Disclaimer: see chapter one
Chapter Ten
Being Death is not all cupcakes and fairy floss.
It can be exciting, thrilling, breathtaking, but it is always draining.
No one is meant to remember these emotions, relics of what was once human life, but we do.
But we do.
We try to recapture the past in one fleeting moment.
It is the recollections that undo us all.
When you boil it down to the basics, Death functions like a 24/7 business. There's a hierarchy within the system; those who've been doing this for eons are the boss, and everyone else falls into place under them. Like any other business, employees will grapple with each other to get the charges they desire the most, and flog off the charges they think they will despise, or charges that may be false alarms. Like any other business, Death has retirees, and to counter this, we have to employ new people.
Today is Intake Day.
For anyone, this would be one of the worst ways to go. For the man I've come to collect, this is humiliating, to say the least. The man that lies supine on the bed before me has always been in control – you can trust me on that – and to lose it due to a series of strokes must grate on his pride. First it was his coordination, his ability to move unaided. Then his speech deteriorated into a stutter, so similar to the engineer that made his brainchild come true. Then memory; and it kept sliding downhill until he reached the point he is today.
Dribble drips from pale pink lips and the fourth son, now the youngest son alive, wipes it away with a bit of Kleenex. The third son uses long, bony fingers to push back stray strands of fine hair. The eldest holds his hand and offers up a watery smile. The second son barrels through the door and grasps the other hand.
The father blinks – the only movement he can consciously coordinate – at each of his son, acknowledging them, thanking them for sticking by him through everything, the good times and the bad. Warm gratitude lies deep in the depths of cool grey, but the sons don't have to search far to find it.
His hands slacken, his pale skin turns translucent and his eyes shut to the outside world. His eyes open to see me, something I've wanted for so long.
He tilts his head to the left. One of the wonders of Death is that you're unencumbered by all the restraints a corporeal version of you has. Recognition dawns on him, and something inside of him and me loosens.
Lucy? He breathes out in disbelief, blinking rapidly.
I nod and push back the draping from around my head.
But… it can't be.
Why not? I narrow my eyes. You're dead too, Jefferson. Anything is possible from here on in.
In my hand is a cloth of black, a graduation down for him. I press it into his hand and grab him by the wrist. He grabs back and pulls me to him, crushing me to his chest. This has never happened to me as Death before, and I relax into him after so long of not having this. Just like the good ol' days.
There is so much we have to catch up on, so much more I have left to teach him.
Now that we're together again, he as my student, and I his mentor, there is so much more for us to discover.