This is a sardonic tale that turns good, when the Devil takes a trip to the earth’s surface, looking for a few souls to steal after coming up short on his daily quota. “God can be such a micromanager,” he laments before begrudgingly calling his chauffeur to take him to the one place he figured it would be easy to find a soul: Brooklyn, New York. It’s been a while since he visited, but how hard could it be? Yet, once he arrives, the Devil realizes this isn’t the Brooklyn he once knew. It’s really nice, actually. The people are nice. Everything is nice, including the ice-cold Stella Artois he enjoys at a rooftop party and then brings back with him to enjoy in hell. He didn’t find the soul he came for, but he definitely plans to come back real soon.

Folks thought it was easy. What could be easier? Walk around Hell, stoke a few fires, punish a few of the damned and take the rest of the day off.

If only they knew.

The Devil had the hardest job in all the Afterworld. God was an unrepentant micro- manager, a data guy who demanded daily reports on just how many sinners were in Hell, leaving Hell, and coming to Hell. It was a nightmare. So the Devil looked forward to 5PM, when he could hang up the pitchfork and head home, but he also dreaded it. 5PM was when he had to submit the daily numbers to the Lord, and hope they added up.

And today he was one sinner short.

“One short?” he asked his assistant Phil. “What do you mean, one short?”

Phil was pale with fear; it was nearly four o’clock.

“I checked the numbers twice,” he said. “We’re one short, Boss. We need one more.” The Devil swore under his breath. “They don’t pay me enough.”

He lived in a shabby one bedroom, with noisy pipes and a stove that never lit. In Hell.

His suit was old, his tie out of fashion and his social life – well, let’s just say nobody wanted the Devil over for dinner.

But now was no time to bemoan his fate. He had one hour to find a sinner before God came knocking on his office door. So the Devil put on his coat, told Phil to bring the car around, and headed down to the one place on Earth he was sure to find one: Brooklyn, New York.

•••

It had been a long time since he had been to Brooklyn. The last time was thirty years ago, and he got mugged in Prospect Park. And so now the Devil, looking for a sinner, had Phil drop him off at the 7th Street entrance to the perilous Prospect Park in the squalid Park Slope section of the hideous Brooklyn, New York.

“Wait here,” said the Devil.

“You’ve got God in an hour,” Phil called through the window.

The Devil nodded. “I won’t be long.”

His plan was simple: enter the park, head over to the lake, sit on a bench, get mugged,

grab the mugger and head back to Hell.

God would never know he had even left.

But as soon as he entered the park, the Devil knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

He heard something – not yelling, not fighting, not sirens. It was music. Pleasant music— Chopin, he realized—coming from behind a row of maple trees, the delicate notes rising like angels toward heaven above. He followed the music to the idyllic Long Meadow, where he discovered an outdoor concert taking place, dozens of people sitting and laying on the grass, cheering and clapping as the orchestra finished one piece and began another.

Thirty years ago, the only people laying on the grass in Brooklyn were dead.

“What’s going on?” he asked a couple of twentysomethings sitting nearby, hoping they would just mug him and get it over with. But instead, they smiled, introduced themselves as Eric and Neeshan, told him it was the first concert of the summer season—it was Memorial Day, after all—and inexplicably invited him to join them for crackers and cheese.

“Wouldn’t you rather knife me?” he asked. “Steal my wallet, take my phone?”

“Knife you?” laughed Eric.

“Yeah,” joked Neeshan. “Then we’ll drop your body in the lake!”

The Devil had many more questions, but the orchestra had begun another piece and

mention of the lake reminded the Devil of his mission, and so he finished his cheese and downed his rose´ and hurried off, hoping the real muggers wouldn’t wait until dark to come out. Last time, he had been mugged in broad daylight, so he was optimistic for the same result now. But as he drew closer to the lake, his optimism faded, as he saw something even more strange here than he had at Long Meadow: there, in the middle of Prospect Park Lake, were people.

Living people. In boats. And they were—he had to look twice to make sure he had seen it—fishing.

“What the hell,” he wondered, glancing around the park, “is going on?”

People were tossing footballs with their kids, frisbees with their dogs. On the field across the way, a group of women were doing yoga.

“Watch your back!” a man suddenly yelled at him, and for a moment the Devil thought, “At last, I am about to be attacked.”

But the man simply jogged by, waved and called over his shoulder, “Thank you!”

Now the Devil began to worry.

Thank you? Where was he?

He glanced down at his wrist hourglass—God joked that he would get him a real watch

when he “retired”—and a full twenty minutes had already passed.

Across the park he raced, and things only grew more disturbingly pleasant as he did.

Friends played soccer, families enjoyed picnics, elderly couples held hands outside the Botanical Gardens, where flowers were in full bloom—pink cherry blossoms and red azaleas and purple pansies and orange tulips—and just when the Devil thought things could get no stranger, a group of horseback riders trotted by, laughing and calling to each other as they went. The Devil, baffled, approached one of the horses.

“Hey,” he said to the horse, “what the hell is going on here?”

“It’s Memorial Day,” said the horse.

“I know it’s Memorial Day!” the Devil shouted. “Where are the muggers, the thieves, the

crooks, the criminals?”

The horse politely explained that things had changed a lot over the last thirty years; in

fact, if the Devil wanted to get mugged, he would have a better chance outside the park. The Devil glanced at his hourglass—thirty minutes had now passed.

There was no time to lose.

He would go to Williamsburg.

***

Thirty years ago, Williamsburg was the closest thing to hell on Earth. But sadly, here,

too, he found nothing but springtime pleasantness. People of all races and religions came and went, riding bicycles and sitting at cafes and bookshops. The closest he could find to a crime was a store selling t-shirts for five-hundred dollars, but the shoppers didn’t seem to mind; they were lined up around the corner. And then, just as he was about to give-up, a couple ran by, shouting, “Hurry! Hurry!”

Finally, a crime! The Devil followed them—was it a robbery? But once again, his hopes for iniquity soon vanished. The friends merely ran onto the Williamsburg Bridge, and stopped, halfway, to watch the warm setting sun, the sky around her awash in purple and pink.

Now the Devil knew he was defeated. Where was he going to find a sinner in the city now? He could grab the mayor, sure, but Hell was already filled with politicians.

He glanced down at his hourglass.

The hour had passed.

God would be waiting in his office, angrily drumming his fingers on his desk, demanding

to know why they were one sinner short. And what could the Devil tell him? That it was Memorial Day? That the most glorious season had arrived in what was now the most glorious city in the world? That people were kind and inviting and miracle of miracles... friendly?

With a heavy heart, he headed back to Park Slope.

“Hey you!” someone suddenly called. “You there, from the park!”

He looked up to see the couple he had met at the concert, Eric and Neeshan with some

others, just about to enter their apartment building, their arms filled with groceries and beer. “Come on up,” Eric said. “We’re having some Stellas, gonna grill some steaks.”

The Devil followed them upstairs. You know what? he thought. To hell with Hell. I’m

staying. This is nice. Brooklyn is nice, people are nice, life here is good. Eric handed him a beer, and the Devil looked out the living room window, with views of the waterfront and the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m home, he thought.

“What’s the rent?” he asked Eric. “Five thousand,” said Eric.

“A year?”

“A month.”

It took the Devil just ten minutes to get back to his waiting car, knocking over old ladies as he ran. He jumped into the passenger seat, put on his seat belt and said to Phil, “Floor it, we’re late.”

“Where’s the sinner?” asked Phil.

“He’s a landlord in Williamsburg,” said the Devil. “Out of town for Memorial Day, but we’ll come back Tuesday and grab him.”

He glanced at Phil. “What’s that?” the Devil asked. “A cronut,” said Phil.

“What’s a cronut?”

“It’s like a croissant and a doughnut.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s great.”

“We don’t have those in Hell, do we?” asked the Devil.

“No,” said Phil, glancing at the beer in the Devil’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Stella.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s great.”

“We don’t have those in Hell, do we?” asked Phil.

As they headed back to Hell, the Devil looked out at Brooklyn one last time and smiled.

Sure, God would be pissed. What else was new? But after work, he would go home, put his feet up on his old couch, and think about the open-air orchestra, and about the women practicing yoga and about the cherry blossoms and about Eric and Neeshan, and about the spectacular sun setting softly on the water.

“Next summer,” he said to Phil, “let’s be one short again.”