Rating the Reaper

The irate man smelled of coffee, beer, and body odour. His breath was enough to make the eyes Death didn’t have water.

            “I should be dead right now. Why am I not dead?”

            “You are, mostly,” said the Reaper. He was trying very hard to ignore the obnoxious man. Ignoring someone who’s yelling in your face is hard enough without you being the only one that can see or hear them.

            “Mostly? What good is that to me? You’re either dead, or you’re not. I WANT TO BE DEAD.”

            “Go and be dead then. Somewhere else.” The man’s shouting was aggravating the Reaper’s hangover. “Quit bothering me.”

            “It’s your job. I’m not going anywhere until you do what you’re paid to do.”

            “I don’t get paid, moron. You think I’m hourly, while I go about harvesting souls? Maybe you think I’m on salary? Or am I paid per soul? How much is your soul worth? Not much, I bet.” Bony hands gripped a paper cup of coffee as the immortal sipped.

            “How dare you? I want to talk to your manager.” The man was flushed with rage.

            “SO DO I!” Death roared full in the man’s face. The businessman stepped back. “You’re upset. Guess what? I DON’T CARE. You’ve had some tough years. So have I. What was it? Hard time at work? Just quit. Hopeless marriage? Get divorced or have counselling.

            I’m stuck in a job I hate that I’ve had since the dawn of time.

            It would be fine if I knew there was an end date. I’ve been doing this for billions of years, back and forward through time and I’m still nowhere near finished.

            I quit.” Death finished his coffee and picked apart the cup, plastic lid in the plastic recycling bin, ribbed cardboard bit in the paper bin. Then the dilemma, did the plastic-coated paper go in the paper or plastic bin. He shrugged. Plastic. Fuck it.

            “I’ll tell everyone how useless you are,” said the man in pinstripes. “I’ll give you one star on yelp and, whatever.” He followed the reaper out of the shop.

Suddenly they were on a battlefield. The bullets were flying, razor wire curled from the top of the trenches.

            The reaper looked back and groaned as he saw the officious businessman wandering through no man’s land. He’d seen all of it before on television and in films, but they’d never conveyed the gut-wrenching stench of muck and death.

            “This isn’t right. Do you know who I am?” Pinstripe Pillock followed the black cloak of the skeleton over bodies abandoned in the muddy metres between the enemy lines. To his right the man heard German accents, to his left, British.

            “Were they really this close? It’s ridiculous,” said death’s angry stalker.

            “Agreed but it did make it easy to collect their souls afterwards.”

            “Why won’t you just finish me off. Isn’t that easier than having me harass you?” Pillock had a point, it only made the Reaper more determined to ignore him.

            Machine gun fire zipped across the dirt in front of them, splashing into mud and pinging against the coils of razor wire. A corpse was briefly given momentum by a stream of bullets. Pinstripe Pillock stared in disgust.

            “Don’t worry about him. I whipped his soul away half an hour ago, or fifty-two thousand years ago depending on how you look at it. It’s all relative, I think. Physics isn’t my thing.”

            “How can that be the same thing?”

            “Good question PP.” Death smiled. It looked the same as if he’d done nothing. There were no lips to convey the gesture, just menacing teeth. “The only perk of my job is that I get to reap the souls in whatever order I choose. I can go back and forth from the start of life to the end. It keeps it varied.

            It’s still bloody boring though.”

            “Life ends? All life?”

            “Probably, yours did, didn’t it?” The Reaper held up his hands.

            “Humanity doesn’t survive then?” The wind was gone from the pinstripe sails of the pillock’s boat. “It was all for nothing?”

            “No. Of course not. There was singing and laughing and dancing and sex, lots of sex. Horny lot, you humans, especially after you sorted out contraception. But yes, it ends. Everything ends.”

            “What’s the point if we all die?” Pinstripe Prat sat on a rock. Bullets whipped through his once beloved suit.

            “Is that really your problem? You opted out.”

            “I never thought that humanity would end. I thought someone else would take over.”

            “Maybe they do. Maybe I only have the job for this universe. Maybe there’s one after. My point is it all ends. Humans. Animals. Plants. All the weird things that are in between. That’s just how it goes.”

            “Could you take me?” Pinstripe asked.

            “Where?”

            “To the end, the end of us.” They were suddenly back on a busy street as an old man collapsed.

            “Do you really want to see that. I’ve already done the last one. It was a kid. One of the hardest ones I’ve ever had to do.

            All alone. As alone as anyone has ever been. Waiting for someone to come back and hold him. That’s why I can’t do this job anymore. There’s too much of that. Nothing prepares you for reaping the souls of the innocent. If I knew where they went it might be different.” The Reaper waved to a boy on the bus who was waving at him as it passed.

            “You don’t know where the souls go?” His anger was growing again.

            “Not my department PP. Anyway. If you’re upset about it find a church and try that out. I’m not doing it anymore. Someone must have the power to give me a break or take over and they’ve left me with it for too long. I cannot deal with weeping innocents anymore. It’s not fair.”

            “You think that’s unfair? I have terminal cancer, I just killed myself and you’re making me wait for it as if it was my fault. I just wanted a break from the pain.” The reaper suddenly felt bad about judging the man. It was well within his power to know what ailments the gentleman had but he’d not been paying attention. Too deep in his own problems.

            “I’m sorry about that,” Death said.

            “Is there a chance that religion is right? You’re real so… it might be?”

            The black robes jumped as the Reaper shrugged. “I wish I knew. Sorry.”

            “Please let me go. Whether it’s good, or bad, or nothing, I just want this over with.” Nigel Fisher put his face in his hands and tried to weep. It was a hard thing to do in the limbo between life and death.

            “Alright. Good luck Nigel. I hope it’s something you like.”

            “Thanks.” Nigel nodded, suit jacket flapping open to show his bloody wound.

The Reaper touched Nigel and felt the power of the universe working through him. The soul came away from the flesh with a start. The image of Nigel as he imagined himself, a handsome rascal in his early twenties, emerged from the tired body.

            “Good luck,” Death said. He conjured the light that took the soul away. “Rest in peace.”

            “Fuck this, I need ice cream.” He appeared in an ice cream van at the exact moment someone else died. Lots of people died around fast food, which was awful, but very convenient when he wanted to eat his feelings.