David Summer and the Panel of Death

David Summer was a good man. He wore round spectacles and his few tufts of white hair always stood on his head, bestowing him a sweet old-age appearance, although he wasn’t quite as old as many thought. He had broad shoulders and stood at five feet six inches tall while his wife, Regina Summer, was slightly shorter. The two of them had a daughter as sweet as nectar, so the parents leaned towards an acceptable flower name—Lily. David went to work every day for the past thirty years and changed companies only twice. His family didn’t know what he did and at times, he barely knew what he was doing. Yet he plowed along as any good man did in a static job, reaping almost no rewards. Now, David found himself somewhere far too soon. A place he was hoping to visit with joy after another thirty years: his deathbed.

After an incident at the grocery store, David lay in the hospital on his own, where a sterile stench wafted through the air and the startling white lights made him feel more bare than usual. No one knew of his whereabouts and David hoped to keep it that way as he would be out in a jiffy or so he thought.

While waiting in the hospital room with the eerie buzzing of white lights, he eyed his wrinkled hands covered in pigmentation and striking blue veins. He, himself, couldn’t tell he was only a fifty-year-old man. As David glanced over his hands and arms and stroked his sagging face, his frowning lips began to droop further. David missed the peculiar sight before him, as he indulged in pure self-loathing of where he had ended up in life.

At the edge of the cage-like bed David was confined to within the hospital room, four glowing doctors in starkly white lab coats stood in front of him. His eyebrows furrowed as he noticed each dressed up: one with cat ears, another with orange face paint, one with fangs, and lastly, a woman with devil horns. 

“Who are you?” David asked the strangely dressed doctors who stood before him. Their glowing aura was puzzling, but David was more shocked by their penchant for dress-up. 

“We are the Panel of Death,” the four people before him said in a synchronised manner. Although David was trapped on his bed, he felt himself mentally take a step back. It was time for him to go; to leave Regina and sweet Lily behind. 

“Why are you dressed like that?” David asked. 

The woman in devil horns laughed quizzically. “We said we are the Panel of Death and you are asking why we are dressed up?” Her frizzy blonde hair slowly started to submerge the horns atop her head. 

David shrugged coolly and smiled with his thin lips. 

“It’s Halloween, so we decided to spruce things up,” the chubby man with cat ears said and David just noticed the whiskers painted around his nose. 

“It really hurts us to say, but as the Panel of Death, we have decided it is time for you to depart life and start your next journey.” The older lady with fangs and stick-straight hair had a lulling voice. David was almost ready to leave then and there. However, something gnawed at the back of his mind. He needed to do a few things before he left.

“Wow, he’s very calm. I’ve never seen anything like it.” The young girl with orange facepaint finally spoke and David was now fixated on her indecipherable costume.

“What are you dressed up as, young lady?” David asked.

She stared at him with wide eyes. “He is polite even as he is about to die.”

David shuddered at the comment but said nothing to it. 

“I’m a pumpkin.” The young girl finally answered. 

“Oh, sure.” David nodded approvingly.

“Anyways,” the man with cat ears started, “It’s time for you to go.”

David stared at them long and hard wondering how his end came so unexpectedly and soon. Yet, a sense of calm started to envelop him and he opened his mouth, ready to ask something for himself—which was something he never did. “Can you give me one more day?”

The Panel of Death shared sideways glances and then exhaled in synchronisation. David saw a few non-glowing doctors walk along the hallway outside, oblivious to everything happening in his room. 

“We will discuss it and reconvene.” Devil horns said and the four of them scurried to the corner and huddled like a football team. All the while, David hummed an indiscernible melody and tapped his raisin fingers together. 

After what appeared to be a heated debate, the Panel of Death inched back towards David’s bed in a horizontal line as if they were conjoined by a skewer. 

“Ermm,” the lady with fangs cleared her throat, “as your death came very suddenly, we will allow you one full day before you need to come with us. Remember, we rarely grant wishes and this is an exception.” 

David sighed with relief and a tear almost trickled down his cheek. 

“Tomorrow night, you must return to this room and we will take you with us. Failure to do so will leave you facing dire consequences.” The fang lady left him with that and the Panel of Death disappeared into thin air. 

David quickly pulled out the needle injected inside his arm, changed into his clothes, and crouched out of the hospital back to his quaint home on Drue Lane. 

***

Regina always made a cup of coffee and a single brown toast with butter melting on top when David descended the scratched staircase of their home. With a forlorn expression, Regina forced a smile at David and kissed him on the cheek before he left for a day's work. David normally came back at six or even later and Regina seldom waited for his return. 

David ignored his wife’s languid demeanor and waved goodbye from the seat of his Camry as he backed out from the driveway into the quiet street of Drue Lane.

As usual, David parked his car at the back and walked slowly across the entire parking lot to the lifts taking him up to his musty cubicle on the fifth floor. Once the elevator doors opened to the floor, David shrivelled at the nervous energy lingering in the room. His eyes hurt at the sight of the person responsible for it all. 

Iris Wade. The boss’s daughter turned boss for the last five years. 

“David, David! There you are. You’re late!” She screamed with a red face and David looked at his watch. He was indeed late by five minutes—something that never occurred in his tiresome career. “This is a warning, I must tell you,” Iris said with her nasal voice, which could make dogs howl down at the shelters. “Anyways, Becky is off sick again, so I need you to get my coffee. ASAP! Do not ask me what my order is, I think you are old and wise enough to know.” Without a word, David pivoted on his foot and went down the elevator to get the vile little Iris Wade her hot drink.

***

David scrambled into the meeting room with Iris' cup of coffee, slightly breathless from the run. 

“Oh, there you are. You took ages. Didn’t think you’d make it back with your old feet!” Iris cackled and while the old David would have swallowed down hard, this was David on his last day of life. Iris’ colleagues laughed gently at her mockery and so did David as he poured her cup of coffee all over the table with a few drops of hot dark liquid spilling onto Iris Wade’s white pencil skirt. 

“What the hell!” She screamed as she stood up with a sudden jerk. David swore he could hear animals yelping from far off in the distance. “What was that for? David, you are—”

“What, what am I?” David cupped a hand around his ears and Iris slowly pursed his lips and sat back down with a thud. He’d never seen her frightened. “Fired? Like you did last month and then you asked me to come back because there is no one else you can pay like dirt and pile them on with more work than anyone else does in this office? Well, guess what, Iris. I’m done. You’re a spoilt brat, a nightmare to work for and I’m done with it!” 

While David didn’t expect it, the rest of the table applauded in approval. He couldn’t say for sure, but Iris had a few tears waiting to leave the brim of her eyes as he stomped out of the office once and for all with a heavy weight lifted off his chest and a strange sensation he might have grown an inch taller. 

***

Regina was weary by David’s early arrival, but he simply brushed her off, saying he had taken half the day to himself. After so many years, Regina knew he was lying, but something stopped her from asking. She savored his early arrival like a hard toffee melting in her mouth.

As Lily entered through the front door with her backpack pushing her shoulders down, she instantly straightened up at the sight of her father smiling by the stairwell, anticipating her arrival. “You’re home so soon, Daddy!” Lily ran up to her father and jumped into his arms with sheer delight. David Summer held her up in the air for just a moment, but it felt like an eternity of joy. His lower lip quivered as he looked into Lily’s sparkling blue eyes and hoped his daughter would always be this happy. 

***

For the first time, in a long time, David was at the dinner table on time and he could watch his daughter eat. 

“Honey, slow down on the mashed potatoes,” David said while he struggled from devouring the creamy and fluffy potatoes ten spoonfuls at a time.

“Okay, Dad,” Lily whined and slowly began munching her beans.

“Oh God,” Regina said as she placed her cutlery with an unappealing clatter on her plate. David winced at the sound. 

“What’s the matter?” David asked. 

“Nothing.” She waved him off and began chewing on her chicken half-heartedly. 

“No, tell me,” David brushed a dark curl off Regina’s face and her chocolate brown eyes turned gooey at the gesture. It was something he rarely did. 

“I know you never say anything, but the neighbors are leaving their trash on our curb like they have for the past year so we would throw it out. The stench is unbearable and I can’t sit on the front porch at night for a glass of wine or some reading.” Regina looked up at David, convinced he would do nothing, but something had changed inside him. David’s eyes were filled with flames. Regina could see his face flush red and soon David was up on his feet and out of the front door. 

***

“I believe this belongs to you?” David took the garbage back over to the neighbour's yard, where three young boys were sprawled on the chairs, smoking heavily. 

“Okay, dude.” One of them laughed in his face. 

“I hope you won’t be leaving this by our house again,” David said firmly and left to the sounds of loud boyish cackling. Something inside him told him these three boys didn’t know better and what he did next came soaring out of the blue. 

David Summer turned around on his foot, picked up the stuffed garbage bag, and dumped the contents over each boy. Everything happened in a heartbeat and the three boys stood there puzzled and turned green at the horrid stench that infiltrated their nostrils and covered their dangly bodies. 

“Let me repeat. I trust you won’t be leaving this by our house again.” This time, David walked away in deathly silence. 

***

“What happened, Daddy?” Lily asked and David noticed all her mashed potatoes were finished, but the beans remained untouched.

“Eat your beans, sweetheart,” David said as he pulled his chair in inch by inch across the textured rug beneath the dining table. 

“What happened?” Regina whispered and Lily chewed her beans in slow motion. 

“They won’t be leaving their garbage by our house anymore,” David said matter-of-factly and the sweet family peacefully finished their last dinner together. 

***

David tucked Lily into her bed and kissed her soft forehead. It had been years since Lily was a baby, but to David, she still had that baby scent. Before a salty tear dropped onto Lily’s cheek, David caught it in the palm of his hand. He looked at the clock and trembled at the time ticking away hastily. He said his very last words to Lily Summer as she drifted off to sleep. 

“Always be fearless my sweet Lily. Sometimes one must be less good to do the right thing.” David whispered. 

After descending the staircase into the dining room, David found Regina intently staring at a glass of red wine. Her face was lost in a trance as it had been for so many years of their marriage. 

“Do you want some wine?” Regina broke eye contact with the glass as David took a seat next to her. 

“We need to talk, honey.” Regina looked at David with fearful eyes. “Neither one of us has been able to say this, but I’m going to now. We were in love when we married. We were in love when Lily was born. Somewhere along the way, we fell out of love and have merely existed next to one another for countless years. That’s no way to live, Regina, we both know it.” When David looked up from the table, where his gaze fell moments ago, Regina’s eyes were filled with tears. When she sighed, it was almost as if she was holding a breath separately, waiting to release it one day. 

“I will always care about you, David.” 

“And I will always care about you, Regina.” 

David looked at the clock up ahead and his heart nearly stopped then and there. The Panel of Death was waiting for him in the hospital. 

“Good night, Regina.” 

David pretended to go upstairs and while Regina’s mind was elsewhere, he escaped and returned to last night's hospital room, just before the cut-off. 

***

“He returns!” The girl who called herself a pumpkin was no longer wearing orange face paint. “Did you make the world a better place?” She asked, wondering what David must have done on that one glorious day he lived knowing it was his last. 

David walked up to the glowing figures with his chest held high. “I’m not sure,” he said while looking at each of them. “But I sure do feel better.”