Mistake of a "Life" time.

by Guardsmare Sade

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Adventure
Length: 2041

Death does the same thing every single day, until she makes a mistake, now she needs to deal with the results.

Up, down, up, down. its the same every minute of every day. Good souls up, bad souls down.
I hated my job, truly hated the monotony of it.
So I made a mistake?
Now I need to deal with this unexpected… 'issue'? can It even be called that for me?
Is it even an issue if I'm loving everything about it?

My name is Death, also known as The Grim Reaper, and I just made my very first mistake.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-04 22:20:02 UTC

Well, thats my mistake.

Another one.

Another soul standing before me, dull as ever.

I look behind him to see the line of spirits that was just as long as ever and still getting longer.

Each one a little more pathetic than the last.

I hate my job. It’s the same thing every second of every minute of every hour and so on and so forth. The body dies, the soul comes here, the soul lines up and waits until their turn, I look at the rows of text floating in front of their chests, known as Log Sheets, and send them up or down.

Always up or down, never left, never right never back or forward.

That was their job. I just send the souls to them, good ones go up, and bad ones go down.

Simplicity itself.

Most of the time.

There are those very rare moments that happen perhaps once every two or three hundred years. A soul who did the wrong thing for the right reason.

After a full minute of scrutinizing their ‘Log Sheet’ I decide where they go. Usually I send them down. As good as a reason as they had; it’s my job to look at the bigger picture. They may have helped one, only to have hurt others. As I said, I hate this job.

While a minute may not seem like any form of time at all in the grand scale of things, it is- however small it may be, a vacation of the monotony of my-I can’t really say life can I? I’m not alive, nor have I ever been, so I can’t call myself dead either, unlike these endless pathetic sods.

Another look at the ‘man’ I guess, in front of me, and I point upward.

A flash of light and he’s gone, leaving his Log Sheet floating where he stood.

I take the parchment like object and place it to my right where all the other Log Sheets go.

Another man steps forward and I point down.

A quick flash of fire and a slightly darker Log Sheet floats before me.

I reach out my bleach white hand and grasp the Sheet, feeling the silky parchment with the tips of my skeletal fingers, I put it to my left, where the ‘Tainted Logs’ go.

It’s a simple system. ‘White Log Sheets’ go to my right for they sit in the ‘right’ hand of god, and the Tainted Logs go to the left of me for those who have sinned are ‘left’ behind. The big guys, both up and down are always so literal about things like this.

The piles fill up pretty quick though, I’m not based just for one race or species. I have around five different species sitting under my metaphorical belt. Human, monkey, gorilla, angels- yes, angels and demons- again, yes, these guys die too you know, but for them it’s more like a transfer, die in one area, get sent to me to be put in another. Get a clean slated soul, you know?

Anyway, around every three decades an angel comes from above to collect the White Logs and a demon from below comes to collect the Tainted Logs.

They mingle with each other; say some things about new policies in the work place or how wasted the demons got at the last below bash party that I’m never able to go to, then they leave with- often enough, a parting insult from the angel and a blessing from the demon. They do that sometimes.

My job always keeps me busy here though, as long as there is death, I need to be here, no below bash parties for me, ever.

I sigh and place a skeletal hand on my face and point downward with the other.

I don’t even need to look at the next three thousand Logs; I’ve been here so long that I’ve gotten good enough to read thousands of them at the same time.

I swipe the log to my left then swiftly point upward with the same hand; swiping that White Log to my right.

Up, Log to the right, down, Log to the left, up Log to the right down Log to the right- Oops.

I stand stock still for a moment, hoping to whoever was watching me right now, wasn’t.

I slowly turn my head to the right and see a sight that would scare even the most seasoned angel.

A Tainted Log on the While Log Sheet pile was infecting the others around it.

Unsure what to do, I watch, in horror, as thousands upon thousands of White Log Sheets became Tainted logs.

At that moment, a simple saying, I heard many, many, thousands of years ago from an angel pops into my skull.

“One bad apple spoils the bunch”

I launch myself at the pile of White, gone Tainted Logs, shoving my skeletal hands into the mass of color changing parchment, I begin to throw as many slightly darker logs to the left as I could, but one Tainted became two, those two touched five Whites, those five newly Tainted touched thirteen Whites, those thirteen new Tainted touched fifty eight Whites and so on. It was a disaster.

This is the first time I've ever made a mistake, and it’s such a colossal screw up.

After a futile fifteen minutes of throwing parchments over my shoulder, the entire stack of White Log Sheets had become Tainted Logs.

I stop throwing Logs back and forth and take a few steps away, the silence of my ‘Realm’ I guess you can call it, causes the sound of my skeletal feet slapping against the ground, to echo like gongs, alerting everyone to my mistake gone catastrophe.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that the Logs were only claimed five-ish years ago, so I suppose up top will only lose...”

I tapped my fingers against each other a few times, doing the math in my head, mashing my exposed teeth against each other while I figured out the damage that I had caused.

“Thirty seven million four hundred and sixty two thousand one hundred and twelve souls... Hmm. Not as many as I thought, I guess this has been a pretty show half decade.”

Tapping my fingers against my jaw bone I think about how much of a surprise both above and below are receiving right now, souls above bursting into flames only to puff into existence below. There is going to be a lot of pissed off angels and happy demons today.

I much prefer the demons anyway, angels are always too prissy and up themselves for my liking.

If I had any skin or muscles on my face, It would be stretching into a smile right now.

Giggling, I stick my arms out and do a small twirl, letting the black robe I’m wearing flair out and spin with me.

I’ve never felt so good in my life! Every single day was the same, one goes up, one goes down, two go up, five go down, but today! Today, something different happened! I’ve broken away from the monotony of the pointing and moving! It’s so freeing!

Doing one more quick giggle, I sigh a happy sigh and move back to my position. If they’re mad at me, they can be mad at me, I don’t care. I’ll just deal with it when they get here.

Turning to face my queue, I gasp at what I see. Thousands of Logs, some Tainted, some White, litter the entire area, and the queue! The queue is empty! There is no one there!

Another moment that a smile would be at my face, if I had anything to make a smile with. Everyone is gone!

Just as I’m about to cheer out loud, I realise what had happened.

While throwing my arms around to get the Logs in the right place, I must have been sending souls all over the place, moving my arms up and down in a frantic manner must have caused the entirety of the queue to be put somewhere. Up, down, didn’t matter! The guys there can sort that out!

If I’d known I’d be having this much fun, I would have done this a long time ago!

The empty space is just so amazing! So freeing! So...

Boring.

In the entirety of my existence, I never thought I would ever get to experience the infamous feeling of boredom! It’s exhilarating!

I take another look around my ‘realm’ and admire things that I haven’t looked at in eons.

The shape was like a dark tunnel, a navy brick being the base color of the structure, a bright white light shining from the other end of said tunnel, illuminating that half of the area, this end however was lit by two large braziers at either side of me, both standing a full two feet taller than myself, burning a blue flame.

Turning around, I look at the wall behind me, a throne being the main fixture in the centre of the back wall, two black curtains flow beside it, falling from the abyss that is the ceiling above me.

Rips and tears show through the ancient fabric, giving it the same look as the simple moth eaten black robes I wear.

Sighing, I move toward my throne, and do something I haven’t done since I chose my first souls’ destination.

I sat down.

With yet another sigh, something I seem to be doing a lot of these past few hundred years, I put my skull into my hand and hold it up, looking down the beautiful sight of my empty tunnel full of logs. Ok, so it’s not that empty.

“I’ll deal with them later” I announce to myself, those words sending shivers down my spine, being the first time I’ve ever been able to say that

Closing my metaphorical eyes, I metaphorically take a deep breath and savour this moment.

This moment being the only moment where I am able to stare down my tunnel and see that there is only one black blob moving toward me. The picture perfect mo- Wait... Damn. The black blob must be another soul, needing to be sentenced.

“So much for free time” I say to myself as I just watch the shadow get closer and closer, skull in hand, eyes metaphorically half closed in disappointment.

Without the long line to keep the constant flow of souls at my feet, I realise how long my tunnel truly is.

The soul however, just seems to be moving toward me at a pace that seems like a notch slower than a crawl.

Watching said soul move toward me, I notice that it is too short to be a human or angel, and walks far too differently to monkeys or apes.

“Must be a demon then” I say to myself, watching with very little to no enthusiasm.

The shadow seems to be about three and a half feet tall and walks on four legs, it also looks like it has a full head of rounded scales or some really puffy hair and a sort of tail; same shape as the head scales or hair

While waiting, I look at the tips of my fingers. At this moment, they are far more entertaining than the shadow that seems to have stopped getting nearer.

Looking back toward the tunnel, my metaphorical eyes widen. The shadow is gone, just gone!

Taking my head off my hand, I look left and right, up and down for any sight of the shadowy soul that was just in my sights.

Looking back down the tunnel, I see the shape moving toward me again.  Reappearing where it was only a few moments ago. no closer. No further, however, this time... Bouncing it seems?

A little bemused, I watched the aforementioned shadow bounce toward me, only to trip and fall flat on its face. I throw my head back and giving a good chuckle, only to see a pair of giant blue eyes just millimetres away from my open sockets, smiling down at me from the backing of my throne.

“Hi! My name’s Pinkie Pie! What’s yours?”

Well. I’m freaking out.