The Fates

Death was a long suffering individual. To most of humanity that was probably thought well deserved: the longer the better in their undoubtedly biassed opinion. Death was acutely aware of this and it didn’t do much for his mien. Even an immortal with a soul as dark as Death has feelings. He also had sisters, which went a long way towards explaining his black moods. Anyone who has triplet siblings who not only look alike but finish each other’s sentences - and all too often his own - can be excused for feeling a tad liverish at times.

He took one last vicious swipe at his scythe with a whetstone and glared balefully at the latest shortlist drawn up by his sisters, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos: as strange a collection of names as ever given but who was he to judge? His own name hadn’t garnered him much of a popular following.

Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos: the three Fates or, as Death preferred to call them (albeit privately) the three very weird sisters. Was a time when Death ruled the roost alone and the choice between Life and the alternative was just a matter of a swift alliterative slash of the scythe. Then the triplets came along, arguing like fishwives as soon as they learned to speak, forever weighing pros and cons, bickering until they were blue in the face - bringing emotion into the equation for pity’s sake - well, it was enough to drive a spirit to the hard stuff himself. It was bad enough that they had been tasked with determining the fate of mankind and he had been all but relegated to the role of hired scythe, but when they started telling him how to do his job …

“Look,” he had said. “I was doing this job before you were even the glimmerings of a twinkle, so don’t tell me how to swing a scythe. It’s all right you sitting in your ebony tower giving orders, but it’s me down the sharp end.”

“Yes,” said Clotho, 

“but,” added Lachesis,

”you have to” Atropos intervened, 

“make sure that” (Clotho again), 

“you do it with" Lachesis chimed in, 

"SENSITIVITY…TY…TY!” they all chorused.

After Death’s head had finished swivelling trying to follow the conversation he turned to Atropos, or it might have been Lachesis (but was probably Clotho) and tightened his grip on the scythe. He shook it in their faces. "This is the scythe," he pointed out. "It's as sharp as buggery. Its only job is to sever the ties that bind, and it does it very well and very cleanly. It's been doing it forever. And you want me to do what? Sit down and pick at the knots whilst engaging the nearly dearly departed in polite conversation? There's enough trauma having me show up without them actually watching their lives being picked apart strand by strand. I've got a bad enough name already without being taken for a sadist." He held up gnarled fingers. "And these have got arthritis. I can no more pick at knots than you can talk for two minutes without interrupting one another."

"But you have to remember that death is the most vulnerable part of a mortal's life," by now the words were rattling out of their respective mouths like a belt fed machine gun such that the three voices seemed to become one. Which was some relief at least for a sorely tried Death’s concentration. The coherence of the speech was somewhat marred by each of the three sisters performing a different task while they spoke.  

Death had never been much of an aesthete himself, although he did consider himself the consummate artiste at what he did, but to put three highly strung - albeit creatively talented - young women in charge of weaving the tapestry of life had always seemed very shortsighted to him. For one thing, there were three separate times of the month to take into consideration, and a dropped stitch here and there due to hormones tended to wreak havoc with the order of things. The constant clacking of The Loom was enough to send anyone a bit mental anyway, so there was little wonder that the world was in its current parlous state.

'The Loom', capitalised as always, took up most of the space in the Weaving Room which itself seemed to stretch to infinity, although that was a bit of an exaggeration even Death had to admit: if only because his own working area was now confined to a small desk in the corner, yet another bone of contention. 

“You’re out in the field most of the time anyway,” Clotho had said in a rare burst of verbal continuity. 

“We need the space,” Lachesis had added. 

“Yes, there’s yards and yards of this stuff,” Atropos confirmed, wielding her scissors regretfully. 

Each of the sisters had their own individual tasks at The Loom. Clotho spun the thread, Lachesis attached it to the mortal realm and … well, in the original job description, Atropos was supposed, conveyor belt style, to cut the thread of mortal existence as necessary, but obviously Death was having none of that. So, she had been told off very firmly just to indicate which of the threads in question was … well … in question, and Death did the rest. 

As a fair division of labour it didn’t sit too well with her, it has to be said, because the scissors had been a birthday present and she’d never had a chance to use them properly … and she loathed admin with a vengeance anyway. That’s why she had been instrumental in persuading her sisters that the final parting should be dragged out a bit - if she couldn’t do what she was supposed to do then she didn’t see why anyone else should either. She was a bit bolshy in that way - she had been the last of the three sisters created and had a bit of an inferiority complex as a result. Added to which, as the youngest, she felt she was more attuned to the particular sensitivities of the modern world’s younger generation who could have been mortally offended at Death’s usual peremptory service. Woke is as Woke does after all.

Fair do’s, she’d offered to lend him her pick-thread to help with some of the trickier knots, but the look he threw at her in response frayed the end of the thread that Lachesis was currently allocating to some politician. Lachesis considered a weighty retort but then saw where the thread was destined and decided to let it lie - if ever a frayed thread was well allocated, it was there: Atropos and Death would be picking up on that one in very short order if there was any justice - and the longer that one could be dragged out the better, so she was definitely with Atropos there.

“Well, you know what?” Death said, decisively. “I’m not doing it. It’s just wrong. It’s cruel, that’s what it is … and I can’t believe I just said that. When it’s time, a mortal wants closure. He doesn’t want to hang about wondering if and when … if ever, if the size of some of your knots are anything to go by,” he hurled at Clotho. “Last time I looked, threads were just that, long and stringy, not the macrame fishing nets you seem to be churning out nowadays. I know modern life’s complicated but it can’t be that bad.”

Clotho looked at him sourly and said, “And what would you know about …” 

“ … life, Death?” Lachesis finished, whilst Atropos nodded her vehement assent.

Then they began their machine gun stutter again and the words couldn’t have come across any clearer, three-fold as they were. “Times have changed, Death, and you haven’t kept up. What you are is an anachronism. And anachronisms either move with the times, or … “

“Is nobody going to say it?” Atropos asked.

“... THEY GET CANCELLED!” they all said. 

“And guess what?” Clotho sneered. “Die, Death.” 

So saying she gave a nod to Atropos who gaily produced her scissors and took the glowing black thread that Lachesis had surreptitiously extracted. Smiling insanely, she slowly snipped it, and before Death realised what was happening, it had happened … and the Universe carried on as if nothing had, except Death wasn’t in it any more.

But The Fates were … and Atropos’ scissors had a lot of overdue pruning to do.