“I’m afraid I will need to fetch my supervisor,” she informed Nathan. “My superiors will have to be informed of this.”
She stood and walked to the right. A door appeared out of nothing. She opened it and walked through it. It dissolved into nothing behind her.
Nathan was now left alone in the room, the portions of which that existed were quite small. (The portions that didn’t exist were infinite, but Nathan wasn’t quite sure he should count those.) He would have liked to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit on his side of the desk. He briefly toyed with the idea that there were no chairs wherever he was, but this idea was smashed to pieces by the fact that there was a chair on the other side of the desk - recently vacated by the frumpy woman. Despite himself, Nathan tutted. The nerve of some people - not even offering a chair to a guest. Well, he assumed he was a guest.
He glanced at the vast array of files that were stacked high on the frumpy woman’s desk. For his whole life Nathan had had a slightly nosy streak when it came to other people’s desks, and he gathered that a little obstacle like death hadn’t put an end to it. While artists and poets liked to insist that art and poetry (respectively) were the window on the soul, in Nathan’s experience these things had largely consisted of exhibits of large numbers of brightly colored cardboard boxes and mismatched lines of unfamiliar and annoyingly not-rhyming verse (respectively). The true window on the soul was the desk. What was so personal, so uniquely your own, as your desk? A person’s desk was his own place of work - littered with his favorite pens, notebooks, miscellaneous receipts, and occasionally misplaced wallet and passport, while generally his art consisted of nothing more than copies of a few Monets and his poetry the Shakespearean sonnets that he’d been forced to learn in middle school.
So Nathan felt tremendous interest in - and in fact solidarity with - desks. Desks were the only piece of furniture that he felt truly understood him, and he wanted to understand them. Now he felt the little voices in his head prodding him to take a good look around while he had the chance. Unfortunately, apart from the little snowglobe paperweight, the whole desk looked like files. He picked up the top file. It was thick and heavy. Inside there were dozens of 21Bs. He put it down, then picked up the next file. It was filled with thousands of copies of a form printed in considerably less dense language entitled “Form 21A - Pre-Decedent Acknowledgement and Waiver of Liability.” Nathan didn’t bother to read it but instead opened the next file, which read “Form 21C - Waiver of Waiver of Liability.” The next file was “Form 21D - Waiver of Waiver of Waiver of Liability.”
He was just getting to Form 21E (“Request For Delivery Of Waiver of Waiver of Waiver of Liability Form,” which required the signatures of an extraordinary seven different functionaries) when the door rematerialized and Nathan hastily put the Form 21E folder back. The frumpy woman re-emerged from the door followed by a newcomer - a large, tall, blond woman in a suit with painted nails and an extremely fixed smile on her face.
“Hello,” the new woman said brightly when she saw Nathan. “I’m Donna. First, let me reassure you that I have full managerial authority.” Her voice was at least two octaves too high.
“Um... okay,” Nathan said. “I’m Nathan Haynes.”
“Why are we standing?” Donna continued cheerily. “So formal. Have a seat.”
As she said this, two chairs materialized into existence behind them, with a coffee table appearing between them. Nathan gratefully sat down. Donna did the same.
“Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” Nathan said quickly.
“Come now, you’ve been through such an ordeal. You need something to calm your nerves. Why not have a drink?”
“Alright. Coffee then,” Nathan answered.
“Wonderful,” Donna replied brightly. A coffee tray materialized into being on the table along with a few cups and a pitcher. Donna leaned over and started to pour out two cups. As she did this, Nathan noticed that the frumpy woman had retaken her seat behind her desk and was staring at Donna with the same look of disdain that she’d fixed him with. Nathan got the strange impression that really the last thing she wanted to do in life (or unlife) was fetch her supervisor, and she very much hated Nathan for having made her do so.
Donna passed him a small whitish ceramic cup filled with coffee. Nathan took a sip. It tasted slightly stale but strong.
“Would you like something to go with your coffee?” she asked merrily. “Here, have a stick of gum.”
Nathan was not accustomed to gum with coffee, and indeed found the idea slightly repulsive, but decided it would be rude to refuse. He accepted a stick of gum in a little wax paper wrapper from her.
“Now, why don’t you tell me what happened to you?” she asked imploringly, her painted nails tapping on the rim of her own coffee cup. “How did you come to die?”
“Well, I was murdered,” Nathan explained meekly. “A serial killer came to my house and shot me in the head.”
“Really?” Donna’s features seemed to be overflowing with faux-sympathy. “You poor dear,” she cooed.
“Yes. He knocked on the door and came in and asked me a few questions - told me about how he had to keep up with the other serial killers, you know - and then he shot me.”
“How simply awful,” Donna interjected sweetly. “And I’ll bet you’ve been having a very tough week.”
“I guess so,” Nathan said, casting his mind back. “My neighbors have been very loud. One of my neighbors - he’s an elderly gentlemen - sometimes he keeps me up all night with the noise he makes.”
“Terrible. And were you having a tough time at work?”
“Er, I actually don’t have a job. I draw disability benefits. You see, I have brain damage from an accident I had when I was small. It’s a brain lesion.”
Donna shook her head with tremendous sorrow. “Dreadful.”
“Yes. I talked about it with my serial killer and he actually said that he’d been looking for someone with exactly that sort of problem. It removes my instinct for self-preservation, you see, so I gather he thought I was just the kind of person he ought to be killing.”
“And he discriminated against you!” gasped Donna, horror written across her face. “Wicked, terrible. And did you leave any family behind?”
“No. My family died when I was little, for the most part.”
“And you’re an orphan! You poor dear,” she repeated.
Nathan frowned. He was not exactly an orphan, but before he had chance to explain the complicated circumstances surrounding his family history, Donna started to speak.
“Well, I’m sure that this has all been very, very awful, but you’re quite safe now,” she said, her tone switching from sympathetic to bright and merry. “If you could just do me one teensy little favor - I’m afraid we need you to sign this form. It’s paperwork, I know, but it’s terribly necessary. It’ll only take a moment. Could you just put your signature right down there for me?”
She slid a 21B - Decedent Acknowledgement and Waiver of Liability across the little coffee table towards Nathan. Nathan frowned at Donna. He was beginning to think that she had been buttering him up.
“Ah, about that,” Nathan said. “I said I didn’t want to sign the form.”
Donna’s expression went from warm and friendly to cold in about half a second.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“I just don’t want to,” Nathan said. “I saw a report on the news that said you shouldn’t sign things haphazardly.”
“Sign it,” she said harshly. Her eyes flashed and her painted nails strained against the handle of her little ceramic coffee cup.
“No,” Nathan replied stubbornly.
Donna fixed him with a look of absolute loathing, then slowly rose from her chair.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” she said. She turned on her heel and walked out of the room through the doorway that briefly appeared to allow her to do so. When she left, the coffee table,
the coffee, the tray, the cups, and both of the comfy chairs vanished, sending Nathan plummeting to the floor. The stick of gum, however, remained. Nathan caught this and pocketed it, feeling that it was a shame to let it go to waste.
He was once again alone in the room with the frumpy woman.
“Where did Donna go?” he asked her.
The woman ignored him and continued to stare at the file she had been reviewing. Nathan felt this was quite rude. He might have been dead, but that didn’t mean she could treat him like he didn’t exist.
He stood up and dusted himself off and waited for something to happen.
Chapter 3
The next few minutes passed in silence. The frumpy woman occasionally looked up from her desk and assumed a series of facial expressions that told Nathan she wished he was a bug so she could squash him. Nathan tried to assume some sort of counter-expression that conveyed that he thought she was being on the whole unnecessarily unpleasant about this whole thing, and that he hadn’t asked for any of this, but this proved to be too complicated to get across. Instead, Nathan ended up with his face contorted into something that made him look like one of the bugs that the frumpy woman hoped he would turn into, which Nathan felt was a step in the wrong direction, so he quickly dropped it.
Eventually this tense nonverbal exchange was broken when a door appeared, and a dark-haired man in a crisp black suit and tie walked through it. As the door disappeared, Nathan realized the man’s tie was done up into the immensely complicated triple Windsor knot, a method of tie-tying known only to the managers of managers. He was tall and had the certain joint aura of authority and hopelessness that mid-tier officials walked around with. Clearly, this man was Donna’s manager.
“My name is Ian,” he said briskly.
Ian held out his hand. Nathan moved to grab it, but before he could, Ian said:
“I should explain that the handshake is a greeting ritual involving the mutual grasping of hands.”
“Er, yes,” Nathan agreed, and shook Ian’s hand.
“I am Donna’s manager,” Ian added, confirming Nathan’s suspicions. “She said that you wouldn’t sign your 21B.”
“That’s right,” Nathan said.
“Allow me to explain that a manager is someone who supervises others,” Ian continued.
“Yes, I think I knew that.”
Ian’s face brightened. “Did you? Well well, I’m sure we can get this all sorted out in good order, then. Let’s just take a look at this 21B together, shall we?”
Nathan looked down, half-expecting the chairs to reappear, but they remained stubbornly nonexistent. Ian plucked a 21B from the desk (the frumpy woman gave him a masterfully hate-filled look as he did this, but Ian ignored it). He slapped it expertly with the back of his hand.
“Now, this is the 21B - Decedent Acknowledgement and Waiver of Liability,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Yes it is,” Nathan confirmed.
“And you don’t want to sign it.”
“No I don’t.”
“Ah. I think I see the problem here.” He smiled with self-satisfaction. “It’s a simple misunderstanding. By signing this form, you acknowledge that you understand that you are dead, and waive all liability that we might incur from any injuries you might sustain, etc., while you are here. I expect Donna already told you this.”
Nathan was fairly sure that Donna hadn’t told him anything whatsoever, but he nodded in confirmation just to keep things going. He had a funny feeling that this could take a while.
“Good,” Ian continued, in an increasingly smug way. “But you still won’t sign it?”
“No.”
Nathan wondered how many times he would have to repeat this point; Ian’s mental faculties seemed to approximate those of a particularly talkative chipmunk.
“Well I think I see the problem here. You can’t sign the form because, of course, you have to acknowledge that you are dead to sign it and clearly, you don’t understand what death is. Allow me to explain that death is the termination of a life, in your case, your life. You previously died and now have come here, so you see it’s alright to sign the form.”
“I understood what death is,” Nathan said politely.
“Did you? Good, good. Then perhaps you don’t understand what liability is. Liability is-”
“I also understand what liability is.”
Ian looked thunderstruck.
“Then why can’t you pick up the pen and sign-” Then suddenly, he broke into a smile. He grinned broadly and clapped himself on the forehead. “Of course!” he said. His smile grew very condescending. “Let me explain what a pen is. A pen is a writing implement loaded with ink, which, when applied to something like paper-”
“I know what a pen is,” intervened Nathan. “And paper, and words, and contracts, and signatures, and everything else for that matter.”
“You do?” asked Ian incredulously. “Then why can’t you sign the form?”
Nathan paused.
“I guess I don’t really see why it’s entirely necessary.”
“AH! You don’t understand why it’s necessary. Yes, so that’s what you don’t understand. Oh yes, it all makes good sense now. Well, we’ll fix you right up. I’ll give you the tour. Then you’ll understand why it’s necessary.”
Nathan was not entirely sure he agreed with this line of reasoning but he felt tired of arguing, and he was starting to sense that maybe talking to this man wasn’t entirely advisable. He rooted around in his pocket to try to find something to occupy his mouth so he would remember not to talk. His fingers closed on the stick of gum Donna had given him. He popped it into his mouth. It was very minty.
Meanwhile, Ian had turned towards the door, which had obligingly reasserted itself as a physical object. Ian courteously held it open.
“After you,” he said.
Nathan stepped through it. The desk, the frumpy woman, and the vast forms all vanished. He found himself in a long, well-lit corridor much like one might find in an office, except it had no doors and instead of walls there was an infinite soul-consuming darkness. Ian appeared behind Nathan shortly thereafter. Ian started to stride purposefully down the hall and Nathan followed, although as far as he could see there was nowhere to go.
“We are the bureaucrats,” Ian explained as they walked. “It is our job to keep everything running smoothly and in accordance with the law.”
“The law?” Nathan asked.
“Let me explain that laws are rules that must be followed,” Ian said.
“I know that-”
“Then why did you ask?” Ian asked with a frown.
“But what laws? And why do they need bureaucrats?”
Ian laughed.
“Why do we need bureaucrats? Let me show you something, Mr. Haynes.”
A doorway appeared on Ian’s left and they went through it.
Inside was a room with a quizillion forms in it.
It should be explained for readers who might not be familiar with the concept that a quizillion is defined as the highest number anyone can possibly think of that is not infinity. It is distinguished from infinity plus one because unlike infinity plus one it cannot be used to win arguments with children.
Naturally, a quizillion forms is, therefore, very many forms indeed. Indeed it is such a mind-bogglingly huge number that the sight of them would have driven a normal man’s brain spinning like a hamster in a wheel, if the hamster had just noticed a Sumatran tiger was on the wheel with it. In other words, a normal person would have gone quite insane. Fortunately for Nathan, because he already had brain damage, he merely suffered hysterical loss of taste.
Nathan paused while chewing. His gum had suddenly stopped being minty.
Ian, oblivious to the psychosomatic turmoil he had inflicted on Nathan’s poor mind and taste buds, gestured to the quizillion forms with pride.
“You don’t think reality simply happens, do you, Mr. Haynes? Dear me no - there’s an awful lot of paperwork involv
ed. Why the 2Cs alone - that’s authorization for masses to gravitate towards one another - have an entire division devoted to them. And don’t even get me started on the 44Fs - that’s a request to form a time-like curve... Every single one of these forms had to be prepared by a bureaucrat, Mr. Haynes. That’s what we do.”
He beamed at the forms, then clapped Nathan on the shoulder.
“Let me show you some of the staff in action.”
Much to the relief of Nathan’s temporal lobe, the room disappeared and they were standing back in the hallway. Ian directed Nathan through another door and a room much like the frumpy woman’s appeared, except instead of the frumpy woman, a haggard-looking glasses-wearing man was sitting behind the desk, and instead of a snowglobe he had a large plush kitten on top of one of his stacks of forms. The haggard man paid them no attention whatsoever.
“This is where we process 20As,” Ian said proudly, pointing to a very small pile of forms on the desk. “Those are Form 20As - Request for True Love. I should explain that love-”
“I know what love is. What are those?” Nathan asked, pointing to a much taller adjacent pile.
“Those are Form 20Bs - Request for Fake Love.”
“And, um, what are those?” Nathan pointed to the third and by far the tallest stack on the desk.
“Those are Form 20Cs - Request to Form a Relationship Based On Desperation.”
Nathan frowned and picked up a Form 20C. It was written in significantly larger type than the 21B he had been offered in the frumpy woman’s room. The first question read, “would you describe your relationship as based on 1) clingy desperation or 2) desperate clinginess (check all that apply.)” His eyes flitted down to the bottom of the page. “Is your sense of desperation based on fear of death? If not, explain.”
“You can keep that if you’d like to fill it out later,” Ian said magnanimously.
“No thanks,” Nathan said, and put it back down on the pile.
The room dissolved around them and they were back in the hallway. Ian led him through another door. This was filled with dozens of desks, each with one or two mildly grim-faced bureaucrats who were pouring over forms with what appeared to be microscopes.
You Are Dead. [Sign Here Please] Page 2
