The end of the tunnel was nigh as he rushed toward a bright blue light. Then, nothing but frantic oblivion. All was dark.
The Devil opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Ahh, fresh air. It would appear he was on the floor. He tried to stand up but, as he did so, he didn't really move all that much higher. What was the problem here? His surroundings were simple: a couch, a TV, a lovely coffee table with some fine bone china.
The Devil stretched as his senses came into play.
A door opened off to his side and a pair of legs in badly wrinkled stockings appeared and dropped a plate of food in front of him.
The Devil looked down at the plate of brown mush and then up to see a little old lady grinning down at him.
She opened her mouth and cooed.
"Aww, who's a cute puddycat, Fuzzbucket?"
The Devil mustered all his strength and cried, "What?"
What actually came out was meow.
I don't believe it. I'm in a cat! How the hell did I end up in a cat?
The Devil didn't know what to do. The Devil, the Prince of Darkness, Beelzebub, the Deceiver himself, trapped in a cat for an entire week. And not just any cat: a cat called Fuzzbucket. He suddenly had a strong urge to systematically clean himself, and being in complete shock and not knowing what else to do, went ahead and did so.
Down in the depths of Hell's Administration office, a lowly demon examined the contract she'd just received to file. She made a tsk tsk sort of noise and shook her head as she read the fine print through a magnifying glass.
Please Note: If by any chance the above noted chosen body is unavailable due to death, dismemberment, or divine intervention, the party of the second part (being Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness) will waive all possession rights and will be deposited into a body of the party of the first part's (being God) choosing.
The demon lifted a large metal stamp and branded the word received into the contract with a satisfying hissssss.
The evening air was close and the heat, relentless. It beat at every passerby in the small town of Obidos, located somewhere in the west of Portugal.
Sweat escaped from every available pore on the body of Raymond Miller as he wandered down tight, quaint streets.
He loved Obidos at this time of year. Not so much for the heat, as no one really loved the town for its heat. But because Obidos was so quiet, hardly anyone around, no tourists, just the locals. The locals left him alone; they didn't like the strange visitor who appeared out of nowhere for a few weeks every year and then vanished without a trace. It became a favorite pastime of the locals to stand completely still with a fixed frown whenever Raymond would appear on the street. They would watch him walk down the street, moving only their heads until he disappeared into a shop or around a corner. Shopkeepers wouldn't talk to him except to tell him how much he owed them. They would answer any pleasantries or questions with a severe umph, all the time frowning like their lives depended on it.
They didn't like Raymond because he didn't follow the tourist trend. He always turned up out of season, and he kept himself to himself, not to mention he'd built a ghastly, great big mansion on the outskirts of town.
Raymond was in fact a billionaire who had quite methodically worked out when the off-season occurred for every beautiful place on Earth. He would travel round all year to these places, then build a house where he could stay for a couple of weeks, and that was his life, day in and day out. All he ever wanted was a quiet life, and when his one-hundred-fourteen-year-old grandmother died, she left Raymond, her only living relative, all her money. Although on the surface a quiet and very innocent-looking lady, she had made her money by running drugs from the United States to Japan. She was a little old lady with too much time on her hands, and she liked traveling to the Orient. Or that's what all the security people at the airports thought as they helped her off the plane and even carried her drug-filled luggage for her. Her drug-running name was Silent Grasshopper. Raymond had no knowledge of this, as she told him that she won all her money on the lottery, and so he remained blissfully unaware.
Raymond had been an Olympic swimmer before the inheritance, and although he remained in good physical condition, he no longer swam. When he got the money from his grandmother, he decided to follow up on his high school dream to do absolutely nothing. He traveled around the world, spending the vast amount of money he'd acquired. He partied occasionally, hired women to satisfy his carnal pleasures, hired people to cook for him, but really did nothing of any importance. If he vanished off the face of the Earth, the only person who would miss him would be his bank manager, who talked to him every few days and who could have been considered to be Raymond’s only friend.
As Raymond walked out onto the bridge that crossed the local river, he stopped and admired the sunset. He could see a couple of children playing soccer at the other end of the bridge, a little too close to the road, he thought. There really wasn't that much traffic in the town, so there was probably nothing to worry about. At least, that's what Raymond thought right up until he saw the bus.
The bus driver's name was Dante and he was on the last route of the evening. He was, however, currently preoccupied with the sudden appearance of what appeared to be an orange object descending from the sky. Dante was so enamored with the strange object that he failed to see the young boy who ran out into the road after his run-away ball.
Raymond started sprinting before he even knew why. The urge hit him in the form of one simple word that felt very strangely as if someone had spoken it directly into his head. Run!
Everything happened very quickly. Raymond reached the boy just in time to push him out of the way; he looked up at the last minute to see an orange swirly thing plummeting toward him.
The orange swirly thing, consequently, was the last thing Raymond Miller saw in his life, as a millisecond later he was hit by the bus that killed him.
Moments later, the soul of Raymond Miller came face to face with a disgruntled-looking man dressed in a black robe standing next to a large neon sign that pointed up.
Two
Death was not having a good day. Incidentally, Death did not normally go by the name Death. Especially when traveling; there would often be random outbursts of either laughter or panic. He often adopted the name Arnold. However, at this particular point in his existence he couldn’t have cared less and committed himself to simply being called Death.
Death wasn't just having a bad day, he was having a tragic day. The kind of tragic day that made people wish they could just crawl into a ball on their couch with a tub of ice cream and watch several episodes of some equally tragic TV drama. And furthermore, he wasn't dealing with it all very well.
Most people had regular nine to five jobs, five days a week, sweeping the streets, working in an office, providing overly greasy food to nations that were nowhere near starving, etc. Death did not. Death's job consisted of seeking out those individuals who were about to leap off this mortal coil and guide them to their next destination, which usually consisted of simply up or down. He didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t swing a fiery sword, and he didn’t rain down fire and brimstone. Although he did own a fiery sword; he kept it at home in the closet because he was afraid he might cut himself. Death had always been the more paranoid of the Angels. Ironic, considering popular opinion stated that he was easily one of the most terrifying, spooky, and mysterious Angel archetypes. Even the other Angels agreed.
For years, Death accepted his job as being an essential part of God's plan. Over time, the passage from this world to the next became a little easier, and the direction of up or down was often marked by large shiny sign posts with big neon arrows so there was no confusion, but lately he had begun to get a bit fed up with it all.
The whole situation culminated just a few hours previously at a local Irish bar, conveniently situated in Ireland, where Death had stopped for a quick drink. The Irish made good beer, and Ireland was on the way to Greece, which happened to be his next stop. A quick dr
ink turned into a couple of quick drinks, and then a couple of slower drinks, and continued to escalate until two hours later when Death found himself outside that same pub screaming mindless obscenities at a lamppost. Apparently, it looked at him funny when he had been kicked out of the pub and he was rather insulted by it.
The reason for his abrupt removal from the bar was due to some specific comments made by one of the locals.
In the midst of all the drinking, Death struck up some light conversation with the friendly gentleman sitting next to him. He later looked upon that as his first big mistake of the current century.
The gentleman's name was Mickey. A lot of Irish people tended to be named Mickey and they all seemed very fond of alcohol and bombings. Death used his angelic powers to get a brief glimpse into Mickey’s mind, unsturdy as it was. Mickey, as it turned out, was a gamekeeper at a local farm about an hour's drive from the pub. He was meant to be at home with his angry wife but called ahead and told her that he had to visit a sick friend. He did that often.,Not because he had a lot of sick friends, but because he had an angry wife. She always got even angrier as Mickey was always off visiting his sick friends. This turn of events turned into a vicious circle over the past few years and drove Mickey's wife to the fine art of bomb making. Unbeknownst to Mickey. His wife, at that very moment, had been putting the finishing touches to her latest masterpiece which was to be shipped out that very night.
Death and Mickey exchanged the usual pleasantries, the conversation became bombarded with many slurred words, and Death even slipped off his barstool a couple of times.
Anyone who ever had the misfortune of hearing an Irish person speak would know that they were not the easiest of species to understand. Adding a fermented vegetable concoction to that mix created something akin to the sound a cassette tape recorder would make if it taped fifty squawking seagulls and then played it back at high speed in reverse. Even then, it’d only be slightly close to the true drunken Irish language.
"So, whadyadafararrleavin?" asked Mickey.
Thankfully, Death, being what he was, easily translated drunken Irish.
"What do I do for a living? Funny you should ask," replied Death. "I guide people to the afterlife when their physical and spiritual presence on this Earth is no longer required."
Death watched as drunken confusion washed over Mickey’s face like the sea approaching high tide. This was a common occurrence, and completely intentional, as Death's appearance was not entirely normal, and he found that an easier way to keep people calm. In fact, Death's appearance was almost stereotypical of the old Grim Reaper characters featured in sixties horror movies. He wore a flowing dark robe, was practically faceless, and had thin white hands. Once upon a time, he used those skinny white hands to clutch a scythe so he could be easily recognized, but during the Great Heavenly Survey of 1753, a 700-page enquiry for the recently deceased, the scythe became obsolete, as results from the recently deceased showed that the scythe depicted a far scarier Angel of Death than was absolutely necessary. Too, his black robe then changed to an extremely dark burgundy colour so he didn't look quite as scary. Just to be on the safe side, an Angelic Defense Mechanism made sure that any living human who saw Death would not be able to remember ever meeting him after Death disappeared from sight for more than ten seconds or so.
"So," Mickey said, "yawarkferverbankthin?"
Death rolled his eyes and tried hard to concentrate on his beer.
"No, I don't work for the bank." He seemed to recall going through a similar situation not so long ago when he had been mistaken for a lawyer. That seemed to be happening more and more these days.
"Werdedyigurtschoo? Oxfarwaset? OrmebeCambridge? Onlyyalakverytelligent." Mickey smiled a self-satisfied smile.
Death could see the direction this conversation was headed. He just shook his head and downed the last of his beer before ordering another one. He turned to his neighbor and attempted to smile politely, which wasn’t an easy thing for a practically faceless Angel to accomplish.
"I'm going to try and explain this to you slowly as I know you're far more intoxicated than I am. The fact that you haven't commented on my lack of face or dark robe or the cold tingly feeling that travels up and down your spine every time I speak substantiates your severe intoxication. I'm the Angel of Death. Sent by God Himself to guide the souls of man to the next life. Is it really that difficult of a concept to grasp?" He turned back to the bar and accepted the fresh pint from the bartender.
Mickey looked worried, as if he’d offended the dark stranger. His glazed eyes searched for an answer and then enlightenment dawned upon his face. "So, is tha much muni n tha?"
Death looked Mickey up and down, decided that he couldn't wait until the day that he could guide this poor soul off the Earth, and went back to his beer.
It took all of ten minutes, another round of beers for the lads, and an offhand comment by a young man named Seth to push Death over the point of no return. Seth, a local farm hand, had never really gone to school, but had the most amazing talent of breaking a situation down to its most basic components. Plus, his parents were English, so he was the one person in the bar who didn't sound like a cassette player that was stuck on reverse play.
The conversation continued to cover the finer points of Death's employment, and everyone had been doing a great job of keeping their drunken faces straight and showing feigned interest right up until the point when Seth made his comment. That same comment was the reason that Death ended up outside that same bar a little while later, screaming at the surprised lamppost. The lamppost wasn't used to being shouted at for no reason and wasn't happy about it.
"So basically," Seth said, as innocently as possible, "what you're telling us is that you're some sort of a doorman in the afterlife? Like old Jimmy Barns used to do at that fancy hotel in Dublin, showing people where to go, opening the door for them, getting them a taxi, kissing their ass? Is there much money in that?"
Well, that was it. The crowd literally fell about the place laughing.
Mickey, as reserved a character as he was, ran to the bathroom before he peed himself.
Death did not take the reaction very well. He fell off his chair for the final time and let go of any remains of patience that he had left.
Everyone quieted down as Death continued to shout at the bar patrons, telling each and every one of them exactly when and where they would be the moment that they died. He didn't actually know offhand, he was just guessing, but that was the only thing he could think of on short notice that might scare them.
The bar was stunningly quiet. Death could almost smell the victory. In fact, he was very close to smiling, until the bar patrons burst into another round of laughter and Paddy the butcher was the one who ran to the bathroom
At that, the bartender decided the funnily dressed stranger had caused quite enough entertainment and should be kicked out before he got rowdy. The group of drunken Irish men all cheered as the Angel of Death got thrown out of the bar. Questions like "Dayaworkdinapartis?" and "wuldyabevailabultaperfarmatmedartersbirthday?" followed him out the door, along with more rounds of laughter.
An hour later, after he had grown tired of shouting at the lamppost, and the mailbox proved unresponsive, Death decided that he'd had quite enough.
He'd talked the whole thing over with God just a month ago, but the talk had done no good. God was infallible and omnipotent (not to be confused with the word impotent, which is a common disorder found in older men), and therefore knew when, where, and how everything in the entire world was going to happen, throughout the existence of all time. When Death tried to plead his case, God, knowing how this whole thing was to end, simply sat there with a whimsical smile on His face. Death asked what he should do and God just patted him on the head and told him that it probably wasn’t worth worrying about. Then He wandered off whistling happily to Himself.
That actually succeeded in calming Death down for a while, but lately things had just been getting wors
e and everything all sort of culminated when he realized that he was somewhat of a glorified doorman and that he was standing on a lonely street in the middle of Ireland shouting at a lamppost. But the thing that really bit into him, the one thing about his job that had been burning up inside of him, was that when he guided people up or down, not once, not even once in a thousand years, had anyone said so much as a thank you.
And so, after a lot of alcohol, provoking by the local townsfolk, and a long conversation with a suspicious-looking cat, Death, The Angel of Death, The Grim Reaper, The Guide to the Afterlife himself, decided that he'd had enough. And right there on the spot, he quit.
Three.
Detective Nigel Amadeus Reinhardt felt nervous. Everyone got nervous. Women got nervous when there were spiders around. Men got nervous when there were women around. This little predicament covered neither of those situations, yet Nigel continued to be nervous. With good reason. Nigel currently found himself hanging upside down over the edge of a seven-story building, and the only thing preventing the well-known effects of gravity was a large man named Big Ernie.
Big Ernie was named Big Ernie for one simple and obvious reason. He was big. Not big, as in I wouldn't want to sit next to that overly large man on a long plane journey because his girth would eventually crush me big, more like I wouldn't want to sit next to that overly large man on a long plane ride as he looks like he could remove my head with his bare hands kind of big. That was not his only asset; he also happened to be a tremendous flute player and volunteered at the old folk's home on the weekends. Not something he particularly enjoyed doing, but his Mum, Big Priscilla, said he had to do it to build character. Aside from the flute playing and assisting the old people to get to the bathroom, Big Ernie also worked for a loan shark. Something he kept from his mother, as he knew she had a fear of sharks. The loan shark's name was Norman but everyone called him Itch.
Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish Page 2
