Sunday, November 15, 2009

Irreflective

Jeezus!” For Greg Grisdale, it was way out of character. Even part of him knew it right after. Cripes; I sound like a dog.

He certainly wasn’t a pushover, or one to take it lying down. He had leapt out of his bed without thinking about it, and saw that the cloaked figure had a few inches on him. Whatever it was, it was hidden and possibly well-padded. The only feature Greg could see was its nose: bulbous.

It occurred to him that this thing had gotten into his place unseen, and it didn’t look like a human being despite its shape and nose. So, he contented himself with, “who are you? How did you get in here?” His voice had clicked back into character, thanks goodness.

The creature didn’t disappoint his first impression. “I am Death.” Greg found himself relaxing.

“Death, is it? Well, what are you here for? I’ve been to the doc; he keeps telling me I’m so healthy, I’m wasting my time in the waiting room. Can’t be for me, can it?”

Had its voice not been so resonant, it would have been grating. “Your death is not yet; in that, you are correct. I require your assistance with a death.”

“Why?”

Death paused a bit, and Greg felt the corners of his mouth rising. The thing doesn’t take to questions, that’s for sure. As his assessment sunk in, his upper lip rose up to his gums. It may be Death, but it wasn’t all that frightening. He could deal with it.

“As the number of souls have increased, so have my responsibilities.” Now he sounds like a priest. “My power has limits, and the number of simulacrums – “ whatever – “I can create are not infinite. Thus, I need assistance so as to ration my time.” As it completed its last sentence, Greg could feel its invisible eyes.

His smile was gone, and his back slipped into a crouch as he wondered if he had underestimated the creature.

“All right,” he said, trying for a reasonable manner,” “you don’t have the time to waste. Is this a volunteer job?”

“No; there is payment. For assisting me, you will learn the year of your own death.”

And if I don’t do it right, I don’t get paid. Simple and straightforward.

His posture now straightened, Greg replied promptly. “Okay; I’ll do it.”


In the blink of an eye, they were in another room in what appeared to be a house. It was a bedroom, but not the master bedroom. It was too small, and so was the bed. Also, the figure in it – on top of it – was too young to be the owner. A bottle of pills was near his semi-fetal figure.

Death supplied the words. “This young man is a weakling. He ended his life with pills, much as a woman would do. When others would be girded, he sniveled.”

So, that was the assignment. Great. Death sure knew how to pick ‘em!

“Okay, I got it. I take it you have to leave now; how do I get you back once he’s ready?”

“Summon me with a simple call in your mind. To reach the soul, call out to him.” With that, the creature vanished. Greg understood why; its last instructions didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for questions. So, to it:

“Kid? You up?”

Incredibly, at least in other circumstances, the poor fellow’s body became double-exposed. He didn’t get up; instead, his shadow-body curled up more.

So he is up, Greg answered himself with an inner sigh. It looked like this one was going to be a long one.

He snuck over, and calmed himself by noting that his own body must be back in his room. Greg hadn’t landed a gal yet, although he came close a few times. Things were fairly easy, so he didn’t feel any hurry to. He wasn’t old enough to grow out of the sway, lay and sash-ay lifestyle. All a kid like this meant, was someone who’d crimp his action unless a hard distance was kept between them. It was going to be a challenge.

Might as well be factual. “What got you offing yourself?”

Still balled, the kid replied. “I couldn’t stand to live.” Nasal voice, the kind that transitioned smoothly to a whine.

But something seemed wrong – “Lots of people are like that.” Instead of continuing with what he thought, he veered into “Was it a terminal disease that got you pill-swallowing?” After all, it might have. The pills had to have come from somewhere.

“No,” the kid droned back. “There was nothing for me in life.”

Stifling, Greg turned it into a near-cough. He had been right about this – kid. Yep, Death sure knows how to pick ‘em. “So here you are, and followed through.”

Unexpectedly, the kid turned his head and glared at the bigger man. “I don’t like you.”

Had Greg been able to see his face in the mirror, he would have seen beatific. The kid saw button-eyed. “Well, fella, I can’t say that I’d be jollying around with you either.

“If you want to know why I’ve come here to scare you, it’s because –“

The kid’s spirit-body was now out of his corpse, moved to the far side of the bed. “You think that I’m – Oh, God!”

Musing that the last two words sounded almost normal for him, Greg figured out what he had seen. “Yep, that’s your corpse. Pill bottle’s on the other side.”

Instead, the kid kept looking at him. “Basically, I’m your guide,” Greg continued. “Once you’re up to it, I’m going to be summoning someone that’s scary but doesn’t mean you any harm. He’ll – it’ll – “take you to where you’re going to go.”

He stayed polite, but Greg’s opinion of his charge was hardening. A loser; a waste of space. Someone that you laughed about and then forgot. Nothing more.

As he recovered, the kid’s brow wrinkled more. To restrain himself, Greg noted that the night vision that came with his own spirit-form was pretty good. It might as well have been twilight. Greg braced himself as soon as he saw the other’s mouth opening. “So I’m nothing to you,” in a tone that suggested he had switched subject and object.

“Let me show you something,” Greg responded as he came over to the bed. The kid’s back was to the wall, so he wouldn’t go anywhere – or so Greg thought. To make himself less threatening, he kept his arms back and moved in with his face. The youngster didn’t move, even as Greg’s face was right over his corpse.

“If you’ll look closely a little over my right eyebrow, you’ll see a little scar. Do you know how I got it?”

“A bar brawl?” the kid drawled back. He didn’t even have enough stuff in him to sound chilly.

“No, not in the slightest. One night, I was walking down a hill and a car was going by. Next thing I know, I felt this ‘thud’ right over my eye. It didn’t hurt all that much, and I didn’t know it was bloody until I felt something sticky run down on my eyebrow. All I knew was that the car’s tire hit a rock and shot it to my face.

“The point I’m trying to make is, there are some times when you have to keep plowing ahead. You’ve done what you did, but you have to see through the next step.”

As he half-expected, the kid didn’t snap to it. On the other hand, he didn’t get any whine back either.

“Cripes! Weren’t you worried about your eye being hit?” Before Greg could respond, he heard, “What do you really think of me, anyway?”

For some reason – it might have been the assignment, it might have been the sight of Death, it might have been something else entirely – Greg felt as if his normal opinion had been drained away, leaving only a quiet recognition that he knew nothing about the figure cowering on the far side of his bed. He found himself saying, “I don’t know enough about you to say.

“In fact, I haven’t walked in anything close to your shoes. Not even close. That’s the truth.”

It was the truth. How could Greg get across that his dad scolded him when he had cried, or even when he didn’t win a fight? That he was raised to either shrug pain off or see it as a goad? The kid wasn’t that small, and he wasn’t a stick, but there was a kind of shapelessness about him. There really was no way they could relate.

Strangely, the realization made Greg relax. He accepting their incomparability was like a runner throwing off his training weights. He was now sure that the rest of the chore would go smoothly: the hump was passed.

And he was right. “Move aside,” the kid said, and started to get up. Within a minute, he had gone with Death.


At the same time, Greg was back in his own room. It wasn’t that much bigger than the kid’s, as it was part of all the apartment Greg could afford. The Grim Reaper didn’t keep him waiting long.

“The death went quietly, and with minimal resistance. You have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, –“ something under the cowl said that the thing did mind, so Greg shifted gears – “when do I die?”

The creature nodded, slightly. “Your death will transpire in the Christian year 2069.”

“Okay.” The thing had fulfilled its part of the bargain too.
\
Greg didn’t know quite how to proceed. It would be mannerly to shake hands, but the Grim Reaper wasn’t exactly a Facebook contact. Uncharacteristically, he waited a second.

Seeing his body out of the corner of his eye gave it to him. “Say, how do I get back in there?” he asked with a motion towards his body. “The same way?”

“An act of will, yes.” Now uninterested, Death vanished.

Leaving a normally extrospective man with a fait bit to think over.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Big Scare

Mart Huffman could do nothing except freeze in his bed. The hulking figure over it was clearly Death.

Well over six feet, made invisible by a black robe, facial features hidden except for a bulbous nose, Death lacked the scythe and hourglass as far as Mart could see. Given who the creature was, it was reasonable for him to assume that his time was up.

More than he knew, Mart’s life was motivated by fear. He had once read that potatoes contained trace amounts of arsenic, which had led him to abjuring potatoes. A sore that healed slowly had made him wonder if he had had a cancer. Every time he had gotten sick, even as a child, he had assumed that he would be permanently sickly. When he got well, he was surprised.

He fit in well with the environmentalists, but was no more than a fellow traveler. He didn’t much care for their love of animals or of nature, and was put off by any misanthropic streak. Mart wasn’t a people-hater; he was an introvert. A clever one, who had enough time on his hands to nurse his pet fears.

Fear of death was the big one, of course. His grandmother had been a hypochondriac. Mart didn’t share her habit of talking about herself and her complaints, but there were other commonalities. The selling point of environmentalism, for him, was the enormous influence it claimed for human influence on the environment.

When told to get up, he shook his head mutely. As long as he stayed in bed, he assumed, things would not get worse.

“I am not here to claim you,” Death said in an echoing baritone that Mart pegged as menacing. “I require your assistance with a death.”

Surprised once again, Mart set his back to raising his torso upright. Once up, he remembered that he hadn’t moved the sheets or covers. The relief he felt dampened any conclusion about it.

Besides, the subject was acquiring a fascination. A death was involved, but not his. Once again, Mart’s fear went underground.

“So what do I have to do?”

Death answered smoothly, as if he had said his words many times before. “You will guide the spirit of the death to my hands. To do so, you must assuage all qualms and ensure that the death will pass without resistance or complaint. Should you do so, you will learn the year of your own death.”

Mart’s anxiety started with the first part and stayed through the rest. He wondered what he was being used for. Did Death eat them? Or send them off to torment? Was he expected to snow this person? Any of these outcomes were possible. One of them could happen: in Mart’s brain, this translated into “will happen.” He was too used to treating conditionals as facts.

However, curiosity won out over his qualms. His atheism was a help in assuaging them, burying the conditionals where the fears were buried.

“Sounds fine,” he answered while getting out of his bed.


He was now in a hospital bed, looking at a mess. He counted three patches on the upper body of his assignment, all with coagulated blood on them.

Death’s final instructions, not to mention his description of the deceased, had been easy to remember. Just call to the fellow, inform him that he was dead, assuage any fears he had, and get him ready for Death. Once done, Mart needed only to summon Death in his head. Then, it was over. Mart would get the information, and he could go back to sleep.

But that self-reassurance didn’t get him over the first hurdle. He had to tell someone that they were dead. Not being too comfortable with death himself, Mart didn’t really know how to proceed. After mulling a bit, he decided that the euphemisms beloved by the religious were the best tools to use.

“Uh, excuse me. I have something I have to tell you.”

For a moment, he saw the poor man’s spirit superimposed over his corpse – not for very long, because the fellow rose easily through the sheets from his hospital bed. He was about four inches taller than Mart, and was the same type he had shied away from when in school. He was a squarehead, all right, and had his hair clipped short. Unlike Mart, his features settled into a smile.

“Well, what are you here for?”

Feeling like an undertaker, Mart proceeded according to plan. “You’ve sort-of passed into the next life.” He had decided that it didn’t matter if the words were untrue, as that would be Death’s fault. Or someone else’s. “From what I’ve seen, you were shot. The bullets led to your demise,” he finished, controlling a reflex that kicked in when he thought of guns.

He got the surprise of his life when the fellow’s grin expanded. “I’m dead, am I? Funny; I thought the cigarettes would have gotten me.”

Cigarettes? Perplexed, Mart had to reply. “How could you take up such a filthy habit? They kill you. Everyone says so.”

Now, the guy’s teeth were showing. “As if it makes a difference now.” Following Mart’s eyes, he turned around; what he saw, wiped the grin off his face. At first startled, he became fascinated.

Mart wasn’t. The cigarette bugaboo, one of several for him, was eating at him. “I don’t understand why you people would smoke, given the problems it causes. You want to stay alive, don’t you?”

The taller fellow turned back towards him. “What I don’t understand is why people like you think that we have a duty to stay alive for as long as we can.” He sounded pensive.

Before Mart could say that it was obvious, the man continued. “Don’t you think it’s like those people who say we should all become rich? Think about it: if you’re loaded, you can buy more things.” He saw Mart reaching for some words, and his grin reappeared. “Please, humor me; I’m the dead guy.”

Looking around, he sunk his spirit-body into a visitor’s chair. It either held his weight or he was floating just above it. “It’s obvious that rich is better than poor in some way, but not that many people really want it enough to push themselves. Maybe they don’t want to be pushed by others, too.” His head tilted as his eye met Mart’s. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I hear you,” Mart answered cautiously. He was still standing beside the hospital bed, which now formed a partial barrier between he and his…client?

“Yeah,” he continued, “but wealth is one thing and life is another. Isn’t life all you got?”

“As far as I knew,” the taller fellow answered, looking over at his corpse. “I guess the hospital people knew I’d be dying; I don’t see any code-blue action. Wrong side of the triage,” he observed as his gaze shifted back to Mart. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Mart, had he been honest with himself, was unconsciously feeling words that he had heard but shrugged off. His fear was coming back, with an anxiety that was new to him. Had he been religious, he would have pegged this fellow as a potential blasphemer.

“Because there’s someone I’d like you to meet. He’s much taller than you – than us – and he’s a little scary, but he’s just here on a job.”

“Oh. You have an appointment?”

“Actually, you do,” Mart informed him. “The fellow I’m talking about is Death.”

“The Grim Reaper?” That got Mart’s charge looking perplexed, for a moment. Then he returned to his habitual self-confidence. “It fits, I can say that.

“You might as well bring him here. I’ve been ready to die for some time now.”

Death appeared right after Mart had made the summons. Without being prompted to, the fellow stood right up when he saw the hidden, taller figure. “Okay, I’m ready,” was all he said. As Death approached the man, Mart found himself back in his room.


He hadn’t reacted the same way when he saw his own body. It didn’t take much to imagine it in a coffin. Mart, forgetting which person had been the deceased, wondered how many people would come to visit him.

His pondering ended when he felt Death reappear. Seeing invisible eyes, he turned around.

“I have to say you were right about him. He really didn’t care whether he lived or died. I guess he was one of those sad sacks who wasn’t much interested in life.”

That remark got the creature’s invisible eyes boring into his. For some odd reason, the ever-present but mostly repressed fear didn’t appear. Instead, Mart felt a small point of fatalism in his chest.

But the thing didn’t yell; he merely said, “You have fulfilled your task and the transfer was expeditious. Thus, you have fulfilled your part of the bargain. You will die in the Christian year 2076.”

Mart felt his mouth open. That would make him alive until about eighty! How unlike that soul he had shepherded, who could not have been more than thirty-five. “Thank you,” he replied politely.

Then, he remembered. “How do I get back into my body?”

“Through a similar act of will,” Death told him, and vanished. Not realizing why, Mart felt a little abandoned.

To recover his composure, he went back to staring at his body. More than eighty years, living as he did. Eighty years of caution, care, watchfulness. Sixty-seven more years of taking it safe. He knew he wasn’t going to be rich, but he knew that he’d have a slightly longer than average life. Life that he guarded, carefully. Life that would be lived much like he had.

It could have been worse, he told himself. Life could have ended at seventy, sixty, even fifty. In a very real way, he was much luckier than the guy he had looked after. Mart wasn’t likely to get himself shot at, let alone die an awful death because of a bad habit. Surely, his was the fuller life?

That question posed, Mart performed that act of will and found himself floating down into his body; he hadn’t felt like climbing back in. Once secure, he escaped into sleep.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Beyond Price

I really don’t have time for this – the words shriveled in his mind.

Adam Cates really didn’t. Time was valuable, and he didn’t have much. Not after his responsibilities.

Whoever had said that the busiest person had the most time to spare wasn’t thinking of Adam; that was for sure. The money was piling in, but it afforded him no cushion. There was only one way the dollars came in, and that way involved time. If he didn’t devote the time, the dollars would stop flowing. That’s how he read the situation. He had moved to a head office several years ago, but he was still the same shopkeeper. The store’s gotta open; customers don’t wait.

He certainly had a gift. How many people thrived in an area dominated by superstores? He was a franchisee, not a fully independent owner, but he was a near-perfect match for the chain. After sweating ten years in one, he acquired enough knack to make two, then three, now seven franchises thrive. He had found the time to have two kids, but largely left them to the wife. Luckily, they were daughters.

As of now, all of them were enjoying themselves in a vacation home he had bought and hardly seen. He was alone when the figure had appeared in front of his king-sized bed. And then beside it.

He was too wearied to challenge it, or something akin to wearied. By habit, Adam shifted to treating whatever-it-was as a customer.

“So what brings you here?” he asked quietly.

He then heard this thing – cloaked in a dark robe that covered everything except for its nose – tell him that it was Death. He couldn’t make the connection, as he had missed out on a few things in life. It made a kind of sense, though, as a living human wouldn’t have gotten in this far. His security system was top-notch; he had seen to it.

Adam was fifty-three, and the hair was long gone from the top of his pate. If he were dead, it wouldn’t be that great a shock. He had already been to the funeral of one of his schoolmates – a hard-charger, like he was.

The thing continued, revealing that it wasn’t Adam himself that was kicking the bucket. Something it said made his orientation shift.

“So you want a deal?” Now his voice was louder, and sharper. “Why would I even do that – especially for some thing that doesn’t even knock and introduce himself?”

The terms came, which whetted his competitive streak. “No, that’s not good enough. The year’s too diffuse. There’s no way I’ll do it unless I know exactly.”

He heard some line about how the exact date would be useless because he’d take steps to avoid it. Whatever this thing was, he must have been a broker or professor in a previous life. Someone who thinks he knows business but doesn’t.

“Doesn’t bother me,” he answered confidently. “Maybe I want to push it back.”

He smiled, still in his bed, when the thing acquiesced. Another negotiation, completed. “Okay, I’ll do it. As long as it doesn’t take that long.”


After he had gotten up – and got a surprising glimpse of himself still sleeping before he was taken away – they arrived in an apartment. It was obviously one, with the standard doorless bedroom; he had looked behind again to check. Like so many others, she had died in her bed. A booklight was on, and she had died with a book. Enough light was given off for him to see bookshelves in her bedroom. It gave him a picture of what she was; she looked about eighty or so.

Death now spoke, in that deep rhymey voice of his. “This death used to be a woman who was intellectual. Commerce was a stranger to her; it passed beneath her notice. She consumed, but did not produce anything other than her writings. She has availed herself of the taxpayer while doing so.”

Unconsciously, Adam began shaking his head. Great – one of those people. It occurred to him that there was no penalty clause attached to the deal, but the observation drained away. Even if there were no formal penalty, you don’t get ahead by scoffing off. He had made a deal.

Since his mind had wandered, he asked for confirmation. “So all I have to do is get her ready to meet the great beyond. If I do that, you take her away, we go back, and I get back in my body. And I know when I’ll die.” The thing nodded.

A nod was as good as a signature. “And I get you back – how?”

Now his head was nodding. “Okay. I just call you in my head; fine. I’m ready to do it, and I can assure you that –“

With the “and,” Death was gone. Adam shrugged his eyebrows, and told himself that the thing was busy as he was. Which made sense, given how many people there were.


“Uh, excuse me.”

He now saw what he was sure Death had seen when he was roused. Now superimposed over her corpse, still lying peaceably in the bed, was a double image of the lady. This one’s mouth moved as she replied.

“I don’t know who you are. How did you get in?”

Adam hesitated, thinking of the best way to go, then went with: “I’m not really here, at least not physically.”

“Oh – I must be in a dream-state,” she answered. “I’ve never seen a strange man in my dreams, not in my own place. Maybe it’s something to do with – well, the state I’m in. I never really –“

Not quite meaning to, Adam cut in. “Actually, I should clear something up for you. You are, in fact, dead.”

The double image now showed perplexity. “Am I? Then why would I be seeing you? You look like a shopkeeper. Why would you be some kind of death-spirit?”

“By the way, I should tell you something: you can get up and move around if you like.”

She didn’t. “I’m still waiting for an answer.”

Yep, she was one of those. Probably a teacher in her spare time. “I’m an agent of that death-spirit. He was here just now, but had to go somewhere else. When you’re ready, he’ll show up and both of you will go to the afterlife.”

“Assuming that there is such a place.” She had gotten her hackle up, all right.

Best to drain it. “I should tell you that you were right about me. I do, in fact, own and operate seven hardware stores.”

“So I take it you’re doing this chore for a pecuniary motive.” There, in her tone, was what Death had mentioned.

“Miz, a large part of the world runs on incentives. Not just me, but lots of other people. I use ‘em myself all the time.”

“I have no doubt,” she disclosed with an indeterminate tone.

“Not to worry,” she continued, “you’ll get your pay-off.” It was then that her spirit-form rose out of her body. Her spirit-feet, unimpeded by the bedsheets, hit the floor quickly.

“Now hold on a minute,” he said edgily. “I appreciate the promptness, but I just wanted to ask you something. It’s the first time I’ve had to ask someone like you.

It didn’t quite come out right. “Where do you get your attitude from?”

She didn’t seem to take it that hard. A medium-sized woman, she neither bristled nor shrank. “I assume you mean, where I got my life path from.” Not waiting for confirmation, she continued.

“It came to me in a dream, when I was a girl. In this dream I was living with some friends near the waterfront. There were people there who passed us by, many quite well off. I wasn’t, nor were my friends who were there with me. None of the passers-by stayed; the only ones who did were my friends. The pavements where we were, were cracked; puddles formed in some of them. I don’t remember where we lived, but it was comparable.” Adam didn’t interpret, nor made notes while she continued. He just listened.

“I wandered off, towards the lake, perhaps to get away from everyone for a moment. While there, I saw the sun shimmering on the blue, blue water and swaths of silvery undulating plumes of sun on top. There was a spit in range, and the trees and the grass were highlighted with a kind of joy. It didn’t last long, but I had realized I had seen what no-one else would see. Not the people passing by, not those passing through. Not even my friends, as I was alone.

“I found that joy in reading. That is what made me what I am today.”

Adam didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, he confessed that he never remembered his dreams.


It had gone as expeditiously as she had promised. Within a minute, she was gone with Death. Adam found himself back in his own room. Rather than look at his own body, he waited by the other side of the bed.

As promised, Death arrived – right in front of him. Adam looked up as he reminded the creature that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. Not very assertively, either.

The creature nodded. “Now it is time for you to learn the time of your death. It will come on May the twentieth, in the Christian year 2023, in mid-morning. 10:36.”

“Thank you,” Adam replied humbly. Then, prompted by his careful mind, he added: “Could you please tell me how to – well, get back in my body?” The jocularity he had planned to add vanished.

“You need only go to your resting place and descend back to where you were. A wish will suffice.”

Thinking of nothing else to say, Adam thanked Death again. After a blink, it was gone.

While following instructions, the old man reviewed what he had experienced. Mid-morning, May 20th, 2023 – the date had gone right into the steel trap. But, that woman. She was something that he had never really encountered before, nor really respected. He now wondered why. In retrospect, she hadn’t had that much of an attitude. No charmer, certainly, but she wasn’t abrasive; at most, candid. Matter-of fact.

He had never bumped into someone who had been galvanized by a dream of that sort, into choosing a path that wasn’t really – well, usual. Everyone had dreams, but the dreams he was familiar with were meant for the real world – plans in disguise.

Still, she had lived. She wasn’t soured up, so she must have done something right.

As he saw his own body, Adam implemented the final instruction. Lying down, he wished himself back into it. As sleep claimed him, he wondered how his family was doing…and whether or not he was too hands-on for where he was now. He could delegate a little more...