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.
