“Mr. Wainscott, it is time.”
Jeff Wainscott jumped at the sound of the voice behind him and turned to face the shrouded figure. The skeletal hands gave Jeff a moment of pause, but the scythe really made him freeze in his tracks.
“Mr. Wainscott? Mr. Wainscott? Oh come on man, I don’t have all day. Plenty of other folks out there dying to make my acquaintance. Get it? Dying to make … oh never mind.”
A skeletal hand reached out and slapped Jeff. Jeff replied by uttering a blood curdling scream.
“Oh good, you’re not catatonic. Come on, time to be reaped and whatnot. Now where did I put that … could you hold on to this for a moment?”
Death handed Jeff the scythe. Jeff held it loosely, using it for balance to keep from fainting straight out as Death rummaged around in his robes. After a moment, he pulled a clipboard with a stack of paper on it as well as a pen.
“Ah thank you. I’ll take that and you take these. I need you to fill out this paperwork and sign at the fourteen points marked with the little neon posty things. Once that is squared, we’re off.”
“Off where?”
“Off to the Cosmos … also known as the Soul Processing and Reclamation Complex. I just call it SPaRC, though I don’t think it appreciates it.”
“What? I mean, why?”
“If I had to guess, I suppose it considers it to be a little disrespectful. Especially when I call it SPaRCles.”
“No, I mean why would I go with you?”
“You are Jeffery Cornelius Wainscott, correct?”
Jeff nodded his head.
“Well, Mr. Wainscott, I must inform you that you are dead. Though I would have thought my appearance would have been somewhat of an obvious hint. You’re really not quick on the uptake, are you?”
“Hey! I’m sorry if I am having trouble processing this at the moment. It’s not every day that I come face to face with the Grim Reaper. It may just …”
“Man, I hate that nickname! Look at me. Do I look grim? I mean, granted I do wear an abundance of black, but you can ask any of my friends and they will tell you I am a rather chipper individual. Well, my coworkers, really. Subcontractors, actually, but they will still tell you I am by no means grim.”
“Sorry, I had no idea.”
“No you wouldn’t, would you. No one does. It’s all what they read in fiction and see in movies. ‘Oh, he’s terrifying!’ and ‘Please spare me!’, like I have any say in the matter. I’m really just a Cosmic Repo Agent. At least you didn’t ask me to play a game of chess for more time.”
Jeff put the chess board he had picked up back down on his desk. Death looked at Jeff, then the board, then Jeff again.
“Really?”
“Well, I thought if it worked in the movies, that I could at least give it a shot.”
“Damn it! I swear I should have kept Ingmar Bergman around to just play all the games of chess you sorry sods suggest. That would have been a fitting punishment. Anyway, time to finish off the paperwork and get a move on. We’ve got a lot of other stops to make. Oh, and grab that chess board.”
“You want to play?”
“What? Oh no. But if any of the other folks who are on my list want to play, at least you can play among yourselves.”