A Bad Day for Death by Thurman Hart

When I walked into Helen Arbuckle’s room, I knew something was wrong. Her eyes were bright. She was watching television and smiling. She was alive. And I mean that in a way that the nearly-departed are not supposed to be alive. She was dying, for Hell’s sake. The least she could do is have the decency to look the part.

“Oh, hello!” she said, waving a fat little hand at me. “Come on in! It’s so nice to have a visitor!”

I pulled out my work phone and checked the address. Stepping back through the open door, I checked the room number again. Everything matched. I looked at my phone again. Then I stared at Helen.

“Why are you alive?”

She laughed in that happy, full-of-a-happy-life way that people have when they have lived a lot of satisfied years. For the record, I hate those people. I’m not jealous. I just figure they don’t deserve it. There is, from what I can tell, a finite amount of happiness in this world, and these pricks are hogging it up, depriving the rest of us from a little joy. Either that, or they are just stupidly unaware of how pathetic their existence truly is.

“I guess the good Lord just isn’t ready for me!” She turned her head and scrunched up her eyes when she laughed. Like a Chinese Michelin man. But a woman. And old. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“I’m not your sweetheart, Granny!” I snapped. “Show a bit of respect. Can you not see the black robe? The scythe? I went all Traditional on tonight’s uniform. You don’t recognize Death when he’s looking you in the face?

“And what makes you think the quote-good-lord-unquote has anything to do with your impending demise?” I continued. “You ever think that it might be his hot-blooded offspring that wants to do the eternal boogaloo?”

She was quiet for a moment. I scrolled through her case file. She should not be smiling and making small talk. Brain cancer had left her speechless for the past thirty-two months.

“So, you’re Death?” she asked.

“Ding-ding-ding,” I chimed. “Give Granny a donut. Not that you’ll live long enough to enjoy it.” I closed her case file and opened my routing schedule. Again, everything checked out – except Helen was a lot more lively than the Bureaucracy thought. “I’m Sigma Delta five-seven-oh-nine,” I explained. “I’m the duly employed representative of Death for this sector.”

It always irritated me when people thought they knew what the afterlife was like. It was always “When I walk on streets of gold…” or “Please, give me another chance…” or “Don’t cast me into the lake of fire…” Idiots. Not one ever asked, “Is dying a lot like having an endless supply of Mondays, where you stagger off to a job you hate for a boss you fear?” No one ever asked about the Bureaucracy.

“Well, I’ve lived a good life,” she explained, like I cared. Apparently Helen’s sarcasm detector was on the fritz. “And I went to confession regularly. You might even say religiously!”

She squinted at me again and laughed at her stupid joke. I looked at the scythe in my left hand and wondered if I would get in trouble if it happened to slip and split her head open. I mean, she was going to die, right? That’s why I was there! Brain cancer, scythe to the head, what’s the diff?

“Okay, Granny, let’s wrap up this happy-funtime talk show,” I told her. “I’m a busy Reaper, and I’m running late. So, shut your trap and say hello to my little friend!”

I slid my hand into my pocket and took out the Reap-o-Matic, which was masquerading as a ballpoint pen. That little gadget was the best thing the Tech boys ever did for us field reps. Just twist the end, click the button, and zap that soul right out of this world. Nothing like the old days when I had to lug around a sack full of crystals to store souls.

“Is that one of those fancy laser pointers?” she asked. “My kitty used to go crazy for those.”

“Cats are pricks,” I told her, dialing in the numbers. “And so are people that like them.”

“Oh, a dog person.”

I looked at her. Seriously. Did I look like someone who played fetch with Fido? And she said it like everything in the world could be explained by who liked cats and who liked dogs – and there was no third option in her world. I decided I would turn the Reap-o-Matic down to the lowest setting so I could enjoy watching her soul get ripped out of her mortal coil.

“I do not like dogs,” I told her. “Nasty creatures. All they do is turn food into piles of shit that they distribute all over the neighborhood, with no regard to how much time and effort a person spends maintaining their yard.”

I don’t know why I bothered, other than maybe to make her think twice about her impending doom. People should not be comfortable when they die. If nothing else, it kept the job from being boring when they fought it.

I pointed the Reap-o-Matic and clicked it. Nothing. Grinding my teeth in frustration, I clicked it again. And again. And again. What the Hell? It was working five minutes ago when I took Charlie Robinson’s soul – that lying prick. Tried to tell me he was only here for a knee replacement. No, Charlie, you have lung cancer from all those menthol cigarettes! Now, shut up and die, will you?

“It isn’t working,” Helen informed me.

“Really?” I shook it vigorously. “What was your clue? The fact you’re still alive?”

Helen dissolved into a fit of giggles. I decided they must be giving her some good drugs. No one is that happy. Especially when they are about to die. She must be, as the kids say, tripping balls.

“I expect I’ll be alive for another ten years, at least,” she said, doing her squint thing again. “That’s what the doctor said when he fixed up my heart.”

“Doctors lie,” I told her. Then I realized what she said and looked at her closely. “What do you mean? Fixed your heart?”

I looked at her case file. Helen was supposed to have brain cancer. Nothing in her file about her heart. No blood clots. No complications from surgery. Nothing. And while this Granny was about as irritating as a person can get, she didn’t seem like the kind to lie. Nothing at all like Charlie Robinson, who tried to tell me he wasn’t really a Black man. People will say the most outrageous things to get out of dying.

“Oh, yes,” she said, going Michelin man on me again. “Isn’t it amazing what modern medicine can do?”

Like I cared. Being already dead, I didn’t need modern medicine. Or even ancient medicine. I didn’t even need an immune system. To be honest, I would love to take a sick day. I’d even spent extra time in the Covid wards, breathing deeply and hoping my luck would turn. Not even a headache. I guess I’m not allowed to have nice things.

“Are you sure you had heart surgery?” I asked. “The cancer hasn’t scrambled your egg, has it?” She shook her head. “If you’re going to recover, then why are you in the hospice?”

She laughed so hard that I thought a snot rocket would be blasting off at any moment. I took a step back, just in case. I’m not a fan of other people’s mucus. Somehow, she pulled it back just enough to prevent that.

“This isn’t the hospice” she said. “This is the new long-term rehab floor! Just opened today! I’m the first patient!”

“But this wing is full of people!”

Another squinty-laugh ensued. “Yes, but I was first. They all came in after me.”

I stared at her. I was getting a bad feeling in my colon, which suddenly felt like someone was pouring gasoline through a funnel. But cold. Like the gasoline was poured over ice before it was pumped into my bowels.

“Tell me you’re joking, Helen,” I told her. “Go on. You can do it. Tell me. Say, ‘Ha-ha, that was a funny joke. You sure looked stupid.’”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t joke about that. And my name isn’t Helen. I’m Ida Richardson.”

That wasn’t what I told her to say. The room spun and I had to stumble over to the chair next to her bed and sit. How I could be dead and still hyperventilate was beyond me, but that’s what was about to happen. It was kind of like puking when you haven’t eaten anything – non-productive, but kind of painful.

If what she was saying was true, then the guy in two-fifteen hadn’t been lying when he claimed he had never heard of Charlie Robinson. The real Charlie Robinson probably really was a Black guy with lung cancer, and the guy whose soul I’d reaped probably really was recovering from knee replacement.

Huh. Just when you think you know people.

“Are you okay, dear?” Ida – not Helen – asked. “Should I call a nurse?”

I waved a hand dismissively.

“Helen, Ida, whoever,” I said with a sigh. “If you aren’t dying, then why are we talking? Beyond the nearly-departed, no one is supposed to be able to even tell I’m around.”

Ida shrugged, which I was starting to hate nearly as much as her laugh. You have words, Ida. Be a big girl and use them.

“Well, I worked for forty years at my husband’s funeral home,” she said. “I guess I just have an affinity for dead things.”

That was about the creepiest thing anyone had ever said to me on the job, but it made me like her just a tiny bit. I just didn’t want to get into the details. I’ve seen the condition people leave their bodies in when they die. I was happy to just reap souls.

Speaking of which, the Bureaucracy was not going to be happy about this. I was sure they would find a way to make it all my fault. They’d be like, “The field rep is responsible for checking all information on their daily route.” Someone was sure to bring up the whole not-believing-Charlie thing.

Even if they didn’t officially find me at fault, I was the one that would pay the ultimate price. I would be on hold for hours as they shuffled me between infinite numbers of supervisors. There would be somewhere around fourteen billion pages of paperwork I’d need to fill out in triplicate. It would take me hours, and I’d probably miss the morning weather girl on Channel Seven.

From bad to worse, this day just kept on giving like a buzzard with intestinal distress.

“You look like you could use a friend right about now,” Ida said. “Do you want to talk about things?”

“You know what, Ida,” I said, looking over at her. “That’s really nice of you. We could sip chamomile tea with local honey, nibble little cookies with jelly on top, and discuss our feelings. Get in touch with our softer sides.”

She smiled. “That sounds lovely.”

I stared at her in disbelief. That didn’t sound lovely at all. It sounded like the first ring of Hell. If she hadn’t given me so many reasons to hate her already, I’d hate her just for that. Sarcasm really was wasted on the contented.

I stood up slowly and walked out the door. I had to report this thing and get on with my route. There were people dying out there, and someone had to rip their souls out of their mortal coils. With any luck there’d be a child molester or preacher on my route. Reaping those kinds always cheered me up.

“See you in ten years, Ida,” I muttered as I walked out. Stupid modern medicine.

No one escapes Death. Or his duly employed representative.

Thurman Hart

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay – black and white image of the Grim Reaper with scythe