The Life of Death #Wattys2016

Madeline and the Reality Star

Madeline passed the tedious moments by counting the timeflies flitting about her face, and flicking the annoying little insects without care when they chanced to land in her smooth, white hair. The tick-tick-tick of their mating call irritated her almost as much as the waiting. An hour had already passed in mortal time since she sliced open the gateway between her home and the land of the finite, where everyone and everything was marked with an invisible expiration date.

He did this on purpose, she thought. Thinking of her father, she glowered through the rippling hole in the fabric of time where silver sparkles danced like fireworks along the open seams. She could hear his condescending words in her head.

You need to learn patience, Madeline. You have an eternity, Madeline. No need to rush the mortals, Madeline.

"It's so stupid," she said to no one. "Who cares about stupid mortals? They're here, they're gone—a tiny, meaningless blip in the thread of infinity! I'm good at my job, so why won't he just let me do it instead of constantly trying to teach my some absurd lesson?" Her onyx lacquered nails dug grooves into the black oak handle of her scythe, and she made a conscious effort not to grind her teeth.

Madeline's disposition tapered into something more amicable once her quarry stepped into view—a dark haired man in his early twenties, wearing a flimsy V-neck t-shirt, skinny jeans, and far too much jewelry. His eyes were concealed by mirrored sunglasses, and a cigarette dangled haphazardly from the smug smile on his face. The young, cocksure man guided a plastic-chested brunette into the passenger side of a midnight convertible sports car.

Madeline hefted the heavy, curved blade over her shoulder with grace, and then stepped carefully through the doorway. She glided unseen through a crowd of camera toting parasites who shouted instructions and begged for attention.

"Hey, Barry! Over here."

"Give us a smile, Barry!"

"Who's the broad, Barry?"

Madeline wanted nothing more than to twirl her scythe overhead, and pop the heads off of each one the way one might decapitate a dandelion, but she had a job to do, and the job was the thing.

The corners of Madeline's mouth curled upwards when a convertible identical to Barry's careened around the corner and wobbled out of control. Ah, the irony, she thought. The driver overcorrected, which sent the convertible tumbling side over side toward Barry. Madeline noticed the earbuds dangling from Barry's ears, which blocked out the sounds of crunching metal speeding toward him.

Barry gave one last wave to the photographers and the world before the tip of Madeline's outstretched scythe snagged him from his physical shell seconds before it French kissed the driver's side door. The driver of the car had no doubt joined Barry in his fate, but that was a job for her father's 'scratch jockeys' and none of her concern.

Madeline stole a sideways glance at Barry, and watched as the realization struck him that something wasn't quite right. His waving came to a halt, and the smile slipped from his face.

"Woah. How'd I get over here?"

"You're dead." Madeline pulled a small hourglass from beneath her robes, having already lost interest in Barry's reaction.

"I'm what?"

"Dead. Struck down by that tangled mass of metal over yonder." She pointed to the twisted wreckage a few yards away. "Anyway—time to go."

"Yeeeeaaaah. That's not gonna happen."

Madeline had long ago lost patience for bargaining, pleading, and every other protestation she dealt with in her line of work, but she had particularly little tolerance for flat out resistance.