7 God Finds Conrad, or Conrad Finds God
.
"I wasn't done liking things. I wasn't done not liking things. I wasn't done.
So I forged ahead. I found a way.
And I'm trying to let that be a good thing. As deviant as that might sound.
After all, it's hard to piss and moan about not having a purpose in life,
when Death handed it to me on a platter." - Georgia Lass
.
Conrad woke up blinking away a bright morning sun hitting his face. He'd left the curtains open. Something was different, broke inside. No, something was fixed, healed, because he knew now what he was here for. Taylor would crap his pants, but when God talks, well, one has to listen.
There was Good and Evil in the world and they fought in many subtle ways. It was clear to him now. He had been drafted by the Dark or Fate or whatever and it didn't care about him or how much suffering he had endured, was enduring. But God had given him a vision and he knew what he must do. The Dark would be conquered, overthrown, one soul at a time. The revolution would start with him, but whatever happened he knew it wouldn't end with him. No one need die from any cause other than a natural one, in their own bed. No more murders, or accidents, no suicides. Reapers could prevent all that. And he would be the beginning of the end of all violent death.
.
.
This would be a very late night appointment. Conrad watched his girl, his reap, leave a bar and cross the street. She was unsteady on her feet. She wouldn't be driving. That wouldn't be her end. Her name was S. McHenry. He ghosted so he could stay close. She stopped under a lamppost, looked around, and then down at her phone. She talked to someone named Betty Anne and put her phone away. Her appointment was approaching. Just a bit more down this street and a precious few minutes to go.
He could try talking to her, convince her walking down this street at this time wasn't a good idea. That would accomplish his goal, but he had tried that last week and Death improvised. And he had to release the soul after death. He must be more direct. He had found that it was necessary to interrupt the actual cause of death, just deflecting the intended usually wasn't good enough. Fate was flexible and there was a pull towards the same end result, but when he had disrupted the means itself more often than not the person would carry on with a new life pathway.
This all did not sit well with Taylor. But in the greater scheme of things, Taylor's shouting was a minor annoyance. At first Taylor tried to reason with him. That soon gave way to active interference, but the fact of it was once an appointment was assigned by that higher power to a reaper, once the key was given over, no other reaper could accomplish the detachment of the soul from the body. Taylor had given up, saying it was out of his hands. If the upstairs didn't want him doing this then why did he still get these appointments? Appointments that he worked hard to make sure never happened. He already had two converts. Sylvia and another reaper called Fletcher. There would be more.
He stayed right up next to her looking up and around for how Death would come to this one. And then he sensed him. A man was standing down the street leaning against a post making no effort to hide. He was pretending to look at his phone. S. McHenry saw him too. She paused. Now would be the time to walk the other way, but that's not how it worked. He watched her face and the resolve take hold there, to push through this challenge. And she made her fateful choice to walk towards and hopefully right by the man, which of course was not going to end well - if Conrad did nothing that is. She got up next to the man and he pulled a gun and that's when Conrad appeared, out of the line of sight of either, stepped in, and grabbed the man. Conrad threw him against the brick wall. The man dropped hard to the cement stunned and his gun fell next to him. He wouldn't be getting up for some time. The girl screamed and ran down the street, scared but very much alive. Mission accomplished. Death's move.