Death in the City (17 page)

“Oh no, you’re not mad at me too, are you?” asked Death. Tim uncrossed his arms and sighed.

“Jeez, Derek, it’s difficult to act mad at you when you always seem like you have no idea what’s going on.”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” said Tim, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Go on, Tim, tell him what you told me,” said Maria.

“Derek, do you realize what you’ve done with all this legislation?”

“Banned everyone’s vices?” asked Death.

“Yes, exactly. Do you understand why this is a bad thing?”

“No.”

“Because vices are important. They give people a break from their mundane lives. Without vices, people go clinically insane. It’s been scientifically proven.”

“Oh, stop it,” said Maria. “Tell him what you told me. Derek, Tim is worried that if you make everything illegal, he’ll lose business in the red light district.”

“That’s not what this is about,” said Tim. “It’s not what it’s totally about. It’s only a little bit about that.”

“Which district?” asked Death.

“What you should be doing is making prostitution legal,” said Maria. “That way it will be safe for women and they’ll have a choice to do what they want with their bodies.”

“That’s not the answer,” spat Tim. “That will lead to the downfall of our society.”

“Derek,” said Maria. “I mean, that is, Death. Is anything on your mind?”

Death looked at Maria’s concerned face and, surprised someone was actually fishing for his opinion, said, “Yes. Being human is difficult.”

“But you aren’t human,” she said. “You’re Death.”

“But I want to be human, because not dying is what makes you happy.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does,” said Tim. “Not dying seems awesome to me.”

“Shut up,” said Maria. “It’s not what makes people happy, Death.
Dying
is what makes people happy, indirectly of course. Because without it, we can’t appreciate life. Afterlife or no afterlife, logical humans know that this is a very brief chance we get to experience something incredible. You don’t bring harm to people; you bring confirmation of their existence. Without you, no one would be able to understand how important living is.”

Death stood up and took hold of his jacket. “I think you’re right,” he said. “My last speech for today is in a few minutes. I’ll keep what you said in mind.” He put on his jacket and left.

“Is that a dead guy over there?” asked Tim, peering into the living room at Brian.

A Happy Death

“Okay, pal, this is it,” said Izzy. He was sitting beside Death in the backseat of a limousine, scrawling on a note card. “This is the big one. It totally won’t get you impeached. Do you remember what I told you earlier?”

“About your warts?” asked Death, looking out the window at the passing trees.

“No. The other thing.”

“About how if I get impeached then you get to take over because you’re second in command?”

“Yes, that’s the one. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Oh I know,” said Death, nodding. “You already told me.”

“Okay, great,” said Izzy. The limousine came to a halt and he handed the note cards to Death. “Knock ‘em dead, boss.”

“Er…right,” said Death. The driver opened his door and he stepped out into the peculiarly hot early autumn air. He found his way to the podium and looked out at the vast crowd before him. They did not look as excited as they were for his previous speech. Death looked back at Izzy, who gave a thumbs up, and put his mouth to the microphone. “Uh, hi,” he said.

He looked down at the note cards, then back at the crowd. As he wiped sweat from his brow he made eye contact with Tim and Maria, who were standing up front. Maria gave a thumbs up, which seemed much warmer and genuine than Izzy’s. With renewed confidence, Death put the note cards in his jacket pocket and spoke.

“I know you guys are probably a little mad at me. A lot of people told me to do things that I probably shouldn’t have done. And I realize that they told me to do these things out of power, and greed, and manipulation. But I can’t let that happen anymore.”

Izzy sidled up to Death and whispered in his ear: “What exactly do you think you’re doing? Read from the cards.”

Death continued as though he had not heard. “I need to set the record straight. I don’t actually believe any of this stuff I banned should be banned. What I believe is that you should be able to do what you want to with yourselves, as long as you don’t hurt other people. So, I’m lifting all the legislation I put into place earlier today.” The crowd erupted into cheers. “You can all go back to the way your lives were before. Drink. Make love. Look at naughty pictures of women. I have no place telling you not to.”

More cheering, louder than Death had ever heard before. He beamed at Maria and Tim, who smiled back. The world was almost back in order.

“Okay then, time for Plan B,” said Izzy. He took hold of the microphone from the podium and held his hand up to silence the crowd. “I have proof of something that Mayor Derek was hiding from us all along. I feel that you, as the great citizens of not only this city, but of this country, deserve to know. There was a reason he never revealed his religion to us. You see, Derek was and still is, embarrassingly, a member of the Lightscribe Gate Group that you see prancing around Maine Street.” He set the microphone down and shot a wry smile at Death before stepping back.

“Yeah, that’s true,” said Death, nodding. He did not understand the significance of this, but apparently the crowd did as it erupted into boos. “But, uh, I don’t really know how that plays into politics, so could we stay on topic?” The boos and jeers died down. “I also wanted to announce that I’m firing my aide, Izzy. I’m beginning to think that he was just using me this whole time, and that just isn’t right.”

“You can’t do that,” screamed Izzy. “I ought to throttle you, you insignificant little—“ He lunged at Death, malice laced in his dark eyes. It was the last image Death had of him before he attempted to strangle his boss. His fingers only barely touched his neck before the light left his blazing orbs, and he crumpled to the ground. The other aides circled around him, at a loss for what to do. The crowd dove into waves of murmuring and shuffling to get a better look at what just happened.

“I’m not done though,” said Death. “I—oh, damn—I have one last announcement.” He was losing the crowd now, so he tried to catch their last threads of attention. But before he could, lightning crashed into the middle of the throng. Screaming, running, diving, mayhem. Death crouched down behind the podium and peered around the top of it.

Laughter boomed from where the lightning had struck. Some people had been set aflame by the strike, others lay paralyzed. But the laughter had silenced crowd. Death knew the voice. Satan emerged from the rubble, his arms outstretched, looking good in bright red suspenders. “Howdy, everyone,” he said in his low, booming voice, a wide grin etched above his big square jaw. “Guess who.” Screaming again. Havoc. Satan snapped his fingers and fire spouted up in a circle around the crowd. They were trapped. Maria took Tim’s shoulder and brought him down to the ground as though to shelter him.

“Oh come on,” said Death, rolling his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Satan strolled up to the stage, his arms outstretched. “That’s right, you didn’t hear. The Apocalypse, old friend. The seals have been broken. I have arisen and whatnot. Time to party.”

“When were the seals broken?” asked Death.

“Like you didn’t see it happening,” said Satan. “Wars over oil. Pop music. People thinking losing weight will make them better in some way. The Disney Channel. The final seal was broken last week, when the entire town of Northampton went blind. Some idiot tried to start his own waste dumping company and got some nuclear waste in the water supply.”

“Oh, that might have been my bad,” said Tim.

“The world is coming to a close, old friend,” said Satan. “Human beings are overcome with pettiness and greed. This is it.”

“No, most of them aren’t,” said Death. “Well, most of them are, okay. But that doesn’t mean some aren’t good. You just need to know where to look.”

“Too late for that, Deathy baby,” said Satan. He walked up on stage and snapped his fingers again. Pestilence, War, and Famine appeared next to him. Pestilence was looking at the ground, shuffling his feet.

“Hiya, Death,” he said. “Nice, uh, seeing you again.”

“You too,” said Death. “You guys doing well?”

“Yeah, can’t complain,” said War.

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here?” shouted a woman in the crowd.

“Sure, I can,” said Satan. “You can all blame your friend here. What do you call him again? Derek? See, his retirement really peeved me. I was going to hold off the Apocalypse for a few decades, really build up the army, but now I’m just feeling spiteful. But here’s the special treat: since Death isn’t working anymore, he’ll have to watch every one of his precious human friends suffer
over and over again
. It’ll be fun to see where this can go.”

“Oh, okay,’’ shouted a man who was standing dangerously close to the wall of flames. “I think I get it.”

“I still don’t really get it,” shouted a woman.

“I think it’s a metaphor,” shouted Tim, standing up. “Or something like that.”

“No, are you people stupid or something?” yelled Satan. “This is the literal Apocalypse. I am Satan and these are the Four Horsemen and we are here to create Hell on earth.”

“Yeah, see, I’m still not really convinced,” shouted Tim.

“Shut your mouth, you waste of flesh,” spat Satan.

Death looked at Pestilence, who smiled as if to say ‘sorry, I really didn’t want it to come to this.’ “Sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t want it to come to this.”

“It’s fine,” said Death, laughing. “Satan just didn’t let me finish. I wanted to make one last announcement: I’m retiring from retiring. I want to go back to my old job as Death.”

“You…uh, you do?” asked Satan. He looked at War, who shrugged.

“Yes. I’ve realized that we can’t change for change’s sake, because then we can’t grow and learn. I wanted a complete change of pace, but it wasn’t because the other option was better; it was just different. We can’t hate everything we’re used to just because we’re used to it.”

“He’s right,” said a man, removing a baseball cap from his head.

“Life isn’t a one-way street,” Death continued. “We can go out and explore the world, but we need a home to come back to. I had a lot of fun doing this, but it’s time for me to go back to what I was doing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t come back here and take a break for a while. The work is what makes the breaks that much more satisfying.”

An old woman with a walker and bug-like glasses looked at the debris around her. “We’d prefer if you didn’t come back,” she shouted.

“So I think I’m done being Derek Derek. Thanks so much for helping me through this adventure. But it’s time for me to go.”

Satan put his hand on Death’s shoulder. The touch was warm and soothing, and he looked up to see Satan had a tear in his eye. “That was beautiful, man,” he said. Pestilence nodded and hugged Death. He settled into the unfamiliar sensation of physical closeness, and embraced his old friend. Satan, War, and Famine joined in a group hug as every single person in the crowd looked on with their mouths open and eyes wide.

“This is just really weird,” said Tim. Maria nodded.

“Well, I’d like to say I’m sorry,” said Satan into the microphone. “I’ve been a right bastard lately.” He wiped another tear from his eye and smiled at Death, who smiled back. Pestilence flicked a spider off his face.

Death got down off the stage as the wall of fire ceased. Most people bolted for their homes. Tim and Maria stayed. “Well, I guess I have to get going,” said Death. “But this isn’t goodbye. Want to get a coffee next Thursday?”

“Sure,” said Tim happily. “Your treat?”

Death laughed and looked at Maria. “You’ll be free, right?”

“Yes indeed,” she said.

“I was serious, though,” said Tim.

“Alright, I’ll meet you two then,” said Death. He climbed back onto the stage to meet the rest of his friends. As Death waved goodbye, their corporeal images evaporated. The people were left to disperse back to the city and wonder what the hell just happened. Tim looked at Maria and smiled.

Death immediately went back to work. His usual rounds went on, and the world seemed to be back in the best order it could be in now. Those who became deathly ill actually died. Wars resulted in casualties. Starvation was a threat to one’s life again. Satan built his army as everyone wondered if God was even alive anymore. Even though Death found being back refreshing, the utmost happiness came when he thought of getting coffee with Tim and Maria. There were humans who cared about him and even liked him now, and Death was happy.

A Friendly Visit

Maria was ninety-four years, seven months, fourteen days, ten hours and thirty-three minutes old when she sat down on her sofa in her living room. She lived alone in Hair, Massachusetts. Long retired from the law firm she had built up from the ground, her life was full of adventure and dreams come true. One could say that, since her friendship with Death, she had had a particularly lucky life. She sat on her sofa, half-reminiscing, and looked up. “I thought I’d see you soon,” she said in an old, dry voice that still held tints of her young southern drawl.