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| Photo by Waferboard |
She also understood that not everyone viewed it as such immediately. Some people, in fact, very much resented their demise, regardless of how flawlessly it had been orchestrated. Not everyone appreciates an artist’s work.
And furthermore, although she took great care in the planning and, well, execution of a collection, she recognized that each death was not nearly as significant to her as it was to the person actually dying.
Because of all this, Death was careful to stay calm, compassionate and above all patient while collecting a client. No one could accuse Death of not providing excellent customer service. Indeed, if you could find one of her more troublesome clients, one of the ones that had really steamed her, he or she would tell you that Death had been nothing but a professional. She may have lost her cool once or twice, but it was exceedingly rare.
All the same, Death wished her current client would just come along quietly already so she could go and get herself a slice of pizza or something. Something greasy, and salty. Deep fried would be perfectly all right. Maybe with bacon and ranch dressing.
Catherine Zeta Jones - no, not that one, and she’d appreciate it if you stopped bringing up the other one – had passed three minutes ago. She was fifty six and diabetic. Her blood sugar got way too low and she passed away without anyone noticing.
And she was currently going back and forth between being embarrassed and annoyed. Death checked the clock and saw that now four minutes had passed. She was lucky enough to have twenty minutes until the next person was due to be collected, which was totally enough time to get an extra large order of French fries from a fast food place after she delivered Catherine.
Catherine’s body was on the floor close to her easy chair. She’d been going to try and sit down, and hadn’t quite made it. Now she was pacing back and forth muttering about how if her good for nothing, peckerhead husband was home instead of out golfing, this wouldn’t have happened.
Death glanced at the clock. Five minutes had passed.
“It would not have mattered if he was here, Catherine. It was your time to go. Would you come with me please?” Death said.
Rather than respond, Catherine wandered out of the room and down the hall. Now she was scolding herself for not keeping up on her blood tests.
Death did her best to not give an exasperated sigh, and instead calmly followed Catherine into the kitchen. She found Catherine looking very embarrassed.
“Are you OK?” Death asked her.
Catherine gestured at the stove, which had a pot on one of the burners, and the sink, which had a couple of dishes in it.
“I’ve left such a mess,” Catherine said. She sounded close to tears.
Death very nearly laughed and invited Catherine to come see the horrors waiting in her own apartment, but she restrained herself, and remembered that Catherine probably wasn’t actually upset about a couple of dirty dishes.
Not everyone was excited to go, after all.
“Everyone will understand,” Death said. She held out her hand to Catherine. “Would you take my hand?”
Catherine looked at Death’s hand as if she’d never seen such a strange thing before, which was maybe a little rude since Death was certainly skinny but still more or less normal looking, then said, “Sure, why the fuck not.”
She took Death’s hand, and Death very nearly said, “Yay!”
There were still fourteen minutes until the next collection. She could totally get a happy meal to go in the time she’d have left before her next appointment.
The two of them stepped out of the world.
A few moments later, Death stepped back in to the world, alone, and set about finding the nearest McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Jack in the Box. In and Out burger would take too long, and she was on the wrong coast, anyway.
There was a Burger King close by, and Death didn’t waste a second getting there and getting in line. She was disappointed to see there were several people ahead of her, but she was hopeful that she’d have time to get something quickly and bring it along. She checked the time. She still had six minutes until she had to be at the next appointment. No problem. She’d get two cheeseburgers and a small order of fries.
The smells of grease and cooking meat and sugar from the soda machines were nearly intoxicating. Death caught herself, twice, just before she began clapping her hands in her excitement.
There was only one person ahead of her in line now, and Death could almost taste the flame broiled goodness already. The greatest feasts eaten by the kings of old had nothing on the wax paper wrapped delicacy that she was about to enjoy.
Death was, understandably, extremely disappointed when the person in line in front of her pulled a gun out of his pocket and demanded all the cash in the restaurant.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the teenager behind the counter said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Death said, nearly in synch with the cashier.
The robber gestured with the gun he was holding, and shouted, “give me the fucking money.”
The robber was wearing very baggy clothes, a hoodie, and sunglasses. He looked like an obnoxious punk kid from the suburbs, because he was an obnoxious punk kid from the suburbs. His parents were well-off, and he didn’t really have any reason for robbing a Burger King other than being, well, an obnoxious punk. He’d, in fact, had to look up how to go about committing armed robbery on the internet. That was why he was wearing baggy clothes, in fact. He’d bought them special.
Death was sorely tempted to collect him early. She glanced at the clock again. Three minutes. He’d made her miss lunch, and she was very, very overdue.
If the robber had been aware of his surroundings, things might have ended a little differently. However, he was entirely focused on the hands of the cashier, who was emptying the cash drawers and stuffing the money into a kid’s meal bag.
Death quickly stepped up next to the robber, plucked the gun from his hand with almost no effort, turned, and patiently, compassionately and efficiently pistol whipped him. He collapsed in a heap in front of the register.
“Stupid punk kid wrecked my lunch,” Death muttered as she took another look at the time.
The woman standing in line behind Death stared at her with her jaw hanging open. Death looked around and saw the same expression on a lot of other faces. Oops.
“It’s cool, he’ll live,” Death said by way of explanation.
She then thrust the gun into the hands of the woman staring at her, said, “Looks like you’re a hero today,” and vanished. She had an appointment to get to, after all.
Now, an interesting thing happens when a group of people witnesses something impossible, such as an extremely skinny woman pistol whipping an armed robber in a fast food restaurant and then vanishing into thin: They collectively refuse to believe it happened and promptly forget it happened.
As such, the woman now clutching the robber’s gun and looking confused was being praised and thanked by the other patrons of the Burger King. When she had to talk to the police later, she said she had no recollection of the events, but that she felt as though she had done the right thing.
