Page 156 of Grim

“So, a lobotomy in a luxury suite?”

He gives me a wink. “It has an amazing view.”

My brain floods with a sea of memories I cherish, each like one of the precious crystal animals in Amanda Wingfield’s menagerie. “And what’s the other option?”

“Well, Rue, it turns out, that tiresome empathy of yours, that annoying willingness tolistenandunderstandpeople, has proven a pretty powerful tool. Who knew?”

“This is my surprised face,” I mumble.

“What did you say?” D’s voice cracks like a whip.

“I said, this is my surprised face.”

D gyrates behind his desk as though shaking the phrase off him somehow.

“Anyway,” he begins, “I turned a blind eye to the potential in this pathetic, and frankly meaningless, compassion.”

“It’s not meaningless to the souls receiving it.”

“Yes, I understand that, but in the grand scheme of things, when you take a macro view,mortal, each of your stories mean very little in the end.”

I bury my ire for the moment and allow him to finish his explanation.

“But we have been missing an opportunity. More souls mean expansion, growth, increased productivity. So, I’m offering you a once-in-an-AfterLife chance to continue what you started. Return to the mortal realm and help shepherd more of those long-abandoned cases back across the threshold. Punishing beings for eternity because of a poor choice made in one high-stakes moment is perhaps a bit draconian. Now, with your gifts, we have an opportunity to make room for …”

“Forgiveness?” I supply, and D bristles at the word.

“Something like that,” he deflects.

“Mercy?” I drop the word like an anchor straight to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

His black eyes shoot to mine, but the flames inside them don’t dance. Instead, they turn the deepest shade of blue I’ve ever seen. A fire burning at its hottest point.

“In my infinite generosity, I offer you a choice. An eternity of peace or an AfterLife of purpose. PTO or a job as the founding head of the Lost Souls Division,” he says, plucking another Twizzler from Nana’s dome and biting it in half.

I stare at the skull between us with her hollow sockets and furrow my brow. “Did Nana just wink at me?”

“Probably.” D shrugs. “She must like you. She’s an excellent judge of character.”

D pauses and appraises me, perhaps trying to guess at which direction I’m leaning. This is my red pill/blue pill moment.

“So, what’ll it be?” D leaves the question hanging in the air.

I don’t hesitate. “I only have one demand.”

Reassignment

The weathered beige stack of papers remains a heap on my desk. I pull, verify, stamp, and sort sheet after sheet, yet still, the pile remains. Like Sorites paradox of the heap, I wonder futilely if this task has an end, if this mass of dusty pages will ever stop being a heap.

Pull. Verify. Stamp. Sort.

Pull. Verify. Stamp. Sort.

The air smells stale. The words on every page look as though they were printed on the last dregs of ink in the printer. The only reprieve from the endless mundanity of it all comes in the form of the occasional papercut—an annoyance in life, a welcome distraction in the OtherWorld.

A cool blue fluorescent light emits half of its potential illumination, giving me just enough to see by, if I remain hunched over my nondescript desk. Somehow, this is worse than the days before electricity. Candles at least give off some warmth.

I look up to the wall opposite my desk, where a clock should hang. But time is nothing more than a loop, an eternal recurrence of the same nothingness. Moments blur together, much like the pale words on the page I’m currently trying to decipher before applying the appropriate stamp and shuffling it off to its correct outbox stack.