A man who has lived all his life in decay and ignorance, always carried like a leaf in the wind, will cling to any illusion, will make all kinds of unrealistic scenarios that he will get out of the miserable situation in which he finds himself. Without making any effort, if possible. Because others are to blame.

Others got the chances I deserved. Others won what I wanted. I felt the need to do something. I needed help. I prayed to God when I was little, I believed in Him. All my relatives, especially my aunts and grandmothers, told me that the Bearded Man would help me become a big man. Obviously, he didn't. He had other concerns and I was not a viable investment.

So in my foolishness I got mad at Him. I had forgotten that they say that God gives you, but he doesn't put it in your pocket. Maybe I hadn't been paying attention, or I had left my bag somewhere. So I had started joking that if the One Above is too busy for me, maybe his biblical rival is more available. And we repeated it quite often. Whoever said the Devil doesn't exist was either a fool like me or wanted to deceive us. Or maybe both.

I never thought it would end like this. I could see myself as a sour and emaciated pensioner, who scolds the young people who pass by him for not paying the maintenance on time, for not letting him sit down on the bus, for slamming the elevator door. If only I had had some illness or a spectacular car accident... If only I had acted differently on that cursed day of December 13, 2016...

Tuesday, the 13th. I had left home without any desire for work, for life, for everything. I was a superstitious person, like thousands of other ignorant people who prefer to blame superstitions, traditions, paradigms, anything else possible, just to not own up to it.

I had arrived with a delay of half an hour, precisely on that unfortunate day when I don't know what great manager came to our company. Why the hell hadn't I left home earlier? I had just been assigned to present a crappy powerpoint and I was sitting like a prince in the taxi I had ordered to get there early. I had entered the office, to vent my soul on the stairs. The anger and disapproval in the eyes of my colleagues let me understand that I had screwed her up badly.

- Christ, have you come? How nice that you honored us with your presence on this wonderful Tuesday. Look, now that you've arrived, the sun is out. Move into the office, we have two words to exchange.

I was moving like a telepath, my only thoughts at the time being whether I should count this as the first or second bad watch of the day. That it couldn't possibly be a very good one, from everyone's looks and after I'd heard a "boule" said through gritted teeth as I walked like a convict down death row. Not even the devil could save me, so I thought at the time.

— Christ, are you really such a moron as to put everyone in such a situation in front of the manager? Couldn't you, boule, be late the hell another day? Where's your head been, you jerk?

"I… I had a bad morning." Then the traffic.

I could see that any justification I tried made me sink faster than the Titanic. How the hell do I get rid of this arrogant man? He was walking around, I couldn't even hear what he was saying. I was hoping he'd get hit by a car or at least go into cardiac arrest or something.

- Christ! Where the hell are you looking at me? I'm begging and your elbow hurts. I think I need to think about whether you should still be part of this department. Or from the company.

„The goddamn moron. He knows that I am much more competent and hardworking than him. That's why I was made to present. The bastard is afraid that soon the world will realize how incompetent he is, and that's why he plays this cheap theater. He knows that if he wants to stay in charge, he has to blame someone. Me, obviously. He has reason to clean me up now. Damn it, get me out of this mess!”

I don't even know how the rest of the day went, I was in a trance. Then I got home. I opened the door, never able to do it without effort. A blast of cold air hit me in the face and only then did I wake up. I thought the block heat was off, it just had to be three bad hours that day. The radiators were hot. I poured myself a glass of whiskey, which I had forgotten to put in the fridge, and I had no ice. I turned it upside down like that and dozed off watching a stupid movie. If I hadn't woken up at midnight, would he still be there? Would he have come on another day? I could at least not brush my teeth or look in the bathroom mirror...

I was leaning against the bathroom sink with the cold water running and looking in the mirror. Just me and my reflection. I didn't know my eyes were shining like that. I didn't think I looked like a junkie after just one drink. And what a grotesque smile, I swear I would have been scared if I had met at night in the semi-darkness. I ran my hand through my hair. Then my heart was about to explode. I, the one in the mirror, hadn't moved. I was just looking at myself grinning, with the look of a rich man throwing five lei to a woodcutter.

"You need me, don't you?"

I was perplexed, my mouth hanging open. Nothing had ever prepared me for this moment. Not horror movies with haunted houses, not hallucinations obtained by mixing vodka with algocalmin in college, absolutely nothing.

— What, God forbid, is there more to it?

- Come on, Adrian, how come? No, I'm clearly not Him. He never helped you, did you forget? That's why you asked for my help. Here i am! I grinned at my reflection in the mirror.

He was standing there, dressed in my office pants, his shirt dirty at the neck and crumpled from dozing off, and he was looking at me defiantly.

"Are you… Are you the Devil?"

- Look, how quickly you caught on! You are very smart, you catch on quickly. But you have no luck in life. Others are taking advantage of you. You deserve more, Adrian!

"How do you know my name?" And why do you look like that?

"Don't spoil my opinion of you." I'm you, how can I not know my name? And how would you like me to look? Body of a man and head of a goat, with hair on the legs and hoofs of an ox, how did the bearded people paint me in the Middle Ages? Or some hot girl with breasts ready to jump out of her cleavage when she sees you, like in bad American TV shows? Hard to digest the idea that the devil is inside everyone, right? Freud called it the Ego, if I'm not mistaken. He was a good guy, although he was cutting the thread into four.

"I think I'm drunk and I'm talking to myself." I'm sure I won't remember anything tomorrow morning. Maybe I haven't even woken up, I'm just having a nightmare.

- Sure, Adrian. The first step is denial. That's what you do when something unexpected comes your way. Then, if I remember what Sigmund was telling me, reactions of anger or fear follow. In the next stage, you begin to see the opportunities and eventually the new situation is accepted. I think I would make a good psychologist, but I don't like having someone else make my schedule. It is not like that?

- I'm dreaming. Nothing is real. I'm too stressed from the office and on top of that I've been drinking.

I was repeating this to myself like a mantra that I hoped would wake me up and see that nothing was real. My reflection in the mirror looked at me disapprovingly, but seemingly understanding and sympathetic.

His brown eyes, sorry, mine, week-old unshaven beard with spikes in all directions, and a few black dots sticking out on his fleshy nose, did not give me the impression of an alpha male or a female idol. I was neither one nor the other, that's right. The white shirt with a bunch of parallel and perpendicular stripes, like a checkerboard, together with black trousers hung by a distressed belt—the corporate uniform—made me look half as elegant and stylish as a waiter in Old Town . Both my face and my clothes were screaming for help. I still didn't know what to choose.

- See? Phase One: Denial. Let's be like you, you're in a dream, nothing is real. I can see on our faces that you've had a bad day. We all have them, but you have too many, don't you? You work a lot, you don't have time for your private life. How long have you been with a woman? I think you also made spiders.

- It's not the case...

"It's just between us, between you and… you." Are you going to lie, Adrian? Don't you want justice? You deserve more, and that profiteer bastard is soaking up your work. Is that correct, Adrian? You to work and he to reap the rewards? You're working overtime, and he's with his friends drinking, or even picking up some chick and breaking the bed with her. You tell me if it's right.

"No, it's not… I hate the bastard."

- OK darling. It's human to hate. It's normal to want to be right. You deserve to be treated fairly. You deserve to be in his place. But damn, this kind of lick, he won't want to go. Maybe he should die.

I, the one in the mirror, was saying things that I was trying to hide in the back of my mind. I had thought about them many times, I had taken it for granted during the session, but as I realized the slope I was beginning to slide down, my conscience gave me two healthy slaps over the eyes and woke me up to reality. I hated him because he exploited me, because he had an undeservedly higher salary than me, because he could afford to leave work early, or because, thanks to the position in large letters on his business card, he opened with great ease the doors of business partners and the feet of women. Then he would brag to us about his exploits. It wouldn't have been difficult for me to admit that I wanted him dead.

- Very good, Adrian, very good. How would you like to die? Don't worry, you won't have any mix-up. I'm just asking you for a small favor.

"Skins, Devils." My soul is not for sale.

I could feel my hair falling on my hands. I think I had prematurely moved to phase two: fear. He tapped his fingers in amusement at the side of the sink beyond the silver chloride-impregnated surface.

"Did I tell you that you waste too much time watching crap American movies?" What the hell should I do with your soul? Do you think I'm Santa walking around with the bag of souls after me? Or have you read Goethe and expect me to pull out a twenty-meter scroll of paper, sign it in blood, without reading the conditions? Wolfgang was a good boy, lots of imagination, but not very good with women. Just like you, by the way.

"Then what do you want from me?"

I was reminded of the saying "The devil is in the details". I no longer knew who said it or in what context, but was it to be taken literally?

- Allow me to feel at home. And ask for my help when you need it. You always find me in this mirror. I think I have a fetish for toilets. I can visit you every day of the 13th. Don't call me superstitious, but that's the only day off on the schedule. Take a look yourself.

Extraordinary! The devil even had an agenda, very well organized. That many customers he had? At least I didn't have to wonder why me, among the millions of fate's victims. But if he was in such high demand, it meant he was providing quality service, right?

- Well... make yourself at home, what can I say. And now what?

— That's how I like you, Adrian! i like your house A bit untidy, like a convinced bachelor. I'm not saying, I've seen better ones, but also worse ones. Tell me, how do you want the bastard to die? And don't tell me that in your sleep, or heart attack, or some cancer, you can do more than that.

Anger was bubbling inside me, I felt waves of adrenaline and unknown energies, which I was attracting from the ground, from the air, from everywhere. I was no longer alone, no longer a poor victim. I was lucky. I was finally going to get what I deserved. I wasn't even exchanging anything, I was just choosing to be with… a flatmate from time to time. Dozens of ways in which Stroescu died were running through my head.

"The bastard got a new Toyota." I worked hard on that project, and he reaped the rewards. Run over by a car? It's good? Or… while changing a tire he slips, falls on his back, another vehicle crushes his trachea and dies in his own blood, looking at his latest investment?

My reflection was looking at me proudly, like a coach watching his student win a place on the podium in some sports competition. Strangely, the Devil's approving attitude gave me a peace and self-assurance that I had never felt before.

I fell asleep as if I had been working in the mine for a week. The next day I arrived at the office an hour before the lunch break. I finally felt rested and relaxed as if a stone had been lifted from my heart. I used to be panicked as hell if I got to work this late. But that was no longer the case. The whole department was at the coffee area, and colleagues were commenting on the tragic end of the boss. One of them even said it was a worthy death Final Destination. I took it as a compliment, I liked the movie.

And the days went by, and I started to like going to work. I had also bought new shirts, which had cost me as much as clothes for the whole year. I had also been to a stylist, and now my hair was no longer limp and licked every night by an invisible cow. I had begun to exude confidence and security through every pore. It was like when you're the tomboy of the class, and at some point your friend, just released from reform school, moves into the same school. I became a new man. And this man wanted much more than his old self. She deserved a higher salary, a woman out of the magazines. And I, the new one, was waiting for the next meeting.

January 13, 2017. Friday the 13th, for the superstitious. Some were waiting for her, because after her the weekend was coming, I had higher hopes. I got home, I didn't even take off my shoes and went to the bathroom. Nothing happened, the reflection answered me faithfully. I poured myself a glass of whiskey and settled back in the armchair. Involuntarily, I dozed off.

When I heard a noise from the bathroom, I jumped to my feet like a soldier asleep on duty at the sound of brass. It was past midnight. He, meaning me in the mirror, was there. He was holding a half-smoked cigarette in one hand and a glass of drink in the other.

— Sorry for the delay, Adrian! I had a meeting that took longer than I expected. I see you're taking it easy. You look changed. Attitude is everything. But I think you already knew that, no need for the Devil to tell you in person.

That's what I was missing, for the Unclean One to teach me lessons in personal development. I wanted to laugh, but the one in the mirror had guessed my thoughts and was already bursting into laughter. I could almost smell the cigarettes. I thought it seemed to me, I had quit for a year and my senses must have gone crazy when I saw the cigarette in my reflection's hand. Then I remembered I had a package in a bookcase drawer. For cases of utmost necessity. And I rushed to the known place, while I, the one in the mirror, was trying to be serious. After all, you can't treat your customer with an unprofessional attitude, right?

The drawer was empty. How the hell. Did I forget where I put them? Or…

"Hey, did you start cleaning now that it's past midnight?"

"I was looking for something, but I can't find it anymore," I replied, staring at the black stone ring on the hand holding the glass.

"I hope not that pack of cigarettes." I borrowed it. Seriously, man... couldn't something better be possible? This stuff makes your lungs blacker than all the ashes in Hell.

- How do you...

— What can I do for you, Adrian? I don't have much time to waste, I'm a busy man. Or something like that…

I knew what I wanted. I didn't know the price. And not even if we could negotiate.

— Can you give me Stroescu's job?

The reflection in the mirror seemed to be pleased with my choice. Like an approzar salesman to whom the customer returns for another transaction. That's what it did for me. A provision of services against a payment. I would soon find out.

- Good choice. One small step for mankind, one giant leap for us. Or I don't know what that guy said when I sent him to the moon, that he kept reversing them. You are a determined man, Adrian. I like you. We know what we want from life. Much higher salary, some bonuses, a company car, less work because you will have idiots under your command. It can be done. But it costs. Standard price. I hate merchants who increase the price after building customer loyalty. I have prepared a special place for them.

- I don't know... maybe I should think about it.

I was beginning to have regrets. I saw in front of me a huge scale, struggling to keep its balance. On one plate a carefree future, and on the other me, who was getting smaller and smaller. Behind the glossy surface, my reflection's eyes frowned at me. In the end, the illusion of a future, as I thought I deserved, defeated.

- Either. I pay. Tell me the price.

"Like I said, dear, standard price for absolutely everything." Just a bitter life. You decide whose. But let it be from your family ties. Let's both feel it's worth it.

- No, I can not. I don't have anyone. Can't negotiate?

- Know something? If you want charity, I'm not the right person. The bearded man used to do these things, but he got tired of everyone asking him for things. Don't you also have an insufferable aunt, a cursed grandmother? You don't even need to say their name, just think of that person. I'll take care of the formalities, don't stress anymore. You just enjoy what you get in return.

The one in the mirror looked at me more and more disapprovingly. He nervously put out the cigarette in his palm and stood up. I was afraid that he would leave and miss the opportunity. He was a better negotiator than I was.

- I have... an uncle.

"See, Adrian?" Was it really that hard? I was sure we would find a solution where we would both be satisfied.

The devil was smiling slightly wryly at me, dressed in a black suit, shirt and tie of the same color. Sure, the guy had style. And he gave me ideas too. Somehow he knew I would make the right choice. Subconsciously I knew it too. Except above that was a shell of consciousness that was cracking faster than the hole in the ozone layer. I deserved more than I had received in my thirty-two years of life, and now they were all coming at me in a heap. Harvest time has come. My patience and tolerance had been rewarded.

The second and third day at the office nothing happens. I was waiting to hear news about Uncle Simion from my mother. Anyway, he was a rough, stingy old man, I hardly saw him once a year, with his big bushy hat, more holes than teeth in his mouth, and his sermons about how debauched and godless the young are. He had been right, at least in my case.

Both news came almost at the same time. The big boss calls me into his office just as my mom texted me to call her that I have a break. I knew the payment had been made and I was going to receive the service. I was listening to the chief's speech, holding back my laughter. His intuition told him that I was the right man for the position left vacant after the unexpected death of Stroescu. Even while he was sleeping, he had this revelation. That's what he used to say. He called it intuition, I knew better. I signed the addendum, thinking of the big, bright office I would soon be transferred to. How simple it was! Colleagues were probably shocked. That's how it always happened in corporations. You had to be careful when one was promoted out of the blue, you never knew what pact that man had made. You didn't want to mess with him. And in the evening I found out from Santa Simion's mother. While she was taking her afternoon siesta, the bookshelf had come loose from the wall. His big Bible, with silver covers weighing about two kilos, which he cared about more than his late wife, fallen in the soft head, had put him to sleep forever. I felt like laughing, I had told my mother a long time ago that I would hit the old man with the clock on his head. The devil thought like me.

The beginning of the collaboration with my reflection in the mirror was slower, I admit. I had reached, as he said, the stage where I could see the benefits. But what didn't suit me very much was that the wishes had to be punctual. Do not accept requirements like: to become a millionaire, to win the lotto, I did not understand why. It was more profitable to break a mega-wish into dozens of smaller ones, for sure. Had he also advised the inventor of the 0.33l beer bottles? If not, I hope the bastard burns in hell…

February 13, 2017. Monday, cold and gloomy winter day. Depression and asthenia spread like the plague through the Middle Ages. I was struggling to stay afloat. The confidence in me, due to my friend in the mirror, had somewhat evaporated, because of the way my former colleagues viewed me. We were back to our old ways. Frustrated, dissatisfied, grumpy. I knew that, in theory, attitude comes from within. And what comes from the inside is also reflected on the outside. But theory and practice simply do not match. I asked him to help me. He was laughing as he gave me the contact details of a psychologist lady who would have put me on the right track in just one session. Free, the woman didn't charge me a dime. It had an effect, I admit. Was she also Scaraotchi's client? Maybe we could make a fan club. A sclerotic aunt had cost me. He went out with his wheelbarrow to cross a railway. The freight train could not stop.

March 13. I thought I needed a much bigger home. I'd been in all kinds of matchboxes, I deserved better. I could have done it like mere mortals, a credit for about thirty years and stretched out as long as my duvet. That was for fools. He took a real estate magazine out of his pocket. He made me choose one. The top floor, a penthouse with huge windows, I could look down on the anthill from my ivory tower. It seemed that the devil was also good at real estate, not just psychology. For my comfort, a shallow, frivolous niece fell drunkenly from the balcony of a tenth-floor apartment in the middle of a party with lots of booze and lots of sex. Exactly what I was missing.

April 13. A second cousin drove his car into the river to get my father's brain tumor into remission. I could have checked for cancer, done more investigations, but I took the shortcut. It's not my fault people don't check their brakes too often.

May 13. I also needed a car for everything, I didn't want people to laugh that I was driving around with my work car, like the poor. I still had enough relatives. And I've wanted a Range Rover Evoque for a long time.

The last time I went to see my folks, they had started talking about the curse that hit their family. I told them that these things with curses were the nonsense of simple country people, and I didn't believe in such a thing. I had more important things to do. A faint thought made me realize that the curse of my family was me. I pushed it out of my mind, telling myself that none of those who left meant anything to me and were not there for me at all. There were strangers who were lucky, or unlucky, that the One Above connected them to me. Then my mother told me that she wanted to see me at my house, with my family and children. In a way, he was right. I needed a woman. I also knew who.

June 13, 2017. Another Tuesday. How many 13 days fall on Tuesday in a year? I should have counted them. The last two weeks I've been on edge, I couldn't wait for today to come. I knew what I wanted. The new girl from accounting. Her black hair with blue reflections, tied in a ponytail in which she stuck the pencil she played with when she was focused or agitated, her full and fleshy lips, the see-through white shirts that seemed to have buttons popping out of them and her large breasts released with every breath. strong, fine and muscular legs, always climbing on the heels of stiletto shoes. Such a thing was not mine. Not normally. But I wanted it, if only to avenge the times I dated women I barely found acceptable with just a coat of cheap face paint. The new me needed something high-class. Gender Christian. But she was engaged to one full of money and faces.

I was sitting in my new apartment, dressed in my black suit and shirt, with a glass of expensive whiskey in my hand. It had become a ritual. I was waiting to feel the cold chill and reach the bathroom, the mirror I had taken with me from the old apartment. I was a sentimental guy, what can I say.

— How impatient you are today, Adrian! answered the one in the mirror, this time dressed as if he had just come from a picnic. I like your costume. It inspires confidence, mystery, safety, extravagance. It suits you, I'm glad to inspire you. So far no one has noticed this.

- Well, thanks. We are waiting for you. I know what I want.

"That's how I like you, dear!" I told you that you are a determined man. You have everything you want, you just need a woman.

"How… how did you know?"

I was surprised. How did he know? Was he reading minds, was he using that damn Maslow's pyramid, or was he seeing how desperate I was on my face? He was looking at me from under his sunglasses, his cigar between his fingers, his hair gelled. Seriously? Was the devil using hair gel?

- I think you forgot. i am you I see what you see. Most of the time I hear your thoughts too, but not all the time. And then, don't be upset, I don't sit and watch the "Cristescu reality show" all day. First of all, I don't recall seeing you with any woman since we've been business partners. Couldn't you also go to prostitutes, like other men do?

I knew I was blushing and shaking with anger. He had struck a chord. I thought only weak men went to whorehouses, and I wasn't like that anymore. And when I was weak, I didn't go for fear that someone I knew would find out and that I would be laughed at. Or maybe this was all an excuse for the religious nonsense my folks had put into my head. The reflection in the silver surface gave the impression that he regretted what he had said. And that he still had a solution. Just like the salespeople you tell them something bad happened to you, they feel sorry for you for a moment, and then they screw you up with the products they're trying to push you.

- Come on, calm down. Tell me what I can do for you. I'm not the type who likes to have the world on his shoulder to cry on.

- I want Cristiana. She is the woman I want to be with every day. To show everyone who I am. Let everyone envy me when I walk into a bar with her arm in arm.

"Oh, that goodness with the long legs and the face of a porn secretary?" grinned the one in the mirror.

- Know her?

I was thinking maybe she was a client of his too. Maybe she was a country girl who wanted to be a hot bomb or have a rich boyfriend. It didn't even matter.

- No, she's not my client. You will laugh, but she is quite faithful. She's just a girl who has managed on her own two feet. And on her ass, I might say.

- Okay, okay... I want it. I have another cousin, he is just preparing for his baccalaureate. It doesn't take his mind too much and relieves him of stress.

The devil was thinking, he seemed to be devising a strategy. I hoped he wouldn't make some excuse to turn me down. I was getting even more concerned. The merchandise he offered was like a drug, it was addictive, and I felt on the edge of withdrawal. He took off his glasses, and there was nothing human in his eyes. They were black and shiny, like an onyx stone.

- Let me tell you how things are. I can't influence a person's feelings in the long run. If you wanted her for a night of sex, I had a solution. But you want it for the long term. It doesn't work like that, all at once. It simply doesn't work. Let's do this step by step.

"How, how long will it take?"

I had no more patience. Did the Devil really have limits?

- That's how we do it. In the first month we separate her from that fool with money. I know a prostitute, working girl, my client. It shouldn't be an effort to get him into bed and then send some pictures to your proud one. In the second month, I could give him some suggestions. Let's say... persuasion. I hate the word "manipulation", it seems so petty. What do you think? In the third month, you sleep with her and make her stay with you.

- Sounds like a good plan. So… do I pay in advance?

- If you want... And I'm also taking the next two meetings off. I really need a vacation, no clients, no meetings, no agenda. Nobody thinks about me, you all want money, women, cars. Pay in advance. And you could lend a hand too. Stop craning your neck like a giraffe when she walks past you, start talking to her. Find out what he likes. Listen to her, or at least give the impression that you do when she talks to you. She will feel vulnerable, especially after being cheated on. Women don't really forgive that, especially when they look like her. Give her expensive gifts, take her out to fancy restaurants. I take care of the rest. Now the payment. Who should it be?

That fool who wouldn't have passed the exam lit up like a Christmas tree when he got on a train to take a selfie and a 27,000 volt wire caught his leg. No one understood what the hell he was doing there instead of learning. Two more distant relatives went for a ride in the car, which suffered a miraculous phenomenon of spontaneous combustion.

In the first days, I was leaning in front of Cristiana at the coffee machine. He couldn't ignore me, we exchanged a few words. And not a week later, I see her in the office with dark circles and tears. I knew what had happened, but I had learned to hide it. Lying was a necessity. Strange how I went from one sin to another. Like a giant snowball. I was the shoulder he cried on, I proved him right when he said that men are bastards. I always gave him compliments and small gifts. I invited her to an expensive restaurant and she accepted. The devil was right. Three and a half months had passed and all efforts were directed at Cristiana. Although a fortress considered impenetrable in the past, now the walls were ready to give way.

September 13, 2017. My insistence was paying off. Like a dirty trick of fate, she proposed to stop by my place tonight. Although I knew I had to meet the Devil, I couldn't refuse. My plan was simple. I'd had enough expensive booze, I'd drink, have sex, she'd fall asleep, make the next transaction with my friend in the mirror, and get back into bed. Almost perfect, but totally unrealistic. We had been drinking, we had started to undress. I was remembering one of the late Stroescu's pearls of wisdom. "If the woman matches her panties and bra, you didn't initiate the roll". Too bad the happiness didn't last more than two minutes. He looked at me with compassion, almost with understanding. She fell asleep, I had a terrible stomach ache. I went to the other bathroom, not the one with the mirror. And I don't know how I stayed there for two hours. When I recovered, I immediately ran to the mirror. The reflection was waiting for me there, with black and monstrous eyes. I noticed a rictus in the corner of his mouth, as if he was looking at me with superiority.

"What are you doing, champion?" he grinned. I'm sure your wife is happy now.

He was actually laughing at me. I was convinced that he knew about my counter-performance. How the hell do you get a woman like that and have her die in less time than you can heat a soup in the microwave? It hadn't occurred to me to count back from a thousand, to think of some bad news or other cheap tricks.

- Come on, Adrian, I didn't let you down, trust me. I tell you, the woman sleeps satisfied. Tell me how I can help you.

— I think you know….

- So what, so what? The man's eternal problem: a few inches or a few minutes extra.

"Can't it be both?"

"Of course you can, I was just teasing you." Pay and go to sleep. Tomorrow you will have a pleasant surprise.

This time I really wasn't proud of myself anymore. I had exceeded every limit. The youngest child of my godparents, the one who had been like a brother to me as a child, went so that I could have her older and get the effect of viagra without effort. I think this was the point where what was left of my conscience revolted. It was like a seed that took hold of a fertile spot, perhaps the only one left in the desert of my soul, and took root that grew, threatening to cover everything. I fell asleep full of doubts, and the fact that in the morning I found the coffee made and a note written with Cristiana's lipstick telling me that she had to leave, but that we would see each other in a few days, didn't make me happy either. I had everything I'd ever wanted, but it all cost too much. I was beginning to feel a trace of regret.

It gnawed at me a little bit every day. I was trying not to think about it, I knew that if I focused my thoughts on other things, I would forget about the regret. I always thought I had the memory of a fish. And if I didn't think about something, over time I came to convince myself that it didn't happen. Until the woman I'd given the Devil four people for up to that point picked me up one evening when no one was in the office and told me I was fantastic when I did it a second time that night of September 13, when she was so drunk and the room was pitch black.

Even if he hit me on the head with a sledgehammer I wouldn't have been hit worse. I slept like a bastard on the toilet roll for two hours! I remembered the petty smile of my reflection when he told me not to worry, that he had helped me, and that the woman was sleeping contentedly. I wanted to drool over her stilettos and the white blouse underneath which revealed her lacy bra. The devil had pulled it on my girlfriend, while I had diarrhea. The bastard pulled it off me like I didn't expect. I peeled myself from the woman's arms without saying a word. She didn't understand why I started avoiding her, she probably thought I just wanted to sleep with her. All men were bastards, and I was no exception. I just couldn't see her in front of my eyes anymore, without seeing the one in the mirror, with his demonic eyes, riding her.

It was the last straw. I had decided to quit. I was absent from the October 13 meeting. I think he understood and took action. One day my dad called me to tell me I was a bastard for talking to my mom like that on the phone. I explained that I didn't call her and that maybe she was dreaming. My mind would not accept that the Devil would have done this. Then, in my luxury car, parked in front of a restaurant, a crowbar got into it and destroyed it. The driver said it was as if someone put their hands over his eyes for a few moments, he swore he didn't see anything. At the office, the boss who had promoted and protected me was caught doing something stupid and was taken away by the police. Cristiana had started making sweet eyes at a newcomer. At home it seemed that things were no longer where I had left them.

I was afraid even of my own shadow. I was paranoid. I needed a vacation, away from it all, somewhere he couldn't reach me. I chose a monastery. A simple, cold cell, and no contact with the outside. I even tried to confess. The abbot listened to me with compassion and empathy. But he didn't believe me for a moment. He told me to say I don't know what prayers, keep some fasts and call a priest to consecrate my home.

Today, December 13, 2017. The time I spent at the monastery helped me calm down. I called a priest a few days ago to consecrate my apartment, I feel safe now. I don't want to run anymore. I'm going to tell him to take his apartment, I'm resigning, take those extra five inches, make me impotent if he wants and leave me to God. I regret what I did, I will go to the monastery, God enlightened my mind. I will live in silence and prayer, away from all the vanities of life. I feel the cold air in the apartment and I walk confidently and determinedly towards the bathroom mirror that I covered with a towel. He's waiting for me, dressed in his elegant black suit. I caress the holy bracelets I received from the monastery to arm myself with even more courage.

I, the one in the mirror, am no longer me. My reflection's face is contorted with anger. His eyes are black and sparkling, his hair seems to be smoking, and between his sharp teeth you can see his sharp tongue like a snake. In an instant, his figure changes, he even copies the veins pulsing from my neck. However, he does not hide his anger and disappointment.

"Really, Adrian?" Holy water and incense? Did they run out of lavender or vanilla at the store? Is it just me, or did you choose an inappropriate entourage?

"Skins, Devils!" In the name of the Father and the Son...

"Easy, idiot!" Do you think you're an exorcist? And are you wasting your time on American movies?

- Take everything you gave me, keep the payments made and leave me alone. I want to end the partnership. I worshiped Him, after tonight I will go to the monastery. The monks are praying for me now and waiting for me. He will protect me from harm.

His face is impassive, like a good psychologist's, when you talk about your fears. You want to see what he thinks, you hope he's right, but not a muscle in his face is showing anything.

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, my friend." I am the one who made you a successful man. You're just a fool who kicked everything.

I close my eyes for a second and when I open them, the mirror is gone. He left? I won? Was it that easy? I stare at the shiny surface in front of me, but I have no reflection left.

And it freezes my soul! He's behind me, we're both staring at the empty mirror.

- What the hell'…

That's all I manage to mumble before I feel something sharp pierce my carotid. Blood flows in streams over the cross woven by the monk of Dosofta, which was supposed to protect me from any devilish work. I won't get another chance to tell the man it doesn't work. I feel lifted and thrown into the mirror, which turns into a grave pit. A wooden cross at the head, on which is written my name and the date of death 13.12.2017, from which the paint is starting to leak. Candles and the smell of burning wax. I have no priest, no one would dare to hold a service for one who thought he could fool the Devil. Around my grave, the relatives whom I had sentenced to death look at me with empty eyes from two meters away, with rotting flesh, throwing earth over me with their disembodied phalanxes. I can't move, I feel my strength waning. I know I have a few moments left.

I am reconciled. Only in the last moment of my miserable existence do I realize how foolish I was to believe that someone else was responsible for my life. I alone was responsible for what I am. And I was a weak man to blame God, the Devil, chance or luck. No one else is responsible, no one else is to blame.

- Do you know something, Adrian? I hear the one coming out of the mirror. I think I'm going to resign, you have a shitty job. I need an exotic vacation. I'm also taking Cristiana with me. Should I send her a big bouquet of flowers and promise her the best love match of her life? Do you think they would accept?

His evil laugh rings in my ears as the mirror fogs up and turns opaque. I feel like the earth is swallowing me whole.