Marilyn and I are packing up our things in preparation for our move (okay, Marilyn's packing a lot more than I have been). As I go through my piles of things in my bookcases, I've come across a few things of interest that I've forgotten. Allow me to share one of them with you, because I'm going to throw it away.

In one of my creative writing classes, we were assigned the task of writing an entire story that could fit onto the back of a postcard. Here's what I wrote:

Baron Renazzo de Aragon was known throughout the kingdom for his valor against the hated Moors. Yet he was young and unwed when he began to die from a comsumptive illness. He knew that without an heir, his lands would be fought over and his name forgotten. His physician could offer no cure, so he went to a priest.

"Never when you were well did you come to my church," the priest said. "I will pray for healing, my lord Baron, but I cannot give what God will not. Throw yourself upon His mercy."

The Baron said, "If God will not help me, perhaps the Devil will." He hired a necromancer, who summoned the Evil One in a burst of vile sulfur. "I ask you for long life, that I may produce an heir and secure my family name," the Baron said. "In payment, I offer my soul, if that is what you want."

The Devil laughed long and hard. "You would pay a merchant with his own money?" he asked contemptuously. "I have owned your soul since the first day you sinned. I came not to give, but to collect." At that, the Baron fell into a fit of coughing, clutched his chest, and died, the sound of laughter burning in his ears.