Freewrite: Death and an Elevator
Posted By Warren on July 10, 2010
In the end, Death won.
It was a tense battle. I pulled out all the stops. My thoughts were clear, my moves concise. He didn’t win by much, mind you, but he still won.
It was a fun match. To bad it ended with my mortal body slumped over the board with my nose gushing blood.
Fortunately I was out of the body by then, so I didn’t feel the pain. The people that found me didn’t know that. I didn’t have to see that event, since by then I was well beyond the “mortal coil.”
In an elevator.
“So the afterlife has muzac?” I said absently, listening to POD as filtered through a lounge act from the seventies. I stood next to death; He had his hood back and was smoking a Lucky Strike. They were the short kind with no filter. I guess you didn’t have to worry about it when you are dead. Or Death. He offered me one and I shook my head. He shrugged and put the pack back in his robes.
“It’s piped in from Bogata if you can believe it.” Death said, smoke coming out of his eye sockets as he puffed on the small stick. “You figure it would be somewhere in the USA or Japan, right? Nope, right in the heart of Bogata.” His white lips pursed for a moment. He then stuck the cig between them and started fidgeting around in his robe.
“So. Is this going…uh…Up or Down?” I said, my stomach suddenly flopping as I considered the destination. For the first time I might add. He finally found what he was looking for and stared at me. In his hand was a well used yellow pad of paper, the kind you can find at any Walgreen’s.
I think he stared at me. I could swear the smoke in his sockets formed eyeballs for a moment.
“That’s the rub ain’t it?” He said, sticking a pencil behind his ear as he flipped through that old yellow notepad.
I waited for him to continue, to elaborate on the hanging question. He didn’t, he just sat there flipping through the notepad, smoke wreathing his maggot colored head.
I coughed. He looked up for a moment.
“Don’t rush me, kid! I’m looking.”
Kid? I thought. I’m 34 years old! I am not a kid.
Then I remembered how old Death must be. Everyone must seem like a kid to him.
“Okay it says here that you were bound for one place, but they need you for other things.” He moved the pad back as I leaned over to look. “Ah.. Orders son! You can’t know where yo uwere headed.”
I furrowed my brow for a moment. Trying to think, was I a good guy or wasn’t it?
“Doesn’t really matter, ya know. That’s not the deciding factor.” Death said absently as he scribbled something down with a pencil he pulled from behind his ear.
“You don’t use something to talk to, whoever?” I said. “The notepad seems so ancient.”
Death smiled, though it was a chilling smile no one should see. “Why do that when he knows? These are notes for myself! I’d say my brain isn’t as good as it used to be, but I don’t have a brain!” He laughed and smoke came rolling out of his eyes, his nose, his mouth and other places in his head. He slapped me on the back as the elevator ground to a halt and the doors opened.
“Great game kid.” I heard him say as the doors closed. Somehow I wasn’t in the elevator anymore, but in some place…else.
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