Death's Offices

“Mr. Anderson, if you could follow me.” I waited for Mr. Anderson to get up from the chair, and over to the door before starting off down the hallway. I stopped at my office and gestured to the chair closest to the door.

After Mr. Anderson sat down, I walked to the chair on the other side of the desk. I sat down, and opened the folder I had with his paperwork.

“How are you today, Mr Anderson?” I asked. He took in a shaky breath.

“Well, um...I’m dead. That’s not really what I was expecting today, to tell you the truth,” he answered.

“Don’t worry, very few people ever do,” I responded. I began to flip through his paperwork. “Are you adjusting ok?”

I looked up at him. He was staring at me. “How are you adjusting, Mr. Anderson?” I prompted again.

"I... just died, I don’t think I am adjusted yet,” he responded.

“Give it time,” I said. “Now, you were an agnostic in life, were you not?” The man across the desk nodded. I pulled out a list. “Here are your options for the afterlife. Let’s go over them one at a time, shall we?” I needed to get through this. Mr. Mortimer had some important stuff for me to do, and the sooner I got done with this, the sooner I got done with that.

“Hey, Sandra. Here’s the suggestion box.”

I looked up, right as Mr. Mortimer slammed the so called “suggestion box” down on my desk. “I’ll get on that, right away sir,” I muttered.

“Thank you, Sandra,” he smiled. “I’ll be back at the end of the day to see how you’ve done.”

I sighed as Mr. Mortimer left. “I’ll be back at the end of the day,” I mocked as I pulled the box closer to me. I took the top off, and stuck my hand in, rutting about the pieces of paper. I grabbed one, and pulled it back out to read it.

Let all of us dead people go back home. That would be an inter-dimensional nightmare, I thought. Earth wouldn’t be able to handle that. The staff there have got enough problems. Next.

Phone line to the living. Had this person never heard of hauntings? Next.

Blow me off, pretty woman. Ugh. Perv. Next

I continued through the box full of suggestions that ignored inter dimensional laws, ignored resources, and ignored common decency. Even when dead, people had no sense of how things worked.

It was the last suggestion in the box. Can we get the opportunity to say goodbye? In person? It’s actually an ok idea, I thought. It was the only idea that had a possibility of working, and wasn’t completely creepy. Mr. Mortimer couldn’t possibly object to enough time to give comfort to the living. Could he?

I moved to my computer and put in the calculations. I wanted to see if I was actually thinking along the right lines. It wasn’t long before I had my answer. There wouldn’t be much of a problem inter-dimensionally, either. We could definitely offset any of the side effects, it wasn’t any different from much of the other work we did.

I got up from my desk and looked outside. Mr Mortimer showed no signs of coming back. So I hurried down the hallway. When I got to his office, the door was closed. So, I knocked.

“Come in.”

I pushed the door open. “Mr. Mortimer?” He looked up from his computer. “I found one.” He looked at me, utterly confused.

“One what?” He asked.

“A suggestion that I think might work,” I said. “Remember? You had me sorting the new suggestions box all day.”

“Right,” he said. “Um...ok, what is it?”

“Well, not everyone gets the opportunity to say goodbye, right? What if we could give those people the opportunity to go back? It would only have to be for a couple minutes. I think we can do this, we have the technology, and—"

“No,” Mr. Mortimer interrupted. I blinked, taken aback.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“No, we can’t do it,” he said.

“Pardon me for asking,” I said, “but why? We have the resources to do it, Earth has the resources, it wouldn’t cause many problems, and we can totally manage the ones it does.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do it right now,” Mr. Mortimer said again. “I’m not at liberty to discuss why. I believe that you have another person waiting for you, so I do need you to get back to work. We can discuss this at a later time.”

“I’ll just go then,” I muttered. As I stomped down the hallway, I decided to find a way to make it happen.

Back in my office, I opened up my desktop email, and started a new email. I titled it “suggestion box idea,” and proceeded to describe the idea, and the effects it would have between dimensions, and how to counter act any negative dimensions. Then, in the “To” box, I put everyone. Every single person in the office building would be hearing about the idea. Then I went to my door, grabbed the file for my next client, and headed to the waiting room.

Mr. Mortimer stormed into my office. “Next time you want to make a fool out of me,” he raged, “do it to my face, why don’t you?”

I feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Mr. Mortimer snapped. “You sent out an email to the whole company. I’ve been getting people coming by all day asking me about it.”

“Oh, um, that was before I came to ask you,” I lied. “I wanted to get other people’s responses but none of them responded, so I came to you.”

“Yeah, well, now they’re all coming to me,” he grumbled, and threw a file on my desk. “This is your next client.”

I took the file as Mr. Mortimer left. I flipped through it. The man, who had lived alone, had been brutally murdered. His family had lived several hundred miles away. I knew what I had to do. So, I headed to the waiting room.

“Mr. Rochester,” I called out. A tall, incredibly well-muscled man stood up. “Follow me,” I said, and proceeded down the hallway, offering him a seat as we entered my office. It was time to put my plan into motion.

I went through all the necessary paperwork. He seemed to be fairly at ease with the whole thing, which was a bit of a surprise. Not everyone who died the way he did would be this comfortable.. Finally, we finished the paperwork, and I could really get down to business.

“Mr. Rochester, I would like to congratulate you,” I said. He stared at me. “You are the first in a new program. You will have five minutes to let your loved ones that you are ok.”

He continued to stare at me. I opened the portal program on my desktop, and input the necessary information. A portal opened up a portal. “It’s a chance for you to properly say your goodbyes.” He nodded.

“Didn’t think I’d actually get to do that,” he said. “Not the way I went.” His head turned, and his eyes met mine. “I come back through the glowing light when I’m done, right?”

“Yes. I’ll be right here waiting for you,” I said, as I guided him to the portal. Once he was through, I sat down at my desk, and waited. I pulled a scrap paper closer, and scribbled on it, keeping an eye on the screen in front of me. When Mr. Rochester came back through, he had tears in his eyes. I handed him his packet.

“Just proceed down the hallway to the left, and the people at the desk there can help you,” I said. “Have a good afterlife.” Mr. Rochester nodded, and left my office. I sat, and waited for the ensuing storm.

Mr. Mortimer stormed in and demanded to know why I had done it. I didn’t bother trying to explain it. I knew he wouldn’t accept an answer anyways. I did what I did. I can only hope that things change for the better.