Fired!

Against the Test of Time

Once again, Henry Wiggins couldn't sleep. After much tossing and turning, he lay awake in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling where the soft light from his bedside candle danced alongside shadows. Every part of his body ached, from head to toe, inside and out, but pain was more of a routine nuisance than cause for alarm these days.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his lungs catching about halfway through, sending him into a violent fit of coughing. He stretched out an arm and groped around for the foot of his bedside lamp, flicking the switch at the bottom. With a frustrated grunt, he sat up and began to go through the collection of pill bottles on his nightstand.

“Where are they?” Henry mumbled, as he slammed bottle after bottle back down on the nightstand. After many annoyed sighs and squints at labels, he finally found his sleeping pills. “Ah,” he said with a weak smile. He poured himself a handful and stared down at the small white capsules, contemplating shoving them all into his mouth. But no. He shook his head. Not that way. As desperate as he was to leave this place, it wasn't by those means. He plucked two pills from his palm, popped them into his mouth, and put the rest carefully back into their bottle.

Henry sighed and put his hands together, bowing his head, just slightly, as if about to pray. After a few seconds in this position, he decided against it, choosing instead to slam his hand down on the lamp switch. The room settled back into its comfortable darkness. Henry coughed and rolled over onto his side, trying to ignore the pain in his right hip.

He'd been laying there for a few minutes when he thought he heard something. Anxious, he strained to hear it again, though the sound of his own heartbeat was almost deafening, a Jumanji drumbeat in his ears. Had it been the rustling of a cloak? The rattle of bones?

No. It was just the rain pelting against the window. Henry's heart sank.

What did I do to deserve this? he thought, pulling his blankets tighter around him. He'd always known Life wasn't fair, but it seemed doubly unfair that Death played the same game.

A sudden chill filled the room, and there again, he heard the noise. A soft creeeeak of the wooden floorboards. His bedside candle danced wildly for a few seconds, fighting desperately to stay aflame, then died, leaving in its wake the faint scent of birthdays. Henry thought he saw a shadow pass in front of his window, but he couldn't be sure. Maybe he'd just blinked.

He took a deep breath, coughed it out, then rolled over, hitting the switch of the lamp with a fist.

Death froze, his scythe inches away from the old man's face. Henry stared, eyes wide and mouth half-open in terror.

“Oh,” the skeleton face said, grinning. “Hello.”

A few seconds later, Henry remembered how to speak. “You didn't have to—” He stopped himself when he realized his voice was little more than a squeak. He cleared his throat. “You didn't have to sneak up on me like that.”

The reaper slowly withdrew his scythe, but said nothing.

Henry licked his lips nervously. “I...I've been expecting you for a long time now,” he wheezed, placing a hand on his chest. His wrinkled, sagging face smiled warmly up at the reaper. “I know you must be very busy, but can I ask for a bit of your time?”

Henry was surprised by the reaper's rather nonchalant answer. “Sure,” Death said, shrugging. “Why not?”

“I promise I won't keep you long,” the old man insisted.

The reaper had just begun to say something in response when the door suddenly swung open, smacking him squarely in the skull, and a strange metal contraption, shaped rather oddly like a human, burst into the room. “MISTER WIGGINS, I HAVE DETECTED A DISTURBANCE. LOCATION: ROOM A-17. QUERY: IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?”