped talkin' about the whole affair. But every week or so, someone'll go up and dust things down a bit and make sure there aren't too many spiders hangin' about. Because let me tell you...
Ain't nobody expects old Sarah to be gone too long.
Now, you might be tempted to imagine her as a wrinkled old biddy, sittin' in a rockin' chair on her front porch with a shotgun on her lap, wavin' it at kids who get too close to her land. And you'd be right to think that, too. But folks around here, we don't remember her like that. No, you say her name to us, and the only thing that comes to mind is the time Sarah stared down Old Scratch himself.
[[I'm doing this orally and just transcribing it as I go, so I'm imagining this whole piece as an interp like I'd do back in my speech team days. This is where I'd put an intro if I was competing hello! Witticism title author's name.]]
See, most folks, when it comes time to meet their maker, they're ready one way or another. Them as aren't, well... The powers that be have their ways and their ways. They say if you're good and pious in your life, an angel will appear to take you off to kingdom come, but most of us just get that old bony feller with the sickle. The sweetest and saintliest among us get plucked to the next world by the very hand of God, and the worst... Well, the devil claims his own.
And so when Sarah's time came, she was just sittin', and rockin', and watching the world with dissatisfaction. And from the woods, up comes a man in a dark red suit, and in a black tie, because there wasn't a neighborly, Christian bone in Sarah's bitter old body. And he's all smiles and sharp teeth and smooth as a city boy afore tells your farm belongs to his bank now. And Sarah, like most of us around these parts, she don't have no time for no city boy, be they man or demon, so she just keep a-rockin'. And the devil, he just strolls up as slick as you like.
By now, of course, he's used to some reaction, but in all his long years he's seen many a brave soul, so this ain't too strange to him. And so he walks up her path, and he walk up her stairs, and he walks up her porch, and he stands, a-loomin' over this old woman, and he says "Sarah Sorenson. You know who I am."
And Sarah, she still don't have no time for 'im. She just keeps rockin' away, like she ain't got a care in the world. And the devil, he ain't too happy about this old woman ignoring him, so this time he says louder "Sarah Sorenson, you know why I have come."
And of course, Sarah still don't have the time. She just rocks, and she just watches, and the devil, he's really fumin' inside now. But he don't show it, and he holds out his hand and he says "Sara Sorenson, you are comin' with me."
And now Sarah looks up, and she looks at his sharp teeth and his sharp eyes and his slick suit. And she chews on a big old wad of tobacco. She bites through it once, twice, and then she moves it, slow as you like, over to the other cheek. And then she bites it again. And then she stares up at the devil and she says
"Ain't."
Now, by this time, most of the ones that don't come with him right away are yellin' and screamin'. "Begone, Satan!" they say, or "You'll never take me!". Maybe they tell the world that they don't deserve this, but the world don't listen and neither do the devil. But never before has someone simply sat and said no, like they knew better.
And so the devil, he lets his smile drop a bit, he lets his horns show a bit, and he stretches his hand farther out. He says "I didn't make you an offer, child. You will be comin' with me."
Sarah, she just mushes that tobacco around, and then she moves it on back over to the other side, and then she mushes it around some more, like she's thinkin' somethin' over. And slow as anything, she blinks once, twice, and she says
"Ain't."
And the devil, hoo boy you shoulda seen him. Suddenly there's no more smooth and no more suit, just horns and fangs and tails and the smell of smoke. And he's furious that she can just sit there like he don't even matter, and he yells and howls and he screams "You'll be comin' with me if I have to drag you the whole damned way!"
But here's the thing you gotta remember about the devil: all his power comes from people fearin' him. Even good folks like you and me, filled with the love of the Lord and the light of Heaven, he can turn that against us because he stands for everything we hate, and he can use it to pull us all the way down to Hell with him. It takes someone like Sarah, who couldn't care less if he's Satan or Saint Nick to stand up to the old boy like that, and boy do he hate it, 'cause he knows he can't do a thing to her.
And in the middle of all this smoke and threats, Sarah just sits, rockin' back and then rockin' forth again, chewin' on her tobacco. Mush mush, moooove, mush mush. And finally, she opens up her mouth and she says
"Ain't."
But the devil, he ain't one to give up without a fight. So he spreads his arms wide, and he brings forth a coupla demons, things of flesh and blood as much as fire and brimstone. He brings 'em out 'cause they're realer than all his smoke and trickery, and 'cause grabbin' old women ain't no kind of job for a Prince of Lies anyhow. He yells at them "Take her!" and they jump.
Quicker'n you can see, and quicker'n anyone should be movin', Sarah brings out her old shotgun and she pumps their chests full. And once they're down and her porch'll never look the same again, she looks at the devil and she says
"I ain't goin' nowhere with nobody."
And the devil, well, he's a crafty one but he knows when he's beat. So without so much as a pardon me he disappears and leaves Sarah all alone with herself. But he's not done with her yet, not by a long shot. He ain't never lost a soul in all his days – 'ceptin' a few he don't personally count – and he don't plan to start now. But he's gotta bide his time first.
And so, the poor old preacher who tends the flock the old nag's part of, he's heard that Sarah's taken awful sickly of late, and he's made a point of visitin' her regular so as to hopefully save her before her time. And it just so happens that he's come come up for a visit not an hour after the devil came for his. He sees Sarah just rockin' away, and he makes sure to hold up his hat so she don't take it into her head to chase him off like she do kids and rabbit and revenuers. She tolerates him comin' and he walks up and asks her "How are you doin' today, Sarah?"
"No better for your tresspassin'."
But that's just her way, and as a man of God he feels like he's gotta give her his all. So he comes around her porch, and what does he see but a pair of rottin' demons, just as nasty and as dead as you please. And he drops to his knees and he prays to God above and he says "Sarah, what happened here?"
"The old boy came for me hisself, no thanks to you."
And the preacher, he just doesn't know what to do. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, and finally he just says "Well spit in my eye and call me a Baptist!" And, takin' him at his word, she gobs right in his face and screams
"Well then get the hell out of here, you Baptists sonovabitch, 'cause he's comin' back tonight!"
And sure enough, she was right. That night, he comes back for her. Of course, he don't do it obvious. That's not his style, to keep tryin' somethin' that don't work. No, he's too smart for that, so he puts on his old halo and he takes up his old wings, and all of a sudden he ain't no Lucifer. Nope, you'da had a hard time not droppin' to your knees and genuflectin' like a dang Catholic in front of him, and you'da sworn up and down it was Gabriel himself.
So in the light of the moon and not much else, he comes back to her old house, shinin' brighter than just about anything. He descends like an angel of old, and he says in a voice like milk and honey "Child of God, you have done well to resist the temptations and trickery of Hell. Your reward is to take your rightful place at His feet in the kingdom of Heaven."
And he stretches his hand out for her like before, but he's a canny old thing so he remembers not to let his teeth sharpen or his horns show. But Sarah, she ain't havin' none of it. She raises her gun, and she spits on the ground, and she says
"I told you before, you old bastard, I ain't goin' nowhere with nobody!"
And if it had been anyone else, they wouldn't have been able to hightail it out of there so fast, and she'd have filled 'em fulla shot. But the devil's as quick as he is clever, and he's gone before you could so much as blink.
Now, as you can probably guess, Sarah weren't never one for bein' too sociable, but she'd be damned – again, I suppose – if she was gonna let somethin' like all that happen and not rub salt in the old boy's wounds. So she takes an old knife the next mornin', and she cuts the heads right off those demons, and she parades 'em around the town for everyone to see. And the preacher weren't too happy about it, on account of how much Sarah flew in the face of his "live righteously and ye shall be rewarded" message, but he couldn't do a thing about it. After all, how many demons could he say he'd exorcised?
And so it went on like that, for days and for weeks, with the devil tryin' every trick up his sleeve and every trick, in his book, but Sarah's just too smart or too stubborn to fall for a one of 'em. And every day, she'd come down and she'd tell us all about how she'd beat him that night, right up until not a one of us could be afraid of the old goat anymore. You might be wonderin' why such a miserable old woman would be so set to go on livin', and to be honest, I don't have much of an answer. It couldn'ta been because she was too happy here on Earth to leave, 'cause not even the oldest old folks could remember a time Sarah so much as cracked a smile. And it couldn'ta been because she was too afraid of Hell, 'cause Sarah used to go bear-baitin' for kicks, and Hell and all its angels aren't a patch on a big black bear comin' down on you like a frieght train. No, I gotta figure it was all just pure cussedness, spitin' Satan just as much as she's spite anyone who came on her land.
But of course, you gotta there can't be a happy endin' to a story as unhappy as Sarah. And, of course, you can't live forever. So one night, after wrackin' his brains for longer than he cared to remember, Old Scratch had a thought, and he smiled to himself more the more he thought about it. And provin' that the simplest plans are always the best, he waited until night came around again, and he crept up on her while she was sleepin'. See, she hadn't properly died all those months, so she still had to get her shuteye in. And when she was asleep, she couldn't refuse him. And if she couldn't refuse him, well, he could just do with her whatever he pleased.
And so the next day, we all waited for her daily parade through town with a demon skull in each hand. And we waited past breakfast, and we waited past noon, but time came and went and it seemed to have taken Sarah with it. We knew what had to have happened, of course, but we all went up to her house, holdin' our breaths and hopin'. But on her front porch was an empty rocker with a skull on each arm, and a black necktie draped over the back.
These days, hardly nobody goes up to the Sorenson place. We cleared out all the demon bones and the preacher burned the tie and told us all about the pitfalls of Hell again and we all pretty much stopped talkin' about the whole affair. But every week or so, someone'll go up and dust things down a bit and make sure there aren't too many spiders hangin' about. Because let me tell you...
Ain't nobody expects old Sarah to be gone too long.