They say memories aren't like files stored on a computer's hard drive, able to be located and played back at a moment's notice. Still, I remember the day Jupiter died like it was yesterday. I think it's partly because she was my first cat and eight-year-old me loved her more dearly than most any other thing in the world at the time. But it's also because it was the same day the old 1950's television in the corner of my grandmother's basement turned on all by itself and started talking to me.

I'd gone down there at Nanna's request to fetch a box we could bury Jupiter in. She'd sat me down and explained how important it was that I participated in the burial, so I'd understand death's importance and the true impact it had on the living. "Jupiter's in her rightful place, dear" she'd said, her bony fingers pressed against the small of my back. "The Lord doesn't fancy things that stay beyond their time." I wasn't one to argue with Nanna, so of course I agreed, albeit grudgingly. The person driving the car that hit Jupiter hadn't even stopped to apologize, so I was still quite bitter about her death.

I was just starting to empty out a box I thought would do when I heard a burst of static behind me—a  cold, electric squeal that sounded like a walkie talkie being strained through a synthesizer. When I whirled around, I saw a faint glow coming from the screen of an old television across the room.

"Eric Beeson," a voice said in the tone of a boardwalk huckster, shattering the silence. "Today is your lucky day."

I furrowed my brow. Someone was playing a trick on me. I scanned the dark corners of the room, expecting my Dad to jump out at any moment.

"It's no trick, I assure you," the voice said again.

I placed my hand on my chest—the universal symbol of Are you talking to me?

"Yes, you, my dear boy," it continued. "Have I got a surprise for you. Something you'll really want to hear. Come a bit closer, now. This basement ain't so easy on the old eyes." The words were razor-thin without the slightest hint of an echo.

Hesitating, I took a step forward. Then another. When nothing jumped out and grabbed me, I walked the rest of the way across the room, stopping just outside the screen's dull glow. As the tube in the back of the television warmed, the picture on the screen became clearer. There was a man, but I could barely make out more than his silhouette due to the bright light shining from behind him. The television sat on four wooden spindles and my eyes darted to the curled up power cord that lay between them

"That's better. Now, let me look you over. My, Eric, what a strapping young lad you've become. I bet you're an ace at your studies."  When I didn't answer, he continued. "I'm terribly sorry to hear about your cat, Jupiter. It's always tough losing something we love."

I blinked back tears. I could feel the man's caring flowing out of the television and into me, filling up all of my empty spaces.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Eric. On the contrary, I think I can help. Would you like that?"

"Okay," I whispered, wiping my face.

"Goody! Now, what would you say if I told you I could bring Jupiter back?"

Bring her back? "Like, so she wouldn't be dead anymore?" The word dead  triggered a smile that snaked across the man's face like cracks through dry earth.

"That's right Eric. She wouldn't be dead anymore."

"Well, yeah, I guess so," I ventured, even though I knew things like that weren't possible. His face deflated as a pulsating wave of disappointment poured out of the screen. I felt my body suck it up like a sponge. "I mean, yea, of course. But how?"

The man rubbed his palms together. "That's the best part! You ever trade baseball cards at school?"

"Yeah, some."

"It's just like that!"

"Like, how?"

"Well, I've got Jupiter and I want to trade her to you, but I need something in return first. So you give me something of equal value, and I give you Jupiter back."

I tilted my head. "But I don't have another cat to trade you."

The man stepped closer to the screen. "Oh, Eric, you've got it all wrong. It's not life I'm interested in. It's death we're trading." There was anger, lust, and adrenaline shooting towards me now, probably enough to kill me if I hadn't closed myself off to some of it.          

I finally understood. He wanted me to kill something for him. I could feel it, just as clearly as I could feel the blood pounding in my temples. I took a step back.

"What's wrong, Eric. Cat got your tongue?" he snickered.

I turned and bolted. When I made it to the stairs, I bounded up two at a time.

"I'd hurry if I were you," he shouted, his words becoming more garbled the farther I got from the screen. "It's hard to get out once you're down here..."

***

We buried Jupiter in Nanna's garden that afternoon. I used a trowel to dig the eighteen-inch deep hole and when I was finished, I moved to grab the black plastic bag Jupiter was in before Nanna stopped me.

"Go a little deeper," she instructed. "We don't want anything to smell her and try to dig her up."

I did as she said, but when she turned her back to check on her tomatoes, I filled the hole back in some before dropping Jupiter inside. I covered it quickly so Nanna wouldn't notice the small rip I'd made in the bag. Just in case.

I didn't tell my grandmother about the strange man in the television. Or anyone, for that matter. Middle school was hard enough; I didn't need my classmates thinking I was crazy. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about Jupiter. I missed her so badly.

Eventually, I decided to take the man up on his offer.

It was three days later when I found the bird. Such a fragile little thing—it must have fallen from one of the trees behind my house. I squeezed it a little at first, but stopped because the strained chirping sound it made was twisting my insides. I ended up digging a hole, dropping the bird in, and covering it up. I cried the whole way home. An hour later I ran back to the spot and frantically dug the bird up, but it had already suffocated. I was devastated. On my way back, I walked by the spot where Jupiter was buried, but the little dome of dirt was pure and undisturbed. I'd killed the bird for nothing.

That night at dinner, while seated around my Nanna's oak dining table, we heard something come through the doggie door in the kitchen. I looked up expecting Reggie, Nanna's golden retriever, but it wasn't him.

It was Jupiter.

She was caked in black soil, but I recognized her by the purple collar around her neck. She sat in the middle of the peeling linoleum floor, licking the dirt off her paws.

My Dad shot out of his seat. "Is that...?"

"Jupiter!" I shouted, standing and sending the antique chair I was sitting in crashing to the floor. I ran to her, falling to my knees and pulling her into my arms. She rubbed her head against me and purred.

"Mom, you do see this?" my Dad asked as he walked into the kitchen. "She must have been in a coma or something. What do you think about that, kiddo?" He tousled my hair. "Your little cat, back from the dead. It's a miracle."

My grandmother hadn't moved. I heard the clink of silver against china as she set her fork on her plate. "A miracle, indeed," she sighed.

We never took Jupiter to the vet to get gash in her leg sewed up, because the gash wasn't there anymore. Poof, like it had never happened. I was too young to have read Pet Sematary then, but I know now Jupiter didn't come back from the dead like the zombie animals from King's novel. She never died. There's a difference. And she was the same, sweet cat for the rest of her long life.

***

I wanted to forget about the man from the television in my grandmother's basement, but I couldn't. Once I'd gotten a taste of the kind of power he'd given me over life and death, it was hard to ignore it for very long. I also developed a sort of dark responsibility. If I could save a life, shouldn't I? Did it matter which life was taken and which was saved, if one's going to be snuffed out no matter what I did?

I visited Nanna's basement twice more over the next ten years.

In the seventh grade, my best friend James's dog was diagnosed with cancer , so I traded his death with another boy's dog down the street, just by saying the dog's name to the man in the television. It turned out he dealt in eventual death as well. James loved his dog and took great care of him, while Tommy's dog was chained outside in the rain and never had a full dish of food. Wasn't I doing it a favor?

When I was a senior in high school, one of the girls in my class was gravely injured in an ATV accident. She was riding near a shallow pond with some friends when the four-wheeler she was driving turned over and pinned her underneath the water. By the time help arrived, she'd been without oxygen for several minutes. She was non-responsive as the paramedics rushed her to the hospital.

The television was already on when I reached the basement.

"Eric, my boy, good to see you!" the man said. He didn't look a day older than he had the first time I'd seen him ten years earlier. "I'm guessing you're here about Jessie Spring?"

I didn't even flinch. "I want to trade," I demanded, my fists clenched at my side. "It's not her time yet."

"By all means. I'm happy to oblige, but you don't have much time. It won't be easy for a girl that weighs, oh, what, a buck, buck o'five at most, to claw her way out of a pine box. There's just the matter of who you're gonna send in her place."

I hadn't thought that far ahead yet. He saw the hesitation in my face.

"What about Tommy Wendell? He's a portly fellow, and not very good at his studies. Plus, you already got his dog." I didn't respond. "If not, maybe Andrew Cole?" he continued. "All he does is smoke weed these days. He'll never amount to anything, I assure you."

"Tommy, then," I spat.

The man's eyes lit up. "Very good! Now, how are you gonna do it?"

"Do it?" I echoed.

"Well, a person's gotta be killed before they're dead." He saw the confusion on my face. "Oh, you thought you could just say his name ? And he'd die on his own sometime later? That won't do, Eric. Not this time. This one's not eventual, it's imminent. They'll take Jessie off the ventilator early tomorrow morning. Fair is fair, after all."

I felt sick. "So I'm just supposed to murder someone?" I cried.

"Oh, I don't like to use that ugly word. Think of it this way: someone's going to die tomorrow, whether it's Tommy or your friend. The universe doesn't care who, and neither do I."

"Fine," I said through clenched teeth. "But this is the last time you'll see me."

"That's what they all say," he said, oozing indifference. "Suit yourself."

***

As much as I wanted to, I didn't kill Tommy Wendell.

It wasn't because I didn't think the world would be a better place without him; Tommy was an imbecile and a bully and I wouldn't shed a single tear if he died. But I realized I couldn't be the one to kill him. He was a human being—and I wasn't a murderer. So, instead of running him over in my car—like I'd planned to do—I just ducked my head and kept driving.

They took Jessie off the ventilator the next morning, just like the man said. The funeral was the next day. My entire class was there, including Tommy. There's still time, I thought. If I pushed Tommy into the hole the coffin had gone into, maybe he'd break his neck in the fall. I'd go to prison, but at least Jessie would be alive. But I didn't do that, either. I just watched as Tommy dropped a rose into the hole and walked out of my life, going on with his oblivious to the fact that he'd been a car's length and a hole's depth away from an early end. And Jessie stayed right where they'd put her.

***

During my junior year of college, I was riding home with some friends after a late night at the bar when a drunk driver swerved into our lane. The last thing I remember is a flash of headlights that blinded my eyes and the feeling I was falling. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

I awoke in a hospital bed, a ventilator down my throat and machines beeping on either side of me. I tried to make a noise, but the plastic tube in my mouth prevented it. About ten seconds after pressing the button that called the nurse, a middle-aged brunette in blue scrubs rushed into the room.

"Eric, can you hear me?" she asked, her hand on my forehead. I could feel it trembling.

I nodded.

"Can you talk?"

I nodded again.

Several minutes later the room was filled with doctors and nurses. After they removed the ventilator, they began asking me questions, sometimes speaking over the top of each other. I'd suffered a broken femur, broken wrist, and a skull fracture, but none of it hurt at all. I felt absolutely fine. The most miraculous part? My nod to the nurse was the first time I'd communicated to any of the doctors or nurses since I'd been at the hospital. I'd been in a coma with no brain activity for over a week.

The doctors had never seen anything like it before. The spontaneous healing of major injuries; a brain that had come back from the dead. Or, that had never died.

I was thrilled to be alive, but my joy didn't last. My Dad told me the terrible news the following day.

Nanna was dead.

He brought a letter with him, which she'd given him the same day I'd woken up, instructing him to give it to me immediately if anything were to happen to her. When I had a quiet moment, I opened the letter, dated the same day as my accident, and read the heartbreaking words as tears streamed down my face.

My Dearest Grandson,

The hazy line between life and death is a curious thing, isn't it? Why do some people's lives end prematurely through no fault of their own, while others, possibly even less deserving of their breath, get to keep on living? Random chance, we're told, but you and I know that's not entirely true. That line can be shifted. I never thought I'd have the distinct displeasure of wielding that power, but that's precisely what happened the day I bought that broken television at a yard sale.

Your grandfather said he could fix it, but never got around to doing it. I loved the man, but he was a procrastinator. So, it sat in the basement, gathering dust, until the day it turned on by itself and that evil being—the Trader—spoke to me. I curse myself for ever listening to the vile words that poured out of that television screen.

Though I promised myself I wouldn't, I eventually succumbed to the practice of trading one human being's life for another's. I traded for your grandfather's life once when we were much younger, before I'd given birth to your father. If I hadn't done so, he wouldn't be here, and consequently, neither would you. Once that was done, I found it became easier and easier to decide who got to live and who never died. You're probably wondering why I didn't just get rid of the television. I would have if I could, but once I placed it in that corner, it refused to ever move from that spot again.

I have a confession: I traded Jupiter's life for Reggie's when you were eight years old, and it wasn't because I couldn't bear to live without my dog. I wanted you to know death. How sacred it was. I knew the Trader would get to you eventually. Do you remember me sitting you down and explaining how everything and everyone dies and when it happens we should learn to be thankful for the time they lived?

I thought if I could teach you early enough, you wouldn't be corrupted by the dark power of the Trader.

Yes, power like that ultimately corrupts the wielder. Do you think the Trader allows us to blur that hazy line out of a sense of altruism?  Hardly. He knew the more comfortable I got with directing death, the more likely it became that when someone close to me died, the easier it would be for me to trade the one life the Trader wanted: my own. At that late stage, it's the only life he'll accept. Fair is fair, after all. That's why I killed Jupiter with my car that day, because I never wanted you to have to trade your life for someone else's. 

Eric, you were supposed to die today. You did die today, but I traded my own life for yours. Don't weep for me. The Trader finally got what he wanted, but I'd make the decision a hundred times over.

If you've never traded a human life, please, never do it. One day he'll take someone you love dearly, and you'll have to make the same choice I had to make—the one the Trader lives for:

Should I trade my own life for theirs?