by Cobyboy
But this was Heaven, right? Whatever was going on here, it was something that the creator enjoyed or found pleasant, otherwise it wouldn't exist. I forced my thoughts to become rational, and my feeling of dread was replaced by curiosity. I wanted to call out, and see who might answer, but I dared not say a word. The signs were a warning against noise.
I walked along, hands in the outer pockets of my cloak. I quickly found my way out of the maze of cars and onto the sidewalk. It was much more navigable, though still strewn here and there with strange objects.
At one point I passed in front of a library building, with a large plaza outside of it. The majority of the plaza was taken up with children's playground equipment. Enclosed spiral slides, vast playhouses with bouncing bridges between then, climbing poles and wacky ladders... I couldn't be sure, but I thought I saw someone moving in the darkness of a plastic tube. I was not feeling particularly inclined to go and talk to them, so I kept walking.
Soon I came to a gas station. A bunch more vehicles, exclusively pickup trucks, had been left closely packed together all across the parking lot, and even in between the pumps. Most of them were half-covered over in tarps, but as the wind blew I caught a brief glimpse beneath and saw that the beds of all the trucks were connected with wooden planks, so that someone could crawl all the way through the maze of vehicles without touching the ground or being seen at all.
But I did see someone. As I watched, a hand shot out and pulled the windblown edge of the tarp down to conceal themselves.
I felt the hair on my neck go up. I started walking a bit faster. What was going on here? The sun was setting very fast; night was falling. Before long, I would be lost in this strange and quiet city. Lost in the darkness.
Thankfully, I had been smart enough to stay on the same street the entire time. I had walked in a straight line. To get back to my doorway, and escape back into the Suburbs, I just had to turn around and walk back the same way I had come.
I almost turned and ran right there at the gas station. But my curiosity got the better of me. I had to figure out what the reason for all this strangeness was. I had to solve the mystery. The mere existence of a mystery infuriates me. The answers must be known. All depths must be probed.
I kept walking, as the city fell under a profound darkness. Other than the muted street lamps, no light shined from anywhere. It was only me, strolling through small pools of yellow lamplight and the long stretches of shadow between them, and looking up at the stars and the dark buildings.
I did see, in a room quite near the top of a tall building, a single light burning. It was actually a string of lights, I think, glowing in several different colors. The kind you see at Christmas time. I don't know what that was, other than maybe a trap, so I decided not to investigate further.
The few buildings I did wander into contained all the objects you would expect to find, just organized in such a way as to create mazes out of them, with plenty of nooks and crannies and hiding places. Each time I heard a noise in the rooms I entered, I turned and bolted back out into the street. I couldn't help it. I kept feeling like I wasn't alone at all. There were people all around me, watching from everywhere, but they were so well hidden that I could never see them.
Finally, the night was sliced in half by a pair of lights. A near-silent electric car glided like a ghost down an intersecting road, turning to fix me in the headlights. I stopped and waited as the car crunched to a stop. Someone got out and strolled toward me, silhouetted by the lights at their back, the details of their appearance lost from sight until they got right up to me.
The person gestured for me to follow, and walked toward the light of a street lamp. When we reached it, the person turned and started running their hands along my cloak, feeling the material between their fingers.
"It is you," said the young woman. "Do you remember me?"
I tried to think. She must have been a fairly recent reaping. But I couldn't quite recall. I usually remember the ones who die young a little more vividly, but in this case I was drawing a blank.
"I fell from a bridge while trying to hide from my friends," she said in a voice that was far too cheery and bright for the subject matter. "I wasn't running from them; we were just playing hide and seek..."
That rang some bells. I now remembered the reaping. It wasn't a very high bridge, just a standard overpass above a lower road. The fall didn't kill her. The truck driver, who was coming through the underpass and had no time to react, was the one who sealed her fate.
"Is that what this is?" I asked, looking around. "A game of hide and seek?"
She nodded, grinning at me. I felt a strong sense of relief surging through me, making me giggle and think of how much of an idiot I was. But even knowing it was all just a game, the whole thing still struck me as being a little creepy. Oh, well; it wasn't my place to cast judgment.
"Every day, all day long," the young woman said, "they look for hiding places. The whole planet is perfectly set up for it. All seven billion people participate in the game. I go wherever I want in the world, and I try to find people. Whoever I find gets sent to the after party."
"The after party?" I asked.
She nodded. "It's a big, huge building in Russia. Big enough to hold everyone. When I finally find the last person, I'll meet them all at the after party. That will take a while... but I still have to think about what I'm going to do once I get there." She shrugged. "I guess I have a long time to think about it."
"Is this all you do?" I asked. "You just spend all your time playing hide and seek?"
"Only at night!" she said, folding her arms defensively. "During the day, I do lots of other stuff. Who are you to come in here and question me, anyway?"
I turned away from her. "I am Death. And there is no death here. I should be leaving, now."
She didn't keep me. I walked away. And when I was certain I was far beyond her range of sight, I started to run. Anything to be out of there faster.
***
How well do you really know the people you love? If you stepped into their mind, and saw the deep desires contained there, would you be surprised? I think you might be. Humans and Celestials are complex. As such, we have widely varying minds. One man's trash is another man's treasure. And one man's Heaven is another man's Hell. I had just been in a Heaven that was Hell to me, and that was more than enough exploration for one night.
I walked back to my apartment, still struggling at the puzzle of my recent gloominess and failing to solve it. Surely there was some combination of moves I could take to untangle the riddle. How is it that I could understand the universe around me as easily as though it were a chess board, and yet my own mind - the thing that gives rise to my consciousness, the thing which defines me - can remain such a mystery?
Sometimes even Celestials have personal crises, much like humans do. Maybe I ought to follow the advice of my friend Ben Franklin and find a human answer. I could beat my head against the walls up in Heaven for the next thousand years, and come no closer to figuring things out. Maybe I needed to dip my toes into the mortal realm.
But what do I really have in common with humans? When you remove my fascination with death, only chess remains. That is the link that connects me to mortals. But at that moment I wanted nothing less than to take part in another game of chess with a human opponent. The thought of it made me unbelievably irritable. I was sick of it. This disturbed me greatly. It made me anxious.
And despite my distaste, I would of course accept the next challenge that came my way. I would zone out, rest my chin in my hand, and play an effortless and utterly dull game of chess, making moves that confounded my competition but which bored me half to death; I had made them a million times before.
What else could I do? I had billions of years yet before the death of the universe would free me. I was stuck in this rut from now until the end of eternity.
9
Maybe what I really needed was a proper game of chess. Something that was actually challe
nging in any way. Maybe that would stimulate me, remind me why I loved chess to begin with. Why it was so important to me. Because I was really starting to forget. If I kept going at this rate, I might completely abandon the game before long. God wouldn't be happy about it, but such things are sometimes unavoidable.
While I moped, and went on my daily reapings, the world continued to spin and orbit the sun. The sun continued its slow drift through the cosmos. The galaxy continued to spin around its central black hole and the local supercluster of galaxies continued its journey across the dark reaches of the known universe. Time passed across God's creation. The moment of Ascension, when humankind surpassed its need for God, drew slowly but inevitably nearer.
Technology on Earth was becoming more advanced. It was rare now - and getting rarer - to see anyone fully connected with reality. They experienced it always through a filter, through some layer of augmentation. They didn't even drive themselves anymore; computers did it for them. They played games with everything. Everything became gamified in some way.
Could it be that my interest in chess was waning from some natural process, in perfect sync with declining interest among humanity?
No. A quick check while I was on Earth proved that chess was alive and well. Nearly three quarters of a billion people were playing it every day. Physical sets had been mostly cast aside in favor of electronic variants, but the game was essentially unchanged. People played faster and better than ever before. The current grand champions seemed to stand head and shoulders above the people who had been considered the greatest players of all time only a few decades before.
If anything, it seems humankind's interest in chess was only growing stronger. But mine continued to fall. It could have been a sort of balancing effect, the fading of the father as the child grows bigger and stronger. But I don't think that was it, either. I didn't experience this loss of interest during any other period of time during which chess grew in popularity.
With all scapegoats determined and rejected, I had to turn inward and face the real reasons.
It all boiled down to the fact that chess had become too easy. I felt like I had learned all there was to learn. Not even the strongest players could beat me. Even when I wasn't paying attention, my hand would continue playing and I would come to my senses later and realize I had won the game.
What a horrible feeling it was, to have the purpose of your existence stolen away from you.
I just needed a challenge. I needed to find a worthy opponent. I needed to find someone who was wily, clever, not afraid to play bold and unconventional moves. In short, someone like me. I would not find this elusive challenger among humankind; you mortals had already proven to me that you will never match my skill.
What about my fellow Celestials? By now, I had already played against every single one of them who would ever be willing.
So, I wouldn't find my ideal opponent on Earth or in Heaven.
That left one individual. One mind who was tricky enough to keep me on my toes in a game of chess. One chance to revitalize my interest in the game.
I had to play against Satan. The Devil himself.
I know what you're thinking, because it was the same thing I was thinking as soon as this ludicrous idea occurred to me; you're an idiot, Death. You can't just go down to Hell and challenge Satan! Who do you even think you are?
It is true that going to Hell is generally advised against, and that getting there isn't all that easy anyway. Not for a Celestial. For a human it is easy; simply lead a fun and hedonistic lifestyle and you have a better than even chance.
But even for me, there is a way to get there.
You see, there is a certain system set in place by the Celestial Court to be used in a very specific situation. If a soul is misjudged, if a mistake is made and the soul is sent to Hell, some resident of Lower Heaven will be granted a one-time pass to go there and retrieve it.
This system might be used if, after someone's death and judgment, something they did while living leads to an unforeseen good deed. Perhaps "unforeseen" is the wrong word, because God sees all, but a soul can only be initially judged for what occurred during its natural lifespan. Maybe a medical scientist who did too many bad things in life finally creates a new vaccine and then dies a few days later. He is judged and sent to Hell. But then, while he is burning in eternal Hellfire, his vaccine is used to save thousands of lives. His case will have to be reconsidered. It is one of those silly but unavoidable loopholes that exist in all administrative and legislative constructs. It is the only way by which a soul can visit both Heaven and Hell.
The reverse can also a happen; someone can be sent to Heaven originally, then re-judged and sent to Hell instead. But that is much rarer. For our purposes, we only need to think about the reverse.
It isn't something that happens terribly often. Not from a human perspective. Perhaps once every hundred years we have to put this contingency to work.
I hatched a plan for how to take advantage. I just had to wait for the next occasion to roll around. Years passed. And before I knew it, Earth was nearing the turn of the next century. The year was 2079 and I was twiddling my thumbs between reapings, tapping my foot and waiting anxiously for my chance.
It finally arrived.
Usually I don't hear about these second judgment cases until long after they happen. But I had already asked my old friend, the angel Lamina, to immediately warn me when a new case was being talked about.
She came while I was half asleep, leafing through an old, dog-eared and uselessly beginner-oriented copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. I was thinking about using a room in God's Palace, the Chamber of Replication, to make a ton of copies of this book and leaving them near the scene of my next thousand reapings. The idea was to drum up even more interest in the game, to get people started on their chess journeys; one day there might be some person among them who could challenge me.
I was thinking through this funny idea when Lamina came knocking. I immediately jumped to my feet, throwing the late, great and insane Bobby Fischer's book across the room.
"It's happening," Lamina announced, poking her head in through the door.
I ran out of the apartment, nearly bowling her over, pulling on my cloak as I stepped into the darkened street. We rushed off through Upper Heaven, toward the Court complex. I had Lamina fill me in on some of the details as we went.
"Two and a half years ago, Earth-time, you reaped a lawyer who committed suicide," she said. "He was a defense attorney, mostly, and throughout his career he helped a lot of bad people. A week before he died, one of the men he defended went free and clear on the strength of the defensive case. The man ended up murdering his own sister and her young children. That was why the lawyer killed himself."
"I remember," I replied. Even though it was over two years ago, a case like that is hard to forget.
"Well, a few months before he died the lawyer confronted a panhandler he always saw while on his way to work. He gave the panhandler a stern talking-to, then offered him to come to the firm for an interview. The panhandler got a job there as a janitor, but used his proximity to so many lawyers as a catalyst to jumpstart his own law career. He studied, took a huge class load at a university, and just recently he was able to win a bunch of settlement money for a family. The man of the family was a truck driver and was forced by his company to go for twenty-four hours straight one day, no sleep at all; he ended up falling asleep at the wheel and dying in a crash..."
"What a mess," I said.
Lamina puffed up beside me, sweating and breathing hard, as I ran effortlessly toward the Court. Being an angel grants you eternal youth, but you still have to work for it if you want to keep in good cardiovascular health.
"It was just enough to tip the balance of good on the lawyer's life file," Lamina added. "Now he needs to be fetched up from Hell."
"Good work," I told her. "Thank you. You don't have to follow me any more, if you don't want."
"You could use the
help," she replied.
You know, that was really nice. Very heartwarming. I was starting to feel a bit of my faith in the angels returning to me, their reputation bolstered by Lamina's good deed... but then Zanus came walking out of the shadows up ahead. He put out an arm, forcing me to stop or clothesline myself.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"A rematch," he said.
"What?" At that moment, my mind was off of chess for the first time in a long while. I was just thinking about how to get to Hell. It felt kind of good.
"I've been practicing ever since our first game," Zanus went on. "I've been playing against all the best players in Heaven, including those you have never been able to talk into playing with you. And I have gotten so much better. I want a rematch, Death!"
He balled his hand into a first, holding it in the air between us, and made an angry face. But it was the expression of a sniveling child who knows he really has nothing to threaten you with. I relished the idea of playing him again, embarrassing him a second time; that was almost enough to rekindle my love of chess all on its own.
"Then you'll have a rematch," I said, brushing past him and breaking back into a run.
"When?" he called. "When, Death?"
"I'll find you," I replied. "But I have more important things to do for now!"
***
Lamina and I raced together up the steps of the main courthouse. We passed landings where fires burned atop tall poles, lighting the way. We climbed and climbed, scaling the broad steps and steep risers and finally reaching the top, where we keeled over and nearly vomited from the exertion. But the view was worth it; we looked down on Upper and Lower Heaven, far below us at the bottom of the night, beyond that long and narrow set of stairs.
Lamina finally straightened up. Her cheeks were red and her hair was a mess but the moonlight glinted off her eyes and showed a clever glow there in the endless pools of her emerald irises.
"I have a secret," she said.