by Tanith Lee
“I don’t have a family.”
If the stranger heard, he showed no sign. “. . . but have you ever considered death insurance?”
Habbernak opened his mouth to reply, but didn’t get the chance.
“Well, of course you haven’t. After all, this is your first time in a situation that will lead to your imminent death, isn’t it?”
“Speaking of which,” Habbernak said, “can I ask you to help me to the curb? I wouldn’t normally ask, but you seem to be the only one around here with the power of movement.”
“I also have the power to offer you what someone in this dire predicament of yours can only hope for, Mr. Habbernak.”
“The curb?”
Again, the stranger either did not, or chose not, to hear. “You see, I assume, this vehicle in front of us?”
Habbernak admitted that he did.
“Soon it will regain its momentum, and when it does . . .” The man slapped his hands together to illustrate what would happen when it did, in the event there was some question as to his fate, and Habbernak flinched in mind if not body. “Just because this truck has your number on it, however, doesn’t mean you won’t have to wait around to have that number called. There’s no reason why it must be a quick death. You may linger on for minutes or hours or even days, suffering all the while. Not an attractive prospect, I think you’ll agree. That’s why we at Reaper, Inc. are prepared to offer you a clean, painless and — now here’s the important part — an instantaneous death.”
“I appreciate that, I really do, but I’d settle for help to the curb.”
“I’m afraid it’s beyond my authority to either instigate or terminate a Temporal Hiatus. I’m only in sales, you understand.”
“Temporal Hiatus?”
“Yes. And speaking of time, we don’t want to delay these good people much longer, do we? We should really be moving this along.” He pulled a very legal-looking document out of his briefcase. “Now, we only need one signature on this preliminary form, but later you’ll be required to fill out a more comprehensive one in triplicate.”
He offered Habbernak a pen, but it was only when Habbernak glanced down at his rigid right hand that the stranger realized his error. “Sorry about that.” He withdrew a cellular phone from his briefcase. “Extension 31, please…yes, Gloria? I’ll need a wrist release on Hiatus G6147/Hab.Reap. Thanks.”
Habbernak discovered he had regained control of his right hand from the wrist down. He accepted the pen. “Doesn’t look like I have much choice, does it?”
The stranger did not do a good job of concealing his satisfaction. “You’re making a wise decision, Mr. Habbernak. Besides making the whole transition to the Other Side proceed much smoother, your loved ones will be able to take comfort in the knowledge that it was over instantly. And of course our fees are really quite reasonable.”
Habbernak paused. “Fees?”
“Only 5.9 percent.”
“5.9 percent of what?”
“Your income, of course.”
“Income? I thought I was going to be dead.”
“You’re dying, not retiring. Our employment division can find you rewarding well-paying positions in haunting or channeling, or perhaps you’d enjoy greeting the newly departed in the Tunnel of Light arrival gate. I’m not familiar with your employment history, but possibly you’d like to apply to Reaper. The benefits are very generous.”
As the salesman held the form against his briefcase, Habbernak, still seeing no alternative, touched pen to paper.
“Hold it right there!”
The curb was now hosting another strange man in a suit. “Don’t sign that document, Mr. Habbernak!” he urged, joining them in the street.
“Why?” said Habbernak. “Can you beat 5.9 percent?”
“You don’t need death insurance, Mr. Habbernak, you need legal representation.”
The salesman from Reaper regarded the newcomer warily. “Legal? I can assure you this form is quite standard.”
“The form, perhaps,” the other replied crisply. “However, the circumstances of my client’s impending death are far from standard.”
“Client?” said Habbernak.
“We at Hereafter Legal Services would like to represent you, Mr. Habbernak, during this injustice you are experiencing. Our services are free, of course, until we win you the compensation you so richly deserve.”
“Compensation?” said the salesman.
“For the unjust nature of my client’s death.”
“Sacrificing oneself to save another may seem unjust to some, but Mr. Habbernak here is of a different breed.”
“Different breed, my foot! This man is a coward. Always has been.”
“Now just a minute . . .” Habbernak said.
“Ridiculous!” the salesman said. “Then why did he run into the street?”
The representative of Hereafter Legal Services spun around as dramatically as an actor playing a courtroom lawyer and thrust his finger at the mother frozen in mid-step. “Because of her!”
The salesman stifled a laugh. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“What we have here,” said the lawyer, “is something even more rare than selfless heroism — a case of desire transference.”
“Of what?” both Habbernak and the salesman said in unison.
“Observe this woman, gentlemen.”
They observed.
“At this instant, she will do anything to save her child. Anything. Including, but not limited to, throwing herself in front of this moving vehicle. In fact, that is precisely what she has in mind right now. When the child rushed out into the street, however, she was too far away to accomplish that act. On the other hand, you, Mr. Habbernak, walking innocently along the sidewalk, minding your own business, were quite close.”
“So what you’re saying . . .” Habbernak said slowly.
“What I’m saying is that this woman’s impulse to save her child was, in effect, transferred to you. Transmitted, in her intense desperation, to the nearest individual capable of carrying out her intentions. It was an entirely unconscious act, of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that what is happening at present” — he gestured at Habbernak, the truck, the boy — “is not, in fact, slated to. You are not supposed to be in this position, Mr. Habbernak.”
“No?” One corner of Habbernak’s mouth quivered tentatively upward. “No,” he said with more certainty.
“That boy is destined to die today, just as you are destined to live. And I can provide irrefutable proof of that. Mr. Brimlow?”
Though he hadn’t been there a moment ago, there was now another person stepping off the curb toward them, a smallish man wearing glasses and a slightly rumpled suit.
“Mr. Brimlow here is a researcher for Fate International.”
The slender man tipped his head at them. “Mr. Habbernak’s life was barely half over,” he said. “He was to die of a heart attack thirty-seven years from now.”
“And he can provide full documentation to that fact,” the lawyer said confidently.
The salesman swallowed hard, tiny beads of perspiration forming on his brow.
“Now as for character witnesses . . .” Another newcomer stood among them, a kindly-faced woman in a flowing white robe. “I’m sure no one is more of an expert on my client’s character than his Guardian Angel.”
“Arthur has a very compassionate soul,” she said, “but he’s never experienced anything even remotely resembling a heroic impulse. I’m sorry to say that he, like so very many, simply is not built that way.”
“You should be sorry.” Habbernak knew this was part of his defense, but couldn’t help responding to this second insult in as many minutes. “After all, I wouldn’t even be here right now if you’d been doing your job, steering me away from these sorts of things.”
“It isn’t her fault, Mr. Habbernak,” the lawyer said. “That woman over there was the one doing the steering.”
; “I’m…I’m afraid there’s been some sort of misunderstanding,” the salesman said. “I really must apologize, Mr. Habbernak. In all my years at Reaper I can’t recall a case like —”
“We don’t want an apology, sir, we want compensation! We demand it!”
“Well, yes, I can understand that,” the salesman sputtered. “I’m sure we can provide some form of it.”
“My client wants his life back, along with adequate monetary compensation for the mental anguish he has suffered being in this situation, as well as for having to endure your sales pitch.”
“No deal,” a new, female voice said.
It had come from the curb. More specifically, from one of a host of briefcase-toting individuals in well-tailored uniformly black suits and dresses flanking a figure in a hooded black robe. They were obviously a legal team.
“The boss,” the salesman said in a choked voice. He cleared his throat nervously. “I can assure you, sir, that I followed procedure to the letter.”
“My client deserves justice, and he shall receive it!”
“If it’s a reversal of the Hiatus you’re seeking,” said a rigid-faced woman, “it is beyond our power. As you know, Counselor, only Pearly Gates, Inc., possesses that authority. You may file a complaint with them if you wish — however, it will no doubt take years to go through their system.”
“If that is your response, you leave me no choice but to take this directly to the review board of DeathCo itself.”
Now it was the corporate lawyers’ turn to look nervous. They exchanged a swift series of murmurs, after which the black-clad woman leaned toward and whispered to the hooded figure, who responded with a stiff nod.
“We would like to propose a settlement,” she said.
Habbernak’s counsel allowed himself a quick grin. “That’s what I was going for all along,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
“Due to the unusual circumstances, we are prepared to offer your client a soul transposition. He may live the remaining years of life he is due in the child’s body, and the child’s soul will be transferred into the body of your client, where it will reside for a rather brief period.”
Habbernak’s lawyer did not hesitate. “We accept.”
“Wait!” The Guardian Angel stepped forward, looking at the boy sympathetically. “There’s another alternative.”
“The matter is settled, Madam,” Habbernak’s lawyer said sharply.
“Let her speak,” said the opposing attorney.
The Angel turned to Habbernak. “Arthur, I know I upset you with my talk of heroic capabilities, but there’s no need to be insulted. Each person possesses certain instincts. Yours, for example, are generally of the more basic variety, directing you to eat or sleep . . .” She glanced over at the tree belt, where the items from Habbernak’s shopping bag had been spilled. “Or to walk a couple of blocks to the corner store and purchase pretzels, cigars, and a six-pack. Granted, you’re not the selfless type by nature, but you have an opportunity here to compensate for that.”
“Really, Madam, this is quite pointless.”
She placed her hand imploringly on the unyielding slab of granite that was Habbernak’s shoulder. “Don’t you see, Arthur? You have a chance to become the noblest of sorts, for you would not merely be acting on a hero’s mindless instinct. No, you have had time to think, to weigh the consequences, to choose freely.”
“Choose?” said Habbernak.
“Yes. To stay where you are and donate your remaining years to the boy.”
“Madam, the matter has been resolved!”
Strangely, Habbernak found that he had not immediately rejected this option. He studied the suspended youngster. “It hardly seems fair, does it? A few years for him. So many for me.”
“Life is seldom fair, Mr. Habbernak,” said his lawyer. “Otherwise we would not be here.”
Habbernak faced the front of the truck again. “Would there be much pain, do you think?”
“It would most likely be over in an instant,” the Angel said.
“Just sign this form and I can guarantee it!” said the salesman.
“Nothing will be signed!” the lawyer insisted.
“You have it in you to do the right thing, Arthur.”
“Nonsense!” said the lawyer. “This man is not the type. You admitted so yourself. He would have stood idly by and watched the boy be flattened if not for the mother’s interference. You speak of instinct. We wouldn’t think of asking the heroic to override their instincts. Why should we treat the cowardly any different? By what right —”
“Don’t listen to him, Arthur. You may not be standing here of your own will, but there’s something that your attorney has failed to mention.”
“Madam, if you do not cease this moment, you will force me to file a petition naming you as a hostile witness.”
She ignored him. “When you realized there wasn’t time left to save yourself, you threw the boy toward the sidewalk. That impulse was entirely your own, Arthur. With a little prompting, you do have it within yourself to become a hero.”
“Madam!”
“Silence.”
All heads snapped in the direction of the hooded figure. Then the attorney at its side spoke. “What is your decision, Mr. Habbernak?”
Habbernak’s eyes ranged from the fuming lawyer, to the beseeching Angel, to the salesman holding out his pen, and finally settled on the boy.
An impulse seized him, and he made his choice swiftly, before he could change his mind.
* * * *
As the body of Arthur Habbernak was loaded into the rear of the ambulance, the crowd of onlookers gathered on Montgomery Street could not keep silent.
“What a man!” they said.
“Gave his life to save the boy!” they said.
“Such bravery!” they said.
“Such courage!”
The police were questioning the visibly shaken driver of the appliance truck as the young mother gave her son another hug. The only injuries he’d suffered when landing on the side of the road were a couple of scraped elbows and a scratched chin.
“I’m never letting you out of my sight again, Bobby,” she promised. “Never.” The ambulance pulled slowly away from the curb. “That poor man. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Young Bobby wandered over a few feet to the items littering the tree belt. He unwrapped a cigar, chomped off one end, spit it out, and wedged the stogie into the corner of his mouth.
“Life,” he said in a solemn tone far beyond his years, “is seldom fair.”
A GHOST STORY, by Mike Allen
All his life, he dreamed of fire.
The same dream, repeated,
like a record scratched
on his old phonograph, not
an antique when he bought it,
that loomed in the living room
through the decades, silent,
while he passed the days
without ripples, save those
made in the sheets as he thrashed
through sleep. Always the same:
His house, the beast he rides
but can’t control, the wall,
the pain and flames. He thought
he knew how he would die, and
feared to drive. None more surprised
than he the day his heart
simply stopped. He slumped
beside his ancient phonograph,
no loved ones left alive
to mourn his loss, to wonder
at the meaning of his dream . . . .
All his life, he dreamed of wind,
of air that rushed beneath his feet,
of speed, begged for a horse
when he was four, his family
too poor to ever indulge any
of his flights of sun-high fancy.
Desire for the chrome sheen
that eluded his grey, listless youth
drove him to scrimp, to save,
to starve, u
ntil his first and only
love came home one day,
with sleek lines and unmuffled
engine roar. With the wind
fighting his every move he took
the turn too fast by the house
where they found that old man,
dead for weeks, forgotten.
He fought as other hands manned
the controls. The house, the wall,
the unbearable final thrill
of engulfing flames. What high
price paid for a boy’s dream?
Their ghosts stare blindly from the windows as we pass,
The old man on the east side, the young man on the west.
As they wander through the house, they do not hear
each other’s footfalls.
— Mike Allen