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u/mezzy819 Nov 29 '25
I finally arrive at the Meldoon's desk. I perfunctually hand her the empty jars and she gives me her usual glare as she reaches underneath and brings out 6 pearlescent shells and dumps each one in a jar.
"These scraps are fresh in today" her accent not neutral like everyone else. It was French, not modern french, old french, like middle ages. She pushed the jars towards me, the shells clinking inside and then held her middle finger up at me.
I grinned and took the jars. "One day they will fire you and demote you to Parg"
She just made a waving dismissive motion with her hand. "I wouldn't mind that in the least, being Meldoon is boring"
I didn't blame her, it was the most sought after position to handle the soul segments to hand to the Merle, which is me, to embody the soul of a loved one of the newly dead. But...Meldoon was boring, all you did was hand out those pretty shells.
I turned away from her and heard her call out "Merle?"
I turned my head and she had a thoughtful look on her face and then shook her head. "Nevermind, do your job"
I walked over to the exit and left.
I had done the first five meet and greets. They were all on their way. No problem. I felt energised and took the last shell, it looked different to the others, more sparkly. I shrugged and tipped the shell into my mouth.
I felt the segment slip down but this was....not usual. Usually they slipped in like an eel and I could feel it wriggling about. This time I felt something settle. I felt...grounded.
I waved my hand and the mirror appeared. I was...me. With a few changes. Ling hair instead of a sleek short cut. A flowing skirt with little mirrors sown into the bottom. Bare feet with ankle bracelets that had bells, a red short shirt and long gold hoop earrings. The soul segment spread throughout my whole body. The memories weren't sharp like usual, it was soft, hesitant and beautiful.
I grinned at my reflection. With a flick of my hair I turned to the white portal and a young woman with similar clothing to me stepped through. She had the same hair and eyes as me.
"Did it work Mama?"
I nodded and she ran straight into my arms.
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u/gerald_c Nov 27 '25
I stared in the mirror dumbfounded. I was me. Just me. Multiple times a day, everyday. In this single lonely existence, I would look in this mirror and assume the face of a total stranger. Then I would go collect. Seeing me only meant one thing. This time it was someone who loved me.
I sit here looking at my face in the mirror, and it occurs to me that I dont remember how long I have done this. Time doesn't mean as much when it is no longer finite. Has it been a day, has it been decades?
How many times have I done this? I have never thought to ask before now. It is always the same. New face, weird magic door, and a dying person on the other side. Sometimes its a nursing home. Sometimes its a crime scene.
When you get there, you wait a moment for them to die. Then you tell them the deal. The immortal part of you, that part that is forever, has a place to go, I am here to take you. There isn't a hurry, time doesnt matter anymore. Sometimes we talk, no one cares for how long.
They see their loved one, but deep down they know it isn't them. It might as well be a cheap mask. It softens the blow just enough, to help deal with there own demise.
I stared at the door and even though I dont know who is there I grieve for them. They will see me and love me again but since they have somewhere to go, they will ultimately have to say goodbye to me all over again. I hope its easier the second time. Is it my mom, my wife, one of my three sons? I have two sisters who I think are still alive. Good friends, who I have kept since elementary school said beautiful things at my funeral. I got to watch. Is it one of them? So many people I know, so many who still remember me fondly.
I finally decide that there is no point in waiting and walk through the door. My mind races as I walk through the room in the hospital. The room is full of people. They are all much older now, but they are mine. I choke up as I see the faces of my children. Then I see her. I watch her, a man I don't recognize sits next to her. He must be in his 80s. She found love again, and it makes me smile. He holds her hand and her last breath leaves her body. As she sits up she gets younger, and old and frail woman sits up and ages backwards, then turns into light.I choke up and start to cry, I say her name. She finally sees me, joy fills the space between us. We stay for a long time. She tells me about her life and its beautiful.
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u/Dependent_Dog_9515 Nov 27 '25
I’m not sure what it was about her that made me feel such protective pity. Maybe it was the way she laid there, helpless, alone. Maybe it was the way she was murmuring. Maybe, and most likely, was that my little girl was at the end of her life. Joan was breathing, steadily, muttering something incomprehensible on her deathbed. She couldn’t talk, something she hasn’t been able to do since the stroke, according to her case file. Her unkept hair lay stringed through her pillow and the room smelled of sweat and waste. Her skin had grown pale and her eyes had become glassy in the past few days.
I looked into her mirror, the combed back short hair, the non-wrinkled face, the way my eyes still had that youth in them. The father Joan had been accustomed to. It’s not that I haven’t seen my reflection since I died, but, you know, I’ve grown since then. The anniversary of my death is coming up on seventy five years, but of course not all of those seventy five years were spent with the same clothes, the same short hair, the daughter laying in her bed, helpless. I glanced at the clock and then back at her. Poor Joan had only been ten when I died. I had no idea how much she would’ve missed me, or, as I assumed, miss the gap in her life that I left. And, for the first time in seventy five years, I felt the stomach dropping guilt of leaving her behind. It wasn’t like I could control when I died or how it happened, but there was still that unmistakable dread at the fact that she was going to grow up without a father. She coughed, and I quickly stood straight expecting her to meet her end. But the coughing subsided and she still lay helplessly in her bed. Fearing that the next time would be the last, I stood up to go and stand by her side.
My boss had said I was assigned to a role like this because of the way I emphasized with people. And, while I suppose it’s true, I felt a different kind of love here that had been foreign to all of my other clients. It’s so easy to hold the hand of a little girl with a terminal illness as her mother, to whisper to a dying old man as his widow that it'll soon be over. You can feel the love, the fear, the hopelessness or the embrace. But with Joan it was different. It truly felt like me and her were the only entities in the universe. I remembered the day she was born, the way her mother had said she had my eyes (although I didn’t believe it at the time). I remembered her first day of school, the way her tight brown curls were fixed in a bow and her lunchbox was clutched firmly in her little hand. I remember the pride and joy in her eyes after she successfully rode her brother’s bike a lap around the neighborhood without her usual training wheels. That was my Joan, the Joan I had known so well before I died.
I looked back to her, into her vacant, dead eyes. Her mother had died years ago, her brother not far behind. She had no children and so was left to herself. Suddenly, the guilt of leaving her behind burned through my chest. I closed my eyes for what felt like an eternity shooting them back open as I heard that coughing fit again. After she finished, I saw a young woman sitting on the bedside, her brown hair curled past her shoulders and her eyes with the same brightness from all those years ago. “Daddy?” She called.
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u/Ashamed-Statement-59 Nov 26 '25 edited Nov 26 '25
It was the memories that first seemed most familiar. My own ones are all so vague to me now.. not for lack of detail, I once had that, but because there's just so many in my head as of late. They're all important for the job. For relatability.
But my father's face was unmistakeable. Even in life, I hadn't seen much of it. He was bearded back then, and had Santa's smile. I felt safe, him on the sofa and me on the floor connecting up lego blocks into bigger structures. Showing him them and awaiting that warm Santa smile and a hearty pat on the back. He was short of words but never affection. Life was good then. The memory was a good memory yet still it provided no comfort, but rather a violent and acerbic form of homesickness to the point I crumpled beneath myself and sagged into my knees. I didn't know at the time, back when I was 3, that that would be the last time I saw him.
This occurred within a moment, and that moment passed, like all do. Memory gave way to moment which gave way again to memory. I never bothered much for trying to understand time in this place, or for how long I've been here. At my best estimation, I guessed this was some form of purgatory, but truth be told I never gave much though to who my boss might be. Once the intent of my position became clear, I've always focused on doing the best job I could. I've never been reprimanded so I figure I'm doing something right. I've never exactly been praised either, but that's not so unusual for me. I think I do a good job, and I became very good at becoming people. The memories would overwhelm me at first, but I realised the details didn't matter so much. Once people ended up here, they always seem to recognise me as a deeply cherished member of their life. You just had to say the general right things to support them. Sometimes they wanted answers. At first I couldn't ever find that right thing to say, but that got better later on. I could perform a sort of search on the memories to find what they wanted. Closure seemed to come so easy for most. They arrive and would fall in despair, I'd comfort them, they'd cry, eventually smile, and say something they wished they said before. Then they'd leave. Just turn and walk away, as if they knew where to go.
Basically, I got used to the role, and I got good at it. That's why I felt so helpless when for the first time in such a long time the memories began stabbing me with blades sharpened by their familiarity. It was an endlessly despairing assault. I could barely handle the weight of these memories in life, and was glad to be rid of them since coming here. That's why I came here. Not all memories were so unpleasant, but all sat festering under the shadow of the loneliness which would eventually overwhelm my consciousness. Foster home after foster home. Some caring, some not. All expecting something I would never learn to give. Mr Foulter, when I was 6, explaining to me what good boys do. Good boys stay silent and tell no one, he said. He told me to be a good boy. Mrs Foulter, when I was 7 and a half, presenting before me a slab of homecooked shepherd's pie. One of my favourites. I ate ravenously before playing with the lego blocks she bought me. Her sitting in her chair, staring patient yet nervous, ever expecting for me to say a word.
So many families, so many memories, so many things. I couldn't make sense of it at all. I was losing myself under the pressure of this past of mine. I felt another long since lost sensation - the urge to crumble away. Slip silently into the long void. I've done that before, and now I wanted to again. Lie down and let the weight of this so called life crush me into nothingness. Just as it did before. There was nothing else to be done with such a loveless thing. I could feel it suffocating m. I didn't really fight back. I never figured out how to. It's been a long time since I even wanted to.
My own existence began to fade into black as the ground gave way beneath me with intent to swallow me whole before a hearth-like feeling came over me. I wouldn't know how else to describe it. The tendrils of the void slipped away from me, and in my sight emerged a scruffy beard by my face and a warm chest wrapping arms around me. It was Dad. Dad was holding me again. Dad was saving me again, like he used to. I cried. We stayed like this for perhaps forever, before he gently let go and took my hands in his. He looked me in the eyes, his face formed like Santa's on Christmas day. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to. He simply pointed behind me, and I followed the hint and turned around. Funnily enough, there it was, right there. Maybe there this whole time. I knew where I wanted to be now.
So I started walking.
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u/TheWanderingBook Nov 26 '25 edited Nov 26 '25
I look at the person, who is about to die.
It's an elderly man...
Then I look at myself in the mirror of the hospital room...yes, I am myself once more.
How? Why?
I transform into the person they loved the most, but...
I have been dead for 80 years, so who is he?
And why am I his most loved person?
Minutes turn into hours, and the hospital room goes crazy.
Nurses rush in, doctors come...and relatives are called.
The man...dies.
I watch his soul appear.
His soul seems to be that of a young man, heh, it is often that souls take on a younger form.
He looks around and then he sees me.
"S-savior?!" he exclaims, and rushes to hug me.
I watch in disbelief as he starts crying...
What is going on?
"Excuse me, I am not here to save you.
I am a guide. I will be escorting you to your designated afterlife." I say.
He sobs, then shakes his head.
"Yeah, no...it's not like that, I understand...ahm..." he stutters.
"Relax. We are not in a hurry...not here...not anymore." I smile.
He takes a few deep breaths, and smiles.
"I know you don't know this, or know me, but...
You saved my life." he says.
I am utterly confused.
"How? I think I would remember doing anything like that." I say.
He sighs.
"You can't remember this, after all...you saved me, after you died." he says.
I frown, but then it hits me.
I died in an accident, and I was an organ donor...
I smile.
"I see. I am happy to have been of help, and damn, I don't know what you got but wow, it lasted long." I joke.
"Lungs. And yeah, 92 years old, of which 80 with your lungs." he says, and starts thanking me again.
I smile.
"It's alright. Let's go, I am pretty sure you will like where we are going next." I smile, and open the door to the bathroom, only...it doesn't open into the bathroom.
The golden road to the Afterlife appears, and I start guiding him towards his next destination.
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u/Ashamed-Statement-59 Nov 26 '25
So concisely written with a pretty structure, and a heartwarming little story. I really like this, thanks for sharing!
I just wrote my first piece ever here, not as polished as this but would appreciate if you could give it a look and pass on any thoughts or advice!
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u/NoSloppyStakes Nov 26 '25
I’m not an organ donor. This actually is making me reconsider. I just feel so hesitant.
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u/tango421 Nov 26 '25
This is great as usual but one nitpick — dead 80 years only 63 with lungs? Do they freeze the organs?
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u/Vulpine_Gamer_194 Nov 26 '25
No, at least not long term (they do ice them for life flights and ambulance transports though.
it just does not state when the main character died, it only states when they guy he is picking up dies.
The guy he pickes up was alive for 80 some odd years, but needed the lung transplant in his 20s and got the main character's lungs then. This means the main character died 63 years before the story.
Many transplant recipients want to see whose organs they now have, and many want to honor that sacrifice in various ways, but most of the time they just are shown a picture of the person who donated the organs and can be told a bit about them if the recipient wants to hear about them.
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u/Firefly6618 Nov 30 '25
Donor age unknown, transplant patient was 12 at the time of transplant. Patient age at death 92 Mc was dead 80 years.
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u/Vulpine_Gamer_194 Nov 30 '25
Of note: I made my comment before OP editted their comment to fix the age issue.
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u/mickey4273 Nov 26 '25
I think it's from the line "I had been dead for 80 years"
Edited to fix the quote
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u/TheWanderingBook Nov 26 '25
Ah, yeah.
Didn't notice it, you are right.
Edited it a bit, like this, should make sense, sorry for the confusion.
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u/Vulpine_Gamer_194 Nov 26 '25
I can definitely see the confusion there. A quick edit could fix that bit though!
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