Excerpt: "The Highest Bidder"

Chapter One - You Get What You PayPal For

"Let the buyer beware."
-- Latin proverb

Taking eternal possession of a billion damned souls must have been harder back before eBay, Morton Sezlick thought, giggling to himself as he clicked on the "Place Bid" button.

It was a joke, obviously. You saw that kind of thing a lot among the engine parts and toys and electronics and jewelry and tchochtke detritus that made up the bulk of online auctions everywhere. Some joker would put up a nebulous item for sale like his sense of innocence, or advertising space on her body, or celebrity breath in a bottle, and people would bid on them just to make the joke funnier by driving up the price. For a person like Morton who practically lived and took his meals on eBay, this was high humor indeed, much better than the Virgin Mary bagels or used bubble gum from the current hot pop star that, as he saw it, "cluttered up his place of business." Besides, bidding on a useless joke item was also a way to be part of a community, a skill he had previously lacked before social networks were something you could join by clicking a mouse button.

Besides, this one was excellently done. It was worth bidding for the effort alone.

"Damn'd Souls HUGE LOT!!! Free Shipping," read the title. The picture accompanying it was that of an ancient wooden crate, thick wooden planks blackening with age, circled by rusting iron bands, and clearly labeled "Damn'd Souls" along with some odd symbols. The Sumerian version of "This End Up," Morton assumed. How could you not click on something like that?

The item page itself was bland, the default template provided by the website. Morton preferred those, honestly. Sellers who didn't even try to pretty up their page were usually beginners, amateurs, and Morton liked amateurs. Often they had no clue of the actual value of what they were selling, which was precisely the sort of seller that Morton greatly desired. Buying something of value was always fun, but buying something of value cheaply was an art, and a skill, and a deeply satisfying achievement. Morton roamed over eBay like a hungry shark, his every sense alert to slow-swimming sales and unwary but optimistic merchants.

There was a larger picture of the crate, of course, and this description:

They were of each class and clime
From the very birth of Time,
Who perversely went astray,
Leaving Virtue's narrow way
For an evil path.
Upon earth they had their will;
Mourning now, they quaff their fill
Of the cup of wrath.

HUGE lot Damn'd Souls, every one a marvel!
Vintage mint untasted souls, bound for the howling pit.
Paypal preferred.