Someone’s Got to Do It
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.”
Tags: Micro fiction, Microfic
Man, death's a dick!
It’s a hellava job, but…someone’s gotta do it. 🙂
Nice little piece of fic here, Valerie.
Beautifully captured! 🙂
Thanks, glad you liked it! I wonder sometimes whether I should take this somewhere but… eh.