Little Black Will

Who would even leave a dollar for the reaper? Bad PR aside even ferrymen make a better living, a greater insult to grim than the devil’s mounds of fiery gold given freely by Satanic worshippers. If bones required any upkeep then nobody would last long in the job that needed no body. Is the occasional dry clean for the uniform of black robes too much to ask? Something to distract from the monotony of the vocation. Of course people die in interesting ways, but people die in interesting ways all the time. Only a week of finding cadavers with pants around their ankles and belts around their necks, or the geriatric orgies that left behind mounds of feeble hearted bodies, and the comedy of those sights was gone. Black comedy, just the way grim likes it.

Surprise’s scarcity has left Grim’s economy of emotions baron and wanting. All demand, no supply. Just like dried out bodies in the desert once searched for an oasis before everything went black, Grim hoped. Those delirious days stretched beyond time’s meaning were Grim’s own. Specs of sand were bodies but death was no threat or promise in crawling across the endless dunes. The upside of eternity in the desert, which Grim had lost hope in, was that the elusive oasis could be called an inevitability. This oasis was a little black book.

“It suits me.” Grim thought with it pressed against the black robes. Its supple leather was an embarrassing reminder of how crusty the reapers garb had become and was moved as far away as one arm would allow. With it in the outstretched grasp of bony fingers the first surprise truly sunk in. Even in the absence of a central nervous system one can tell the difference between a notebook and a corpse. The shape it forces bones into, the downward pressure or the lack of, and the fact that Grim had not once before been able to pick up anything other than a lifeless body. Inside the covers neatly scrawled black ink filled the pages, nothing out of the ordinary that would justify that first. Even in paying closer attention there was nothing, nothing but snippets of journal entries, budgeting, appointments, and the occasional shopping list. Grim put the notebook back on the old, black leather couch, next to the elderly woman that must have been its owner. She was much more upright than most dead were, it was as though this showbox apartment was a waiting room and she was… well you know.

“Who are you?”

She was already in black, ready for a funeral. Grim played with the pages like a Vegas Blackjack dealer and looked to her for a reason. She wasn’t very cooperative. What did catch Grim’s socket was a pattern, a page standing out of the fast paced precession with penmanship that read; “important”.

“The last will and testament of Gloria White.”

Grim paused on the page, death is death so at least a will seemed more relevant than eggs, milk, bread. To find their namesake next to the sum of twenty thousand dollars was the hasty gulping of water in the desert. You don’t know that bone dry is all you’ve ever known until that quenching surprise is forgotten as a possibility and then found. There was only one name there and by the looks of Gloria’s abode twenty thousand seemed about right for; “I leave everything to”-

Gloria was shown her way out of the waiting room. Grim always took care with that but felt in her frail body a weight far greater than her flesh and bones. With just the weight of a little black book Grim went from the bridge between worlds to the bridge between full and empty pockets; the offices of McKendry, Felton, and Harris.

Contrary to popular culture tropes nobody ever sees a reaper. They are there when you are not. What remains of you, your soul if you have one, doesn’t see things the way the living do. Their vision is more like flying rivers of energy that carry away the sight of figures loitering in that space. Because of popular culture’s lies Amara Felton was not to know that. Given that she took it quite well when Grim materialised in her office, holding out a notebook instead of a scythe and bringing the words; ‘I have come’, into the room.

Amara had risen to her feet, a habitual reaction to anything objectionable, but an uneasy stance was relaxed by the unimposing sound of a skeleton clearing the throat that doesn’t exist.

‘I have come to present you this will of a Gloria White. I am named sole beneficiary.’

‘May I.’ She took the notebook and with her calm confidence fully restored went out of the office and returned with a folder. ‘How did you know Gloria White is… Was a client of ours?’

‘I am a vehicle of death, not tethered to one world or another, and I stand here visible to you. But how did I know Gloria was a client of yours?

‘Force of habit- of the job. Don’t you develop habits in your job?’

Grim laughed, an inherently terrifying sight for others but for a reaper just the natural replacement of a smile they cannot achieve.

‘I forget myself. It has been a day of firsts not routines.’

Amara certainly knew how to smile. ‘For me too. But I know I can still help you. Amara Felton’- She almost offered a handshake but thought better of it. ‘Anyway I am familiar with this, Gloria’s will. To be honest with you I thought her family just had some eccentric ideas about naming children. All you will need to do.’ She stared at Grim. Grim stared back and thought how funny it is that some looks can say so much like; “I don’t think the grim reaper has a bank account”. ‘No uh, I will be able to organise a cash payment. That will be acceptable won’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Grim paused and felt the robes. ‘I may have to have pockets applied to my robes when they are being cleaned.

Amara snorted and went on laughing in hysterics that were so out of place clothed by that pristine pantsuit that Grim was unable to stop from joining her.

Just as Grim had materialised into that space in a cold haze, so did the death of Gloria White return to the room and stifle the laughter.

‘Amara I thank you for being so accommodating. I do have a job to return to as I’m sure you do. If you can I would request you share with me the cause for my inclusion in Gloria’s will.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know.’ She was desperate in her apology for what was to not be so.

Grim nodded. ‘I will return for what she left me.’

The twenty thousand lasted through a lot of dry cleaning, new blades, and lacquer. But Grim never obtained the answer to that memorable mystery. If it were possible to have picked out a grain of sand on a dune five years in the past then Mister White’s passing would have given half the answer. But Grim could never know that Gloria had taken solace in something gentle about the cold haze that took her love. Through lonely years of waiting she wrapped herself in that sensation she could never describe. Along with old photos of her beloved it was the only thing to make her smile at the end.