It’s been a real bullshit day for Carolyn, and being damned to hell was really just the capper. “This sucks,” she tells the demon slowly flensing the skin off her lower leg.

“Tuesdays, amirite?” says the demon, who doesn’t stop flensing.

“No, really, I hate this. I don’t like any part of this.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just life in late stage capitalism, ain’t it? Life’s a bitch like that. Still—” the demon has the chipper nonemotive voice of a high quality voicemail system— “we struggle on the best we can. Other leg, please!”

Carolyn holds out her leg. “It’s just—” she screams hoarsely as the knife slips skillfully but incredibly painfully between the skin and the muscle of her calf— “I had plans this morning, you know? I was going to go to the bank.“

The demon pauses, looks sympathetically into her eyes for a second. “Oh, honey,” it says, not unkindly, “we both know you were never going to go to the bank.”