Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(90)
Anyway, I figured I’d be like a sort of coroner-cum-secretary, without any heavy lifting. I’d go to people who had just died, match faces with names, and check them off. Yep, they’re dead all right; next case. I didn’t know much about mortality.
I thought I did. I’d spent plenty of time with my mother when she’d been in hospice care. At the very end, she seemed to float away like a little boat on a receding tide. I talked to her for a good half hour after the nurses said she was gone; I had this very strong feeling that her little boat hadn’t quite drifted completely away over the horizon.
Turns out I could have talked to her for another couple of days. Removing a soul from a body is done exclusively by Reapers, and that doesn’t happen for at least twenty-four hours. The average time is somewhere between thirty-six and forty-eight hours, although it can be longer, even as much as a full week. It’s got to do with the soul needing time to adjust and willingly accept release from the body, which makes reaping easier for all concerned. I can see how it might take a day for a soul to come to grips with such a drastic change. But leaving a soul in dead flesh longer than that seems pretty callous. And a week—! That’s inexcusable; sadistic, even. And, as I’ve been told numerous times, not my concern.
When I’m not on the job, I wait for Madame to call me. I wait at bus stops, train stations, hospitals, clinics, government offices—anywhere there’s space enough for me to blend in, most often with uncomfortable seating, crappy fluorescent lighting, and poor ventilation. Don’t ask me what I do at night; I haven’t seen a night since this started. The closest I get is dusk, and only now and then. Mostly one day slides into another. If I sleep, I don’t know about it.
I don’t know if my punishment is standard, or more severe than usual, or less. Like, maybe they’ve got someone on permanent night shift. I don’t even know how many others are doing this kind of time, but I do have a theory about Reapers; I’ve never met any, but based on what I know from my own experience, it’s not so farfetched to think Reapers are doing time for the Crime. Once I made the mistake of sharing this idea with Madame; only once. I ended up back in the auditorium listening to an incredibly esoteric lecture about ethics. I don’t know why ethics. Maybe free will was full.
Back when I lived a regular material-world life, I would have thought all this, what I see, what I do, was magical in every sense of the word—astonishing, breathtaking, wondrous.
Now, I know what it really is: a lot of work. And it never ends.
When I get to King’s Cross in London, Twitching: The Observant Lifestyle opens to a new chapter containing directions to something called the Macmillan Cancer Centre. That seems a little on-the-nose, I think. I find my way to the Underground. Easy journey, only two stops. For a moment, I’m seriously tempted to make a quick side-trip to Track 9 and 3/4, just so I can say I’ve seen Harry Potter’s luggage trolley sticking out of the wall. The only person I could ever say it to is myself but so what? It would just take a few minutes, what have I got to lose?
It occurs to me I was thinking something similar when I got into trouble. This is followed by the realisation that no, I certainly don’t know what I’ve got to lose and the last thing I want to do is find out. Maybe on the way back.
While I’m on the tube, Twitching gives me basic information about the Macmillan Centre—cancer patients go there for chemotherapy and tests, and there’s all kinds of support and information. There’s also a lovely roof garden, which is where I’m supposed to go. I wonder if the seating will be uncomfortable—outdoor furniture leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand, without crappy fluorescent lighting and poor ventilation it’s probably as close to paradise as I can hope for.
No one gives me a glance when I walk in, not even the greeters, a couple of older guys stationed near the entrance to give people directions or help them check in. I take a minute to survey the lobby. From the ground floor, you can look straight up five stories and see the tiny little feet of people standing on the translucent floor of the roof garden. They’re like cartoon footprints. Something about the sight sort of tickles me; I could stand there all day watching people’s feet wander around.
The iPad chimes softly. I find a place to sit and check out the latest update to the observant lifestyle:
In the distant past, birds carried the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Unfortunately people caught on at some point, either because they somehow figured it out or (more likely) some self-important popinjay couldn’t keep a secret. Residents of the natural world must by law know only natural-world phenomena; therefore new protocols had to be established. There have been many, many adjustments and refinements over the centuries; some were major improvements, some made little difference, and others were total snafus.
I have to take a moment to appreciate that Madame Quill or someone like her used the word snafu.
Our current system has been in place in more or less the same form for longer than any other. It has been the cleanest, safest, and most organised method of postmortem processing. The average rate for errors, anomalies, and malfunctions combined comes to only 0.003% per calendar decade.
Jeez, I think, who let the bean counters into heaven? (I know it’s not really heaven—not Heaven-heaven—and this proves it. 0.003%; Jesus wept.) Then I reread the first part. “Clean”? What does that mean? “Safe” is an easy one—safe from humans. But make that was safe, past tense.