He walked across the yard and entered the outhouse. The bell and chain
and mounting vanished. This time the young man was gone from sight
just a little longer than any time previously, and when he came out he
looked just a tiny bit expectant.
He waved in friendly fashion at the three men on the porch and rose
into the sky, faster and faster until he disappeared into the sun.
The man in black got up from his chair and knocked out his pipe on a
heel--or rather, where a heel should have been, for it was now evident
for the first time that he had black hooves instead of feet.
The wad of sulphur fell to the boards and smoked and stank.
"He was right, you know," he said. "The battle was in yourselves. And
I suppose I've lost. I seem to be losing more and more these days ...
though I'm by no means through. I suppose if I put up another bell,
you'll just take it down." He sighed and stretched his long black-clad
arms wide, as the young man had done. "Well, it's been diverting. I
think I _will_ put up another bell--just for the Hell of it."
He went down the steps, across the yard, into the outhouse.
An enormous cowbell appeared on the roof--a prince of cowbells, a
cowbell fit for the neck of Babe, the giant blue ox of Paul Bunyan.
From it hung an inch-thick chain.
The chain yanked down, the cowbell went _BLONGLE, BLONGLE, BLOK, BLOK,
BLOK!_--and Charley's plan which the young man had arranged before
leaving the confines of the outhouse became evident.
There was a loud flushing sound. A herculean flush. The walls collapsed
inward with a giant roar and an enormous swoosh and a gargantuan
gurgle. A moment later there was only a deep hole in the ground where
the outhouse had stood. And then the sides of the hole crumbled in to
form a shallow pit.
_Timelessness_ ended.
Luke scratched his head and stared from Sam over to Charley. "Did you
two dream the same thing I did?" his voice was awed.
Sam pointed over to where the pit made a raw scar in the ground.
"Weren't no dream. Or if it was, we're still asleep."
Charley had a laughing glint in his eye. "We're not asleep, and it
wasn't any dream. 'Specially the ending."
Luke and Sam looked at him puzzled for a moment. Then they both laughed
and Charley joined them.
"Bet that flush was the damndest joke Satan ever had played on him!"
Luke gasped, holding his sides.
"One _hell_ of a joke, Charley," Sam choked. "What I wouldn't give to
have seen his face!"
Charley agreed. He began to laugh even harder as he wondered if there
was any soap and water down in Gehenna. He had an idea Satan might be
praying for some.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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