Monday, November 9, 2009

Chapter Eleven

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character... Would you slow down? Or speed up? - Chuck Palahniuk



Chapter 11


In the most lovely greasy spoon diner a hungry deity could wish for, Death had just ordered a Philly cheesesteak when her phone beeped at her. She sighed and took it out to see where she was headed, and if there would be time to get her sandwich.


The time said “immediately.” So, no time for the sandwich. Dammit. The location was under a bridge in Germany. The name was Adam Johnson. Death guessed Adam was probably not a native German. She took a look at her clipboard, and noticed that there was not a checklist for Adam.


Odd, she thought. It must have been misplaced. She didn’t like having to improvise at the scene of a death, but she was nothing if not a professional. She could handle this.


She took a deep breath of the delightfully greasy cheesesteak aroma, and departed for Germany. She arrived on the shoulder of a fairly busy road. Traffic was completely snarled. In the middle of the road was a body and, she saw, a very bewildered looking soul standing next to it. The soul was looking around at all the cars and occasionally down at its body before looking quickly back up at the cars around him.


A suicide. Awesome. She put her stopwatch back in her pocket, and attached her pen to the top of her clipboard. She quickly walked out into the middle of the road to get the soul.


“What? You couldn’t wait a little longer Adam?” she said. The soul sputtered a bit, but did not have time to complete a coherent thought before Death interrupted him. “Oh, no, you just had to die right this instant. Life was just that awful. You stupid shit. Do you know how much time I’ve put in to planning your death? It was going to be a good one. If not heroic, well, certainly the ones you left behind would have been impressed. But apparently, my plans weren’t good enough for you. You thought you could do better. Asshole. Come on, we’re going.”


Death started to walk away from the scene of Adam’s death.


Adam blinked several times, but did not follow. He said, “Um, I didn’t think it would be quite like this. I was figuring...”

Death stopped and turned to face Adam.

“...You’d get your eternal rest and your weary soul would at last be at peace. Yeah, I’ve heard that before. You suicides. All think you’re poets and philosophers. You know what you are? Chickenshits. If you think everyone hates you, then I say you ought to stick around and make them suffer your presence. Killing yourself means your enemies won,” she said. She turned around again to walk away.


Adam looked very surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”


Death gave an exasperated sigh and stopped again. She walked back to Adam.


“Of course not. Step lively, jerk. There are other people out there who can’t wait to find out what I’ve got in store for them. It’s better than Christmas, you know. Well, the anticipation. Anyway, they’ve been patient enough to wait and see what happened.”


“You know though, as I...”


Death interrupted him again. She spoke very deliberately, and each word dripped with sarcasm as she said it.


“...stepped off the bridge you realized that you could have solved all of your problems, except that you’d stepped off a bridge. Yes, very clever and insightful. No one in the history of death has ever had that thought seconds before dashing the fantastic gift they’d been given on the ground several hundred feet lower than they’d started. Do you want a cookie?”


“What?” Adam asked. These first few moments after his death were far, far more bewildering than he’d anticipated.


“Come on, dumbass. You’ve got a date with your maker. And you arrived really early. Smooth.”


Adam took a few steps, and then he and Death stepped into the next world.


Adam grabbed on to Death’s hand in the dark, terrified. She could feel him shaking.


“Oh, so now you’re properly in awe of the next world. If you get another chance back there, try to keep this experience in the back of your mind,” Death said.


The light in the distance grew.


“What’s that?” Adam asked.


“Where you desperately wanted to go, five minutes ago. Chickening out? It’s a little late for that.”


Adam had a sudden flashback to Catholic school. The light had arrived, and the gates swung open to receive him. He covered his eyes and tried to peer through the gates, but all he could see was more brilliant white light.


“Am I going to hell?” he asked.


“I have no idea and I don’t really care,” Death said. “Send me a postcard when you find out.”


She planted her left foot firmly on Adam’s butt and shoved him through the gates.


“Hey!” was the last thing she heard him say.


What a waste of time, she thought. All that planning for nothing. And I didn’t even get to enjoy my cheesesteak. Suicides. Couldn’t he have pondered the inky black depths of the road below him for five or ten more minutes so I could eat?


Well, when she went to claim this James guy in a couple of days, she make him wait until she’d found a burrito or something.


Thinking of James put her into an unexpectedly wistful mood. There was a guy who was in absolutely no hurry to reach the next world. He even had a reason to stay, his great work. Curing cancer. Getting rid of that little problem would really free her up to be more creative with the deaths she planned. She was ready to be done with cancer. Cancer was just boring.


She realized she was a little jealous of James. She wished she had a great work. She just had this never-ending task list. Go kill someone, then go kill the next person. And so on. Of course, she was good at it, no doubt about that. There wasn’t really going to be a climactic moment in her career, though. No great stories to tell. Just a lot of chores ticked off a big list.


It seemed kind of pointless.

That was ridiculous, though. Her purpose was to act as Death. In it’s way, her job was the point. The big point. So she had to keep going. After all, she was responsible, in her way, for the ongoing progress of humanity. With no death, what reason would there be to do anything besides eat and screw and sleep all day? Heck, with no death to worry about, why eat or screw?


But it would be nice to have a goal, she thought. Something more than having time to take a nap.


With that, her pager went off, and she pulled it out to see where she was going. Multiple fatalities this time. Fun.


Death appeared outside of a motorcycle bar. V-twin motors idled noisily, and a lot of bearded guys in leather and sunglasses were yelling at each other. Death started her stopwatch, and shortly made the first tick on her check list.


Seconds later, a gunshot startled many of the bikers, and several of them scattered and ran for cover, while others looked around to see where it came from. Ten feet from the front door of the bar, a leather-clad corpse lay facedown on the ground. The back of his head was a rather nasty mess.


“You son of a bitch!” one of the bikers yelled, and another gunshot, this one made a loud crack, a revolver, started the fire fight between rival motorcycle clubs.


The soul of the body by the door looked down at his former shell and cursed.


“Shot in the back of the head? Aw, fuck!”


In less than a minute, the gun fight was over, and there were three other bodies littering the parking lot. It seemed the unpleasantness had ended, and the four souls looked around to see who else was dead. There were three dead Gypsy Riders and one dead Roughneck. The three Gypsy Riders souls began to advance on the one Roughneck when there was a terrific roar from inside the bar. The windows shattered and flames shot out of the openings.


In a few moments, the souls who had perished inside the bar came outside. There were now ten dead Roughnecks, and eight Gypsy Riders. The souls glared at each other. Some snarled at the others.


Death chose that moment to step forward.


“Gentlemen, it seems it is now time for you to come with me,” she said.


The bikers, who were ready to continue their brawl after death, were rather surprised by Death. None of them had noticed her until she spoke.


“Who the fuck are you?” one of the Gypsy Riders asked.


“I’m Death. Who the fuck are you?”


This seemed to mollify the Gypsy Rider. The souls, one by one, appeared to forget their grievances with their rivals in the face of this new situation.

“So, if you’ll all just walk this way, we’ll have you on your way to where ever it is you’re destined to end up,” Death said pleasantly.


As one, the bikers followed her out of this world. Some of them chatted amiably with their former rivals. Others quietly considered what their destination might actually be.


“So, do you like motorcycles?” one of the bikers asked Death.


“Sure, what’s not to like? A life without a little danger is hardly worth living. Well, so it seems. I couldn’t really say for sure.”


“Why not?”


“Let’s just say my work keeps me too busy to pursue other interests.”


“Harsh. No vacation time?”


“No. Not even a regular lunch break. Someone’s got to keep the wheel of life spinning, after all,” Death said. She sounded a bit resigned.


“Maybe you should quit.”


“I’ll think about it,” Death said, and smiled.

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