[ WP ] '' Death extends his hand , smiling , “ Deal ? ” ''

He strained. His heart drummed insistently in his chest, threatening to burst out and fall into the toilet bowl below him. The bowl was already splattered with what looked like diet raspberry cordial in the dim light. He could taste metal, and ached from throat to waist. This was going to be a long night. 
 
 A momentary haziness by the bathroom door drew his eyes up. A person faded into being there. It was wearing a trim grey suit - she, he realised. A woman with Latin features in a grey suit and spinning a keychain had just appeared from thin air in his bathroom. He felt he should be surprised. Mind you, on the painkillers he took, not much of anything was surprising. He examined the keychain as it whirled lazily around. In addition to the usual rings was an unusual attachment: a metal handle as long as a key topped by a backwards-curved blade. 
 
 `` Hello'', he croaked, and pulled up his pyjama pants to his knees. She frowned. 
 
 `` You can see me?'' He nodded. 
 
 `` Not only can I see you, but you just appeared right there while I was busy going to the toilet. Speaking of which, do you mind? ``, transcribing a circle with his finger. She shook her head, light reflecting off the greys in her dark hair. 
 
 `` Oh, do n't worry about that, anymore. You're not going to the toilet. You're going to heaven now.'' 
 
 `` Now? Guess the time spent at the synagogue was worthwhile. Pass me those scissors, would you?'' He pointed at a pair of nail scissors propped up in a container by the sink. She rolled her eyes, put her keychain in her pocket, and passed the scissors to him. She sighed. 
 
 `` Not really matters, in that sense. Everyone goes to heaven in the end.'' He mulled this over and cut a small hole in his nightshirt sleeve. She snorted. 
 
 `` Mourning yourself already?'' He chose to ignore that. 
 
 `` Everyone?'' 
 
 `` Yes - everyone. But not me,'' she said. 
 
 `` Why?'' 
 
 `` I ca n't exactly pull my own soul and drop it off at heaven. Even if I could, who would collect the souls afterwards?'' 
 
 `` I guess that makes sense. So does that mean you've been Death since the dawn of time?'' 
 
 `` No. About eighty years ago I got the job.'' 
 
 `` That's the first time I've ever heard Death described as a job.'' 
 
 `` Not all much fun, as jobs go. You have to collect them all - even friends, family, my childre-''. 
 A moment passed. 
 
 `` Could be worse. Look at what mine did to me,'' he said, flicking his hands down and across his wasting body. `` You do n't seem to be the worse for wear, not physically at least.'' 
 
 `` It takes its toll other ways,'' she said, and her face clouded for a moment before returning to calm. He saw, and thought for a moment. 
 
 `` I'm dying, are n't I?'' 
 
 `` Yes. I thought I said already.'' 
 
 `` I do n't want to die.'' 
 
 `` Not everybody gets that choice.'' 
 
 `` You did!'' He snapped, pointing a finger at her. 
 
 `` If I'd known the cost, I'd rather died.'' She spat. `` But it's my job now, and it's time to work.'' 
 
 He flung his hands in front of his chest and asked in a soft tone, `` What if I said I wanted your job?'' She began to speak, then fell silent. The hum of the bathroom fan echoed, mindlessly drawing away the room's slight odour of blood and floral perfume. The pained expression Death had concealed before rose again, and this time she did not suppress it. 
 
 He stood, pulling up his pants. 
 
 `` You do n't want to do this anymore, do you?'' She said nothing, looked past him, past everything. 
 
 `` You can let me do it, instead. I've no others to leave, and no urge to see heaven yet. You can take a sabbatical.'' She said nothing. 
 
 They stood there, almost face to face, a bare metre separating them. Their eyes were nearly level. His heart pressed sharply against his ribcage, and the dull ache from nipple to navel with which he was so familiar began to throb along with it. He crossed one hand against his belly, and tilted forwards a little under the rising pain. 
 
 Her eyes were elsewhere, flashing across an unknowable span of time and space. Her face, however, reflected every step of the journey, flitting from shock to joy, pain and misery to embarrassment and amusement. The faint buzz of an aeroplane passing overhead rose, peaked, and fell slowly into nothingness. 
 
 Eventually, her shoulders rose, as if sloughing off a great weight. She looked him in the eye, and held his gaze. 
 
 `` Are you sure?'' she asked. 
 
 He nodded. She paused a moment longer, looked down, and up again. And then she stepped forward, to within arm's reach. 
 
 **Death extended her hand, smiling. `` Deal? `` ** 
 
 `` Deal.'' He took it with his own, then hugged her with his other arm, drawing Death into his embrace. He felt light and warmth suffusing him, extinguishing his pain, as the rich sweetness of frangipani filled his nostrils. He suddenly knew things he could not know, sensed things he could not sense; he staggered slightly and disentangled himself, as his consciousness grew beyond comprehension. There were souls to collect, to bring to their resting places. He must do this. And the first... was the soul of She-who-once-was-Death. He cocked his head to the left, furrowing his eyebrows. Her eyes burned into his. Lips slightly parted, she swallowed reflexively, and liquid shimmered as it pooled in her eyes. 
 
 `` Make it stop? Please?'' 
 
 He nodded slowly, once, twice, and bit the inside of his lip. He reached out his right hand and lay it on her forehead, leaning his head further left to keep eye contact. He could feel her soul, a web of life arrayed in ten thousand interlocking spider threads throughout her body. He paused. The ceiling fan continued to hum. He was suddenly aware of warmth and pressure in his cheeks. 
 
 `` How?'' Her lips tightened, tilted upwards just slightly at the edges. 
 
 `` Reach in, grip it, and pull. Be gentle. It's,'' she breathed, `` intimate.'' 
 
 `` Okay'', he said. `` Ready?'' 
 
 She nodded slightly, wisps of hair tickling his fingers slightly. He pushed his fingers *through* her forehead as if through diet raspberry jelly, pinched gently, and drew the threads of her soul out. They coiled as they came, forming a small glowing ball of fabric in the palm of his hand. 
 
 As his fingers closed around her soul, he glimpsed relief and joy within her shining eyes. Then they dulled, and she crumpled backwards to the floor. He drew his hand back and examined the silken soul within its grasp, before putting it in his pocket. He-who-was-now-Death looked back down at the corpse at his feet. Should he straighten her up? Somehow, he felt she would n't approve. Besides, she was apparently going to leave his body sitting on the porcelain throne. He fingered the cut in his nightshirt sleeve. The warmth inside him rose again, drawing him away, pulling him - where? `` Deal, indeed,'' he muttered, focused on the pull, and vanished. 
 
 Death was back on the job. 
 
 [ Tribute to Piers Anthony's `` Incarnations of Immortality'', particularly `` On a Pale Horse'' ] 
 Edit: paragraphing. Edit2: paragraphing worked, apologies for change of tense and comma-period swap. I claim the defense of artistic style. =P
