Read Online Death: A Life by George Pendle - Free Book Online

diminishing soul of a disgruntled deer, as the dog souls ran around him yapping wildly and snapping at his incorporeal heels. “I mean it’s hardly the blinding light, is it?” I had an idea. I waited until the deer’s soul had disappeared, and checking both ways to make sure no one was watching, I tore off one of the legs of the deer’s body and, waving it at the pack of dog souls, threw it into the heart of the Darkness. The dogs bounded after it, disappearing one after the other, the sound of their barks growing distant and disappearing. There was only the faint sound of the deer’s soul shouting “Hey, that’s my leg!” before silence once again descended on the void.
    Soon my name was on all Creation’s lips, maws, and other vocalizing orifices. I became a blur, zipping from body to body like black lightning. I could deal with thousands, millions, of souls in a day and not feel overworked. But I distinctly remember wondering when I would meet my first human soul.
     
     
    Before I carry on, I think I should attempt to clear up a major misconception about my role. I don’t actually kill anyone. I don’t rip out the heart, or squeeze out the brains, or suck out the blood. I don’t pull the trigger, or push the button, or put sharp things where they’re not meant to be. I’m not responsible for you and your loved ones dying. No, you living do a great job of dying without my help. I just turn up once the convulsions have calmed down and the pulse has stopped, and I move the souls along. Yes, some humans are unhappy when they die, and at such moments most are unwilling to admit that they might have been responsible for their own passing in some way. Hence I get all the blame. But it’s not as if I deserve it.
    Admittedly when I hear the same plea for clemency for the millionth time, I may well stifle a yawn, but I do a good job, a necessary job. Call me callous if you like, but it’s difficult to make friends when you’re the point of contact between time and eternity, between the now and the hereafter. Everything, except for me, is just passing through. Yes, of course, there may have been times when I turned up a teensy bit too early to collect a soul and perhaps spooked some of you in your last moments on Earth, but in those situations the worst I can be accused of is impatience. Tapping my hourglass and whistling may not be particularly sensitive, but I’ve got a job to do.
    Suffice it to say that during these early days I didn’t hate Life at all. I had no axe to grind, no sour grapes to squeeze. I was a natural force of Creation. If I seemed unwilling to care about your human feelings of despair and pain, it was simply because I could not feel them. At least not to begin with.
     
     
    With all the new experiences I was having, I barely noticed the Fall of Man. Adam and Eve had eventually found what they thought was the Tree of Knowledge. Alas, thanks to Father’s machinations, it turned out to be the Tree of Prudery. They immediately became very resentful about being unclothed, as well as generally disapproving of the nakedness of all Creation. They had begun to clothe all the creatures—great and small—in waistcoats, pantaloons, and gaiters made out of twigs and leaves. But when the animals had begun to eat their garments, Adam and Eve had stopped, offended by what they saw as the animals’ ungratefulness. A nibble on the Tree of Disenchantment, followed by a long luncheon beneath the Tree of Superciliousness, soon saw Adam and Eve find the whole idea of being created by someone else distinctly infra dig. So they absconded from the Garden of Eden in clothes stitched together from laminated tags. God was quite upset. He came to me in a blinding light one night.
    “Er…Death,” He boomed.
    “Yes?” I said.
    “You haven’t seen those humans anywhere, have you?”
    “No. No, I haven’t.”
    “Oh,” boomed the voice unhappily. “Do you think something could have eaten them?”
    “Not