Audit, or "Death AND Taxes"

Prompt: "Upon turning that random corner, there she was: plain as day, and as unavoidable as death and taxes."

Upon turning that random corner, there she was: plain as day, and as unavoidable as death and taxes. Because she was. Both.

I hadn't expected an audit today. They usually give you more time, the RRS. They were mandated to give a person ample time, after issuing an audit notice for their target to get their affairs in order. I can't believe I was out of time already. How do you procrastinate on a life and death matter? The trouble I'd be in if she caught me now left me with a chill down my spine, and the unexpected reflex of dashing back around the corner and pressing my back to wall, hoping she hadn't heard my thoughts. Thoughts don't travel nearly as far as sound. Maybe I was out of range.

I peeked around the corner to see if I could catch a glimpse of her without her catching a glimpse of me. In part, because I wanted to see if I could make a getaway. In other part, just to glimpse her. She met every standard the bureau set out, and then some.

That's part of how they conduct their audits. Even when they give you notice, the actual day is always a surprise. Every one of the agents of the Reaper Revenue Service was some sort of statuesque pseudo-goddess, equipped with a pencil skirt and clipboard everyone wished they could see behind. Their allure was as supernatural as their job, and that's how they got you: how easily you broadcast your thoughts. Some thoughts are like AM radio and turn to static if you walk more than a few steps away from the thinker. Some are as clear as a satellite signal beamed right to the listener's head.

She was nearly six feet, with long auburn hair down well past her shoulders, and a v-neck double-breasted jacket - oh, how it was double-breasted, I imagined - behind the clipboard cradled in her arm, following down the crisp federali black lines of the agent uniform. She had legs that went from here to next Thursday, with a pencil skirt that only made it as far as Sunday.

I was broadcasting at a full fifty thousand watts. She heard it loud and clear as her gaze met mine before I could snap back behind the corner.

She crossed the distance to me, across the office hallway carpet in a white leather low-platform heeled shoe. I was only paying attention, because my calendar was already open to next week by that point. Anyone else would be, too. That's part of how the agents of the service make sure the audits are candid and genuine. You're knocked off guard by how stunning they are. Man or woman, you fall victim to it. The agents were uniformly female, but the same magnetism they held went across the whole spectrum.

She greeted me with a genuinely warm smile and handshake, asking me to take her back to my office. Already caught, I had to shrug and invite her in. Well, I didn't have to invite her. She was from the federal government, not a vampire. The federal government doesn't need an invitation.

The audit was surprisingly casual. More like a casual chat over some bad office instant coffee amongst co-workers than it was a formal interview. We went over the past four years of my life, as she explained that I wasn't targeted for any specific reason, or because something I'd done had raised a red flag. I was just a victim of random bureaucracy. She told me to just relax and not worry as much as I was. They can do that. No matter how casual or calm you act, they read your real thoughts and feelings, walking through your memories during your audit, examining them. Every once in a while, she made notes on the clipboard. And every once in a while, I got to be distracted by what some would pun as Death Valley. Deep, and stunningly easy to wander into, but something few people came back from once they walked in.

If it wasn't part of her job, I would almost say she blushed.

We spent the better part of the morning going over the last years of my life. All the good I'd done, all the bad. All the middling gray areas that would cost me hours instead of days or weeks. I just kept adding them up in my head, thinking it would have just been easier to take up smoking. SMoking was almost as bad for you these days as being an a*****e. Ever since the government created the Reaper Revenue Service, crime had ticked down significantly, and people were generally being better to each other. Sure, it was because you paid for being a jerk with days and weeks of your life, if not more when you committed some serious moral infraction. But the goal had always been to develop a culture of mutual respect and good behavior through incentivization.

Whether it was working was anyone's guess. But the RRS had been around for almost 14 years now, and showed no sign of going away. Typical bureaucratic agency. Even if we achieved world peace like this, we'd still probably have the RRS. And every other regulatory agency known to man.

After the interview, she thanked me. Genuinely thanked me, and told me that it was people like me who made her job a pleasure. (I swear she actually blushed that time.) She told me that, as a result of her audit and examination, I was due for a refund of six days and fourteen hours. I'll tell you, my math was very wrong on that count. I expected to lose more than twice that, with some additional penalties. She stood, and thanked me for just being a plain good person, and shook my hand. Then she embraced me.

That embrace was sweeter than anything I'd had before in the arms of a woman. Until she kissed me, that was. It locked me into place, as I began to feel better - not just for the obvious reasons, either. As the refund of life surged into me, I couldn't help but feel other things begin to surge, too. Her hands wandered over me, as I was just held in place by her, well, her everything. It stopped too soon after it began, and she straightened her double-breasted suit jacket, and told me not to feel bad. It wasn't unprofessional of me, but just a temporary result of getting a refund.

She did thank me once more for making her job a pleasure, as I escorted her to the elevators, and I told her to have a good day. She assured me she would now, with a coy smile, as the doors closed and the bell went off that the elevator was descending.

I've heard before that the penalties are even better, in a sense, when they're assessed. The trick is, that only ever gets to happen once.

I'll be content with my refund.

Author's Note

Originally submitted to a flash fiction contest (defined as 500 - 1,500 words) back in September 2015 with the prompt, "Upon turning that random corner, there she was: plain as day, and as unavoidable as death and taxes."

Word count is 1,777.

The entry was submitted under one of my pseudonyms, Adam Locke.