mocking pleasure.
One life. That is all I’m allowed to collect from this house. No matter how great or meager, one is my limit. The dragonfish, in smashing its own tank, has insured that its life will be the only one I collect here.
Thomas and Bethany run into the living room, hair tussled, sleep still clinging to their faces.
“What did you do?” Thomas asks. “Why would you do that?”
Bethany shakes her head. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
Thomas tiptoes through the glass, water and gravel, over to where the arowana lies still, its eye fixed, its mouth open and slack. Its great scales shimmer in the glow of the hallway light. Thomas kneels down and pokes the fish, but it doesn’t respond.
“I thought the glass was thick enough,” he says to Bethany.
“Apparently not.”
I move over to the fish. Thomas and Bethany don’t look at me.
Matthew walks into the room rubbing his eyes. Bethany turns and sweeps him into her arms before he’s able to stumble into the glass.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Goliath broke his tank, buddy,” Thomas answers. He doesn’t notice that Matthew isn’t addressing him, he’s talking to me.
The boy sees what his parent can’t. Innocent eyes always see through the lies.
“Why?” Matthew asks.
“I don’t know,” Thomas says.
“To protect you,” I say to the boy. He nods, not a glint of fear in his eyes.
I lean down to Goliath the arowana and out of the dead fish a ball of golden light rises. I place the resplendent orb in my shoulder bag next to Lester Freedmont’s and Herbert Frost’s life spirits.
Exhausted, I leave the Goodwin house.
I sit at a bus stop bench just after sunrise. A black car pulls to a stop in front of me, a window as dark as night rolls down and my superior looks out at me.
“I’ve come for your collections.”
I stand up, walk over to the car and hand him my shoulder bag. He looks in and smiles.
“What’s this?” he asks. “This doesn’t look like the Goodwin boy.”
“The dragonfish,” I say my voice full of gravel. “It sacrificed itself.”
My superior nods. “Those damn fish are notorious for that. Too bad. Agent 102498, consider yourself demoted to Level 1.”
He rolls up his window and drives away, never giving me a chance to argue. Not that I have the strength to, anyway.
I turn to walk away. Agent 011880 is leaning up against a tree near the bench. She smiles when she sees the shock on my face.
“I was demoted, too,” she says walking over to me.
“I’m sorry.” I want to say more, but that’s all I can muster.
“Don’t be. You did what you had to do.”
I laugh. It’s hollow and unfeeling, more like a cough. “It still wasn’t enough. Now I’m going to spend eternity as a Level 1, roaming nursing homes and hospitals, collecting the sick and old. And you will, too. At least one of us should’ve passed to Level 3.”
She reaches down and takes me by the hand. My heart races and a stupid grin washes across my face. “We could quit.”
“Quit?” I say, stunned that she would even think that. “Being a Grim Reaper is all I’ve ever known. What else is there?”
She loops her arm in mine and we walk down the road side by side. “There is always the Guardian Program.”
I’m not sure if this is a joke or not. “Leave collections and go into protection?”
“Why not?” she asks. “Being a Guardian is just as challenging as being a Reaper, but not near as cutthroat. Promotions are easier to obtain, and I hear the benefit package is outstanding. Guardians don’t have to go by numbers. They get actual names. And you can participate in the Random Acts of Kindness Initiative at any level.” She leans in and kisses me. “Besides, I hear Guardians get to work with partners.”
I smile. It feels like the first time I’ve ever done so. “Do you think they’ll let us guard Matthew Goodwin? I don’t think his mother is going to allow anymore dragonfish in the house.”
She laughs and it echoes through my soul like a tuning fork.
“Let’s go find out.”
The End
ABOUT GABRIEL BEYERS
Gabriel Beyers lives in Bloomington, IN with his wife, two children, and two lovable yet destructive dogs. Anyone wishing to email the author may do so at [email protected]
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The Write Thing to Do
ALSO BY GABRIEL BEYERS
Guarding the Healer
Contemplations of Dinner
Predatory Animals
The Promotion (A Short Story) Page 7
