✚ 001. [voice]

[puppydoctor]

[It would be really, really nice to just go one day without a reminder that none of this is normal. Like a patient noticing the glowing tattoo and looking uncomfortable. Or having a full-blown panic attack on the way to work, just because a bus passed him by.

Or a bedpan filling itself up with hot coffee on his last day of work as a nurse.]

It turns out "infinite coffee" is somehow the actual most annoying superpower ever.

[There's a shuffle and the sound of water running. He's attempting to get the worst of the coffee off of the stain, while the scalded skin underneath quickly heals itself. Another reminder.]

What's the policy on disappearing into anonymity here? 'Cause I just wanted to rest in peace, not live out a comic book. I don't even want Heaven after all this, Purgatory would be fine. I was a good Catholic kid.

[Until he stopped believing in God, committed adultery, and got divorced.]

I lived - live - to help people. I joined the army back home to help people, and that's all I want to do here, with my afterlife. But I'm tired. Death is tiring, and I just want to be Mr. Nobody who goes to work and comes home from work and gets a couple of drinks with his friends. I don't want to be a hero to anybody's world.

... But if I'm going to be, I need to know what the hell you tell yourself to keep going. I don't have anywhere to get back to. This is my only world now, and I don't know if that makes me part of it, or if I'll be an outsider forever, but I need to hear it. I know I'm not the only undead guy walking around without a purpose.

Comments

[puppydoctor]

There's a proper term for "died but came back in another universe"?

[grimreaping]

... "complicated".

[puppydoctor]

[He gives a bitter little laugh.]

That's definitely one way to put it. Maybe "traumatic" or "exasperating" too.

[grimreaping]

I'm sorry.

[ He does sound it, too. ]

It shouldn't be like that, at all.

[puppydoctor]

... Thank you?

[Not the response he was expecting from someone who sounds this young. Death isn't supposed to be traumatic?]

I guess I'd hoped mine would be more peaceful, but beggars can't be choosers.

[grimreaping]

[ He sounds faintly pained. ]

In a truly orderly world, it should have been peaceful.

Still... as outside the typical order as this place makes things, you should try to enjoy it. Extra time is... never wasted.

[puppydoctor]

Yeah, well... I guess stepped out of the order. Someone else was supposed to die, and I opted to instead. Is there a kind of balance that messes up, or something?

[He's half-joking - he doesn't believe in anything metaphysical, but as crazy as it sounds...]

[grimreaping]

[ Yes. But even Kid's not socially dense enough to say that. ]

No, it... works out. In any case, that was a very brave thing for you to do.

[puppydoctor]

... Thank you. I wasn't trying to be a hero, or anything. It just happened.

[He pauses for a second, looking at this kid.]

You know a lot about death.

[grimreaping]

There are a lot of heroes who don't know that they are. It's an extraordinary quality that humans have.

[ a brief exhale; this coming up with those who have already died, is always a little trickier ]

Yes, I do.

[puppydoctor]

I don't mean anything by it. It's just... a lot of things I hadn't thought about before. To me death's always been this horrible event that happens to everyone in gruesome, unexpected ways. There's never been some kind of philosophical order to it.

[grimreaping]

No, it's not that... it's only that my position discomforts some people, particularly here where it's less known.

[puppydoctor]

Your position? Like, your job?

[He thinks for a second.]

Are you a mortician?

sorry, rough week irl.

[grimreaping]

[ The suggestion is so out of left field that Kid is left blinking for a moment. ]

Ah, no. I'm a shinigami-- a reaper.

np!

[puppydoctor]

A reaper? Like, as in the Grim Reaper?

[grimreaping]

My father, yes.