Death's Temporary Home For Lost Souls

Chapter Twenty One: Paul Is Dead

I don't sleep a wink.

    Into the night, I sit in a plush armchair in the corner of Paul's unadorned bedroom, typing away on my new tablet as he rambles on and on about the chemical and nutritional qualities of chewing gum. He talks until I'm positive that I'm delirious, until the carpet swims in my vision so erratically that I think it's come to life. He talks like his life depends on it: and I secretly think that it does.

    "Nodding off again, I see. I mean, really." He snaps his fingers in my face and I jerk my head back, so suddenly that it knocks into the wooden back of the chair. I flinch, rubbing what's sure to become a throbbing knot on my skull as his serious eyebrows furrow even more. "I have the most important presentation of my life tomorrow, and my own assistant can't keep from falling asleep? I'm fucked." He squeezes his eyes shut and slides down in his chair.

    "No, it's great," I lie, wiping my eyes. "I'm just not used to staying up so late. But we've made a lot of progress so far!"

    After the arrival of the Auditor, I'd told Paul a few...white lies. Nothing too outlandish; just that when I'd overheard the hushed conversation between her and Death, I discovered that the Auditor was actually an undercover HR representative from his former company who had tracked him down to hear his business pitch from beyond the grave.

    You know; typical, harmless lies.

    But despite its lack of basis in truth and his initial skepticism, my story breathed new life into Paul unlike anything I'd seen in the days prior. Before I could properly come up with a plan, he'd dragged me all the way to his room and demanded that as his voluntary assistant, I help him turn his piles and piles of notes into a polished presentation on the new tablet. When I agreed, I had no idea how dedicated Paul really was to his unfinished business, or that I would lose so much sleep over it.

    But if this is enough to help Paul move on and prove to the Auditor that Death is in fact doing his job, it will be well worth it. Even if Death is currently acting like an asshole.

    "Mere progress isn't good enough," Paul groans. He looks truly unhinged with crumpled notes lying around him, his blonde hair tufted where he'd grabbed at it in frustration. "I need to blow her away."

    "This really matters a lot to you, huh?" I ask.

    Paul closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, pausing for a good while before speaking again. "After the accident, it was all I thought about. I was...I was so close. You know? I thought that this idea was my ticket to a better life, one where I wasn't just a cog in the machine."

    I'd never heard any of the other spirits speak so openly about their deaths, to the point where I'd started to forget that they weren't alive like me. I'd started to see them the way that Death sees them through their portraits: vital snapshots of dreams and fears and hopes.