A Difficult Case

‘Tell me about the problem that brought you here.’

‘I can’t make up my mind.’

‘You have so many problems that you can’t pick one to talk about. I see.’

‘No, you don’t see it. My problem is that I can’t make up my mind.’

‘About what?’

‘About anything.’

‘But you made up your mind when you decided to come here, didn’t you?’

‘I had no choice. This problem is making my life like hell.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Because my job is to make decisions and act on them.’

‘What’s your job?’

‘I’d rather not say.’

‘All right, let’s skip work. Is it easier for you to make decisions in your private life?

‘I don’t have a private life. That comes with the job, unfortunately.’

‘You have a job that doesn’t allow for a private life. How sad that is.’

‘It is, right? But I’ve learnt to live with it.’

‘What do you do when you are not working?’

‘I can’t even tell. I think I am always working.’

‘Even now?’

‘Well, not now, obviously.’

‘It’s not obvious because you haven’t told me about your job. If your whole life is about your job and you don’t want to talk about it, then I won’t be able to help, I am afraid.’

‘All right, all right. My job is to pick people and take them.’

‘Take them where?’

‘I am not allowed to tell you that.’

‘Oh, come on. What are you, a policeman or an FBI agent? Then I would understand the secrecy. But you are not built for that. You look so sickly and pale… Are you okay at all?’

‘I am, don’t worry about my health. Just teach me how to make up my mind.’

‘I can’t teach you that, I am afraid. You need to figure it out for yourself. What do you usually need to decide about? Give me an example.’

‘Okay, here’s one from yesterday. Would you take an old man from his family if he was in a lot of pain, but the family was in agony for losing him?’

‘It depends. Where would I take him? To hospital?

‘What? No, not at all.’

‘Then where?’

‘Why do you need to ask so many questions? Just help me.’

‘My job is to ask questions. Where were you taking the old man?’

‘The same place I take everyone.’

‘Where?’

‘Gosh, you are one stubborn guy. All right, I’ll tell you. But don’t freak out!

‘I am ready. Get it out.’

‘My job is to take people to hell. Or heaven. It depends. The old man was destined for heaven, but he stayed here at the end because I couldn’t make up my mind.’

‘Okay, that was very funny. Now tell me about your real job.’

‘I am telling you. I am the Grim Reaper.’

‘Look, I want to help you, but you are not taking this business seriously.’

‘I am telling you the truth.’

‘All right, let’s assume that you are the Grim Reaper. How often do you have to make decisions? On an average day.’

‘About three hundred thousand times. You know, I am the only one in the world doing this job. It’s very demanding.’

‘Let’s just do some quick math here. If you make three hundred thousand decisions a day, that’s more than twelve thousand decisions per hour, assuming that you don’t sleep at all. But you sleep, don’t you?

‘I don’t. It’s literally a full-time job.’

‘Hm. Interesting. Now let’s continue our calculations. Twelve thousand decisions per hour, that’s more than three decisions in every single second, day and night. It’s a miracle if you get to understand at all what your choices are.’

‘True. But I can’t do anything about that. It’s just how my boss likes things to go.’

‘What if you leave your boss? If you go on to a job where you are not exploited?’

‘Well, firstly, it would mean that I have made up my mind about something huge. I’d never be able to do that. Secondly, this is what I’ve always done. I don’t think I’d be any good at something else. Not that there would be so many open positions where I’ve come from, of course… And there is one more thing, now that I think of it. I’m not really in the position to decide. I mean, I wouldn’t even exist if not for my boss. He created me specifically for this job. It was very specific right from the start.’

‘I am sure we could go back to a point in your life when you were not working for him yet… Couldn’t we?’

‘No, we couldn’t. As I said, I was created to do this job.’

‘Were you doing it at the nursery? At school? In college?’

‘I didn’t go to any of those places. I mean I did, but only to do my job. Not too often, thank God, but it does happen occasionally.’

‘So, you didn’t go to those places as a child. Are you saying that your parents provided no education whatsoever?’

‘I am saying that I’ve never been a child. I was born like this.’

‘I wonder how your mother survived your birth…’

‘I have no mother. Never had one, nor a father. I only have my boss.’

‘This is starting to sound like a bad case of workaholism to me.’

‘That’s because you are not believing me. Can’t we just drop the topic of my past and focus on the issue I am having today?’

‘I am not sure if that works, but okay, let’s give it a try. When did you start feeling unable to make decisions?’

‘I don’t really care about time.’

‘But still. Give me an estimate.’

‘All right, let’s see… I think it started when I had so much to do that I could hardly cope. About a hundred years ago.’

‘During the first world war? Come on, you might look a bit worse for wear but not so much. And if that’s true, how come you only looked for help now?’

‘As I said, I can’t make up mind that easily these days.’

‘These days, by which you mean a hundred years.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Have you ever tried to toss a coin and do whatever it decides for you?’

‘Would you be happy with a coin deciding about your wife’s life? Or your children’s?

‘I don’t know, probably not. But I would also not want you to decide about them.’

‘I don’t think you would have a say in that.’

‘Okay, I don’t like where this conversation is going. I think you should go and see a psychiatrist instead of me. You are ill and I am not a doctor.’

‘What do you mean I am ill?’

‘You have paranoid delusions that are starting to take over your life. You need urgent help. You need medication and a closed place where you can recover without hurting anyone. I am calling an ambulance.’

‘You know what, I think I am already feeling better. I just made a decision in a crack, without hesitating for a millisecond. You helped me even if you didn’t mean to.’

‘Did I? And what’s your decision?’

‘I decided to take someone with me who was not even on the list. People down there can never have enough shrinks to talk to. I am sure they’ll be happy to see you.’