"Well," I smiled, joining Death outside and folding my arms in complete satisfaction, "this looks promising."

One of those days by Suzanne Donahue

"Sally, do you hear that?"

I glared at the back of Death’s skull and imagined drilling a delightfully enormous hole right through it. Straight home to the other side. Straight home to my family.

"Hear what?"

Death let out yet another sigh of impatience. Just like when I made him chase me all over the front lawn. Or when he finally caught me but couldn’t manage to pry open one of the rusty car doors. Or when I gave him the finger.

"That banging noise."

I knew very well he was watching me again, checking my reaction in the rearview mirror. So I cocked my head and pretended to listen as if I cared. Clank, clank, clank. Crash, crash, crash. Of course I heard it.

"Nope. Sorry."

The engine shuddered and groaned. Death did exactly the same. "Goddammit, I just had this thing serviced."

"Really? What a shame." I turned, looked out the window. Black sky, black sun, black landscape. Such an absurd exit to this awful place. My son’s toy fire engine on the bathroom floor. An armful of clean, folded towels to block my sight. And the typical poise of my two left feet. Tripping, twisting, sending me head first into the porcelain tub… I wondered who found me. Did Max come running from the Browns game downstairs? Or was it Dylan, playing with blocks in his room across the hall? Sweet, laughing Dylan? God, no. Please, no.

 "Oh, bloody hell!" The sounds coming from under the hood were deafening now. Metallic jungle roars. Death gripped the steering wheel, trying to hold on. But still we swerved wildly, first to the left, then to the right, before screeching to a violent halt. The vehicle shrieked once more, then simply expired altogether.

And somehow, I enjoyed every minute of it.

"Wow, nice car. High quality. First class to the afterlife all the way."

Death whiled around and gave me his best fire-eyed warning. "Just stay here."

An image from a war movie Max and I had once watched suddenly popped into my mind, and I couldn’t resist. Mock-salute and everything.

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Granted, I had absolutely no intention of following any of death’s instructions. Not after he’d left my three-year-old without a mother, my soulmate without a wife. Not a chance in the world. But I waited just long enough. Long enough for death to open the door and step out, dark robes blowing in stale breeze. For the raised hood to expel a giant cloud of steam and smoke. For some terribly colourful metaphors which really didn’t require my two cents at all.

Yes, just long enough. And then…

"Well," I smiled, joining Death outside and folding my arms in complete satisfaction, "this looks promising."

I suppose one could say he wasn’t amused. His voice took on an unattractive, million-demons-howling sort of tone. "I told you to stay in the car, Sally."

"Aw, come on, be a sport. I mean, what are you going to do, kill me?" A snap of my fingers. "Oh, hold on, you did that already."

Death reached into his pocket, pulled out a full bottle of aspirin, and swallowed the contents whole. "Just get my toolbox. On the floor in the back."

So I took my time. I mean, the container must have weighed about ten tons. But there was something else, too – something about the way Death kept glancing at the elaborate watch on his bony wrist. All those people back there. Lying in hospital beds, on battlefields, among charred remains of crumpled automobiles and ruined buildings. People with loved ones who cared about them, just like max and Dylan had cared about me. They were all supposed to be taking their last breaths. And Death never ran late.

Until now.

"Jesus, will you hurry up?" He yanked the box from my hand and immediately began digging through the contents. Hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers. Other nameless things which reminded me of Maxi’s own cluttered workbench in the garage. And then, way at the bottom, a surprise. Ancient and dusty.

I gingerly reached in and pulled out the scythe. "Don’t use this anymore?"

Death glanced over, then leaned toward the engine, tools poised and ready. "Apparently, nobody reaps much of anything these days. To be honest, I got quite tired of having to explain what it was to every spirit that came down the pike. Totally obsolete."

I nodded like I understood. "How come you’re not?"

Thumping. Pounding. Swearing. "Not what?"

"Obsolete."

He grinned, and the way it looked on his face was about as inviting as week-old-road kill. "Keep overpopulation around and Death never goes out of style."

I let my gaze wander along the curves of the scythe and moved a little closer, trying hard not to focus on the aroma of decay wafting from his body. "Yes, but do people have to suffer? Couldn’t everyone just dies peacefully in their sleep when they turn one hundred or something?"

Death had jammed one of his skeletal fingers between two pieces of metal, and had to break it off at the knuckle to get free. "That’s unrealistic. Suffering is part of life – and death. How would you mortals know when times were good if you couldn’t measure them against times that were bad?"

I thought about Dylan, about everything I would miss now. Birthday parties and Christmas mornings, heartbreak tears and graduation smiles. "But isn’t there a limit? Didn’t people have more than their share of suffering with the Black Plague, for instance? Or Vietnam?"

"Well, I have to make a living. Get it? ‘Make a living’?" He grinned again, and I wanted to be sick. "But no, those things were not enough. Not by a long shot. Quotas, you know."

The I pictured Max, trying to work at the firm ad raise Dylan on his own. We would never again get to slow dance to old jazz records. Or share cold Chinese food at midnight. Or talk in bed until dawn. Never.

And then I considered how sharp the scythe looked. How very, very sharp.

"What about Hitler? Was he simply good for business, too?"

Death checked one valve, the another. "You’ve got the idea."

"I see." How I wanted to butcher his calm, cruel, matter –of-fact soul. I really did. But there had to be a better way. A way that would have made even Dylan and Max proud. "So basically, you don’t care about people."

"Well, I-"

"I mean, it’s just fine for you to steal the life from someone’s lover or best friend, parent or child, and not give a damn about the bloody, agonizing details."

Death attempted to stand up, but smacked his skull against the open hood instead. "Now, wait just a –"

"Spread the pain, screw the consequences, because after all, we’re just human beings and we don’t matter anyway. Never have, never will. Right? Isn’t that right?"

Death carefully emerged and straightened to his full, frightening height. "Oh, you think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well, try this on for size. You know that little concept called ‘free will’? That was my idea, way back when. To make things easier for all of you. To make you feel better, more in control. But since you’re hell bent on the truth, I’ll give it to you: the answer is yes, to everything. You mortals are so self-important, so sure every birth or orgasm or act of kindness is going to change the cosmos. And guess what? You’re wrong. None of you can change a goddamn thing. Human beings are mere speck on the universe’s sleeve, and It brushes you off like an annoying insect every time. Every single time. So there. How do you like that? Are you happy now?

I clutched the scythe with weak, trembling hands and got as close to Death as I still dared. "You’re a pathetic, heartless bastard."

He paused, then put an icy hand against my cheek. "Why, Sally, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

Death returned to work then, and I let the scythe fall to the ground. Let it fall as he tightened the last screws, tested the last repairs, sealed my fate. And all I wanted to do was cry. Or scream. At the top of my lungs. Forever and ever.

So I did.

"Oh yeah, you’re a real gem, aren’t you? Gotta love that cancer and Alzheimer’s and AIDS!"

Death slammed down the hood.

"And how about those World Wars? Can’t thank you enough for all the laughs they brought!"

And threw his toolbox in the car.

"While we’re at it, jack the Ripper and Charles Manson were a lot of fun, too! And let’s hear a round of applause for Jeffrey Dahmer, shall we?"

And jumped into the driver’s seat with me right at his heels.

"Of course, we can’t neglect what a fine job you’ve done with drugs and guns and children lately! Nothing like babies killing babies! Nothing like blood on every last-"

"THAT’S ENOUGH!"

I was lost, crazy, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Not now. Not when I had the chance to look into Death’s face and fight. "Maybe it’s true. Maybe there is no love for us. But tell me, how does it feel to be the one person we all despise?"

He hesitated, then pushed me to the ground with a growl and a start of the engine. "better than you’re going to feel, Sally, spending eternity right here, alone and abandoned on an endless, empty road. Now get the hell away from my hearse."

I jumped up and ran, back toward the hidden opportunity of passenger-side wheels, back toward something else. To use what I still had, to do what I could. For max and Dylan. For everyone.

And only when Death disappeared from sight did I raise my hand against the black sky, the black sun, the black landscape. In triumph, and laughter. Because perhaps the Universe didn’t care. Perhaps those creatures who worked in it, would always believe human beings could make no difference at all. Perhaps. But none of this changed one wonderful fact.

Death’s forgotten scythe, in underestimated mortal hands, we still awfully good at creating new flat tires.

The end