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Death and Muses

Writer's picture: Gwenna LaithlandGwenna Laithland


I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I felt my wife stirring in bed beside me and knew it was probably only minutes before the alarm went off. I reached across the bed and laid my hand on her hip. She responded as she always did, rolling over rest her head on my chest, her warm breath traipsing across my skin, raising gooseflesh in its wake.


"Can't sleep again?" she murmured lightly.


"Nope."


"Thinking about work again?" She half spoke, half yawned.


"Yep."


"Still regret taking that promotion?" I bristled at the notion, or perhaps her quite casual tone of voice.


"I don't regret the promotion!" I sounded like a petulant toddler, even in my own head.


"Yes, you do." She stated, matter-of-factly. With that she rolled out of bed, letting the sateen sheet slide to the floor. Any other morning I'd have voraciously watched her slender figure glide across the bedroom and into the closet, biting back the carnal inclination to demand she return to our bed. Today I was defensive and cranky and refused myself the indulgence. I did not regret the promotion. Not all the way, at least.


When Daniel and Gideon had first mentioned there was a high reaper position coming available and suggested I should throw my name in the hat, I was over the moon. High reaper positions take eons to vacate. Once a guy is in there, he is in there for the long haul. The job security alone was enough to make any self-respecting being salivate.


And on paper, the work itself was leaps and bounds more desirable. This particular position coming available was tied to the Muse Division. My trips down the river would be lit by lives of those touched and guided by the Muses. I'd be ferrying artists, musicians, performers, dancers, athletes; the inspired and the inspiring. I'd spend my days watching the lifes' legacies of a hundred thousand creators of beauty dance across the shores of the Styx. No more crying children begging to be returned to their mothers. Even better, no more young mothers begging to kiss their babies just once more. No more drunk drivers puking their guts out on my mats. No more shoulda, coulda, woulda songs sung by bitter old men who felt their lives had been wasted.


The whole thing just sounded glorious. I enthusiastically applied, passed my after-life guidance practicals with flying colors (unprecedented scoring for a high reaper, they said), crossed all my T's and dotted all my I's. The position was mine from the first stroke of the pen on the promotion application.


Flash forward six months and as much as I would never admit it to my wife, the job wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was still better than dead babies and miserly regrets but those perks were very nearly outweighed by the detractors because, son of a bitch, artists are whiny fucking bastards.


If one more artist demands I turn the boat around because, and I quote, "Those uncultured swine hung it upside down!" or "OHMIGOD that was never supposed to see the light of day!" I may dump them overboard and claim they lept into the river and were dragged down to purgatory before I could stop them.


As a reaper, most of the souls I ferried barely spoke to me. Most were engrossed in the action on the shore. Occasionally one would speak at me, but never to me - the difference is subtle but I'd never understood it until I began working with Muse-touched souls. These fucking creatures will want to have a full-on, no-holds-barred, philosophical debate with me right there on the boat.


What does death mean? Are you Death or just an element of the construct?

Is this really what it looks like or is this still just in my head? Am I still creating all of this? Why are you compelled to guide me? What makes you choose this?


Question after question, gripe after gripe; so few of them ever paid any attention at all to the shores. Death's final gift to every living creature is to allow them to observe their impact, the impression their living left on the world. Artists of any variety almost never just sat and watched - they critiqued, they bitched, the moaned, they pestered me for details on how and why those parts of their lives were lauded and not others.


Shortly after the promotion had become official, I'd been told by one of the folks in the Muse department that artists were some of the trickiest souls to touch. The very elements of creative drive that made them so brilliant also meant that they felt everything much more strongly. Passion burned hotter, Humor peeled brighter, but Agony also dug deeper, Sorrow bit harder and Pain settled heavier. This intenseness with which the Muse-touched felt all things meant that they were constantly in motion, flitting from one thing to another, erratic and unpredicatable, lest any one feeling drag them down past the point of functioning. In order to touch their souls, you had to catch the fuckers first.


This rang true even in death. In my eons as a reaper I only had to save one soul from the river - a middle-aged father who had accidentally killed his entire family when he fell asleep at the wheel. And I'd never lost one to purgatory.

In my six months as a high reaper, I'd had to fish at least six painters, one dancer and a footballer from the depths. And I very nearly lost the footballer. They don't sit still. The footballer, uncharacteristically had been watching the shores, enthusiastically play calling his greatest moments, but he was jumping from one side of my boat to the other so rapidly, we nearly capsized and he bloody well pitched himself out of it in the passion of it all.


It had been six months and I very much wanted to return to just being a plain, boring reaper. I was still stewing in bed when my wife returned, this time clothed for work, her make-up applied just so. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she leaned over slip her shoes on, speaking as she did so;


"You'll get used to it. There's nothing to regret. Remember your first century as a reaper? It's just an adjustment period."


"I am used to it. And I don't regret the promotion." She turned her face to me, her eyes dark and lips pursed.


"Gadriel, you can't lie to me. I'm a Grace...of Truth. Seriously, dude?" My lip instinctively jutted out further and I refused to make eye contact. I recognized that I was being immature but in that moment it didn't matter. If I admitted she was right, I was also going to have to stop fretting about it and start finding the silver lining. And I wasn't ready to stop fretting. I needed more fretting. My wife shook her head and stood abruptly, the mattress shuddering as her weight lifted off. "I love you, Gadriel, High Reaper of Souls, Guide to the Dead and Guardian of the Muse-Touched. I love you, but you're a stubborn dick this morning. Have a good day at work, sweetie."


She sauntered out of the room. As the door clicked closed behind her I called out "Love you!" I heard her hum her acknowledgment as her heels clicked down the hardwood.


Disclaimer: This is an original short story by Gwenna Laithland. Any similarities to real people or events is purely unintentional. All rights reserved. No one may repost this story or any part of it for commercial or financial gain without authorization from the author.

 

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