Chapter Eighteen

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. - W. Somerset Maugham

Chapter 18

Death had not, in fact, quit her job. She was simply too depressed to get out of bed and do it. She was currently in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel.

People writing songs that voices never share/And no one dared/Disturb the sound of silence, they sang.

“Fucking right,” Death said, and sighed deeply. She rolled over and buried her head in her pillow.

She had the curtains to her bedroom drawn, but it was a bright day and there was plenty of light in her room to show her that her home wasn’t really her home. Her walls were white and bare. The bed had white sheets and a light brown blanket. The carpet was beige. In the corner was a nondescript desk with two drawers. Her clipboard and stopwatch were on top of the desk.

The night before she was to collect James King, she’d had a bit of time and sat down to plan out the exact manner of his death. She’d thought his previous death, the one he’d talked her out of, had been pretty spectacular. A lot of planning had gone in to the series of events that led to that particular demise. All that work. Wasted.

And she thought about how much care she put into every death, really. She really tried to make sure everyone had a fitting death, one that would cap their life perfectly. Of course, perfect was a judgement call, and more of an art than a science. She felt each death was a task too important to just leave to chance and convenience, however.

But did anyone appreciate it? Rarely. Frequently the souls would just wordlessly, or almost wordlessly, follow her out of the world. Sometimes someone would appreciate her work. Sometimes they were happy to see her. Sometimes they were furious, or exasperating.

But ultimately, few of them really cared at all about the work that went into their passing.

What’s the point? she wondered. This is my great work? This is all busy work, really. I’m not ever going to be done. I have no goal to reach. There’s always going to be another person to kill.

That last thought hit her hard.

I’m never going to be done, she thought. Never. Not until this planet crashes into the sun. And that’s assuming these people haven’t figured out a way to escape that fate by then.

She’d looked around at her barren room. She’d last been in the room two years previously. She hadn’t eaten in ages. And no one cared if she was doing a good job or not. She could just hit randomly hit each client with a shovel over the head, with no precision or planning, and no one would really notice or be able to tell the difference.

What was the point, then?

And so, that night Death had turned off her cell phone, climbed into her bed, and stayed put. The next day, around noon, she had wandered into her kitchen to find out if she had any food in the house. She didn’t.

She’d grabbed a phonebook, and called the closest Chinese restaurant that delivered. She ordered sesame chicken, sweet & sour pork, and two orders of cream cheese wontons, then waited near the door until the delivery man arrived. She took this feast back to her bedroom, and ate.

It was glorious.

After that, she’d put on some music and climbed back under the covers.

Apart from calling out every few hours for more food, she had not left her bedroom since the night she was supposed to collect James.

If she’d checked her phone, she would have noticed there were a lot of calls from a lot of different gods wondering what the hell was going on. But her phone was off, and stayed that way.

Death needed some “me” time.