Page 34 of Grim

Leaving my face an expressionless mask, I run my fingers to the back of her head. The tactile sensations of the warmth of her scalp, mixing with the gentle tickles of her hair running through my fingers, almost overwhelm me. I remain stoic, though inside, I am a volcano. Molten.

She drinks, and then I pull my hand away, her head dropping back onto the pillow awkwardly.

“Owww! Dick.”

“Sorry,” I concede. “No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.”

There is a moment of unnavigable silence before she changes the subject, asking, “How did that ‘work matter’ go?”

“Quite well. Most souls are content to move past this plane of existence.”

“As long as it’s their time,” she deadpans.

“Time answers to no one. You got it.”

“So, where do they go?” she asks, and I can feel her energy shifting from resistance to a desire for understanding. That’s a promising development.

I explain the basics, as I’ve done countless times before. “Your physical form remains here while your spirit essence moves into the OtherWorld. I and many other reapers are tasked with shepherding those souls to that place.”

“OtherWorld?”

“Yes, as in not this world. Not the Earth realm, but rather what lies beyond. Not here, but there. Does that make enough sense?”

“Sure,” she concedes. “Go on.”

“Everyone begins in AfterLife Processing, or ALP.Every spirit goes through Intake, Instructions, and finally Assignment. That’s where souls are given jobs and levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy based on a series of mostly arbitrary factors. Administration in The Nothing is mind-numbing torture. Research and Development in the Vast Library is rather peaceful. You get the idea.”

“And what about me, personally? Where am I going?”

The vulnerability behind her eyes undoes something in me. Not interested in dwelling on whatever this feeling is, I take myself off the bed and sit in the chair by her desk. “Above my pay grade, Mayday. Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“That’s pretty bleak. Are you really that cold? Did death make you that way?”

“I can’t afford to care about every soul’s story. Life matters to the living, but cosmically speaking, it’s only significant to the individual. We all go in the end, and the closing curtain drops when your story is told for the last time. So, live a life worth talking about. That’s all you can do.”

I notice Rue pale visibly on the bed. Her voice takes on a defeated edge as she admits, “Too late for me at this point, I’m afraid.”

I sigh while contemplating my response to this piteous remark. Finally, I make a decision. I’ll be here for eight more days, so we might as well make the most of it. “Why haven’t you done more with your life?” I ask.

Rue seems to measure the question as her next words cut right to the heart of the matter.

“I inherited a heart condition from my father called arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, or ARVD.”

“I’m familiar with the disease. You had a fifty-fifty shot of carrying the genetic marker.”

“Well, Doctor, my dad one hundred percent gave it to me. I’ve had heart palpitations and an irregular heartbeat my whole life.”

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, and I know I don’t know you that well, but”—I pause before finishing—“it suits you, Mayday.”

“What does?”

“An irregular heartbeat. You strike me as someonewho marches to her own rhythm. Quite literally, it would seem.”

“Yeah, well, it’s also limited me physically for most of my life, so it’s more crawling, less marching.” Her voice, though tinged with self-pity, carries a note of resilience that is both inspiring and hopeful.

“Sounds like you inherited an excuse to me, Mayday,” I challenge, intrigued by her defiance in the face of adversity.

“An excuse so powerful that it killed me before my time.”