[ WP ] Death comes to you when you are on your deathbed and you discover he 's actually a very nice Canadian guy .

Death rode in on a pale horse, clad in a scarlet tunic and midnight-blue breeches, a flat-brimmed campaign hat tilted low over his face, accompanied by a sharp chill in the air. He trotted up to the edge of the hospital bed and dismounted, touching a gloved hand to the brim of his hat, and his teeth gleamed. 
 
 `` The fuck is this,'' Simon wheezed, his right hand tangling with the IV drip in an attempt to find the call button. He brushed over plastic tubing and blankets and gave up and lay back wearily. `` Death's sending a fucking mountie to get me?'' 
 
 `` Not quite, sir,'' Death said, pulling up a chair beside the bed and taking a seat. `` I am Death. It's nice to meet you, by the way.'' 
 
 `` Death,'' Simon muttered, studying the cheery face. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, and if Simon squinted he thought he could see those fine eyebrows dusted with snowflakes. `` You telling me Death's a Canadian?'' 
 
 `` Oh, yes sir,'' Death said. He took off his hat and set it across his lap. `` Come here to free you from this mortal plane and bring you home to the Land of the Dead.'' 
 
 `` And that's Canada?'' Simon said. 
 
 `` For you it is, yes. Everyone's death is unique, everyone's is a little different. And for you Canada satisfies all the requirements. It's a place right next door to you, familiar enough to seem like home, and a place you've never been.'' Death's eyes twinkled. `` And it's not as if you know all that much about Canada, eh?'' He ran his hands down his uniform. `` Bit of a stereotype, eh?'' 
 
 `` Fuck off,'' Simon said, and closed his eyes. `` I'm dying, all right? Ca n't think straight. I'm not that ignorant. You've got, um, Trudeau and, uh...'' He pressed his fingers against his closed eyelids. `` Maple syrup, hockey, okay, whatever, stereotypes. Fuck this. I'm not going. I'm not even religious!'' 
 
 `` Oh, no need to worry about that, sir,'' Death said. `` I'm entirely non-denominational.'' He sat his hat back on his head and stood up, leaning against the bed railing. `` But we really do have to get going.'' 
 
 `` I'm not ready,'' Simon wheezed, and there were little damp spots beside his eyelids. He had n't thought himself capable of crying. He opened his stinging eyes and blinked at the harsh hospital lights. `` Go to hell. Whaddya say to that? Mr. Dudley Do-Right? Gon na just smile and say please?'' He gripped the cold edges of his hospital bed. `` I'm not fucking going!'' 
 
 `` Hm,'' Death said, and smiled sympathetically. `` You've wanted to go before, though, have n't you? You said, if Bush got re-elected -'' 
 
 `` That bum,'' Simon said. `` That fucking bum.'' He let out a breath and his lungs rattled. `` Yeah, yeah, I did n't move to Canada, did I? I just stayed here and took it. Just like everybody else. Watched those bastards run the country into the ground.'' 
 
 `` That's what I'm here for, sir,'' Death said, and extended his hand. `` You do n't have to take it any longer.'' 
 
 Simon looked down at himself, at the shrunken frame beneath the hospital gown, at the collapsed veins when he turned over his wrist, and let out a sigh. `` Fine,'' he muttered, and clasped the gloved hand. `` Let's go. Let's get this shit over with.'' 
 
 `` You wo n't regret this, sir,'' Death said, as he lifted Simon up as lightly as a feather and set him on the back of the pale horse. `` For what it's worth,'' Death said, as he carefully straightened Simon's hospital gown in the back, `` I do know how scary this can be. I am sorry you had to go out this way.'' 
 
 `` Sure,'' Simon muttered, as Death mounted the horse in front of him. Death drove in his heels, and the horse began to trot, a Northern land of snow shining brightly in front of them. `` Of course you're fucking sorry. You're a Canadian, ai n't you?''
