Death

by George Pendle

  I arrived at the Palace of Pandemonium and was directed to my father’s office. He was sitting behind a vast obsidian desk and immediately asked me whether I was there about the sub-damned soul debacle.

  “Father?” I said. “It’s me. Death.”

  I could almost hear the vast, fiery Rolodex of his brain twirl, and then he remembered.

  “Oh,” he said. He picked up a large cigar. “What are you doing here?”

  I told him that I had come upon a body without a soul and wondered if he was in any way responsible. He mused over this news with a frown.

  “Humans without souls? This is very worrying. Very worrying indeed. The damage this could do to the market is incalculable, and our synthetic souls are nowhere near ready yet.”

  “Have you come across anything that could explain this?” I asked.

  He stood up and paced the room deep in thought, before leaning back on a filing cabinet that snorted and reared beneath him. Something seemed to be troubling him. He said that he had recently been tempting people in the desert, where it’s much easier to buy a soul at a knock-down price. He boasted that he could regularly pick up a soul for little more than some water and a sunhat. He paused again, playing with his flames.

  “But there was one man…”—an unfamiliar look of discomfort played across Father’s brow. According to Father, this one man had claimed to be the Son of God. This was hardly an original proposition at the time. Hundreds of people were popping up every day claiming to be Nephews of God, Second Cousins of God, Old School Friends of God, People Who God Owed Money To, and so on. Such fantasists were grist to Father’s infernal mill. He said he liked to tease them by asking them to do miracles—turning rocks into water, throwing themselves onto the top of tall buildings—all the usual temptations. To begin with, this man seemed to be following the pattern of other so-called Messiahs. He was coming up with all sorts of excuses as to why He couldn’t use His “powers.” Usually these ran the gamut of medical reasons (“I’ve got a headache”) or mystical reasons (“because it’s a big secret”) to spur-of-the-moment explanations (“your orange sun saps my strength”).

  “Usually I barely have to try,” said Father, shrugging his giant shoulders. “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But with this one it was different.”

  “How was it different?” I asked.

  “Well, He turned down every offer I made for His soul, even my good ones. I offered Him wealth, and power, and always having the exact change on you, but He wouldn’t budge at all. He said that I’d never get His soul out and started giggling. And when I asked if I could just take a look at it, He got all defensive and ran off.”

  “What was His name?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Father. “Whenever I put the contract for His soul in front of Him, He kept drawing crosses on it as if it was all a big joke. And all the while…” His voice died off.

  “What is it, Father? Tell me.”

  “Well,” said Father. “All the while I was tempting Him, He just kept winking at me.”

  Could Father’s winker be the same as my winker? Thoughts raced through my mind, and I left Father in an unusually anxious state. I was heading for the gates when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Master Death?”

  “Hello, Reginald.”

  He looked terrible. His feathered wings were even filthier than before, the bags under his eyes more pronounced.

  “It’s…it’s really very, very good to see you again,” he said slowly. “How are you?”

  “Actually, I’m a little busy right now, Reginald.”

  “Of course you are, Master Death, of course you are. I was just wondering if you could see your way toward helping me finally get out of here. You don’t know what I’ve been going through.” I saw Uncle Puruel stick his head out of Reginald’s ear, wave to me, and then crawl back inside. Reginald didn’t flinch, although his eyes grew watery.

  “Look, Reginald, once I’ve dealt with this, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Oh thank you, Master Death, thank you. Do you know how long it might—”

  “Good-bye, Reginald,” I said.

  Things were growing very strange indeed. Could the obstreperous being that Father had met in the desert be the same as my soulless body? Upon returning to Earth, I decided to go and visit the corpse to see whether I could pick up any clues. However, I was somewhat shocked upon my arrival to find that the cave in which my soulless body had been buried was empty. This wasn’t particularly unusual. Many people did strange things with bodies after the soul had left, but I didn’t normally concern myself with that. What worried me was that I might now never be able to solve the mystery. I was leaving the cave, feeling disconsolate, when I heard a hiss come from a nearby bush. This was odd, as bushes are usually quite polite. I walked over to it and who should suddenly spring to His feet but the soulless man Himself!

  “Surprise!” He beamed.

  He was very much alive. In fact, He seemed completely healed, barring the holes in His hands through which He kept peering at me in a rather disconcerting manner.

  “How can You see me?” I asked.

  “Well,” He beamed, “I look at you and there you are.”

  “Where’s Your soul?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know!” He beamed at me. “I guess you didn’t do your job very well, did you?”

  “What are You?” I asked. “Some kind of god? A zombie?” He didn’t look like a god. Gods are vain. They like to have manicures and haircuts, and this guy was a mess. Similarly, He was much chattier than your average zombie. “If You are, You know the rules; You’ve got to be in the Book or on Olympus.”

  “Oh, but I am in the Book,” beamed the man. “Just not yours.”

  Winker.

  He was beginning to irritate me.

  “Well, look, why don’t You come over here, let me take Your soul, and we can forget all about this.”

  “You’ll have to catch me first!” He beamed, and started running away, looking over His shoulder at me and squeaking with excitement. And so it was that I found myself chasing a bearded madman halfway across Jerusalem. The strange thing was that no matter how fast I was, He was always a bit faster, ducking, diving, and parrying my grasp.

  “Blessed be My feet!” He beamed as He vaulted a table of vegetables in the market. “Blessed be My athletic prowess!”

  I don’t feel fatigue. It’s one of the benefits of being a supernatural creature, along with good cheekbones, yet there was something incredibly exhausting about this pursuit. No matter how fast I moved, He was always just one step ahead of me, taunting me. Eventually I lost track of Him in a bazaar.

  The whole thing didn’t make any sense. If people stopped having souls and their bodies took to resurrecting themselves, then Life would become just a meaningless charade. With no restrictions, no finitude, Life’s precious fragility—the exquisite mortal balancing act that engenders all the wonders of existence—would be overturned. The dying leaves, the growing plants, the fluffy puppies—all were delightful because of their tenuous survival. Yes, I suddenly realized, I liked Life just the way it was. Really liked it. And now some born-again joker without a soul was threatening it? Didn’t He realize what He was doing? No soul? It was ridiculous! After all, if no one ever really died, what would become of me?

  The following week I was busy taking the soul out of a small lizard who had been trampled in a crowd, when I heard a familiar voice. Looking up, I saw the crowd that had done the trampling had converged around none other than the soulless man. He was standing on the side of a mountain, beside four rather pale-looking men, who kept giving one another nervous sideways glances.

  “Cower, mortals!” beamed the soulless man to the multitude. “On your knees! On your bellies! Get on the ground and crawl to Me!” There was some consternation among the listeners, and the four pale men conferred in hurried whispers. One of them quickly stepped forward and addressed the crowd.

  “Wh
at His Lordship means is ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’” The crowd let out a sigh of relief. The soulless man raised His arms to the throng.

  “Hideous mortals! You are fit to eat nothing but My feces and drink nothing but My urine!” There was even greater dismay in the crowd, and the four pale men, sweating profusely, huddled around together once more.

  One of them was eventually pushed forward. “Wh…what His Lordship means is, ‘Blessed are you that hunger, for you shall be satisfied.’” There was a low murmur of disbelief from the crowd.

  “Or perhaps you’d prefer to take a bite out of Me?” continued the soulless man, ranging wildly in front of the crowd, offering out His arms. “Go on, take a bite. Get your free blood of Christ! Get your free body of Christ!”

  One of the pale men fainted. The crowd burst into uproar. One of the pale men desperately tried to calm them down.

  “That’s all for this week. Thanks for coming. We’ll be telling you what His Lordship really meant by that last…bizarre…statement next week. Do please try and come. I’m sure you’re all dying to know. Holy Grails are available from Luke, shrouds from Matthew—they’re lovely, Italian-made, get ’em while they’re damp—and once John recovers, he’ll be selling nails from the cross. Perfect for hanging pictures. Thank you, you’ve been a wonderful audience. Good night!”

  The Sermon on the Mount, or the Rant in the Levant?

  The crowd slowly began to disperse, leaving me standing there, amazed and a trifle scared at what I had just heard. Just then the soulless man who had called Himself Christ caught sight of me, leapt in the air, clicked His heels, and skipped away.

  This time, though, He would not get far. I cornered Him in an alleyway in Jerusalem and walked toward Him slowly, giving Him the whole talk of how I was inevitable and how He could not escape, when suddenly He shut his eyes, put His hands together, and smugly murmured, “Beam Me up, Daddy.”

  And with that He shot into the sky and was gone in an instant. A horde of the newly devout began wailing around me in ecstasy. I stood there for a moment, shocked, and then it all clicked. The immortality, the arbitrary nature, the capitalized letters at the start of pronouns—God was back.

  Paradise

  I had never been to Heaven before, and many of the signposts along the way had been defaced or bent the wrong way, so it took me longer to get there than I had originally anticipated. All the while I was seething inwardly. Yes, I knew that God was the great Creator; yes, I knew that without God none of this would exist—including myself—but why on Earth was He meddling in this way with Life, the Life that I understood and cared for? It wasn’t as if God had been all that interested over the last few eons. And now He thought He could just send one of His manifestations round to screw everything up!

  When I finally arrived in Heaven, I was surprised to find it ringed around with a wall covered in spray-painted, Kabbalistic graffiti. Why did Heaven need a wall? To stop people getting in, or to prevent them getting out? The reforms Gabriel had boasted of centuries ago seemed to be well under way.

  I eventually found the gates. Just looking at them reminded me of my childhood. Admittedly they weren’t made out of the bones and organs of a thousand tormented creatures, nor did they scream when they opened, but they had hinges and bars and that was good enough for me. Standing in front of the gates was a large angel wearing pince-nez and poring over a book that looked very similar to the Book of Endings. A badge clipped to his white robe read HI, I’M…PETER. Behind him sat an older female angel. She was knitting furiously.

  “Next,” he said without much enthusiasm.

  “I’m here to see God,” I said.

  “Oh, you are, are you?” said Peter, a condescending smile playing on his lips.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Who is it?” screeched the female angel.

  “Apparently he wants to see God, Mother.”

  Peter’s mother took one look at me and sneered. “Leave him alone,” she screeched at me. “Peter, come and cut my toenails.”

  Peter gave a visible shudder.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m Death. I really need to speak to Him.”

  “Death, eh?” said Peter. “A little out of your neck of the woods, aren’t we?”

  “There’s been a problem, one of yours, I think.”

  “I doubt that very much,” said Peter. “Problems aren’t really what we’re all about. Up here there are nothing but solutions and explanations. We leave problems to your father’s lot. What was the name of this problem?”

  “I’m not too sure. He had a beard and sandals.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s not going to be hard to find, is it now?” said Peter sarcastically. “I mean, that only happens to be the look of the era.”

  “Yes, I see your point. He did mention the name ‘Christ,’ though. Ring any bells?”

  “Jesus Christ!” blurted Peter.

  “I didn’t get a chance to find out His first name.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Peter. “He must have escaped again. Hold on, I’ll show you in.”

  Avoiding the withering looks of his mother, Peter swung the gates open.

  “Take note,” said Peter with forced gravitas, “the celestial spheres, the sound of the Universe in motion.” An electric door chime sounded as we stepped inside.

  “Behold,” he continued, “the Elysian Fields.” Some rather tatty and overgrown grassland lay ahead of us. It was covered in litter.

  “Hark, the heavenly jubilee and loud hosannas.” An out-of-tune trombone played somewhere in the distance.

  “It’s not very good, is it?” I said.

  Peter looked at me irritably. “We’re going through a transitional period,” he said, and led me on.

  My first impression of Heaven was that it was like a rather run-down casino, but without any gambling; just tinkling noises, watered-down drinks, stained carpets, and a lack of clocks. The clouds on which it was perched seemed threadbare, and shabby, like they hadn’t been changed in a while, and everywhere you could see that numerous theological loopholes had been patched up with clashing doctrine.

  Heaven, in the Brochure.

  We strode onward, Peter leading the way, through an area in which giant filing cabinets, miles high and miles wide, were attended to by distinctively gray angels.

  “I didn’t think there’d be clerks working up here.”

  “This section is Clerk Heaven. There are millions of people on Earth who would think it wonderful to be a clerk,” sniffed Peter over his shoulder.

  I heard a scream, followed by a cry of exultation.

  “What was that?”

  “That’s Flagellant Heaven,” said Peter. “They’re whipped regularly and for all eternity.”

  “You mean there’s whipping in Paradise?” I said.

  “There are thousands of people on Earth who would think it wonderful to be whipped,” said Peter. He sounded less convincing this time.

  “But isn’t that sinful?” I asked.

  “No actually, quite the opposite. As long as you’re not enjoying it too much.”

  “So they’re not enjoying being in Heaven?” I said. I was finding all this rather hard to take in. At least in Hell you knew where you stood, which was usually neck deep in shit.

  “Well,” Peter paused. “I imagine there are a handful of people on Earth who would think it wonderful to be here and not enjoy it.” He smiled weakly.

  In the distance I saw a vast pyramid of angels balancing on the end of a pin.

  “It’s a favorite hobby up here,” explained Peter. “I believe the record is some six hundred thousand.” There was a sudden cacophony, a lot of frantic arm waggling, and what sounded like thirty-two thousand feather pillows falling on top of one another.

  We continued on our way. I noticed that behind almost every cloud bank lay large ragged holes cut in the clouds. Circles of angels
two or three hundred deep gathered around them. They all seemed to be peering at something far below. Despite Peter’s best attempts to guide me away from them, I pushed through one of the crowds and saw that the holes gave rather good views of the damned in Hell. The angels were thrusting one another aside to get a better view.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Well, okay, this is a sticky one,” admitted Peter. “Part of the happiness of the blessed consists in contemplating the torments of the damned. It heightens their awareness of their own bliss, you see?”

  “Doesn’t this detract from their happiness?” I asked, watching people jockey for better positions. “I mean, they have to pity them, right?”

  “Oh no,” said Peter shaking his head. “The sense of their own escape far overcomes the sense of another’s ruin. Justly inflicted pain is rare on Earth.”

  I looked at the saved and saw them grinning at one another, swamped with satisfaction. It was strange, but the more I looked at them, the more the angels in Heaven bore a striking resemblance to the devils in Hell. Some of them had even slicked back the feathers on their wings to resemble scales, while others had actually affixed fake horns, which flashed red, to their heads. They wore their harps slung low and spoke with a distinctive hellish accent. A couple even flicked their cigarettes at Peter as we passed. He pretended not to notice.

  On we strode through Heaven’s wide expanse. We passed a giant blackboard, on which were marked an array of arrows and circles, shaded triangles, and interlinked geometric shapes. Many parts had been rubbed out, and in the midst of it all somebody had scrawled JESUS WAS HERE.