500 Lashes - a short story about the credit crunch and the Devil by Rob Hopcott

James, the Chief Officer of the Bank, blinked when the little devil appeared. He felt certain that the little wrinkled man was a devil because he had a funny red hat, a black cape and a tail with an arrow on the end. Also, this was the thirteenth floor and the little wrinkled man had just emerged through an outside wall beyond which was only the early evening darkness. There was also a strong smell of sulphur.

But James hadn't got to be Chief Officer of the Bank without confirming his facts so he demanded, angrily, "Who are you, what do you want and what are you doing in my office?"

"I am, as you've already guessed, sir, a little devil."

"What do you mean 'a little devil'. I thought there was only one Devil?"

"No sir, there are lots of little devils as well as the Grand Master Devil. We little devils are the many minions that go about doing the job, and, if I might say so sir, doing a fine job in difficult circumstances."

"And what is your job?"

"According to my order, sir, I have to give you 500 lashes!"

"500 lashes?"

"Yes, 500 lashes with this nice leather whip. "

The little devil quickly locked the door, pocketed the key, and then sprang around the room vigorously swishing his tail and the whip backwards and forwards by way of demonstration.

"You can't do that," said the Chief Officer, shrinking back into his soft leather chair. "I'm the Chief Officer of this Bank. People don't just walk into my office on the thirteenth floor and say they are here to give me five hundred lashes of a whip. I expect to receive some respect."

"Don't worry, guv, you probably won't survive to feel all the five hundred. You'll probably die before we're half through. The human body can't take that sort of pain you know. That's why we do it slowly, otherwise it's over too quick."

"Over too quick? What are you? A sadist."

"No, sir, I'm just a little devil doing his job. According to my orders, sir, it's you who are the sadist - and your Bank. Your business lends poor people money to buy homes at inflated prices, puts up the interest rates after a couple of years and then repossesses them. The poor people lose everything and you make huge profits. Now, I have to get on. I hope you're not going to delay me. I have many more orders to fulfil tonight.

"Look, I'm sure it's all a mistake. If it's money that you want, I can pay you."

"Ah, now this order wasn't a money purchase, sir. The order was raised by our Crimes Against Decency division as a result of being contacted by hundreds of your customers. We call it the CADs division. You've got to admit that's pretty appropriate. After all, you raise hopes of owning a happy home and then dash them, which is all a bit caddish, don't you agree."

"But, I've only been doing normal Bank business. There's nothing illegal about that."

"According to the Laws of Decency, there's a lot wrong with that, sir. People have a right to make a home and bring up their families. The way you work, you end up with all the profits and they end up with no home. What could be worse than that?"

"Look, I demand an appeal. It's the Government that raises interest rates not the Bank. Surely an appeal is my right."

"Yes siree, that is your right, but it will mess up my whole evening. We don't have time these days for niceties you know. Death is too busy. Hell's torture chambers are too full. That's why we have introduced Hell on Earth, sir, because there's just not enough space to do the job down below any more."

The little devil drew back his shoulders and strutted about the Chief Officer's office proudly, swishing his tail and the whip.

"Bringing Hell to people on Earth is a new innovative policy. Are you sure you want to appeal. And, if you say there are people in the Government who need a few lashes too, that will mean more work and we are already overloaded."

"I don't care about your workload. Yes, I want to appeal."

"OK, step this way," said the little devil, sighing and wrinkling his face in resignation. He pulled up a chair to the window and slipped the catch.

"You don't want me to climb on that chair and step out of that window?"

"It's the only way to get an appeal sir. Trust me. Step out of this window and you will immediately arrive in the Appeals Office. They'll deal with your appeal according to the proper rules and regulations while I hang around here wasting my time. If your appeal is successful, and so many are these days with all the Human Rights Legislation, you could be off free to your private club this evening, with a quick visit to your mistress on the way, as is your habit. Later you could be back in your large home happily tucked up in your comfortable bed with your trophy wife and all this will be a distant memory."

The little devil smacked his whip on the Chief Officer's desk with a loud crack."

"Or you can stop creating unnecessary delay, strip off and take the lashes. That would be preferable from my point of view, sir, because I have a lot of people to visit this evening."

CRACK. The little devil brought the whip down on the table again.

"Hurry up and decide, I haven't got all night."

The Chief Officer winced at the sound of the whip on the desk, imagining the pain if the lash had fallen on his skin.

"Alright," said the Chief Officer, petulantly. "I'm going. You'll be sorry when they find out what a mistake you've made. I'll make sure you pay for it and pay dearly."

The Chief Officer climbed on the chair and stepped through the window. As his feet found only insubstantial air and not the firm floor of the Appeals Department, he knew he'd made a mistake."

"You've tricked meeeee," he yelled, flapping his arms, trying to hit out at the little devil, as he plummeted towards the deserted car park thirteen floors below.

The little devil, grinned maliciously, as he floated just out of range of the wildly thrashing Chief Officer.

"Divine justice, as you might say, sir, isn't it. You've spent all your life tricking people and this is how you will die. From our point of view, it's so much quicker and more efficient than beating you to death. Also, it doesn't get in the papers."

When the Chief Officer hit the ground, he was still cursing the borrowers who had sent him to the devil.

The End

Thank-you for reading this humorous short story about whips, whipping, banks and the credit crunch. I hope you enjoyed it.

Of course, far from being funny, the credit crunch is a very serious matter and a cause of much pain for many poor people. Frankly, I don't know how bankers sleep at night who have enticed borrowers with cheap loans the bankers know will subsequently become too expensive to pay.

Hopefully, too, the few countries in the world that still use whipping and flogging as part of their legal system will soon understand the barbaric nature of these acts and quickly amend their ways.

(Rob Hopcott - online author - fiction - news - philanthropy)

Copyright Rob Hopcott 2007, all rights reserved. All characters and places in this short story and other free on-line humor, short stories, flash fictions, micro-fictions, sudden fictions, post card fictions or very short stories on this site, are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.