Death on Strike?

Death on Strike?

By Scott Wilson

Word Count:1174

“Sod you then,” Death said to the spirit of the lawyer, holding onto his corpse, or at least he was trying to with his ghostly fingers that could not grab anything physical.

Death released his hold of the lawyer’s right leg, turned and walked away mumbling about being sick of people always saying it wasn’t their time, blah , blah blah.

“Nobody appreciates what I do,” Death grumbled. “Fine then. Let’s see if you lot can do a better job of things yourselves.”

Death kicked a cat that was hanging around the corpse of the lawyer. One of the cat’s nine lives fell out of its body and began licking its balls, not noticing that it was no longer attached to the body containing the remaining four lives.
Skulking along the street, Death continued mumbling and complaining until he was far out of earshot of the bewildered lawyer.

The lawyer finally realised he had escaped Death’s cold and bony grip, but was still laying outside of his physical body. He sat up and looked around, perplexed by his current situation. There he was, obviously completely dead, but not in Heaven or on his way down to the flaming, sulphur pits of Hell. He tried slipping back into his body. He could lie in the spot his body was but not stick to it. Inside his body’s head, he could see the aneurism that caused his dead moments ago and curiously poked it with his finger.

“Well, bugger me,” He said. “Now what do I do?”

He turned towards the fading figure of Death in the distance, leapt up and ran off down the road waving his arms and trying to attract the attention of the being he was just trying to escape.

He passed a young teenage couple lingering around the pieces of their gold Mitsubishi Lancer, wrapped around a telephone poll in the centre of the road. They looked just as confused as the lawyer, looking at their broken and bloodied bodies in the torn and jagged skeleton remains of the boy’s brand new car. They did not even notice the lawyer run past, chasing Death down the road.

“Hey, wait up,” he yelled as Death approached a crest in the hill.

Death turned around and shook his head from side to side, the bony teeth rattled like beans in a can.

“What do you want?” Death groaned in a low, monotone voice, devoid of all emotion and enthusiasm.

“Hey, what am I supposed to do now?”

“What do I care,” Death grumbled. “You were soo concerned about hanging on to your body before. Why not go back there.”

“I tried,” the lawyer said. “But I can’t get back inside. What do I do?”

“Not my problem,” Death said, turning to walk away. “I quite.”

“But, but, you’re death. You can’t quite.”

“Sure, you all hate me when I come to take you to your final destination, like you haven’t had your whole life to prepare and then act like it’s a big surprise. Do you know anyone who hasn’t died? No. So why the big fuss when I try and do my job?”

The lawyer reached out and touched Death’s thick, black hessian robe.

“Look, nobody liked me when I did my job either, but I still bloody well did it. Now you just stop feeling sorry for yourself and either put me back in my body or take me to Heaven.”

“Fuh,” Death chuckled. “You weren’t going there. Honestly, did you really think that is where I was going to take you?”

“Well, why not. I won every case I took to trial. Has to be worth something doesn’t it.”

“No, not really,” Death said, pulling out a set of shiny, gold scales from inside his robes. “Look at all the bad stuff on the other side here. Cheating on your taxes, lying, purgery, getting criminals off murder charges when you knew darn well they were guilty and being a downright unfriendly person.”

“You can’t be serious, being unfriendly? You can’t use that against me. It doesn’t say anything in the Bible about being a cheerful, laughing baboon, now does it?”

“Oh, I don’t care. I don’t make the rules, do I? I just get faxed the list at the start of the day and have to listen to you all whinge and whine while I try to finish my job on time. I am sick of hearing, I’m too young to die, I haven’t achieved everything I want to, But I just put the kettle on.”

“Look,” the lawyer said. “I’ll make a deal with you...”

“Like I haven’t heard that one before,” Death moaned.

“No, no seriously. If you put me back in my body, I’ll work for Legal Aid for the rest of my life.”

“Sorry, even if I had the slightest inclination to consider that pathetic attempt at a bribe, I don’t have the power to do anything about it. You’ll have to take that up with The Boss.”

The lawyer became furious and shook his fists in Death’s face.

“Now you look here sport. You take me to The Boss, then so I can sort this and get back to work. I’m going to be very late for an immensely important case. It’ll ruin my reputation if I’m not there for the closing session.”

Death shook his head again, wishing he had the power to send this annoying little man back to his body, just to shut him up. He was really beginning to get on Death’s nerves.

“Hey, are you the Grim Reaper?” a young boy, who had just been run over while skateboarding home from getting a bottle of milk for his mother. “Aren’t you supposed to, like come and get me or something?”

“I quite this morning,” Death said in his monotone drawl.

“Cool,” the boy said. “So can I like, go around and haunt my English teacher? Like, she says I can’t write or, like spell. I think she is full of shit, and all. What does she know?”

“You can do what you want,” Death said, looking worried about the large group of recently deceased spirits coming up the hill towards him. He sighed and thought, “Why did I stop on the top of this hill, if I’d waited until I got over the crescent they wouldn’t have seen me.”

The young boy was already half way back down the hill, running past his physical body lying under the car close to the scene of the accident the lawyer passed a few moments before. He did not seem to be the least bit worried about being dead at all.
Death sighed, wishing he hadn’t left his pale white horse, Sam, at the office this morning because it had a bit of a sniffle and didn’t feel well. He should have known that it was going to be one of those days.