A woman told me I was taking forever. I had collected her husband the night before. Apparently, I couldn't get the fucking speed right for this family.
She wanted a refund on some sausages.
I'm G. Reaper. Death, if we're being familiar. Until this week, people stopped complaining when I arrived. Now I work a supermarket checkout and they ask to see my manager.
The Cloven One sent me here because the dead keep arriving with unfinished business. They want to make a call. Explain something. Go back for a minute. I told him they should have thought of that earlier.
"They did," he said. "Find out why they didn't do it."
So I have to live among you, change mortal bodies each week, and report what I learn. My collections still happen after work. I can't bring anyone in early, however fucking persuasive they get. If I miss someone, they're left beside their body, awake, waiting for me. If I abandon the assignment, I keep the mortal body. Permanently.
He mentioned a promotion. I mentioned that threatening an employee with death was a strange way to motivate Death. He gave me a name badge.
Monday
Woke at 6 in the body of a woman with sore feet. I hadn't stood up yet. By 8 I was behind a till, facing a conveyor belt full of groceries and a queue of people offended by the existence of everyone ahead of them.
The manager told me to smile. I'd been hired to operate a scanner, but apparently my face was part of the equipment.
One customer held up an item that wouldn't scan. "Must be free!"
I checked the list. He wasn't on it.
Tuesday
The widow returned with a 6-pack of sausages. She'd bought the wrong kind. The packet said "family favourite," which seemed a hell of a claim from people who'd never met her family.
She told me about her son. Then showed me her son. Then scrolled back to an earlier version of her son, in case the current one hadn't persuaded me.
I don't give a fuck that he plays the piano. I have personally met Beethoven. He complained about the journey.
I smiled anyway. There it was, the face I collect every night: someone nodding while quietly wishing another person would stop talking. Except now it was mine.
Before she left, she said her husband used to do the shopping. I remembered him asking who would take her on Tuesdays. I'd told him transport wasn't my department.
Wednesday
The scanner beeps when something goes through. The machine beside it beeps when something doesn't. After lunch, I could hear both while neither was happening.
A man complained about the queue while paying in coins he'd brought loose in a sandwich bag. Behind him, a woman announced she was in a hurry. Thank fuck she told us. We were all here for the atmosphere.
At closing time I stood in the stockroom for a minute without anyone wanting anything from me. I stayed too long. When I reached my first collection, he was standing beside his body, watching his wife try to wake him.
"Where were you?"
I had no answer I wanted to say out loud.
Thursday
Put an alarm on my phone for tonight's collections. The living already have enough ways to waste my time. The dead shouldn't have to pay for it.
At work, a customer bought 2 of something because the second was half price. She hadn't wanted the first until she saw the offer. She asked how much she'd saved.
I said she could have saved all of it.
The manager took me aside. Honesty, it turns out, is something they want printed on the wall rather than tried at the till.
Friday
Handed in my notice when the shift ended. The assignment was a week, and I intended to respect its boundaries. Bought some burgers and those fucking sausages on the way out. They were reduced.
Yes. I know.
The widow came through another till. She was showing the cashier a photograph. He leaned over to look. I nearly told him it would take ages, then remembered I had somewhere to be.
Saturday
Went to Beelzebub's for a drink and a game on the console. He asked about the week. I started telling him about the customers while he kept playing.
"Are you listening?"
"Yeah. Woman. Sausages."
I paused the game.
Sunday
Sent the report. I crossed out "humans waste time" because it explained fuck all. I waste time. I'd just spent 20 minutes choosing the right insult for my manager.
Wrote about the widow instead. She'd kept me talking long after the shopping was finished. I think she'd wanted the shopping to take longer.
The Cloven One sent my next assignment. Cage fighting.
Finally. A job where a customer can be told to get fucked.
His Satanic Majesty's humble servant,
G. Reaper.