As the Moon Climbs

He watched the woman fall to her knees, hands clasped, her eyes filling up with tears.

“Please,” she said. “Today is my anniversary. My husband is—”

“It’s always something,” he interrupted. “Birthday, anniversary, pay day… sorry, lady, it’s all the same to me.”

“But can’t you—”

“No!” he exclaimed, kicking her wrecked car’s tire. “Why do you people argue? Or, or beg? I don’t have any authority! I’m just doing my job, you know?”

Now she was sobbing, doubled over with her arms wrapped around her chest.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “I don’t want to die.”

He tapped the end of his scythe on the ground impatiently. “This is not the Peace Corps, it is death. It’s compulsory. Mandatory. Required. If we went around asking for volunteers, we’d be all kinds of short staffed. Now come on, I haven’t got all day and you have to report to the nearest recruitment office for placement.”

She furrowed her brow. “I don’t go to heaven or…?”

“No,” he said. “You go to work. Welcome to the Reaper Corps.”

It’s those little animals again. Hrrk thought at Grrah, who stopped munching on figs to look. What are they doing?

Seems like they’re sifting through our excrement, Grrah thought back. How odd. I wonder where they came from?

And what is that tiny cube they keep pointing at things?

Grrah growled and flicked his tail. Perhaps we should ask them?

Hrrk snorted. Rrrg tried and they ran away. She said to leave them alone.

They watched the creatures in silence. A steady rain began to fall on the broad leaves of the trees that surrounded them, trickling down to the bare earth beneath.

I wonder if they know about the meteor, Grrah thought. Should we warn them?

How? They can’t even speak. They just make chittering noises.

True. Grrah tapped a claw on the ground. Maybe they have their own Ark, and they plan to leave before the meteor hits, too?

Hrrk ruffled his feathers. One can only hope. Let’s go.

They left the mystery behind to finish packing their space ship for the mass exodus.

In the beginning they had no eyes; they wove in darkness with black thread. Then He Who Is gave eyes to the spinner, and fibers of many colors, and so the world began. But it was chaotic and without form, so He Who Is gave eyes to the weaver, and she ordered the threads. She separated sky from earth, ocean from land, and every living thing was woven into the tapestry to please He Who Is with their beauty.

But the tapestry grew chaotic once again. Too many threads needed constant weaving and reweaving, and new threads were added. She who had once cut the threads still had no eyes, and was afraid to damage the great work her sisters had created. He Who Is saw the world overburdened with fecundity, and visited the three to ask why they had allowed this. The youngest sister turned her blind eyes to him and explained her fear.

He Who Is smiled. “You are blind so you will favor no thing over another,” he said. “Do not neglect your duty.” And so death came to the world, and so it comes for all.

“Name?” asked the demon with the clipboard.

“Robert Louis White,” the man responded, running a hand through his thinning hair.

“All right, Mr. White, my name is Minos, and I’m here to review your records and see that you are properly placed.”

“In heaven,” White said.

“Perhaps,” the demon said politely.

Mr. White nodded. “Let’s get this mess sorted out, then, so I can get out of here.”

Minos cleared his throat and adjusted the pair of reading glasses that sat on the end of his pointed red nose. “ I see you’re guilty of lusting after your secretary?”

“What?” White yelped. “Well, maybe, but I never touched her!”

The demon made a note. “Gluttony then; you were 200 pounds overweight.”

“I had a glandular problem!”

Another note. “You never donated to charity and died a millionaire?”

“I wanted my children well looked after.”

“Had a pretty fierce temper though?” the demon asked.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” White said, loosening the collar of his shirt.

“Of course. And you never attended church, I see?”

“Faith is a private matter, I thought.”

The demon smiled, sharp incisors gleaming. “You were a banker? Made a lot of money from predatory lending?”

Mr. White wiped sweat off his forehead. “Not my fault if it turned out badly.”

The demon made a final mark on the clipboard. “Everything seems to be in order.”

“I can go, then?” White asked. “To heaven?”

“I’m afraid not.” Minos wrapped his tail around his leathery body eight times. “Eighth circle. The fraudulent. You really are an incorrigible liar.”

The attic was full of piled-up boxes, bins of rolled up paper, old furniture and knickknacks collecting dust. Under a sheet in the corner, they found what they had come for.

“Big ugly lump of a thing, isn’t it?” Adam said.

“We don’t need it to model clothing,” Michael said.

“There’s no clothing big enough,” Adam replied. “Go on, make it work.”

Michael pulled his pen knife out of his pocket and studied the word on the statue’s forehead. מת. Dead. “Theoretically,” he said, “I only have to add the aleph and it should wake up.”

“Then theoretically do it already.”

Standing on tiptoes to reach, Michael carefully scratched the א after the other letters. Now, the word was אמת. Truth.

They stared at the statue. Adam scratched his nose. “Nothing’s happening,” he remarked.

“Maybe it’s waiting for instructions,” Michael mused. He tapped it on the chest. “Hey, wake up.”

Twin fires sprang to life in the statue’s empty eye sockets. Adam gasped.

“You did it, Michael,” he whispered. “You brought the golem to life.”