Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish

by Andrew Buckley

1m00s

  Outside Majestic Technologies, a cab pulled up, and out hopped Chester, after paying a generous amount of money to Rupert, who had decided to call it a night. Chester was examining the damaged security gate when he was knocked over for the second time in the last hour as a large man and a small man carrying a cat collided with him.

  0m31s

  "I'm alive! I'm alive!" screamed the Devil's voice from the Santa Claus unit.

  Nigel was back standing next to Death, observing the strange situation. Every elf happily danced to the Macarena, Santa Claus rose up on the table screaming that he was happy to be alive, and the Angel of Death stood next to Nigel.

  "Okay," said Nigel, turning to Death, "what now?"

  Death looked at his wrist as if there was a watch there, and smiled mischievously. "Time for me to go."

  "What?" said Nigel.

  Death placed a hand on Nigel's shoulder.

  "It'll all be okay. But this part might hurt a little. Actually it's going to hurt a lot. See ya soon."

  And with that, Death vanished in a flash of blinding light.

  Gerald, upset that his friend had just vanished, ran out from his hiding place, closely followed by Celina, who had refused to sit idly in the office for any longer.

  "What just happened?" shouted Celina to Nigel.

  Nigel just looked at her as if someone had slapped him with a wet fish. The look of confusion was clear.

  Eggnog was still busy acting as a power source to the computer, speakers, and the PA system when a new directive flung itself into his data processing unit. It was simple, straightforward, and Eggnog accomplished it in just under eleven seconds. It said, hide in a filing cabinet.

  0m11s

  The Devil climbed down off the table and stretched his new legs. Nigel, Celina, and Gerald looked at the Devil's new body. It was still a jolly-looking Father Christmas but the look of pure hatred in the eyes was unmistakable.

  0m 7s

  "I'm alive!" shouted the Devil. "And now you're all going to pay, the whole world's going to pay, it feels so good to be alive!"

  0m00s

  There was an earth-shattering boom and the Majestic Technologies building ceased to exist.

  Nigel, Celina, Gerald, and the Devil all died instantly.

  Thirty-Five.

  Years later, Nigel often pondered the experience of exploding into nothingness. Being in the vicinity of a bomb was one thing, someone could get some shrapnel in the knee, lose a body part, be horribly scarred and that sort of thing. But to be so close to the bomb where people were literally vaporized was quite something else.

  To Nigel, it felt like a cross between a sneezing fit and falling asleep in the sun for several hours, all compacted into one millisecond. One minute he was there, and the next minute, he wasn't. His entire body, along with Celina's body, Gerald's body, all the elves, and Santa Claus, ceased to exist in the blink of an eye.

  Nigel was surprised that, although his body was gone completely, his essence, or what he presumed was his soul, could still see, hear, and feel quite well. And so the shock waves from the explosion sent his soul flying straight upward, through the clouds, through the Earth's atmosphere where he bounced off a satellite and found himself floating lazily through the dead coldness of space.

  It wasn't long before Celina's soul also joined Nigel's soul, and Gerald's soul didn't want to be left out, so that wasn't too far behind. The trio's souls looked very much like their owners' bodies had in their previous life; they were just a lot brighter, sort of transparent with a luminescent glow, and instead of moving they just drifted unnaturally around.

  They couldn't speak to each other, as they lacked the physical ability to do so; thinking to each other was also out of the question as there was no longer a brain to work with, but neither of these things seemed to hinder the group, as somehow the souls of the individuals found it incredibly easy to take the complete lack of sound that can only be not heard in space and reverse it into noise, which at first sounded like nothing but static on a television; but the more they tried, the better they all got, until finally Nigel's soul said, "Can anyone hear me?"

  "Nigel?" said Celina's soul.

  "Hullo," said Gerald's soul.

  "Celina, Gerald," said Nigel's soul.

  The lack of ears didn't appear to hinder the conversation as they weren't even speaking but naturally knew what everyone else was not saying.

  "This isn't exactly how I pictured all this turning out," said Nigel's soul.

  The large blue and green globe that was the Earth spun slowly beneath them.

  "It is quite beautiful up here, though, isn't it?" said Celina's soul.

  "Marvelous," said Gerald's soul happily. "What do you think happens now?"

  "Well," said Nigel's soul as he floated through Celina's soul, "we all appear to be dead. I couldn't even begin to guess what happens next."

  "I thought the dead couldn't die?" asked Gerald's soul.

  "That's true," said Celina's soul, "but if we can't die, then what are we still doing here?"

  Gas from a nearby planet floated by and collided with a ray of sunlight that had deflected off a bald gentleman's head in northern Cambodia, causing the gas' atoms to realign themselves and turn into a very nice mahogany door with a brass handle. The three souls floated their way over to the new phenomenon to investigate.

  The door opened, and a dull light spilled out, instantly swallowed up by the emptiness of space.

  Death poked his head out of the doorway.

  "What are you all waiting for, get in here!"

  Earlier on, in the quaint little bistro, Heinrich had taken Death aside for a chat. Gerald happily sat alone and filled up his wine glass for the third time.

  "Look, I really am sorry about everything," said Death.

  Heinrich nodded and grinned whimsically.

  "I know. And it's okay. You know me well enough to understand that everything's going to work out in the end, right?"

  "Well, it usually does."

  "Have a little faith, then," said Heinrich still smiling. "You can have your job back, don't give it a second thought. But I need you to do a couple of things first."

  Death was ultimately relieved to know that his job was secure and that the Creator of the universe still liked him, even though, while in a drunken stupor, Death may have inadvertently referred to him as a giant baboon's backside.

  "Of course," said Death solemnly, "anything."

  "Well, first, we have to get our old friend out of that poor cat and back to where he should be."

  "I can take care of that."

  "I know that you probably could take care of it yourself, but I have something else in mind. Firstly, I need you to deliver two messages and secondly, I need you to abandon everyone, even your newfound friend over there, at a most critical point."

  Death nodded slowly, understanding absolutely nothing. He looked into Heinrich's eyes, which twinkled a bright blue and told him everything he needed to know in a matter of seconds.

  "Ohh," said Death, nodding more knowingly, "that makes more sense."

  Death walked across the room to Gerald and leaned over the table.

  "Er, Gerald, Heinrich would like a quick word with you and then we have to be off again, okay?"

  Gerald nodded with a ferocity that most headbangers would admire, picked himself up, and wandered over to Heinrich.

  The afterlife was not what Nigel expected. Although when he thought about it, he really hadn't thought very much about what the afterlife would look like. But he figured that if he had thought about it, then this would not be what he expected.

  "Nigel," said Death, "You're thinking far too loudly."

  "Oh, sorry," said Nigel.

  When they passed through the door, their souls stretched extremely thin and forced their way through some sort of long tube made of light and beautiful music. For a twinkling moment, Nigel could have sworn he'd seen, out of the corner of his eye, the San Francisco Philharmonic Or
chestra floating around,

  The entire thing came to a shocking and sudden halt when Nigel's, Celina's, and Gerald's souls were spewed into nothingness, which quickly turned into an Arizona desert landscape at night. Death stepped out from behind a cactus and grinned.

  "Well, how much fun was that?"

  Celina's soul looked stupefied. "Which part? The floating in space part? Or the getting blown into little pieces part?"

  "I was thinking about the entire experience as a whole, really."

  Nigel was certain that if Celina had any sort of physical presence, she would have swung for Death at that point.

  "All right," said Nigel's soul, "what now? And why does the afterlife look like Arizona?"

  "This isn't the afterlife. It's more like a waiting room. I pick the souls up, bring them here, and then they find out whether they go up or down. Heaven or Hell. Best place in all of eternity, or hot, humid, and swimming in a lake of fire until kingdom come."

  "You paint a lovely picture," said Celina's soul.

  "And it looks like Arizona right now because I want it to. Sometimes it's a big grassy meadow, sometimes the top of a mountain, bottom of the sea, wherever I feel like it, I guess."

  "So we're dead?" asked Gerald's soul.

  "As a doornail," replied Death.

  "And there's no way around that, then?" asked Nigel's soul hopefully.

  "Well, you can't really get blown up and survive, unfortunately."

  "Didn't think so," said Nigel's soul.

  "I know it's a bit of a downer."

  "Bit of a downer!" yelled Celina's soul, "we're all dead! What kind of a plan was that?"

  Death continued to smile. "Well, all the elves are gone and you three stopped the Devil from taking over the world."

  "Yes, but we're dead. We can't even enjoy it!"

  "Think of the people you saved. You died for a good cause. No point worrying about it now."

  Celina's soul flew at Death angrily and passed right through him.

  Nigel's soul eyed Death suspiciously.

  "There's something you're not telling us, isn't there?"

  Celina's soul, having lost control, floated upside down. "This isn't how I thought my day was going to go at all," she fumed.

  Death wiggled his finger at Celina, much like people do to a baby who has just thrown her plate of spaghetti all over the floor and was gurgling happily about it. Consequently, Celina's soul flipped the right way up.

  "Thank you," said Celina's soul.

  "All right," began Death, "there are a couple of things I'm not telling you. The Devil has been taught a valuable and much-needed lesson about control and power and he's not going to forget it quickly. All of you helped bring that about in one way or another. Celina here created the elves, Gerald was given the body the Devil should have had, thereby forcing him into a cat. Nigel, you found a goldfish, among other things."

  Nigel had been thinking about his goldfish and had somehow felt that the strange messages he had been receiving all day had something to do with his little swimmy friend.

  "You played your parts," said Death, "you saved the world from constant torture and tyranny at the hands of Satan and you all came together."

  Celina's soul rolled her eyes in a way that only a recently exploded, redheaded, female genius could.

  "Doesn't stop us from being dead though, does it?" she said, stating the complete and utter obvious.

  "Well, that's the other thing." Death looked at his wrist where a watch was not. "I'm not back at work yet; in fact, I have a good forty seconds before I'll be taking any dead people in, so I'm afraid you'll all just have to go back."

  "You're serious?" asked Nigel's soul.

  "We don't have to be dead?" said Gerald's soul.

  "Good, because I wasn't exactly warming to the idea," added Celina's pouting soul.

  Death smiled at his new friends.

  "Celina, look after Nigel and don't you dare try to tell me you're not attracted to him just a little."

  Celina's soul, which was an off-pink sort of colour, managed to blush a little.

  "Nigel, look after that goldfish and take care of Gerald. And Gerald," Gerald grinned. "Don't forget what Heinrich said, we'll talk again soon."

  "Thank you," was all Nigel could manage.

  Death smiled a truly happy smile, and another doorway appeared where a cactus used to be. The door flew open, and the three souls got sucked inside like lint up a vacuum. Death closed the door and snapped his fingers, the landscape collapsed into itself and then exploded in a dazzling display of multi-coloured sparks that settled to form a large, snow-covered mountain top that looked out over several other snow-covered mountain tops.

  A doorway arose out of the snow and swung itself open. The twisted and deformed soul of the Devil trudged through the doorway and stood with his arms folded in front of him, tattered leather wings folded behind him.

  Death grinned.

  "Ahh, Luci, so good to see you. You caught me at a good time; I just arrived back at work. You're going to want to take the elevator down to the basement. I think you know the way."

  Heinrich took his break. The bistro was quiet, so he stepped outside for some fresh air and pondered upon the day.

  The world was a mostly normal place. Strange events always happened, no doubt about it, but generally people went through their lives on a day-to-day basis under the impression that the world was completely normal. Although this was an arguable point; for all intents and purposes it could be agreed that the events so far in this story had not been normal. And, as with all not normal events, there were consequences. Unfortunately, things like dead people not dying and then all of a sudden dying again, the Devil leaving the Earthly plane abruptly, a penguin becoming a man, and an Entity traveling across the world, did cause quite the rift in our normal little universe. At the exact moment that Death sent the Devil back to Hell, the culmination of all these events caused reality to turn askew for a brief moment.

  The moment passed practically unnoticed by most inhabitants of Earth, and the only telltale signs of anything happening at all were as follows: in northern Canada, a man inadvertently gave birth to a large mongoose, whom he eventually named Stan, was shunned by his friends and colleagues, and became a hermit. In the deepest deep part of the ocean, a creature of terrible power and fury that had slept for six hundred thousand years woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

  On the outskirts of London, a professional theorist named Terrence Macklesfield, who had recently been disgraced on national television briefly, turned into a mango chutney-curried chicken-mayo-dried cranberry sandwich. Those who knew Terrence would have seen this event as the epitome of irony.

  At the BBC News Studio, a young anchorman who had agreed to be shot on live television suffered a terrible bullet wound that almost killed him.

  The strangest and most noticed event that took place in that particular moment was the sudden and abrupt disappearance of the entire law firm of Chatham, Chitham, and Chump; the building, and all its inhabitants, including Neville Bartholomew Snell Jr III, ceased to exist on Earth. Despite an extensive search, the building and its inhabitants were never seen on Earth again.

  Heinrich headed back inside the bistro but before returning to work decided he should make a very special phone call.

  Thirty-Six.

  The Devil pushed his way through the line of ingrates and no-goods waiting to get into Hell. The dark gates of Hell arose ominously from the dry, hot, and generally hellish landscape. Stan the gate guardian was still at his post, refusing to open the gates as was his order. The Devil liked to make the new inhabitants of Hell wait in line for what seemed like an eternity, knowing full well that all they were waiting for was another eternity of pure suffering.

  The Devil trudged up to Stan.

  "Open the gate," said the Devil dejectedly.

  Stan looked the Devil up and down.

  "Don't I know you?" asked Stan.

  The Devil put
one of his talons to his forehead; he could already feel the onset of a migraine.

  "Open the gate or I swear I'm going to flog you so hard you'll have no idea what hit you, and in your complete disbelief of not knowing what hit you I'll hit you some more so you know exactly what it is that's hitting you. Got it?"

  Stan slowly shrank as he realized who he was talking to, and the thought of being flogged with a giant wooden spoon, which everyone knew was the Devil's instrument of choice, was not a comforting one. He quickly opened the gate and the Devil stalked through, eyeing Stan until the gate closed behind him.

  The Devil was not happy to be home. His plan to inhabit a human body had been foiled the second he landed on Earth, and then to top it all off, his backup plan to take over the world had also been trashed. And here he was, back in Hell after only one extremely long day of being on Earth. Usually the sight of his fiery kingdom spread out before him, his lake of fire overflowing with lost souls, and the karaoke bar on the corner, were always enough to bring an evil grin to his leathery face. He was angry; no, not even angry, he was upset. He felt cheated, conned, taken for a ride.

  "Damnit," he said.

  I'm good at all those things; I should have seen it coming. At least my little apartment and my fish, Percy, will bring me some minor comfort.

  He absentmindedly kicked a lost soul off a nearby cliff and made his way to his apartment overlooking his kingdom.

  The demon he left in charge of his apartment, Azeal, although he had no power of speech, only one leg, half a wing, and smelled like something scraped off the bottom of someone’s shoe, was still able to—

  The Devil's thought process ground to a halt as he stood in front of his apartment, which was currently on fire. The Devil kicked open his door to find Azeal sitting in a reclining chair watching re-reruns of I Love Lucy.

  "Azeal! My house is on fire, you little ingrate, can't you see my house is—"

  The Devil suddenly realized what he was saying and quickly put it all down to a serious lack of sleep. Of course, his house was on fire; he was in Hell, everything was on fire. The Devil picked Azeal up by the horns.