The Devil Can Perform Miracles Too
They all said it was a miracle that I survived, but only the devil and I knew the truth.
It all happened on a typical Sunday morning when I was forgetting on purpose to go to church like the good Christian I was. Sure, I went on the big holidays and a few random Sundays here and there when I was feeling a little guilty for staying away. But this Sunday was not one of those Sundays. I was sitting in my underwear on my thrift store couch playing Call of Duty for the millionth time.
As I was getting really into the game, I heard a knock at the door. Strange that someone would be knocking when I have a perfectly good doorbell just waiting to be pushed. What’s even stranger is that I was wearing noise canceling headphones and still was able to hear the faint knock. Looking back on it now, it seems to me that there was no real knock at my door. Maybe it was all in my head.
I paused the game, put on my old tattered bathrobe, and trudged towards the door. I don’t know why I even got up at all. No one comes to my door unless they want to sell me something or try to save my soul, and I wasn’t in the mood for either. I opened the door to see no one except a set of footprints in the snow.
Now, any sane person would close the door, shrug it off, and go back to what they were doing. I apparently was not a sane person that Sunday. I put on my wellies and stepped out into the snow. I clung to my robe as I walked to try to fight the cold that was nipping at my skin underneath. The footprints seemed to be larger than any foot I had ever seen. It was as if Bigfoot had come to visit me. This could be the reason why I was so intrigued by these abnormally large footprints in the snow.
I studied the size and shape of the print as I walked. At first, I walked outside of them in order to study them, but as I moved further along this mysterious path, I started to walk inside each step. They were more than double the size of my average size foot. Stopping to crouch down to take a better look, I did not notice that I was now standing in the middle of my street. I only began to notice this when I heard the loud honking which made me instinctively stand up. The SUV hit me straight on and sent me flying into the air and over the hood.
As my body rolled in the snow, I noticed that I was already too cold to feel most of the pain. In that moment, I was actually grateful for wearing my old robe. I began to pray for my life as my body slowed to a stop. Lying in a crumpled heap in the snow, I heard a voice in my ear.
“God?” I thought.
But the voice was deep and gravelly as if it had swallowed glass. Shouldn’t God’s voice be more inviting I thought?
“I’ll save you, my boy,” it said.
Then I managed to open my eyes to see a hand reach towards me. The hand did not have any flesh upon it and was as white as the snow. I could not see who or what was attached to the hand, but I knew it was my only hope at this point. I used all of my strength to reach out and grab ahold of it.
“Now all you owe me is your soul,” is the last thing I heard as the hand disappeared and I was left whole again in the snow.
My body was no longer showing any signs of any force trauma. Not even one little scratch. As I stood up, the driver of the SUV came running over to me. He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. Even though neither of us had said it, we both knew I should have been dead.
He apologized and I acted as if it were nothing. Then I began to walk back towards my house. Strange how I did not see any footprints in the snow anymore. I got back to my house and sat back down on my couch. I took in a deep breath for the first time since I got hit.
That’s when I realized, sometimes when you are praying the devil is listening too.
Writing In The Deep 