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| Photo by Dominik Schwind |
Death and Andi had not had time to even try to get something
to eat in quite a while. The amount of
time between each of the collections seemed to be getting shorter and shorter,
and it had taken Andi quite a while to get the hang of travelling. Between finding Andi after each mis-step, and
getting to the collections on time, finding time to get some food was out of
the question.
Andi had, however, finally managed to get the knack for
travelling. After a few huge mis-steps
(she did end up in Africa once, but was relieved to not find herself staring
down any puzzled lions. And she had
wound up in an abandoned mine one time.), she gotten a little better, bit by
bit, until now she could arrive pretty close to exactly where she’d intended
to.
And, as time passed and Andi didn’t let any more souls
wander off alone, Death had begun to trust her a little more again.
So today, between the collections of a thirty nine year old
nurse and a seventy eight year old retired bus driver, Death asked Andi to go
and get some cheeseburgers.
“Something easy to eat on the move, please,” Death had
said. “As good as a super bacon mega
mayo barbeque holy hell cheese burger sounds, that’ll require too much focus I
think. Something small will do. Get eight or so.”
So, with those instructions in mind, Andi had set out to
find a fast food place where she could get a sack of easy to manage burgers.
She came back with a bag full of burgers while Death was in
the middle of a collection. The bag had
photos of people doing healthy things like playing soccer, climbing mountains,
and other such things that people who regularly ate at that restaurant were
unlikely to be doing any time soon. Andi
wondered if the bag was supposed to be aspirational, or just supposed to soothe
one’s guilt. Either way, it was a bag
chock full of unhealthy deliciousness.
In looking at the bag, a question occurred to Andi.
“You’re not dead like me, are you?” Andi said to Death.
Death was paying attention to the events going on in the
room around them. A drug deal was about
to go bad, and it took a lot of focus to keep things progressing the way they
were supposed to.
“No, I’m immortal.
Why do you ask?” Death said.
“Well, I was just thinking about this sack of burgers, and
the fact that it’s not exactly healthy food,” Andi said.
Death chuckled slightly, and said, “When you only get to eat once every few
years, a few extra calories and grease are hardly a problem.”
“That’s not what I meant.
I was just wondering if you ever get sick. I mean, does anything ever knock you on your
butt for a few days?” Andi said. “Or is
that a total non-concern for you?”
Death though carefully about how to answer, as gunfire
erupted in the room and the people who hadn’t been shot scattered for
cover.
She hadn’t ever been sick, exactly, although she had gotten
depressed that one time and stayed in bed rather than face the world for a
while. But Andi didn’t really need to
know about that.
Unlike on TV, the gun fight didn’t go on and on. The people closest to an exit took their
first opportunities and ran for it. The
final death toll was just one person, a man who really should have known that
the word “motherfucker” will never result in the de-escalation of a bad
situation.
“No,” Death said to Andi, “I can’t think of a time that I’ve
ever gotten sick. I don’t worry about it
at all, actually.”
The soul of the man who had been shot said, “Am I dead?”
“Yes,” Death said.
“Thank God,” he said.
He sounded like it was a huge relief.
He went peacefully and agreeably with Death and Andi to the
gateway, and crossed over without incident.
“Well, that was a little strange,” Andi said.
“Was it?” Death said.
“Hey, can I have one of those burgers while we talk?”
“Oh, of course,” Andi said.
She pulled out a cheeseburger wrapped in wax paper and handed it to
Death, who did her best to not snatch it out of Andi’s hand and laugh with
glee. It was important to maintain some
decorum.
Andi continued, “So, yeah, I don’t think I’ve been along on
any collections where the person seemed relieved to be dead.”
Death was holding the still-wrapped burger under her nose,
savoring the moment and doing her best to enjoy all of the sensory pleasures
presented by the first food she’d gotten her hands on in close to three years.
“Oh,” Death said.
“Well, I guess he was a little more vocal about it than most, but it
seems to me that a lot of folks are actually relieved. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re looking
forward to the afterlife, or if it’s simply that now they don’t have to worry
about how they’re going to die anymore, or what. I guess it’s a different experience for
everyone.”
Death was slowly unwrapping her cheeseburger, loving the
feel of the wrapper and the crinkling sounds it made as she re-arranged the wax
paper so she could hold the burger and not spill any ketchup or grease on
herself as she ate it.
She had it arranged just the way she liked it when her phone
rang. Death exhaled sharply,
exasperated, and took her phone out of her pocket while muttering, “what the
hell is it now?”
What it was just so happened to be was another immediate
collection. Two people this time.
Death rolled her eyes.
“Come on, we’ve got work to do,” she said to Andi.
Andi had exactly enough time to recognize that they were now
in a bar of some sort, and that there was a brawl going on, when she saw
something unexpected.
A man’s head, recently separated from his body, flew past
her and knocked the burger out of Death’s hand.
Andi knew that Death was probably not going to be very happy
about that, but she didn’t even have time to say something before a headless
body flew into her, knocking the bag of burgers out of her hand and into the
fireplace.
A fireplace? Andi
thought. We must be in a pub, then.
Then she thought, Death
is going to flip out.
She looked, and saw an expression of surprise cross Death’s
face before being replaced almost immediately with a look of pure fury.
Another head rolled past Andi’s feet, and she heard a crash
somewhere in the room that she assumed was the body that head had recently been
attached too.
What had been a brawl turned into a stampede as the patrons
of the pub tried to flee from the person beheading other patrons. When Andi had her bearings, she saw that the
one person not fleeing was a rather muscular man in black leather.
“God damn it, Ares!” Death shouted. “It’s bad enough that I had to interrupt a
meal in order to come and deal with more collections because you lost your
temper again, but then you have to go and knock the food out of my hand, and
then cause the rest to get ruined in the fireplace?”
Ares spun around from what he’d been doing, which was
attempting to start the bar on fire, to see who was yelling at him.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry about your lunch. I didn’t see you there or I would have totally
thrown that guy the other way,” Ares said.
“I’ll buy you dinner sometime to make it up to you, OK?”
He gave Death his most charming smile.
“Dinner sometime doesn’t make up for the fact that I’m
overworked as it is and I’ve just missed out on a meal,” Death said.
“Well, you know how it is.
Some people just need killing,” Ares said.
The two souls, who had been pretty good friends in life,
watched all of this with matching looks of confusion and displeasure.
“I don’t think I needed killing,” one of them said. “I’m pretty sure I just happened to be in
your general area and you grabbed me and yanked my head off.”
“Yeah, well, you were in the brawl, so you weren’t totally
innocent,” Ares said.
“Actually, I was just trying to get out of here,” the soul
said.
“Me too,” the other soul said.
“Well, whatever, I don’t have to explain myself to a couple
of dead guys,” Ares said. “Sorry, Death,
I’ll buy you and your intern there a meal sometime to make it up, but for now,
I’ve got to split. See ya.”
Ares vanished.
“Well that guy is an asshole,” the first soul said.
“Are you telling me?” Death said.
The soul glanced at Death, and then decided the best thing
to do would be to stay quiet and hope there weren’t ways she could make things
a little worse for them.
The second soul, who wasn’t quite as perceptive as the
first, started talking then.
“You know, this is bullshit.
I just came down here to the bar to have a couple of beers and hang out,
and then I hear some shouting and before I know it there’s a brawl and then when
I’m trying to get out of the bar and stay out of trouble, some guy that looks
like he should be a bad guy for the WWF grabs on to my head and pulls it off,
which fucking hurt by the way, and now you’re being rude too? When did everyone become a total
asshole? Was it just today or have
things been slowly getting worse without me noticing or what?” he said.
Andi and the first soul stared at him, amazed that he was
willing to just start ranting when Death was standing right there, looking like
she was ready to get a little bit smite-y herself. Andi wondered, like the first soul, what kind
of awful retribution was going to befall the second soul.
What happened is that Death blinked a few times, and started
laughing.
“Oh, my friend, I think things have been slowly getting
worse for a while…” Death said, still laughing a bit. “Sorry, you two have had a rough day, and you
don’t need me making it worse just because I missed lunch. There will be other lunches.”
She reached out to both of the souls, smiling and giggling a
little bit, “Would you two come with me please?”
Death and the two souls crossed over, leaving Andi in the
pub trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
When Death got back, she said to Andi, “what a day, huh?”
“I guess so,” Andi said.
“So, uh, how are you able to just switch your patience back on like
that? I was expecting you to unleash
hell on that guy.”
Death smiled and said, “I have to do my job first, and have
tantrums second. So I try to keep in
mind that the souls I’m collecting should feel comforted. Rescued, even. I’m not here to beat up on them.”
“Rescued, got it,” Andi said. She looked around a bit at the wreckage of
the pub. It was empty now. “You know, I bet we could find something to
eat in here. It is, after all, a pub. They have food.”
“No, that wouldn’t be right,” Death said. “Come on, we’ll just have to try again
somewhere else.”
“OK, if you say so,” Andi said.
“I say so,” Death said.
