It's a Wonderful Death - Sarah J. Schmitt Page 0,93
to be kidding me,” I say, whirling around to see who’s talking to me.
Standing before me, complete with his black robe and sickle, is Gideon, my personal, repeat Grim Reaper.
Chapter 38
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I roar. “I didn’t even get a full day.”
“Technically, you got a little more,” Gideon claims.
My jaw drops and I stare at him. “How much of that time was spent in a drug-induced state?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“And what happened to my seventy years, anyway? I thought I had decades left before I was supposed to see you.”
Gideon shrugs again.
Stupid Reaper. But this time, I’m not letting him hustle me onto the train before I get some answers. Sitting down cross-legged, I look up him with my most defiant face. “I’m not going until you tell me what’s happening. Why am I here? Why did I die?”
Gideon rubs his eyes with the tips of his fingers and then, to my surprise, plops down next to me. “We have to do this now?” he asks.
“You know as well as I do, once I’m on that train, it’s a short hop to the Lobby where you dump me off and leave me until they call me for processing.”
He looks at me quizzically.
“What?”
“Once again, you defy what’s supposed to happen.”
“How so?” I ask, careful to pay attention for any tactic that might distract me from getting the answers I need.
“No one thought you would remember being here before. Not yet, anyway, but you do.”
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to distract me with something odd and fascinating about myself. Not gonna work. “Whatever. Tell me why I didn’t live to be a hundred or something like that,” I demand.
“You changed your past and those changes showed up in your present. They also changed your future.”
“Wait, are you telling me that by jumping through the hoops the Tribunal set out for me, I ended up trading in a long life for one more day?”
“I suppose you could look at it like that,” he says with annoyance.
“What other way is there?” I ask with equal annoyance.
He stands and extends his hand to help me up. I don’t take it. With a sigh he says, “You could look at it like this: while your old timeline offered you many years, it was a wasted life void of true friendships, compassion, and accomplishment, whereas your new life, though shorter, was full of putting the needs of others before yourself and thus leaving the world a better place. You literally changed people’s lives.”
“I don’t see how,” I mutter.
He stretches his hand a little farther. “Just walk with me. I won’t make you get on the train until you’re ready.”
“Why would I believe you? If memory serves me correctly, the last time you didn’t exactly give me a choice.”
He holds his other hand up like he’s taking an oath. “On my honor.”
“You’re not going to wait until the last possible moment and then shove me through the doors?”
“Just get up.”
This time I do, but not with his help.
“Some things will never change. You’re still as stubborn as always.”
“So how did I change lives in just a couple of hours?”
“A day,” Gideon reminds me.
“Whatever,” I spit out.
“Well, you saved that little boy.”
Okay, it’s hard to argue with a Grim Reaper when it comes to death. “That’s just one person.”
“What, that’s not good enough for you? Seriously, you don’t have to worry about me pushing you through the door of the train. What you should be worried about is me pushing you in front of it.”
“I’m already dead, remember,” I mutter.
“True, but the ride to the Lobby is pretty bumpy. Better to be inside than out.”
We must be nearing the station, because I see more and more souls and Reapers filling in all around us.
“This is my real time, huh? This is what I fought against the angels for? One more day?”
“And a life well spent,” he adds.
I can see the train pulling in ahead of us. I know he’s right, about this being my time to die. I don’t like it, but in my gut, I know he’s right. I wonder if this is why everyone else is so catatonic. It’s their soul’s way of stopping them from totally freaking out about being dead until they are able to see their life in review. Except for the really old. They still seem almost joyful.
“Hey, Gideon,” I say.
“Yes?”
“How come I’m more like the geriatrics than the walking zombies?”