Death: A Life (4 page)

“I won’t be long, I promise,” sung the Master of Mendacity as he reached for the keys.

“Well, I really shouldn’t,” said Mother, lowering her eyes. “What would the others say?” She gestured around but Father’s presence had scared everyone away.

“I’m sure they’d understand, baby,” said Father. Hooking the keys in his hand, he savagely kissed Mother, leaving her swooning, and strode toward the gates.

Well, that was about all I could stand. I leapt in front of Father and refused to move.

“And you are?” he inquired, pointing at me. There was an awkward silence. It was not the first time Father had forgotten who I was. There had been the time in the Palace of Pandemonium when he had almost eaten me whole, before dear old Sargatanas had hurried over and reminded him who I was.

Admittedly, Father and I did not look alike. He was an imposing creature, with huge scaly wings, a dark red face, and giant horns reaching up to the vaults of Hell, whereas I was as ugly as Mother.

The Annual Family Engraving Was Always a Fractious Affair.
(from left)
Me, Mother, Father.

This time, however, I was older, and angrier. So the bastard didn’t even recognize me? Well, I’d make sure he never forgot me. Needless to say, there was a fight. I leapt at him and began gouging at his insides with my dart, a sharp little instrument I had created out of the spine of an escaping fiend and some string. As I attacked, I realized I hadn’t been this close to Father in years. Mother said he used to be the most beautiful angel of all, and from a distance he still cut a dashing figure, but close up you could see he was getting soft about the middle and his flames were receding above his temples. Looking back on it, I realize that despite the egotism and bravado, Father had confidence issues. Here he was, damned for all eternity, with every demon in Hell looking to him for guidance, while he was feeling that his best years were all behind him.

Mother eventually slithered between us and broke up the fight and explained to Father who I was. He nodded his head, as if he wasn’t entirely convinced. “And as for you,” she said turning to me, “you shouldn’t attack your father like that.”

“He’s not my father,” I cried. “I hate him!”

“I hate you too, son,” said Father adoringly. “I hate you both.”

It was difficult to show displeasure to a father whose entire being was devoted to doing wrong. When I refused to do his bidding, he seemed even happier than when I carried it out.

Beaming broadly, Father took Mother to one side and whispered in her ear and after some time she came and spoke to me. She said Father had found something out about one of God’s new projects called “Earth,” and he wanted to explore it. I was initially very suspicious. After all, you don’t get a nickname like the Lord of Lies for nothing. But Mother still had a soft spot for him and wanted to let him through. They were asking me to look the other way.

“If you don’t do it for him, do it for me,” she cried, and persuaded by a son’s natural guilt, I let Father pass through the gates unmolested, smiling that cocky smile of his.

I was in a foul mood. As the doors slammed shut, I heard a cough behind me. Not the usual rasping, hacking, beetle-and-phlegm-laden coughs that permeated Hell, but a polite, neat little cough that signaled a presence rather than a pestilence.

“Er…Master Death. I couldn’t help but notice that you just let someone out. I was wondering, could I…”

“Oh, fuck off, Reginald,” I said.

Earthly Desires

M
other and I
sat around for ages, literally. We didn’t talk much. I was confused and angry, but I had to admit that for once Father’s lies sounded plausible, if not terribly promising. God was always getting involved in new projects, creating worlds that didn’t quite work. I knew this because the results usually ended up in Hell, which at the time acted less as a place for eternal damnation than as the bottom drawer of a dresser in the spare room of Creation.

Everyone in Hell was familiar with the world known as “H’trae,” which now lay cooling over in the Field of the Damned. God had populated it entirely with deities who worshipped a being completely lacking in supernatural powers known as “Dog.” Dog had issued his people two commandments: first, he demanded that bones be sacrificed to him on a regular basis. Second, he demanded that his worshippers should play fetch with him until he was too tired to wag his tail. When Dog eventually tore H’trae apart in a happy frenzy, God had brushed the planet’s remains under the carpet. Dog too ended up in Hell, condemned for all eternity to chase after an ever-floating Frisbee that remained always just tantalizingly out of his reach. Perversely, this made him very, very happy.

With thoughts such as these I wiled away the time waiting for Father’s return, and eventually we heard a rather tired knock on the Gates of Hell. He was back, a gleam in his eye and lipstick on his collar bone, thighs, and soles of his feet. But before we could say a word, before the gates had even slammed shut, he announced that we should pack our things and get ready to go—we were all moving to Earth. Mother raised herself on her scaly tail and slithered over to him in confusion. I distinctly remember that day. Father had molten tears in his eyes. He declared we were going to be a family again. Gathering us up in his arms, he roared that we’d have so much fun.

Dog: Depicted Wearing the Holy Lead of Walk.

To my utmost surprise he was absolutely right.

So we packed
our things and left. I had few possessions to carry, but I had carefully collected some of the Darkness from the deepest depths of the Bottomless Pit. In the depths of the Pit, the Darkness would wrap itself around me, filling me with a veritable ecstasy of emptiness, but when I tried to take it with me, it ran through my fingers like water, spooling into a puddle and extinguishing the perpetual hellfire at my feet. It took some coaxing, but by the judicious placement of a flaming coal in my bag, I managed to get the Darkness to leap inside to extinguish it. I quickly zipped the bag shut. It made me feel comfortable knowing it was there.

Father had suggested we try to raise as little fuss as possible in leaving so as not to alert the rest of the damned. However, since secrets cannot physically exist in Hell, where all plots are public knowledge, all conspiracies well known and familiar, and all cabals openly recruiting new members, our whispered words soon drew a numberless horde of imps and succubae flocking to the Gates of Hell. With one flap of his immense wings, Father hurled them back, and Mother and I swatted frantically at the multitude of mischievous sprites who were desperately trying to force their way into our clothes and luggage.

The Darkness (profile): The Puppy Fat Would Soon Go.

Just as we were edging our way out of the gates, who should come running toward us but Reginald, his toga on fire, being pursued by a hundred imps with pitchforks.

“But what about me?” he cried. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I’m sorry, Reginald,” I replied, tearing the last of the sprites from my pockets and flinging them back toward the fire, “but rules are rules.”

Little did I know then how those words would come back to haunt me. When I think what I could have spared myself by listening to them! If only now I could tell my younger self to stop and heed the wisdom I spoke then without knowing it. But I can’t, and I didn’t. I slammed the gates shut, turned the key in its lock, and as the bolt slid home heard Reginald’s familiar screams begin yet again.

It was the first
trip we had ever taken as a family, and the first time I had ever left Hell. But as we swam, sank, waded, and crept across the unbridgeable void separating the damned from the saved, I barely noticed the vast expanses that stretched out before us. Instead my eyes were locked firmly on my parents as we moved relentlessly as one, toward the coast of Earth.

Father was at his most charming, and Mother giggled and blushed. I noticed she had shined her scales and covered her chest in a particularly loathsome shade of vomit especially for the journey. Every now and then she would wiggle her tail in delight, and Father would pinch and slap her playfully and let out peals of laughter. It is a joy for a child to see his parents so deeply in love, and as they passed exploding supernovas arm in arm they seemed like the perfect couple. My animosity toward Father was gradually slipping away, and although I noticed he could not stop himself from ogling any black holes we passed, he was putting on a good show. He kept turning to me and telling me how excited I would be when we got to Earth.