THE MERCY CODICIL

my time is your time and it's all up the dying man heard himself say ... but who was the author ... was it his soul calling out to god that his time on earth was spent or the devil within him to tell him his life and his were both ruined now completely and their hope wasted in this world and the next ... what a pity he reflected that the first choice didn't seem possible without the possibility of the second ... in his lifetime of haphazard thought conversation with the real god had come to depend on how the conversation went with real devil ... it wasn't as if the devil were entitled to equal time nonetheless conversation became almost his monopoly what with the various negotiations it took to keep his minions at bay ... just demands for surrender kept the clerk's department in overtime and now that the war had been lost there were more forms not less to fill out with of course so little time left to do it ... here a subclerk from the annex made a discovery that had been found and lost often before ... a brief codicil but signed with the highest initials ... it said ... time spent fighting the devil counts halftime talking with god