I had a choice to make, and one choice only. Of the three, which would you choose? They called it a 'gift'. "Take one, experience something entirely 'other' from what everyone else will, but...you HAVE to choose.

" How much time do I have before a decision must be made?" was the only question I found within myself, greeted with the stress, anxiety and whatever else comes with learning that the answer to my question was "5 minutes".

Withe flight, it'd be easy to convince myself I could fly anywhere I wanted - hell, Jupiter is supposed to be nice at this time of year, right? Fact is, though I could fly, I'm still human and the places I'd want to go would largely be off limits to any air-breathing bipedal hairless ape like me.

Telepathy sounded like a goddamn curse rather than a gift. It's bad enough that I can usually read a person just be being around them for awhile, let alone know exactly what kind of horrendous adocious think-trains were running down the tracks in thei mind. Then again, maybe I could stop some sort of tragic crisis from occuring. Maybe I'd save lives with the power of telepathy. Then again, would I? Just because I'd possess the power and could doesn't mean I should. If I could, and didn't, could I live with myself? Where the hell does it end?

Far from the end of the line when it came down to the decision at hand, sensing his growing impatience, I knew he wasn't as eager to make the deal as I'd first thought. This is 2020 after all and souls are a dime a dozen out there - everyone willing to sell anything that's of monetary value in order to stand out from the rest of the herd. And here he was, in the flesh, offering only a couple more minutes to make the trade.

Invisibility seemed really nice. I remembered as a teenager in high school the amount of times I'd wished I could disappear. Save myself from football field beatings, ackward and dismal encounters with crushes, some which would scar my emotionally for years. Remain invisible and fade away from pain, trouble, obligations, committments, and all the like. I crouched down like a detective might when investigating a crime scene, in the company of him, myself, and my thoughts, the clock ticking.

Here's what I knew - as life goes on, time just keeps taking and taking and taking and there's no way to stop the pain. No way to stop friends, family, loved ones from growing old and grey and fading into memories in the faulty fragile pictureshow playing constantly behind our eyelids. My chest tightened at the thought of it. Mom, Dad, my siblings, all gone one day, wishing that it wouldn't happen but knowing there's no way to pause the train just for a moment for one fucking chance to breathe.

Invisibility might give me a way to run, hide, leave and just be on my own without the guilt of others. To spare myself the torment, while dealing with another. I'd just one day be gone. It almost sounded too good.

"I'll have to go with invisibility." I said with a semi-smile, half-assed, knowing what it meant.

And when I looked up, the Devil was gone. Time had ran out, and I'd lost my chance. I'd lost my chance because even the Devil is on a schedule, and he's got things to do and places to be.

Shocked, a little shaken, but with soul (whatever it was worth now), I walked up from the ravine, my shoes and socks, pantlegs too, soaked from standing in the shallow water. I went about my business, stuck in my head the whole time. Did the things, went through the motions. Mom and Dad, one on the couch, the other in the recliner, watching evening television, oblivious of time. I went up stairs, and scolded them for the pain they'd inflict in my life from becoming invisible one day, never to be seen or heard from again.