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

As I lay here on my deathbed, dreaming of the times I've share with the people in this room, I wonder what I might have changed, if anything. 
 I've known great joy and great pain, stunning victory and crushing defeat, I've loved so deeply that the stars seemed to burn just for us and the world faded to dust when we were in each other's embrace, and I've lost her to a memory tainted with cruelty and bitterness. 
 
 My children are grown and now old themselves, my grandchildren are grown to men, and my great grandchildren are teenagers, and all are good, decent people, all seventeen of them, and nothing can change the fact that there are good people in the world because of me. It's not much, but it's a start. I've never been a godly man, never felt the need to believe in something that, to me, obviously was n't real. I never understood how someone could find faith in this harsh world, but now I'm hoping there's more than this, some other reality, just something to say that this is not really the end of me. Is that what religion is for? Is the thought of posthumous oblivion so unappealing that we feel compelled to create an afterlife? 
 
 I suppose I should be grateful for one mercy, God or no, and that's that I've always been healthy. I've had colds and flu, hypothermia in northern Mongolia, but nothing life-threatening or debilitating thanks to the best doctors money can buy. Even now, as I listen to my heart beating, I can feel it's irregularity, occasionally skipping a beat or trying to beat twice, almost like a car engine from the early twenty first century, but there's no pain. I remember that, the early days of the new millennium. I turned sixteen the summer of the year two thousand. I was a bit of a rebel, had plenty of scraps and skipped school more often than I attended, I had been arrested several times at that point for everything from public lewdness to violent assault. That all changed that summer when I left school and began my first job as a waiter in an Italian restaurant. I enjoyed it there, and soon learned that acting the way I used to act did not work in the real world. It was also where I met Her, the deep love I mentioned earlier. She changed me, and I blossomed under her guidance through our decades of marriage. 
 
 Sorry, I'm rambling now and I'm afraid you'll get bored to death. I'm going to try and drift off to sleep now to dream away my final moments. 
 
 Wait... Someone's coming up the stairs. Everyone's in here, who could that possibly be. I feel younger, stronger. Maybe I'm losing my mind and this really is my final moment. I ca n't move. I need to tell my children how much they mean to me. I need to tell them not to mourn me, to live and love and laugh and now I have no time! 
 The door did n't creak, it usually does. Oh shit. This ca n't be real. I'm hallucinating the Grim Reaper! I've lost my mind. 
 
 Death sits down in a chair next to the bed of the frail old man, who looks at him, but can not move even his head. 
'Good evening. It is time.' 
 The old man closed his eyes, still half believing this to be a hallucination. 
 He tried to speak, but his muscles would not obey. 
'I have a proposition for you, mortal. I will give you immortality, and all the power I possess, if you would but use it for the betterment of mankind.' 
 
 With a jerk the old man was released from whatever power was holding him transfixed and he raised his head to stare wide-eyed at the cowled figure beside him. His family immediately rushed to his side, but he ignored them. 
'You're real, are n't you?' he asked incredulously. 
 Death extends his hand, smiling,'Deal?'
