Assonance (ass’-o-nance): Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.
“It was very cold. The clods were frozen to the ground. Christmas was a week away. I was wondering why I even bothered to pray.”
These are the opening lines to the famous religious thriller “Making a Pact With Satan.” It is required reading in nearly every Sunday School in America from Baptist to Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and beyond.
It’s the story of “Hard Luck Harry.” Everything goes wrong in his life. His Beagle named “Collie” disappears one snowy night. He loses his job. His wife cheats on him with Sgt. Schmidlap of the Royal Canadian Mounties. His car catches on fire in his driveway. He finds out he has cancer. He becomes an alcoholic. All of his investments tank, and worst of all, God won’t answer his prayers.
He spent a whole day in his living room, sitting in his lounge chair praying, and listening to hymns streaming on Sirius. He was optimistic that a day-long prayerfest would get through to God, no matter how busy He was dealing with the world’s woes. He was sure God could multi-task and fit him in “by His grace” to the group of worthy souls: prayers answered, problems solved. Good to go. Thank-you God.
It didn’t work. Nothing happened.
The clock on the wall struck twelve and in anger and disappointment Harry yelled “Damn you God.”
Trumpets blew.
Satan appeared. He was wearing a backwards red ball cap, white t-shirt, bluejeans and black Blundstones, “You hit the jackpot baby!” said Satan through the sulfurous haze. Harry’s wife yelled from upstairs “What’s that smell? What’s going on down there?” Harry told her to shut up and go back to sleep.
“In exchange for you being a postmortem roomer in “Hotel Eternal Hell,” I’ll solve all your problems,” said Satan in his slick mellifluous voice.
Harry thanked Satan and took the deal. He lived happily ever after.
But when he died—wooo hooo, everything went to hell forever. As Harry prepared to sit on his glowing red eternal hot plate, he was filled with regret. He should’ve just lived his life as a total loser—what’s a life of failure compared to an eternity of burning your ass on a hot plate? He was about to find out.
