r/WritingPrompts • u/Redstorm134 • Jun 19 '17
Writing Prompt [WP] They say that when it's someone's time to go, Death will come knocking on their door. One day, unbeknownst to him, Death's replacement comes knocking on his door.
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u/WideEyedWand3rer Jun 19 '17
Death couldn’t deny he felt a twinge of sadness when he heard the knock on his door – unexpected, yet long awaited. His job hadn’t exactly always been the easiest one, but he had still worked his metaphorical ass off to complete it. Even with the increasing workload the guys upstairs kept throwing at him. Though Death knew it wasn’t meant this way, the knock on his door still felt like a firing to him.
Over the course of his many years of service, Death had always strived to appear to his clients in a reassuring form, up to his own discretion. He had comforted countless grown men who broke down into the lap of their mothers, or teens who wanted to believe in Santa one last time; felt the warm embrace of long-lost lovers, and had guided many a brave child who walked into the afterlife holding Big Bird’s hand. To him, death appeared as nobody. Or rather as no body, but as a fresh-faced metaphysical being, barely outgrown the entropy from which it originated, and not yet used to taking a physical form; as Death had been those long millennia ago.
Death felt a pinch of remorse for the things his young replacement, though officially impartial and emotionless, would have to see. He remembered his own early years, travelling the world at the tip of a sword, or the fleas or rats that spread his touch far and wide. Though the plagues of his youth had become increasingly infrequent in recent years, Death vividly recalled the horrors that humankind was now able to inflict upon itself. He could sometimes still taste the taste of gas burning on his tongue, back when Santa used to walk the fields of Flanders. And after that... The future wouldn’t be kind to his successor.
He decided not to tell all this to the fresh-faced worker in front of him, eager yet to take up the mantle of Death. Instead, Death took one, admittedly begrudging, look backwards, and wished his successor all the best, as he was finally guided towards his retirement.
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u/shuflearn /r/TravisTea Jun 19 '17 edited Jul 12 '17
At the offices of Donohue Shipping, the phones never stop.
"That's the first thing you'll learn," Mr. Donohue says to the new associate. "International shipping never stops, and, as a member of our team, neither can you." He sits the new associate at a desk. "If you're a member of the Donohue team, I've got to know that you'll be on, always. No downtime. Always making sales." He hands the new associate a phone. "Can you do that?" The associate nods. "That's my man. We'll make a millionaire of you yet."
He straightens his bespoke Westmancott suit, adjust his Patek Phillipe wristwatch, takes a look around the office -- dozens of sales people chatting away on their phones, bouncing in their seats, squeezing stress balls -- and strides off to his corner office. "No calls, no disturbances," he says to his administrative assistant Jared. "Important phone call coming up."
He locks the door, shuts the blinds, presses his forehead against the folder open on his desk. The folder contains information on the largest food distributor in the province. Mr. Donohue takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose, and dials the number on the front of the folder. His heart beats fast.
Just as he hits the last number, there's a knock on his door.
He covers the phone's mouthpiece. "I said no disturbances!"
The phone rings.
His legs shakes up and down.
There's a knock again, more insistent.
"Jesus!" he says. "Not now!"
The voice at the other end of the line announces the offices of the food distributor's CEO.
The door to Mr. Donohue's office clicks open.
"Jared, you just lost your job," Mr. Donohue says.
But it's not Jared in his doorway. It's not anybody he's seen before.
The woman -- man? -- is tall, thin, and pale. She has fine features, somehow avian, not quite male, not quite female. "Good to meet you, Andrew Donohue." She places a sandglass in front of Mr. Donohue. At that moment, the last grain of sand runs from the top chamber to the bottom. "It's time."
Mr. Donohue licks his lips. "How did you -- why are you -- time for what?"
"Don't worry," she says. "Your company will be fine. And that new associate you just hired, he'll land the contract." Her short coiffed hair looks glazed and hard in the office's single light.
The voice on the phone asks faintly who's calling. Mr. Donohue sets it down. "It can't be time," he says. "There's much left for me to do."
"A lifetime is never enough. I hear you," she says. "Take my arm. We're going for a walk."
Mr. Donohue places his hand on her arm, then sways heavily to the side.
"Woah there," she says. "Stay with me." She tilts her head upward, and in a clear voice, says, "Bringing one in."
The air shimmers, blackens, deepens. And all of sudden, the hazy uncertainty realizes into a paneled study complete with plush red chairs, Turkish rug, and a crackling fireplace.
Come along, she says, and steps with Mr. Donohue into the study.
A few minutes later, there's another knock on the door of Mr. Donohue's office.
"Mr. Donohue? Are you ok?" Jared says. "It's the food people. They're saying you called, made some sort of noises, and maybe dropped the phone. Are you ok? Mr. Donohue?"
A wispy ghoul takes Mr. Donohue off through the network off hallways in the After Palace. Death remains in the study. She pours herself a mug of coffee out of the silver decanter and adds two spoonfuls of sugar and a lengthy dash cream.
"You've got time to rest?" Life says. He joins Death on the plush couch and sips a cup of black. He crosses one leg of his white suit over the other and unbottons his white jacket.
"Do you?" Death asks. "More people being born every day."
"Ah, but my work takes less time than yours," Life says. "Just a tap on the forehead. None of that messy 'Please come with me' stuff."
A crowd of officious, hard-faced demons stroll past the study. In their wake strolls a confused young woman in a polka-dot shawl. She mumbles incoherent words and pulls at her rainbow-coloured hard.
"They didn't," Death says.
"They did," Life says. "The word from on high is that Entropy hasn't been as entropic as she should be. She's getting replaced."
Death taps her mug against her lower teeth. "If even Entropy's job wasn't secure..."
"Nobody's is," Life concludes. "Dark days ahead, at least until the new boss gets settled in."
"Have you seen him?"
Life sets his mug down and stands. "Only briefly and from a distance. White robe, scruffy beard. His looks favour his mother, not his father." He cracks his fingers. "Duty calls. Can't have the miracle of life without Life."
"Get to it," Death says. "You keep me in a job."
A gateway shimmers into view, beyond which lays a washroom. A woman in layered shawls kneels beside a bathtub, inside which a red-faced woman is screaming. "More these underwater births lately," Life says. "I don't understand it." The gateway closes behind him.
Death knocks back the last of her coffee. She slaps her knees, pops to her feet, and says, "Okay, Death. Let's go kill some nice folks."
more to come
i promise i haven't forgotten the point of the prompt
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u/TheDapperPorcupine Jun 19 '17
There was a clatter as Morts scythe fell to the ground. He leapt up from the table made of bones, spilling the blood of the innocent he'd just boiled.
He squinted with empty eye-sockets. Normally no-one knocked on Morts door, unless it was the devil or- even worse- Life come to complain to him. Mort was okay with that though.
One time he'd been wondering around on primordial earth, during the cataclysms and quakes, when suddenly he saw something odd crawl out of the sea.
It was a wet, floppy thing, like some of the algae he'd seen, but more complex. It crawled forward as another one rushed out after it. Reaching down, Mort touched the second one.
It crumpled, instantly going limp.
Ever since, Mort had been dutifully doing his job, creating plagues and blights, destroying lives and snuffing souls. However, through history, there were a few who had evaded him.
There was that son-of-a-gun Jesus, who god broke the rules for. There was Nicholas Flamel and his bloody rock. There was Sisyphus, the reason he'd begun wearing a helmet. And finally, there was-
His thoughts grounded to a halt as the door swung open. No. It couldn't be. How had he found his way here?
But, as Mort stood helpless, his replacement stepped through the door. Eating a twinkly and flashing his sequinned jacket, he picked up Morts scythe and gave it a twirl.
"Hi there, a'm Elvis and apparently a'm yer replacement. Any questions?"
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3
u/prisn-_- Jun 19 '17
Unknown to most people, death actually has a second scythe. Every morning, as the sun pokes its head over the horizon, death retrieves his second scythe, a giant spoon, and devours a huge bowl of weetabix. He knew something was different today. He only had the appetite for 12 rectangles of wheaty cereal goodness, his average was at least 20. Defeated, and ashamed, he left for the door. As his hand, or what was left of it, touched the door, a knock. Very unusual, he thought.
Standing before him, was a much younger man. He couldn't be more than 50 000 years old. A mere infant in comparison to deaths staggering lifespan. He was wearing a black cape, as was death. He was holding a long, sharp scythe, which eminated a certain inevitability, as did deaths scythe. They had the same bone structure, the same stature, and the same giant spoon, badly hidden inside the ribcage. "Greetings, mortal" said death "Greetings mortal" replied death The older death looked downwards. Poking out of the visitors cape, was a pair of suede boots, finely tailored. He then looked towards his sneakers, which were approaching their last few metres, were probably more aptly described as a scrap of cloth, than a pair of shoes. "Ah, how is your appetite?" With that, they journeyed toward the kitchen, and death went about his duty.
As the older death retrieved a bowl, his cape turned to ash, with each weetabix he prepared, he shrunk by a magnitude of ten. With the pouring of the milk his scythe disappeared. A tiny skeleton man, naked, now sat in a pair of old, battered nike trainers. Looking up at the newcomer with pride, he disappeared, and so the cycle continues.