Death sits calmly across the table from you, fingers neatly steepled, a cup of tea at one elbow. You are in a small, brightly lit room with only one door and you can’t remember how you arrived. It is just the two of you seated in high backed office chairs; the kind with wheels and good back support. Death is waiting politely for you to speak. You look at the tea and try to gather your thoughts. It smells herbal. The meeting has been going on a while.
“How can I know for sure?” you try again.
“You can’t. That’s part of the game,” Death replies.
“And it can be anything?”
“Yes. Any bet you think you can win.”
“And this isn’t a trick?”
“A trick?”
“Like I win the bet and then you start to laugh and the lights go out and the screaming starts. I just can’t help but feel that false hope is exactly the kind of thing the devil would go in for, you know?”
“Again, the devil doesn’t exist.”
“It could still be a trick though.”
“It’s not a trick. Like we said, if you win you’ll wake up in your hospital bed and all this will just be a distant, fever dream. If you even remember it at all.”
“What if I’m brain damaged?”
“What do you mean?”
“It could be a trick and you do send me back but I’m brain damaged or locked into my body or something. I saw a documentary about it and frankly I think I’d rather stay here and take my chances.”
“You won’t be brain damaged.”
“Or locked in?”
“Or locked in.”
Silence falls while you take a moment to think. Death taps a pen on the plastic surface of the table and rotates the chair to look thoughtfully at the blank far wall. A clock hangs in the centre. It has no hands and no numbers.
“What’s it like back there?” you ask.
Death turns back to face you.
“I can’t explain it in any way that would make sense to you. There are simply no parallels to your previous existence.”
Another pause for thought. You look down at your hands and splay your fingers out on the table. The surface is cool and reassuringly solid for something that almost certainly isn’t real.
“Okay,” you break the silence.
“You’ve thought of one?”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“That’s great. Let’s hear it.”
“I bet… that you won’t send me back.”
Death raises an eyebrow. “I see what you did there.”
“Pretty smart, right? If you keep me here then I’m right and I win the bet so you have to send me back. You only win if you do send me back and then I’m alive again anyway. So either way, I’m home and dry.”
“Okay, so first I send you back and then I’ve won the bet and then you die again.”
“Oh crap.”
“Yeah.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m death.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point.”
Another silence. Clock ticking. The strip lights overhead flicker slightly. You shift on your chair and look at the door. It’s just a normal door – painted a crisp white, with a metal door handle and no windows. Incredibly mundane for the entrance to the afterlife. You look back at Death and then quickly away again. It’s
a bit awkward now.
“Can I maybe have another go?” you venture. Something to do more than anything.
Death glances at the blank clock face. “Sure. I’m feeling generous today.”
“Okay then. A coin toss.”
“Are you sure? 50/50? There must be something you feel you’d have better odds in.”
“You’re some kind of supernatural being, or however you identify, and I’m human. A potentially dead, potentially hallucinating human at that. There’s nothing I can beat you in when it comes down to skill so I guess I’ll take my chances. Plus I figured I should make it fair. So 50/50 it is.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
There is a coin on the table. You’re sure it wasn’t there before but you didn’t see how it got there. Death slides it off the table and into the palm of his hand, then balances it on his thumb before looking up expectantly.
“Heads or tails?” Death asks.
“Tails,” you say. You always go tails.
Death nods, then flicks the coin up high toward the ceiling and you both watch it turn over and over in the air. The silver surface flashes as it catches the light with each
revolution.
There is a knock on the door. You jump in your seat and stare at it, hands gripping the underside of the table. No one comes in.
“Okay, they’re ready for you,” Death says, standing up from the table.
“But… the bet?”
Your eyes return to the coin, still suspended in the air and spinning over and over. As you watch, it gradually slows until it hangs motionless over your heads. It’s not coming down.
“So, it was a trick,” you say, defeated.
“Call it a distraction. I find it’s the best way to keep people calm. It’s quite a shock ending up here, I’m sure you can relate to that. Something to put your mind to always helps.”
“But it’s a lie.”
“Yes, it’s a lie. Kindness so often is.”
The door swings open silently and you rush to stand up, knocking the table as you do so. Death rescues the tea before it can spill, cradling it close. You crane your neck to see through the open doorway. There is no one on the other side. A dimly lit corridor stretches off into the distance. You cannot see where it ends.
“Go on,” Death says. “It’s time.”
“How will I know where to go?”
“Just walk straight down the corridor. That’s all you need to know. You’ve done wonderfully.”
You walk to the door, footsteps muffled by the well-worn carpet, take a deep breath and walk through. The familiar rhythm of your steps takes you down the corridor and on toward the unimaginable beyond. Your body is already dissolving. You do not look back.
Back in the room, Death sits down at the table again, takes a sip of the tea, grimaces and places it back down. Stone cold. The surface of the tea is unusual though. Small ripples shiver from the edge of the cup inwards. The table is shaking. Death looks up. Someone else has appeared in your place. Their eyes are wide, whites showing all the way round the iris. The momentum of the trauma that brought them here rocks them back in the chair. Their mouth is stretched in a scream.
“Take a deep breath,” Death says. “I’ve got a challenge for you.”
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