DEATH Pays a Visit

Ted has a good Tuesday go bad when he runs into... DEATH

It is an undisputed fact that for each person on this Earth, Death will pay a visit. Not only for each person this Earth, but also for any person who has had the adventure of leaving our small blue dot. I only added the last caveat just in case someone should think they can duck the Reaper by making a permanent residence on the moon.

 

In spite of the incontrovertible evidence that Death has made an appointment with us all, it is fully expected, completely normal, to be surprised when Death does come calling. Some people might get an indication of the time or the place, with one disease or another spoiling the ending for everyone. But just as often as not, Death comes calling on some random Tuesday to catch you just after you have arrived home from work. This was almost the situation encountered by Ted.

 

Ted was a man like any other. Well, mostly like any other, of course, allowing for the small foibles that we note in order to mark our special place within the world, those things we think are unique but really aren’t that unique at all. So I guess in that, Ted was no different than the rest of us in his assumption of his special uniqueness.

 

On this particular Tuesday Ted was having a very good day. In his place of employment customers were pleased and projections were being exceeded. He felt thinner that day, despite no measurable change in his physical stature, and when he glanced in the mirror in the bathroom, he found himself greeted by someone at least 17% more attractive than person he’d seen in the same mirror yesterday. He even was able to leave work a few hours early.

 

This last fact, however, would be the one that would leave him in a strange situation. For you see, Death had an appointment to keep at 4223 Ocean Boulevard. It just so happens that Ted lived at 4223 Ocean Boulevard. I think everyone out there can agree that these two facts will conspire to ruin Ted’s very good day. But I am getting ahead of myself.

 

Ted found he had an extra hop in his step as he left work early that fateful Tuesday. Noting the time on his watch, he surmised that he would have just enough time to stop by the local florist to buy a bouquet of flowers for his wife, Lily. He would have them arranged on the coffee table in order to achieve the greatest effect when she arrived home. In his prudence, however, he bought an arrangement that was beautiful yet reasonably priced, seeing as it was not a special occasion. The song playing on the radio, Live Like You Were Dying, seemed more a nice sentiment than a foreshadowing of dramatic irony.

 

After arriving at home ahead of Lily, Ted was right in the middle of trimming the stems of his value priced roses, an act that he believed was required to provide extra life to an already dead plant, when he heard the knock at the door. Seeing that is was late in the afternoon on a Tuesday and he was not expecting anyone except his wife, Ted found the knock to be rather strange. However, the strangeness of the knock was over shadowed by Ted’s annoyance. He was halfway finished with the roses he was trimming, and was not prepared to be interrupted in the middle of something that he planned would take much longer. It was with a huff and few words that may not be fit to print that he stomped off to the door.

 

Actually, he did walk to the door, for Ted was nothing if not wary. He first glanced out the window to see who it was that was so rudely interrupting the preparation of the surprise for Lily, who was due to be home at any moment. He peered through his blinds, careful to not open them too wide and display his overcautious attitude to the interloper at the door. However, his irritation and caution yielded once more to confusion, as he saw no one at the door, confusion again turning back to irritation when he looked down to his watch, noting that Lily normally arrived right now, and he did not want the surprise he’d so impulsively prepared to be ruined.

 

The next turn that his emotions took as he spun around, however, are too numerous to list here, so for the sake of you, dear reader, I will sum them up by saying that with regard to Ted’s emotions, the gamut was run when he saw the tall gaunt man sitting on his couch.

 

To call the man a stranger would be misleading, for Ted had certainly made his acquaintance before. The ragged black robes, the tall scythe with its supernaturally sharp blade leaned against wall, the bone white countenance; Ted knew him in an instant. He’d been around at many family functions. Ted’s sister’s funeral. And his brother’s. And his dad’s.  Although familiar with this guest, Ted would later admit to himself that he’d never pictured Death sitting on his couch, reading the Reader’s Digest that neither Ted nor Lily remembered subscribing to.

 

“Um,” Ted said, his tone fully communicating all of the things that needed to be said, things like “The physical embodiment of Death is not the surprise I wanted my wife to find in our living room when she arrived home from work,” and of course, “Why are you here?” being the primary sentiments.

 

“I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT TO KEEP, TED,” Death said without looking up from his reading, casually turning the page. He chuckled slightly at the homespun humor of Reader’s Digest, a sound that was only slightly less horrific than the wails emanating from a sack of kittens being smashed with a hammer. Ted felt a shiver run down his spine at the thought. (The thought that sent the shiver down Ted’s spine was of Death’s chuckle, mind you, not of the sack of kittens being smashed with a hammer. Ted would never contemplate such a horror, and if you accused him otherwise, then I say, “How dare you?!”)

 

Ted let the statement roll around in his head. “AN APPOINTMENT TO KEEP.” He took a deep breath, and prepared himself.

 

“I’m square with my maker, I’ve long since let go of my regrets. This was much earlier than I’d expected, but it seems ok. Insurance is all paid up. How will it be then? Heart attack? Aneurysm? Meteor crashing into the house?” Ted asked. He thought of his wife, and how it would be better for her to come home to the corpse than it would be to witness the actual passing. He’d like to get the unpleasantness over and move on.

 

“ACTUALLY,” Death said, in a way that was altogether entirely unsettling, “I CAME HERE TODAY FOR YOUR WIFE.”

 

“What?” Ted said.

 

“YOUR WIFE,” Death replied, rising unnaturally from the couch, his scythe making its own way into his hand, his fingers wrapping around the handle with a spirit rattling clacking, “IT IS HER TIME.”

 

“Well,” Ted said in the sternest voice he could muster, “I am afraid that there has been a mistake.”

 

“OH?” Death replied. He reached into his cloak, the act momentarily revealing the cosmic horrors encased within, and withdrew a clipboard. He put the scythe into the crook of his underarm, and flipped through the pages. “4:30, TUESDAY, 4223 OCEAN BOULEVARD. THIS IS 4223 OCEAN BOULEVARD?”

 

“Yes, yes, this is 4223 Ocean Boulevard,” Ted replied impatiently, “but you can’t be here for my wife.” He reached over and snatched the clipboard from Death’s frigid grip. “Let me see that.”

 

Death walked around behind Ted, while Ted poured over the documents, murmuring to himself. “DID I MISS SOMETHING?” Death asked, his tone more apologetic than menacing.

 

“No, no,” Ted said, flipping through the pages one last time, “these seem to be in order. But you can’t take her.”

 

“AND WHY NOT?”

 

“Because,” Ted said, “she and I agreed that I’d go first.”

 

“YES, WE HAVE RECORDED THAT CONVERSATION,” Death said, “BUT SURELY, YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS. LET ME CHECK MY NOTES.” Death took the clipboard back, and read out, “SEPTEMBER 23^RD, 2009, THE CONVERSATION WAS RECORDED, AND HERE IN THE NOTATIONS SECTION, IT SAYS THAT THE CONVERSATION WAS, ‘IN JEST’.”

 

“I assure you, it was not.”

 

“UM,” Death said. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out his iPhone and tapped on the screen. “I DO HAVE A SCHEDULE TO KEEP; I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO WAIT UNTIL YOUR WIFE COMES HOME IF YOU ARE WILLING TO GO NOW.”

 

“Ok, ok,” Ted said, “But since I’ve got you here, is there a favor you could do for me?”

 

“IF I AGREE, MAY I FINALLY BE ON MY WAY? THERE IS A RETIREMENT HOME THAT I WANT TO GET TO BEFORE THE NURSES STRIP MY NEXT APPOINTMENT DOWN FOR HIS SPONGE BATH.” Death said, recoiling at the thought.

 

“Yeah, do this one thing for me after I’m gone, and you can bump me off right now. It might take some strings being pulled, but if anyone can do it, it’s you.” Ted grabbed a pen, took back the clipboard, and quickly wrote some instructions in the margins of the paperwork.

 

Death looked at what he’d written and said, “I CAN MAKE THAT HAPPEN. SO BE IT, TED,” and lifted his scythe in the air.

**********

And so it was, on a random Tuesday, that Lily found her husband, dead on the living room floor, a bouquet of roses placed next to him on the coffee table. She mourned him for he was the love of her life. Well, he was the first love of her life because, as fate would have it, through a series of seemingly supernaturally contrived coincidences, she met the newly divorced Matt Damon, and in a storybook ending, they lived happily ever after.