The Meeting

I hate meetings.

I’ve tried over the years to make the best of them. For a long while in the beginning they weren’t that bad because things were still new. Fresh. But, eventually, they wear you down. The same monotonous bullet points every week. The same faces in the same room.

It’s especially bad when the only other two people in the room are God and Lucifer.

You think you have it bad with your once-a-week meetings you’ve had to endure for the last few years? Try once-a-day since forever and get back to me.

I’m spinning my wheels a bit. I know it. I’ve never really been nervous before, and I’m not handling it well. Today is going to be particularly rough, but I brought it upon myself and I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. It’s actually been a few weeks since I sat down with the big G and little L, and I’m sure I’ve been the primary topic of discussion.

Really, they should be thanking me for shaking things up a bit. Flipping the script, as the humans say. If it weren’t for me we’d still be going over the same numbers, the same diagnostics, the same results we’d been going over for millennia upon millennia.

But that’s not how it’s going to go. I know that, deep down. But honestly, could anyone really blame me? I’d argue I’ve got the hardest job and after thousands of years of reaping souls, I feel like I deserve a little break. Entitled to it, even.

Did I know things on Earth would get a little crazy? A little topsy-turvy? Sure. But I thought it was worth the risk. I deserve some time away from the scythe, damn it. A little me time. Don’t I?

I guess we’ll find out today. One way or another. I can feel the small notebook in my robe, begging to come out. But that would have to wait until the right moment.

A couple of things happens in the next moment. First, the space around me shimmers, like heatwaves radiating off the blacktop, and then a series of large bay windows pop into existence. Lace curtains are pulled across panes of glass that don’t look out over anything except more ethereal darkness.

Next, a door appears off to my left and swings open. A pair of strikingly handsome young men walk through the new entrance, and then the door disappears. The pair walk across the inky black nothing of —well, nothing— until they’re a few feet away from me. They stare at me for a moment. God doesn’t show any emotion on his face, as usual, and Lucifer has that familiar smirk on his lips. Like he knows everything, and it’s all a big joke.

I hate that smirk.

“Hey guys,” I say, trying to lighten the mood as best I can. It’s all very serious and dramatic now that they’re here. Exactly how they like it.

They don’t say anything. They simply take up space in the room, demanding that I respect their very presence.

The two are wearing what they consider formal wear: God in his white toga and a gold wreath of flowers on his head. He looks like what the Greeks and Romans thought Zeus might, and I’m still not sure if that’s on purpose or not. He’s even got the gold sandals and extravagant bracelets on his wrists. I don’t know what God actually looks like — only Lucifer and the other archangels do. He chooses to look like this for everyone else.

Meanwhile, Lucie’s the stark opposite of the big G. He’s got a black toga on and black sandals. No makeshift crown and no bracelets. It’s the obvious choice, and one he always takes up for these meetings. I imagine it’s a running joke between the two, something at my expense, but I try not to pay any attention to it.

Over the years, the two have taken up quite a few different disguises. I prefer when they both tramped around in the bodies of Tyrannosaurus rex. I miss the big bodies and small arms.

Finally, God speaks. I can hear it, yes, but it’s also in my mind by default. He’s the Voice of all Voices. It needs no sound to be heard and understood.

“So, you know why we’re here today?”

Lucie shifts on the foldout chair. The smirk intensifies. “Come on, G. She knows.”

Despite the apparent camaraderie, I have to remind myself that Lucifer isn’t on my side today. He may be leaning into the good cop role right now, but it’s a ruse. I know I’ve been screwing up his program, too, just like God’s. I’m sure he’s ready to wring my neck, which he’d certainly try if he thought he could get away with it.

I have to stay on guard. I’m a lonely island caught between two infinite, omnipotent oceans.

The room shimmers and shifts and the nothing becomes something. The windows disappear and now we’re on a beach, somewhere in Hawai’i —but before it was populated with people— and the water laps at the white sands. The sound of the sea fills the surrounding space. It’s almost soothing.

There’s a flutter of air, the sound of fabric shifting. I look down at myself. My hooded robe is gone. In its place is a red button-up Hawaiian shirt with fish and birds on it, and a pair of white board shorts. I’m wearing blue plastic sandals now, too.

I’m exposed. My frail white bones, the same bones found in the human body (God has changed my physical design more than a few times over the years, but I’ve been with this one the longest), are now under the watchful stare of the full sun hanging in the sky above me.

That’s not all, though. I reach up to where my hood would normally be covering my face and find a pair of big sunglasses on my bony forehead. And now I'm the one wearing a baseball cap turned backwards.

“Better,” Lucifer says.

I sigh. “I know I was gone awhile, but this feels a little silly, doesn’t it?” I gesture towards the board shorts and the shirt, as if they need any help figuring out what I’m talking about.

“We thought this might suit your casual lifestyle these days,” God says.

Do they know what I’m doing? I kill off the thought before it has time to bounce around in my head for too long.

I blink and I’m back in my hooded robe. My physical body is no longer visible, and my face is shrouded in the shadow cast by the hood. With the hood on, neither Lucie nor God can see my face, which is what I prefer.

“Watch,” God says. A flat-screen, 75-inch television suddenly manifests itself in front of us. On it, a series of images show me what I’ve already seen: people being shot, stabbed, thrown off buildings, small skirmishes in forested areas and larger battles in deserts. Guns and knives and baseball bats and every other thing that might be used as a weapon. Chaos, but somehow not surprising for humanity which has been dabbling in all these things for as long as they’ve been upright.

The only difference is no one is dying.

“Do you have any idea how many people die every single day?” Lucifer says, the question that doesn’t need an answer, but directed towards me anyway.

“Yes,” I say, even though I shouldn’t have to. This is all very dramatic. And I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.

“You’ve been gone for two weeks. Over two million people should be reaped, and yet, they’re still walking the Earth,” God says.

“And let’s not forget the births!” Lucifer says. “So many new lives not being balanced with lost ones. You’ve thrown the whole system into a tizzy, Death.”

“If it’s such a big deal, why don’t you two do something about it?” I say. Not that I meant to. I’d meant for those words to live and die in my head, but apparently I just wanted to move things along.

“What’s he supposed to do? Just knock off two million people and some change?” Lucie says.

“Why not? God could even snap his fingers and make everyone forget anything ever happened.”

“I will not,” God says. “We have our roles, and you know yours. That scythe of yours is the bearer of souls and it is up to you to reap them.”

I take in a breath. Now’s the time. Quit beating around the bush, I tell myself. My hand reaches into my robe and I pull something out of it. A small black notebook. I hold it up, so the other two can see it.

“What is that?” Lucie says.

“A notebook. And it’s what’s inside that’s important,” I say.

“And what’s that?” God says.

“$20,000,” I say.

God and Lucifer laugh.

“Why is that important? You do not need money,” God says.

“Well, not like this, no. But I’ve decided on a change.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucifer says.

I open the book and flip through the pages, revealing the many individual bills packed between the blank, ruled pages. “I’m going to give up the scythe, become human, and live out the rest of my days down there. With them. This money gives me the chance to do that. Comfortably.”

Lucifer laughs again. “$20,000 won’t get you a year’s worth of food and shelter down there.”

“Not now, no. But 50 years ago? Yes. And that’s what I’m going to do. Put this money into what they call a savings account, work a job I want to work, and find someone to marry. I want to live, not just serve.”

God and Lucifer look at one another. Then back at me. God’s lack of emotion is unsettling and Lucie’s smirk makes me want to freak out.

“You will not. You cannot,” God says.

“Sorry, kiddo, but you’re stuck here just like the rest of us,” Lucifer says.

My hood angles down slightly. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

“Do not be foolish. You know your role and you must obey,” God says. “Anything else is foolish! Especially to live as a human!”

“But you love them so much,” I say. My other bony hand extends away from my body and my scythe pops into existence. I grip it tightly and I slide across the room, faster than any human would ever be able to see, stopping in front of God.

“This is the only way,” I say. “$20,000 might not be a lot to them down there, but it is to me. It’s enough to start a life. And my life is more important than being overworked for someone else’s gain and benefit.”

“You cannot reap me. I am God.”

“I can. But I won’t. You will create another one like me once I am gone. And, some day, Death will come looking for me. Until then, I will live my life to the fullest.”

The scythe drops to the floor and the hooded robe along with it.

I am gone.