A Business of Misery

Being a grim reaper is simple work. We watch over the human world, waiting for someone’s time to come and when someone’s clock finally stops, we swoop down to guide them into the endless abyss of death. Unfortunately, we bring them to neither Heaven nor Hell; we drop them off in an endless void of darkness where their bodies wander aimlessly as they exist in whatever happy reality their minds can create. I think Purgatory is the closest thing humans believe to this. As for us, reapers, we reside in a plane perpendicular to that of Earth and Purgatory; it’s our own little world where not a lot happens. We socialize and go to work like humans do, but we certainly don’t have the same diversity of thingsin our world.

Our existence is one that revolves around humans, so we don’t need to have as much stuff to do. We’re constantly running around reaping the souls of those who pass, and the little time we do spend in our world is usually spent at a metaphorical office receiving instructions on our next task. Guiding human souls to the afterlife isn’t the only thing reapers do, but it is the main thing. And despite being so interwoven with the human world, we stay surprisingly disconnected. Our organizational heads handle most of the details of how and when a human dies, so reapers just have to go get the soul when it happens. We try not to interact with humans very much outside of their last moments. Even then, we must be careful not to make ourselves known to anyone else around. Reapers have a few different ways of interacting with the human world: we can become physical in some sense and actually appear in the human world for all to see, but that’s a very uncommon method.

We’re able to make ourselves known only to those at death’s door, but often still detectable by other humans through a sudden chill or their sixth sense of knowing when someone is around and/or watching them—quite advanced creatures they are, really. Sometimes it’s best not to appear to the dying human at all and instead only act as a loose thread which the soul can use to find its own way to Purgatory. All of these are valid techniques and only depends on whatever feels most comforting to the soul. As for visual appearances, reapers can take on any form they like. Most of us choose to appear human; it seems to make the most sense in the minds of the average person and leaves room for any religious belief to think of us as a representation of an angel, a past life, God, whatever. Most of us have a favorite human to look like, probably someone we helped guide in the past, but we could also use a relative of whoever we’re guiding, or a close friend. Animals work, too: pets, spiritual beings, you get it.

Reapers have a set of rules to abide by, of course, though they’re quite simple and kind of common sense. “Don’t interact with humans,” “Leave life and death to the natural order,” “Don’t do anything to alter human reality,” that sort of stuff. We, reapers, don’t really have to worry about a lot of it since we don’t have many emotions to speak of, at least not in the same sense that humans do, but sometimes the unexpected can occur. I always thought of myself as a pretty ideal example of a reaper, but then I saw…her. I was in Japan to guide the soul of some poor sap who overdosed on something in an alley somewhere; classic big city stuff. The guy was a mess; wrinkled clothes, a droopy face, a needle still stuck in his arm. That was just his appearance though; reapers can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their face for a while. His suicide was accidental, but the dude didn’t seem to care about his life at that point anyway. Something about being kicked out of school, fired from multiple jobs, his parents disowning him; it’s a cruel world, this one…sometimes.

I spotted her from the alley as I made peace for the dead man a few yards away. I could tell she was a tourist—you always can—and she was strolling through the city taking pictures of every damn thing she saw. I thought it was so silly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was only when she disappeared from my limited view from the alley that I realized what had happened. I wasn’t sure what to do about it, so I decided it was best to ignore it and move on. After all, what were the odds that I’d ever see her again, anyway? A long time went by; I don’t know how long, maybe a few years in human time. I was in Australia, in another big city, making peace for a woman caught in the crossfire of some minor gang violence. She was pregnant at the time, too, which was quite sad. Unborn babies are always weird to deal with, or anyone under the age of three or so, really. Most of the time, we might guide their soul to Purgatory with the mother just as a comfort for her, but once she’s set to rest, we’ll disperse the baby’s soul.

Dispersion is one of very few exceptions reapers can make if we decide that a soul is not fit for the afterlife. In the case of a very young human, they usually haven’t experienced enough of life to be able to create a reality in their mind while in Purgatory, so they would more or less be an empty husk wandering the abyss for no reason. Heck, babies wouldn’t even get to wander; they’d just be lying there forever not thinking a thing in their heads. In the case in Australia, I decided it would be best to disperse the unborn soul before guiding the mother to Purgatory. She hadn’t decided on a name for the infant yet, anyway, despite it only being a few short weeks from birth, so I figured she wouldn’t be too attached to it. But as I made peace for her, again, I saw…her. I recognized her immediately and felt my stomach drop as my heartrate increased—which was weird because a reaper’s internal organs have no real function anymore.

We’re all immortal; we only have internal organs when we take on the form of a being which does. I was quite flustered; understandably, I think. I tried not to think about it much after that first time in Japan, but when it happened again, I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. Again, reapers don’t experience emotion, at least not in the same way humans do. It would be a while before I could put a word to it: love. I felt it—that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when looking at the source of infatuation; that never ending desire to be with that person, to hold them, to… I had to find out why. What made this human so special to be able to make me—a being whose sole purpose was to guide souls away from their physical bodies and to a realm of nothingness—become so unfocused, so utterly out of control of my own mind.

So, I decided to study her. Whenever I could, I observed her from my world. I quickly learned that she lived in the United States, but she loved traveling. She seemed lonely, though. She didn’t go out much in her own town, she was single, and she always took vacations by herself. Both of her parents were recently deceased, and she had no siblings or cousins. I found out through my observation that she was a veterinarian. She was very friendly and loved animals, but she didn’t have any pets. She talked with her coworkers while at work, even hung out with them maybe once a month, but was otherwise rather reserved and lived a solitary existence. She really lived quite a boring life, but I couldn’t help to be fascinated by it. Everything she did seemed like an exciting new adventure, even if it was just a trip to the grocery store for more shampoo and melatonin gummies.

I even started taking trips down to the human world in my limited free time. I never actually made myself part of the physical world, of course, but I got as close as I could to be able to watch her live her natural life in her little townhome. She liked reading and watching TV; typical things for an introverted lifestyle, I suppose. It was kind of fun actually, hanging around and seeing her enjoy her time alone. Most of the time when I observed a lonely human, it was near the end of their life, whether they were old and had no one left to call a friend, or because they felt out of place in the world and were disconnecting themselves from everyone around them before killing themselves. But this woman found a way to turn her loneliness into recreation.

She played games on her tablet, studied interesting articles she found online, bought crossword puzzles every week, and even dabbled in painting a little bit one summer, but she didn’t seem to like it very much. There was one time when I watched her lying in bed, reading a book before going to sleep, and she did something unexpected. She slowly put her book down and turned to look out the window. She stared directly at me across the street. I felt the heart of my human form pound within my chest, but there was no way she could have seen me; I wasn’t part of the human world at the time, but her eyes looked deeply into mine. After that, it became impossible to ignore her. I spent all my free time observing her both from the comfort of my own world, and from the human world. I still didn’t dare make myself physical, however, but taking on a human form while I watched her made me feel somehow more a part of her life. She could never have known I was there, yet I felt that she could sense the presence of someone watching over her.

Eventually, a frightening thought crossed my mind: why don’t I just kill her and keep her with me in the afterlife, I thought. I’m sure I could figure out how.

But no, I reminded myself, it was against the rules. Reapers do have the power to kill, but it’s something I had never heard about anyone using. Maybe that was because they all kept it a well-guarded secret, much like I had with my feelings toward this woman, but I knew so much about her. I could be the last thing she needed in life. I convinced myself it wasn’t a good idea. I continued watching from a safe distance; that way my work never interfered with her life, and her life never interfered with my work. I watched her for months, learned more and more about her, read all of her reports, but… I never dared to read the end. I didn’t want to know how or when she would die. It didn’t feel right. I think I was worried that if I knew that information, I would suddenly stop caring about her. In hindsight, that would have been for the better, but I was blinded by Her Lady Love’s wicked curse. It wasn’t long until I started making real appearances in the human world.

I used my typical human disguise wearing something presentable that normally put the dying at ease. I found it was also appealing to those far from death, as well. I tried not to make my stalking too obvious, but she seemed to catch glances of me from time to time. I think she believed me to just be another local resident and she never made much of it. Hell, sometimes it was quite easy to get close. I stood across the street one afternoon, hands in my pockets as she cleaned her home. She was vacuuming the carpet while listening to music with her headphones in. She always made the most mundane tasks enjoyable, both for her to do and for me to watch. She danced and sang as she cleaned. I wasn’t visible to her that time, only to the one I was really there to see. The door to the townhome I stood in front of opened with a creak. The neighbor, an old woman, bent over to pick up a small package that rested on her doorstep.

“Oh, hello there,” she said in her fragile voice.

I turned and mirrored her smiling expression. I appeared to her as one of the many helpers that visited her each day to perform the more grueling tasks around her home. My visit was only brief; she suffered a stroke, and I cradled her in my arms as the light faded from her eyes. This woman was also alone; no family, no friends, nothing. So many people lived lonely lives in the human world, and I couldn’t help to start to feel sorry for the one I fell so deeply for. Perhaps she simply didn’t know what life was like with intimate relationships. If I just made myself known to her more personally, maybe I could bring her even more joy. If only she knew. Still, I convinced myself that she didn’t need a lover; she didn’t need someone else in her life. She was a grown woman who had lived long enough to know what she needed. She made her own happiness… But that’s when he appeared.

I went back to observing her after only a short time away during a particularly ferocious period of civil unrest in Europe and Asia, but suddenly there he was. He appeared in her townhome almost every day. They laughed and played games together. He took her out to places she never went on her own. They appeared to make each other happier than I had ever seen her be by herself; they cuddled, shared intimate moments that I hated watching, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to know what went on in her life. Soon, it felt like the only times they weren’t together was when she was at work. She still wasn’t alone; she was always either with her coworkers or a client, but she was never too friendly with any of them. I listened in on her conversations with them sometimes, just to find out what she cared about enough to share with others.

“My neighbor passed away,” she said one day. “It was a little while ago, but I just heard about it.”

Her coworkers offered condolences, but she wasn’t very upset. She didn’t know the old woman very well. Of course, the new man in her life was told the night before, when she found out. It felt like the man was some sort of punishment to me for falling in love with that woman. I was forced to watch as she found true happiness with someone else. Even when they weren’t together, I could tell she was thinking of him, excited for the next time they would be together. It was only when the man made an idiotic mistake and she broke up with him that I felt fate was on my side, but of course that couldn’t be true. It took some time, but she eventually found another man. It was a cycle I had observed in other humans before, but part of me was hoping this woman was an exception somehow. She entered and exited relationships of varying lengths, and I began to wonder if she, too, was being punished.

I began to wonder if my feelings for her were preventing her from finding true love with another human. I don’t know, perhaps it was wishful thinking that the only person she could truly be happy with was me. Eventually, I was given a sign, at least that's how I interpreted it. After a particularly heartbreaking separation with one partner who’d she spent almost five years of her life with, the woman fell into a terrible depression. It was obvious to me that she was suicidal; I had witnessed the motions before. Those thoughts from years prior crept back into my head.

Just kill her yourself, put her out of her misery and show her how much you truly love her. I must admit that I probably would have done it at the time, but she beat me to the punch. I found her at the top of a tall building one evening. The sun was setting, a beautiful last view. She was in a big city yet again, her favorite places to visit, and I was terribly conflicted. I wanted her to do it so that I could be the one to guide her to Purgatory or do whatever it was I was going to do to keep her with me, but at the same time I felt anguish at the idea that this woman’s life would be over. There was the likely chance that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with her soul and would just be forced to lay her to rest and lose the opportunity to continue observing her.

I gained the courage to read the penultimate section of her report, the part that states how long a person has left to live. Part of me was relieved, but again, part of me was angry. She wouldn’t die that night. Yet, to my surprise, she jumped. She survived, of course, if only barely. Unfortunately, her pain didn’t end. Her suffering continued from a hospital bed, probably more consuming than it was before.

As all things, however, her depression did not last forever. She got out of the hospital in relatively good shape and returned home where she continued living her life as before. From then on, though, I noticed that her loneliness was not as cheerful. She no longer danced and sang while doing chores, she read less often and watched TV with a blank expression. She went out with coworkers even more rarely than before, and she stopped feeling anything close to joy on a regular basis. She was no longer suicidal, but she also seemed to lose her purpose in life, like she wished to go to sleep and never wake up but couldn’t bring herself to be her own killer. I wanted so desperately to be the one to show her how sweet existence can be, neither living nor dead, just existing. Getting to go wherever you please, whenever you please, in any form you choose. But it was impossible. It wasn’t meant to be.

Fast forward some years. In that time, she slowly regained herself and began behaving like the spry young woman I had fallen in love with. She moved to a new home, found a new job…met a new man. The man was nice enough, I suppose. He made her happy, as all the others had before tearing her heart out. It was different that time, though, I had felt. I couldn’t tell at first, but eventually it hit when they had been together for almost seven years and he popped the question. I thought at the time that she was a little old to marry, but then again, her age didn’t matter to an immortal being like myself, so I don’t know what I was thinking. The two of them bought a larger residence together and before I knew it, two young humans were running around their home to form a complete unit. I watched on and on as the children grew and achieved greatness of their own, but my focus was still entirely on her. I cared not for the other humans in her life.

She continued loving the man, and he her. Each little argument they got into gave hope to that part of me that, even after such a long time, wanted to take the woman for myself. I still couldn’t do it. There was someone who could, though. The human I was in love with was not far from death by then. I had become so accustomed to watching her live day to day for years, showing no signs of slowing down, that I had forgotten entirely about the number I saw in her report. Her time was almost up. She was comparatively young to other humans who died of “natural causes.” There was nothing I could do but watch as she and the man she spent her time with played on unaware of her approaching death. After a while, I felt that I couldn’t take it any longer; I had to know what was going to take her from that world. The suspense was almost consuming my mind more than my love for her, but my fear of knowing prevented me from checking. It wasn’t long until I found out, though. Cancer.

How original, my Lord, I thought. You couldn’t have made it something quick and painless, could you? No, you’re punishing me further for my failures. You’re making me watch the woman I love suffer a slow death, one that she is completely aware of and has no way of preventing. How cruel.

Yet, that wasn’t the worst of it still. What I thought I wanted for so long would soon come to pass, but it was only then that I realized what I wanted wasn’t to take the woman from her world. But fate is unforgiving and often presents itself in ways that contradict the desires of those at its fingertips. I was made responsible for the guidance of her soul to Purgatory. After everything, I would be the one to reap her from her body and take her away from the happiness she had suffered so much to create. I thought it would be harder than it was, but it was quite easy. Just like any other job I’d done before, only that time I took a slightly different approach. I made myself visible to her at her bedside as she drifted off into her forever sleep. She didn’t say anything, but I saw her gaze shift from her husband and children to me. Clad in what I had learned was pleasing to the eyes of humans, I hoped that seeing me brought her comfort.

I rested my hand on hers and spoke softly. I told her that all would be all right and that I would make sure she would live on in the memories of those around her, and that they would live on in her mind, as well. I kissed her forehead and watched the light disappear from her eyes as I had seen in countless others. I made peace for her as her family mourned around me, totally unaware of my existence. Then, I brought her to the void. Nothing ceremonious, nothing flashy, just my usual routine. You’d think a reaper’s last reaping would be more of a bang, but just as humans typically go, reapers disappear with a whimper. No acknowledgement is made of our deaths, we just vanish. Not every reaper disappears like that, but the ones with secrets can only hide them for so long.

Another dreary night, I thought to myself as I watched from the edge of a very high roof. The building was easily seven stories tall and provided an excellent view of the dampened streets below. The rain had only just stopped and the fresh scent of ozone still lingered. Rain often symbolizes sadness, in human cultures, particularly with death, except the rain was already over. It came just a bit too early this time. The clouds had already moved on and the gray sky was nothing more than a filter then. I descended upon the streets and made myself known to the human world. Nobody seemed to notice the sudden appearance of a person who wasn’t on the sidewalk just moments before. Nobody ever did.

I knew where I needed to be. I could feel the beat of music that was too loud for any person to enjoy. The awning above the entrance dripped water into the gutters on the street. I stood in front of a closed set of large double doors, the handles made of corroding metal which painted your hands a deep orange when touched. I didn’t bother; I walked through the heavy doors and into the darkness of the club. The music was deafening, made worse by the large open space that served as the club—an old warehouse of some kind. The room was filled to the brim with bodies. Everywhere I looked, feet shuffled, hands reached for the ceiling, and half-naked torsos rubbed against each other like worms in a can of bait. Disgusting. None of them even attempted conversation; it was far too noisy. Some communicated through their bodies: rubbing, touching, kissing, sex—right there in the open, standing up. Nobody around seemed to mind.

Truly a despicable place for only the filthiest of this species to “have fun.” I couldn’t imagine a grim reaper ever wanting to participate in such vile behavior. I breathed a breath of the wretched air and made my way to one wall so I could be away from those creatures. The only lights in the building were multicolored lasers beaming all around.

All part of the job, I thought. At least one of these poor souls will have the chance to get away from this terrible place. Probably more.

Along the way, I passed a man and a woman sprawled out in a kiddy pool. They were both naked and the pool was empty. Both still. Both starry-eyed. I made my way toward the bathroom, but a dense crowd blocked the way. I didn’t care. I passed through the wall instead. Nobody seemed to notice. They never do. The bathroom was dimly lit by a single fluorescent bulb that flickered inconsistently. Most of the stalls were occupied, probably by puking patrons or by couples—or more—indulging their bestial appetites. At the far end of the bathroom was an open stall. The sound of crying faintly emanated from within. I thought about what would be most comforting to the individual responsible. Someone dressed in casually fancy clothes. Yes, nothing too standout-ish, but noticeably nicer than most others around. Something slim. Dark. A deeper complexion in the face. Neat hair. I approached the stall and leaned against the open door. A woman sat on the floor resting her head in her arms and using the open toilet bowl for support.

Her glowing makeup streamed down her cheeks and neck staining the collar of her shirt.  The toilet water was dyed dark by some sort of fluid, but I couldn’t tell what in the shaded corner. A pair of short heels were tossed in the corner of the stall which I assumed were the woman’s since her own feet were bare against the grimy bathroom floor. I looked around the stall for one more thing. There, on the lid for the toilet’s tank, rested an empty pill bottle. Again, the darkness betrayed my mortal vision, and the contents of the label escaped my sight. I had read the cause of death in her report, though. Overdose. Her clock was ticking; it wouldn’t take too long for the effects of the medication to kick in. I didn’t really have to do anything; I didn’t want to do anything, but I thought the least I could do as a reaper was comfort her soul.

When I leaned against the open door, it tapped lightly against the wall before settling under the weight of the form I had chosen. The woman looked up still sobbing. I looked down at her with nothing more than a sorry expression.

What a pathetic place to die, I thought.

She lowered her head and began crying in her hands. Her shoulders shook with every release of tears, accompanied by a horrible whine. She was clutching something in her right hand. It looked like a capped needle, maybe. She didn’t seem to care that a stranger was watching her pitiful display. Her death was classified as a suicide in the report. She was ready to leave and she didn’t care who saw.

“Do you think this is what you deserve?” I posed to her. She continued to cry and didn’t answer my question. I sighed and looked around. A few humans passed in and out of the place occasionally, usually to relieve themselves; whether they made it to a toilet first or not was another matter. I reached for a pair of pants that hung over a closed stall door and took a couple of cigarettes from a pack dangling from one pocket. I put the thin stick to my lips and held the other toward the woman. I poked the top of her head with it and she looked up again. She sniffled and slowly reached for the cigarette before I lit both of them without a lighter. She didn’t seem to notice. Of course, she didn’t.

After a few inhalations, the woman calmed down and thanked me for the smoke. We remained in silence for a few minutes, I standing outside the stall, she sitting within it. I held a hand out to assist her in getting up, but she declined. She lowered the toilet seat with her free hand and lifted herself onto the bowl. She sat and inhaled more smoke, then spoke.

“What are you doing here?” she croaked. She coughed a few times before I answered.

“I’m here for you,” I stated matter-of-factly.

The woman seemed confused by that, judging by her furrowed brow and miserable frown. She finished her cigarette and tossed the butt between her legs and into the tainted water.

“Do we know each other?” she asked.

“Not really,” I replied. “I know your name is Delilah, but you don’t go by that anymore, do you, D? Reminds you too much of mommy and daddy, huh?”

Delilah squinted at me, probably nothing more than a hazy mannequin in her intoxicated eyes. She exhaled an inebriated sigh. “How do you know so much?” she inquired.

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “You’re dying.”

She let out a terse chuckle at the idea, then bobbed her head up and down. “We all are, I guess,” she said. I said nothing. Delilah leaned back against the toilet’s tank and dropped her arms by her sides. She let out labored breaths as she watched the ceiling light up and fall dark as the single fluorescent bulb tried desperately to stay alight. “I don’t care,” she said after a minute. “About any of it. I hate living in this world. I hate everyone and everything.”

“It does seem quite miserable here.”

“Yeah. Why are you here?”

“I told you. I’m here for you.”

“Right… Then I don’t suppose you could do something about this, huh?” Delilah rocked her fist back and forth, suggesting that she meant the thin apparatus she held. She dropped her shoulders and closed her eyes. A few tears began to stream down her face once again.

“I just can’t take it,” she mumbled. “Nobody gives a damn anymore. We all go out and get drunk and high, and do stupid shit just to forget about all the bad stuff in our lives, but none of it helps.”

“So why do it?”

“I don’t know. That’s just how people are, y’know? Everybody contradicts themselves somehow. We don’t think about it.”

“That much is obvious.”

“I mean, look at us. We’re in this shithole of a bathroom because we’re too drunk to stand—.” She looked at me, still holding a lit cigarette in hand but not smoking it and standing tall against the stall door. “At least, I am. But we don’t belong here. Nobody does! This is where hope and innocence come to die. But I guess that’s what a lot of us want, huh; just the experience of it. We just want to feel something, even if it’s numbed by pain killers and acid.” Delilah sniffled and wiped her face with her free hand. “Look,” she whimpered and held out her fist. She opened her fingers to reveal a pregnancy test. I couldn’t see the results in the darkness, but I had a guess as to the answer. “Someone couldn’t even take responsibility for their own actions.”

I stayed silent.

“I don’t even know the dude’s name. We were both stupid drunk and high; neither of us knew what we were doing. I came back here hoping to find him again, but that’s a dumb plan, huh?” She took deep breaths. The medication’s effects had to be coming in waves by then. “It’s not even the guy’s fault, is it? He probably doesn’t even remember. God, what’s the point of it all?”

I ask Him that every damned day, I thought.

“It’s all meaningless,” she said. “Life doesn’t matter. What did I do to be punished like this, with life on Earth? It’s hell, that’s what it is. Life is hell.”

“It’s funny you say that, actually.”

“What’s so funny about it?” She looked at me with contempt.

“Well, you see, I feel the same way, and it’s rare in this existence that you find someone else who does.”

“Yeah, well, I guess when you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s not much else to think.”

This girl understands, I thought. Perhaps she deserves a happy ending after all. I allowed my back to slide against the stall door as I lowered myself to the floor laying one leg flat and raising my other knee to support one arm. I drove the cigarette into the tile and smothered the embers before turning my head to look at Delilah. “You know,” I began aloud, “Life may be bad and all, but there are some beautiful places here on planet Earth. My job requires that I travel all around to work, so I’ve been to all sorts of places around the world. A lot of places are pretty ugly, yeah, like this one, but sometimes I get to be on a serene beach, in a colorful city, or lounging on the roof of a five-star resort somewhere in the mountains.”

“Looking at you, I could’ve guessed you were someone important,” Delilah teased.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I don’t get the luxury of paid vacations. I don’t really get any luxuries.”

“What do you like to do?”

“Hmph, I don’t know. I like going to abandoned buildings. Hospitals and orphanages are the best. They’re super creepy. It’s awesome.” I saw a hint of a smile with the last word she spoke.

“You know, I actually like that, too,” I lied. “I try to find creepy places wherever I go. It’s cool.”

“Really?” she asked with a grin. I nodded. We spoke for a long time more—much longer than I would have anticipated if I hadn’t known the exact time the woman had left. The effects of the medication were slow to act, but steadily more noticeable as time went on; Delilah started slurring her words even more so than she had already drunkenly been doing. Her eyes glossed over a few times during conversation before snapping back to reality. Her breathing was more and more labored, and more and more difficult to detect. Eventually, our conversation died down, and I stood. She watched me with her fading vision as I brushed myself off with gloved hands.

“You’re…pretty alright,” she said slowly. “But…I still don’t really…get why…you’re here.”

“I told you twice already. I’m here for you.”

“But…why?… What does that mean?”

“I meant what I said earlier. You’re dying; you, specifically, right now. You’re about to overdose on those meds you took before I showed up.”

Delilah’s expression grew focused as she tried to remember earlier in the night. Then, her face softened just before panic set in. She sat up on the toilet seat and clutched her forehead as if experiencing a migraine. “Wait, what?” she mumbled.

“Delilah, you won’t believe me, but I am a grim reaper. I am here to guide your soul to the afterlife.” Delilah shook her head slowly. “I only tell you this,” I continued, “because you share my views of the futility of human life. Humans are putrid beings and it disgusts me that I must guide their foul souls to a happy afterlife, but you’re different. I will be happy to bring you to your final resting place.”

“No, no, what are you talking about? I’m dying?”

“Isn’t that what you intended to do when you consumed those pills? To kill yourself? To rid yourself of the pain and misery that comes with being human? And I suppose spare another.” I nodded toward the pregnancy test in her hand.

“I—I don’t understand. You’re not human? I don’t want to die. I don’t want—no, I…” She looked at me through a mixture of tears, makeup, and mist. Regret was painted on her face. I almost felt sorry for her, but that would have been impossible. “I’m so stupid. Why did I do that? I’m not ready to go. What am I doing? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want t—to die. Please!” She flung herself from the toilet and grasped at my pants. She looked up at me from the floor. I looked down at her. She begged through tears and spit. “You have to help me. You have to do something. There has to be something you can do, right? Please, please, please. Please, please, please, please, please…” Her breathing was rapid for the moment, but soon began to slow. She curled up on the floor at my feet and whimpered softly.

“I’m sorry, Delilah,” I whispered. “I thought it would help you to have a friend by your side when you passed. I suppose, for some people, it’s easier to die alone. It can be more peaceful that way. I didn’t mean to make you suffer.” I stood over her body as her breathing became unnoticeable except for the occasional cough and gasp for air, but even those ceased after a few more minutes. Nobody had gone in or out of the bathroom for a while and most of the stalls were open and empty. The music still raged through the walls and I imagined hordes of bodies still flopping around in the lobby. I wondered if any other reapers were amongst the partygoers, but I didn’t care enough to check. Every single human life there that night was meaningless to me. Even Delilah.

It was a shame that she had to struggle to the end after having such a pleasant last few hours. Such is the risk of revealing yourself to a dying soul too early, but she seemed like she needed it. Seemed like she deserved it. The company. Maybe that’s why I choose to distance myself from humans ever more than other reapers do. I don’t care. They’re nothing but souls for me to guide to the afterlife. Their feelings mean nothing to me…right? I made peace for the woman, knowing well that I failed at my duty as a grim reaper to bestow comfort upon the dying. Oh well, this job isn’t suited for me anyway.

Perhaps whoever comes after will do a better job.

The man stood in front of me, his expression suggesting neither fear nor comfort, neither hatred nor love, neither sadness nor joy. His freshly brewed cup of coffee was splattered on the hard wood floor of the main hall in his home. The lights were off, the switch mounted on the wall next to me, but he dared not move any closer. The light from the kitchen cast a shadow on his front, but the radiant beams emanating from my form provided a dim glow which lit his face.

“Be not afraid,” I told him, but he needed no such reassurance. His face was neutral for the most part, but his darting eyes told me that he knew not what exactly he was witnessing. My many eyes concentrated on him, his two unsure of where to look when I spoke. My wings of fire expanded to consume the walls adjacent to me and blocked his path forward. The front door was behind him and the stairs leading to the second floor were just a few steps away, but he knew better than to try and flee. I knew of the form I took through stories and art; a truly horrifying figure with no resemblance to a human whatsoever, yet so many found comfort in such a creature. A feeling of overwhelming dread overcame any who encountered one, yet they couldn’t help to feel warm and accepted. They were being welcomed to a new life and eternal happiness. This man may have thought the same, but his knowledge of what lay beyond was limited, as is every human’s.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “I appear before you as a servant to your God, just as you are.” The man remained silent. He turned to his right and faced a mirror mounted on the wall. A portrait of the man was situated across from the mirror on the opposite wall, but the man’s face blocked the portrait from view. He blinked and examined his face in the mirror, then turned back to me as my flames slowly expanded to consume a little more of the hall. He exhaled and thin vapor escaped from his lips. The air was cold, yet my embers kept us warm.

“God, huh?” the man said with a chuckle. “I thought he stopped paying any attention to me a long time ago.”

“You are always being watched,” I assured him. “You always have been.”

“Hmph, well, it certainly didn’t feel like it. God saw all of it? The suffering? And he didn’t do a single thing about it.”

“The mortal world is a place of law and order, despite the chaos that may seem to run rampant. It is no single entity’s place to do anything.

“You’re telling me that God just watched, then, when my family’s livelihood turned to shit? Watched as my father became a drunk and ignored His teachings, beating my mother and siblings to pulp and casting me to the streets? Did He just sit back and relax while I and countless others prayed to Him to end our abuse and torment? That’s some guy to be worshipped if you ask me.” The man’s voice sounded tired; he acted as though speaking of God made him miserable. Yet, I could see in his eyes that what was displayed before him was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life and that he thought it was a beautiful sight—something truly worth believing in.

“Do you use your own suffering as an excuse to bring hell upon others?” I asked.

“I never put that much thought into it,” he admitted. “Everyone deserves to be happy, right? Well, what I did made me happy, at least for a little while. Nothing else brought me joy in this life, so I did what I did as often as I could just to feel something positive.”

“But your victims were not happy. They suffered at your hand—those hard-working people whose riches you took for yourself, those innocents whose lives you ended on a whim, those children whose sacred gift you robbed just to feel any sort of control for once—they were not happy in the end.”

“If it was all so bad, then why didn’t God stop me, huh? Why doesn’t God do anything about the suffering? Crime shouldn’t exist if He has anything to say about it!”

“God is not here; it is only you and I.” My wings crept ever closer to the man, climbing along the walls at a snail’s pace, distorting the plain wallpaper as they moved. The man took several deep breaths after becoming agitated at the idea of an un-acting God, the mist from his lungs adding to the fogginess of his mind. But he remained calm on the outside.

“I’m supposed to believe that God, who we are taught loves us and created us in His vision to be worshippers because He and all that He does is good, in reality doesn’t give a damn about what happens to us on Earth, but expects us to be completely righteous in our tortured lives so that our souls can join him in a heaven built on the lies of our teachers and priests?”

“It is not my duty to dictate what you are and aren’t to believe. Every human lives a life full of good and evil, making choices and responding to the choices of others, until one day their time ends and it is the job of my kind to bring them to where they belong.”

“So, God can’t be bothered to do anything on his own. That’s why he sends angels to do his dirty work and deal with the restless people he cursed with free will.”

“Is it not your ancestors who cursed you all so long ago according to the myths you tell?”

“God’s the one who created them. He could’ve made them perfect if he wanted to. He probably could’ve had an Earth full of devout worshippers if He really cared, right?”

I didn’t answer him. I feared that perhaps I was wrong to have chosen a form as mighty as this one. What else was I to think could comfort a man so unworthy of an eternity in paradise? Should I have taken an evil form? No, fear is not the way to guide someone to Purgatory. My duty was to comfort the dead. Despite what humans want to believe, everyone is equal in death, and their treatment is always the same, for nobody deserved to be unhappy in death.

“So, what?” the man inquired. “You’re here because I’m going to die soon, right? Probably any second now? Then I guess you’ll pass me off to a demon or something that’ll take me to hell for my sins. Eternal suffering, that’s all I get, yeah? Or perhaps you are a demon; two sides of the same coin. You might look like a servant of God, but you’re whatever you’re needed to be, huh?”

“You’re wrong,” I responded. “For it is not your death that is imminent. You are already dead.” The man seemed unaffected by the news at first, but his face soon sank into a sad acceptance upon looking down at his own corpse lying in the middle of the hallway. He held an empty cup with one hand and clutched at his chest with the other. “Everyone experiences it differently,” I stated. “Perhaps some would believe that the likes of you deserved a more gruesome end. I do not condone nor condemn your actions in life. I am simply present to guide your soul to the afterlife, neither heaven nor hell. Such places are prisons, forcing you to experience eternity under the watch of a greater power, be it good or evil. Where I take you, you will live the life you’ve always dreamed of.”

The man stood for a moment looking still at his limp body on the floor. He looked at the portrait of himself hanging on the wall and saw himself full of life. Then, he turned to the mirror opposite the portrait, but found that it had been consumed by my ever-growing embrace on the hallway. He raised his arms and hugged himself, breathing misty breaths and shivering ever so slightly. “I feel cold…” the man whimpered.

“You feel nothing,” I assured him. “But soon, you will only feel joy and pleasure.”

“When I was a young boy, I believed whole-heartedly in heaven and hell, but as I grew older and my view of the world changed, I stopped praying, I stopped worrying about the Commandments.” He stood there contemplating, perhaps feeling still that he was in the presence of a servant to his God. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was finally calm and seemingly ready to move on. The flames that surrounded me were then completely engulfing the hallway. The distorted landscape of the corridor swirled and blended in with my form and enveloped the man, too. Together, we were melded with the flames, the shapes, the eyes, life and death. Everything became one.

The man, who I could still see through the lights and colors, was staring not at me, but through me. I could see the concentrated look in his eyes as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Even after our encounter, there were still sights that could amaze the man. I don’t know what it was that caught his attention so boldly, but in his face, I could see true euphoria. Perhaps a scene of his family acting as a loving unit, maybe someone he cared for deeply was holding him in a dream, or maybe it was the final realization of his end in the mortal realm. I will never know what final sight he bore witness to, but just like everyone else, he landed in the final resting place: a barren void in which all souls wander for eternity dreaming of a perfect life.

The memory of a grim reaper is incredible. We aren’t perfect; we can’t remember every tiny detail of every day of our existences, but we never truly forget anything. However, I remember that day so clearly; I do remember every detail about it. It’s what came after that I struggle with. I had grown fond of a human—something that a grim reaper should never do, something that should never be possible. But it happened to me. I liked watching this human. I spent much of my time watching him. I knew everything about him from the report, including when and where his time would end, and exactly how. I decided on that day, that I would venture down to the human world and spend his last moments with him as a stranger. I met him on a sidewalk waiting for the pedestrian light to signal for us for move to the other side of the road. I still remember everything about that moment.

The human had silky blonde hair similar in color to beach sand but with darker streaks throughout. His face was narrow, and his nose pointed upward. His hazel eyes stared at the ground as other humans shuffled around him, all waiting for their turn to cross the street. His fair skin was dotted with tiny freckles. He wore a long coat of sturdy fabric, gray in color with buttons from his neck to his hips, but he left it open. Under the coat he donned a yellow shirt decorated with a blue flower pattern, probably sleeveless. A blue scarf hid his neck from the chill of the morning air and provided him with a place to rest his chin so elegantly as he waited on the sidewalk and on his feet were flat shoes. I even remember that his fingernails were filed cleanly. His cream-colored bag kept sliding off of his shoulder, so he had to repeatedly adjust it. He didn’t have any earrings that day, but he wore some sometimes.

His resting expression was one of contentment; he wasn’t smiling, but one could tell that he was satisfied with life. There was a certain glow about him that radiated overall joy. I remember complimenting his bag. “Its simplicity is beautiful,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he’d said with a small smile. There were 14 other humans waiting at that crosswalk, and several more were passing by. So many potential victims of the horrendous act that would happen so suddenly. The light switched and told the pedestrians to begin their march. We all walked forward over the marked path. I knew it was coming. I saw the crook who would be responsible for his end walking the opposite way. They had their hands in their coat pockets. An unnoticeable bulge in their pocket cast a small shadow over their shoe. They faced the ground at first, then looked up as the opposite crowds merged and people weaved past one another. They saw their target; it wasn’t the man whom I had grown fond of, but he was in front of the one the killer wanted. The shooter withdrew a small pistol from their coat pocket and pointed it toward the intended victim. The man, however, obscured the target slightly, and the target tried to use the crowd to remain out of sight of the gun.

The killer was meant to fire at the target, but miss and instead hit the man, but that didn’t happen. I don’t know why it didn’t happen; I don’t know I intervened, but my body acted without thought. Reapers aren’t able to directly cause a human to face an early death, but if a reaper takes a physical form on Earth and manipulates the environment, then who knows what might occur? My hands reached out and grabbed the man’s arm. I pulled him aside, out of the way of the shot. Then, the killer fired their weapon, and as the rest of the crowd dispersed at the sight and sound of the multiple gunshots, the intended victim stumbled back and fell onto the painted asphalt. They died right then and there. They weren’t supposed to die. He was. I was supposed to guide him to the afterlife, but I didn’t. The dead human also didn’t receive attention from any reapers. They weren’t meant to. I’m not entirely sure what happened to their soul after that.

The man yelped and gasped, scrambled along the ground and away from the scene. I helped him remain steady. A brave individual grappled with the gunner and pinned them to the ground and managed to get the gun away from them. Once we were away from the crowd that began to gather once again, the man caught his breath and stared into my eyes.

“Thank you,” he said again, this time in a much more sincere tone. I didn’t know what to say back. He looked down at the ground for a moment, and when he brought his head up again, I was gone. I remember leaving the human realm, unsure of what I had just caused. I decided to stop observing the human man for a while. I didn’t know whether a new fate would be written for him, whether he would reside in living limbo, or if something would happen to me. Nothing happened, but I didn’t return to the human world for anything except guiding souls to Purgatory, and even then, I would only appear as a felt presence to the dying.

I simply continued to do my job as I naturally would have, and by the time I returned to observing the man I had prevented from perishing, he had changed. I can’t describe in detail what it was, but his face was different, he stood differently, he dressed differently. He no longer had a joyful glow about him. His resting expression was one of exhaustion and discontent. Nothing had changed about his report except for the death timer. It had entered the negatives; I didn’t know that was possible. I watched him. After a while, I picked up on the fact that his mother was in the hospital. That’s why he was so gloomy then, I thought, but it soon dawned on me that there was more to his modern sadness.

His mother wasn’t just in the hospital; she was in a coma and showed no signs of waking up. His father had gone on a rampage after losing his job and harmed the mother into her current state, then was arrested. Not only that, but the man had come to realize the dread of mortality. He could have died that day; he thought about it often, I knew. He should have died that day. To make things worse, I needed to return to the human realm soon to guide another soul; I found out in the moment that the soul I was guiding was his grandfather’s. His grandmother wasn’t far behind. He was very close with them both. Of course, his mother’s death was inevitable and happened only a year later when his uncle made the decision to pull the plug. I guided her soul, too.

My favored human suffered the most. He attended a friend’s wedding but was not happy. At the reception, he stayed quiet and didn’t participate in any of the planned activities. When he returned home, despite having lived alone for years, his apartment felt lonelier than before. He cried himself to sleep every night. Still, his death counter counted down into the depths of infinity. I still thought about the human who died in his place and where their soul might have been. He lost another loved one—a friend who was speeding around on a jet ski. I didn’t guide them, but I watched. I didn’t speak to the other reaper; I’m not sure they even realized I was there. I never saw the man I was fond of smile again. As if things couldn’t get any worse, his father escaped prison and was shot dead in the streets when the police caught up to him. He was robbing a young lady on her way back home from school; things didn’t end well for her, either.

I guided the father, but not the student. I began wondering if it was some sort of divine punishment. I was being forced to take his friends and family away from him, and in turn make his life insufferable. Was I supposed to driver him to suicide? Was that the only way to make his life end naturally? I wish that had been the worst of it; I wish that was how it was supposed to end. In the end I realized that his life was only as bad as it was because he wasn’t supposed to live to witness the horrible things that were happening around him. His mother was always going to fall into a never-ending coma, his father was always going to be arrested and later shot, his grandparents were on their last legs even before his prevented death, and his friend was always destined to go out with a bang.

It wasn’t some form of punishment; I alone was the reason for his suffering. I saved his life and in turn made him suffer a fate worse than death, but nothing could be done about it. As far as I could tell, no new death had been assigned to him and he was just going to live on forever and ever. I hadn’t thought about it for a while, but what about his age? Would his body continue aging until it was physically impossible for him to be alive? What about after? Was this man truly damned? No, I thought, don’t be ridiculous. He will live out the rest of an average life and die of natural causes, surely. I also vividly remember the day he died. After a very rough few years from the day he should have passed, I was presented with the perfect opportunity. I met him again in a gazebo at a park in the city he lived in.

When I walked up in physical form, he turned and looked at me. The air was warm. He wore yellow shorts and a navy classic rock band shirt. He wore sandals; this time sparkling beads dotted each ear. His freckles were more prominent in the warmer season and he tied his hair back, which was even lighter that time of year, into a messy bun. “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize someone else had already claimed this as their ‘I need to be alone’ spot,” I joked.

He chuckled a bit but didn’t smile. “That’s okay,” he said. I waited for him to recognize me. He furrowed his brow slightly as his memory came back to him, and he pointed a finger at me. “It’s you, isn’t it?” he whispered. I looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I’ll never forget such a near-death experience. You’re the one who pulled me away from that crazy person with a gun. On the crosswalk a few years go.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, pretending to have just been reminded of the experience. “How could I have forgotten something like that. I’m sorry, I guess life’s just been so hectic since then.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” he agreed.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re still hanging around,” I told him. He flashed a polite smile—the first I’d seen from him in years. He stood silently. “If you have time,” I offered, “walk with me and we can catch up. I’m curious to know what the person I saved has been up to.”

He agreed. We walked together around town as the sun approached the horizon. Street lights began illuminating the sidewalks as he told me about his family troubles. He didn’t go into very much detail; I was more or less a stranger to him after all, but I knew. He told me about whatever else was going on in his life at the time, but those details I don’t remember. I wasn’t listening; I was too focused on my plans. We walked for around an hour and he shared with me the bulk of his life in those past few years. Honestly, after I prevented his death and stopped observing him for a time, part of me had forgotten the joy I felt watching him live his life. It was also difficult to find happiness in watching him suffer for the last few years, but on that walk, I was reminded of why I enjoyed watching him so much.

He was so full of life, and not just literally. Even with so much negativity, he seemed to have happy thoughts to fall back on. Even though I couldn’t tell from a distance, he had been recovering and making himself feel better from the inside. It didn’t matter though; I had to fix my mistake. We headed toward a quieter part of town that we could cut through to circle back to the park. He asked about how my life had been since I saved him. “Well, work’s been hard,” is all I said. Then, I looked forward and pointed. “Hey, check it out!” I tried to act excited.

“What?” he questioned as I started to run ahead.

“Come on!” I shouted. He started to jog after me. I tried to get some distance from him and looked back before turning a corner. “Hurry!” I yelled. Just before rounding the corner, I caught a glimpse of a smile—a genuine smile. It pained me. He felt joy in that moment, I could tell. This stranger whom he had only met once before had given him what he needed. In that moment, he had someone in his life that he could turn to, literally run to. I disappeared around the corner. When he made it to the turn, I waited across another street and beckoned him to come to me. He started running as fast as he could in his sandals. “Come look at this,” I said. I turned around. I didn’t want to see him, but I couldn’t help to watch in the side mirror of a car parallel parked next to the sidewalk. He made his way across the street just as a large truck came barreling down the hill and sped through the four-way intersection.

I knew the truck would be there. The human driving it had died. They suffered a sudden stroke behind the wheel and ran a red light at the bottom of the hill. I was to guide their soul to Purgatory. The man I was fond of was in the middle of the road when the truck drove through the intersection. At first, it didn’t look like he noticed even as the truck made its way down the street he was on; then he turned. As if in slow motion, his smiling face became one of surprise, then terror. He faced me again, still not looking directly at him, and began to close his eyes and mouth. I think he died before they were completely shut. His lifeless body laid in the street, flattened by the tens of thousands of pounds of engineering that had just swept by. His face was mangled and covered in blood from every orifice. More blood pooled around him. By the time a small crowd had gathered, I left. I don’t remember exactly where I went, but I remember what I felt.

It was a weightlessness I had never experienced before. It almost felt as though the essence of death that was a grim reaper, myself, was fading away. I had heard stories of grim reapers disappearing inexplicably; some reapers feared a similar fate and were unsure why it happened. I knew then. As my mind faded away, for the first time in my existence I truly began to forget things, I only thought of the person who was killed in place of my favored human. Fate intended for him to die in their place, but without meaning to I took action and prevented that reality. Reapers have more power to decide than we know. I was content with that idea. In a strange way, I felt comforted knowing that I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it anymore. So, I embraced true death and thought of nothing more. I had no memories to think about, and before I knew it, I was gone.

Humans are incredibly interesting. Just by observing them, you get a glimpse into their world. You get to see what they care about, what they like to do, where they like to go, who they hang out with, and so much more. I like observing humans, but that’s all I do. Nothing more. I guide them to the afterlife, of course; I go down to the human world when someone is on their deathbed and I help comfort their soul as it passes on to Purgatory, or whatever they like to call it. I don’t involve myself with humans any more than that, though.

I find human behavior to be extremely intriguing. They do so many things that are just unnecessary for a species and they usually enjoy it. People run just for fun, they gather in groups of varying sizes and dance, play together, sometimes just sit and talk. They form bonds with members of other species and actually care for those other creatures as if they were one of their own. I love being a grim reaper—for humans I should say. Are there grim reapers for dogs and fish and birds? I don’t know. If there are, they don’t guide the souls of their fallen to Purgatory, or at least not the same one that humans go to.

Humans eat for pleasure because they have an abundance of food most of the time, they use money to buy things and work in order to get money, they also lie and cheat and steal and perform acts that other humans consider evil. They pretend to be people that they aren’t just so others will accept them and be friends with them. Humans always have something to hide, but most of them show their true colors when faced with death. That’s what I find so fascinating about them. The fear of their end inspires a change of heart in many humans, and they end up displaying their true feelings—admitting love, protecting others, or failing to do so.

You can learn a lot about someone just by observing who they call first when they know the plane they’re on is about to crash. When a human believes they are about to die, their whole demeanor changes. Depending on the situation, they tend to either accept it and collectively grieve with those around them, or they flee if able and trample any who stand between them and a chance to escape death. “Tragedies” is the umbrella term humans use to describe events which lead to immense loss of human life. These are my favorite times to be a grim reaper.

Attending a tragedy is so exhilarating because you get to observe tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of humans all reacting to the same catastrophe, but they all have such unique responses. Many run for their lives, many accept their fate, many choose to end it themselves so they have some sort of control. Imagine watching as a nuclear powerplant goes up in flames. Thousands of people running and screaming for their lives as radiation explodes into the atmosphere and the surrounding landscape.

Hordes of people rushing through narrow hallways and cramming each other through doors. The most famous of these tragedies was in a place called Ukraine on Earth. Chernobyl, it was called. Only three or four dozen people died directly from the disaster—a pretty small number compared to other bad occurrences in the human world. Even so, the impact of the meltdown remains to be seen there to this day. I got to witness that tragedy, and it was beautiful. Some of the workers tried to help each other escape; others pushed past and tried to save only themselves.

The man I guided to the afterlife was of middle age and had a family; he was scared upon death, and I got to calm him before he passed on. A similar display of chaos happened on a huge boat in the middle of the ocean one spring a long time ago. The ship was named the Titanic. Around 1,500 people died when the boat sank. There weren’t enough lifeboats and, most of the passengers drowned or froze to death in the icy waters. Surprisingly, a lot of the people who had fallen into the sea tried to help each other stay afloat, but it wasn’t until after the ship had surrendered to a watery grave that they worked together.

When boarding a lifeboat was still an option, the crowds were rambunctious and forceful. I remember seeing one man push his way to a lifeboat that had been reserved for women and children, as most of them had been, but he slipped on the wet deck and fell into the water. Fifteen-hundred reapers all in one place; can you imagine? The woman I guided to Purgatory had also slipped and fallen into the ocean when the boat broke in half. She was carrying an infant with her; the baby was too young to guide to the afterlife, but I managed to cheer the woman up and guide her soul happily into eternal slumber.

Times of war are especially busy for us reapers. The wars of the past were certainly more deadly than the wars of the present on Earth, but a good number of humans still lose their lives to conflicts they’re ordered to participate in. War is especially interesting for human behavior because most of the people involved don’t want to be there. Sure, the Chernobyl incident took place at a location where people worked, and from what I understand most humans don’t want to be at work, either, but in the case of wars, the soldiers actively want to escape.

Humans understand that they must work to survive in their society, but soldiers don’t understand why they’re fighting most of the time. It makes their deaths extra unsavory for them. What humans call World War II was easily the busiest we reapers have ever been in a time of war. I guided 86 humans to the afterlife directly due to the war over the course of those six years, and I remember every single one of them. My favorite was a boy who was killed near the end of the war. He wasn’t a combatant; he was a toddler in school when an enemy of his nation dropped a massive warhead on his hometown.

The boy was actually rather happy upon death. His teacher had ducked under a desk with him and was comforting him up until the end. They were both vaporized instantaneously when the bomb exploded a few miles away. Even with so many tragedies under my belt, seeing so many reapers in one place is such a stunning display. The light from the mass of souls being guided to Purgatory is beautiful. I’ve been around for a long time; I’m one of the few reapers existing today who has been. I can say with certainty that the most influential disasters when it comes to killing humans are the ones caused by disease.

Humans are surprisingly durable despite their fleshy outside and weak wills. However, their immune systems are only so durable and sometimes a simple virus or bacteria can get the better of them. Their selfish nature comes into play once again when you see that they often don’t care about the ongoing pandemic and continue acting as usual, only for the disease to spread and wreak havoc on the world. In the early years of the 20th Century of the most popular human calendar, a single virus killed as many as 100 million people. I guided 102 people directly due to the pandemic in those three short years that the virus reigned.

The most memorable to me was a man who lived on a boat at the time. He wasn’t killed by the virus; he tried docking his boat at a port in eastern Europe and was refused. When he explained that he needed food and fresh water, the men guarding the dock told him he’d have to wait to be cleared by the military which had seized control of the port to limit travel in and out of the nation. The man tried forcing himself into the port and was shot dead. That wasn’t even during the worst pandemic I’d ever witnessed unfold on Earth. In the middle years of modern civilization, a plague the humans deemed The Black Death swept across the world.

Upwards of 200 million people were killed during the seven-year tragedy. I guided 197 humans to the afterlife directly due to the plague in that time; I don’t really have a favorite one. There are too many to choose from. Admittedly, I kind of like seeing humans act selfishly sometimes. It adds some variety to what I get to see as a grim reaper. It helps remind me that every single human being on Earth is a unique individual. It can be easy to get lost in the work of guiding souls to the afterlife, and you can forget that each person needs special treatment when trying to comfort their soul.

I think my favorite thing to appear as to someone on their deathbed is their favorite pet. Even if the animal is still alive, seeing it rest beside their beloved human can bring said human such joy nine times out of ten. At the end of the day, what I like to see is a happy soul getting escorted to Purgatory. Whether the person that soul belonged to acted selflessly or selfishly before death, whether they expressed love or protected others, whether they were an all-around good person or lived a life of crime, I don’t care. Everyone deserves happiness in the end, and if I can’t bring it to them, then I have no reason to exist as a grim reaper.