I'm The Devils Daughter

Ghosts

"It's easy Thana," Julian tells me, "you just have to explain to them they're dead - IN A SUPPORTIVE WAY - and introduce them to Heaven."

When I previous thought that today couldn't possibly have gotten worse, I was wrong. So, so, terribly wrong. This is the total opposite of my job. 

A ghostly looking person, probably unaware they're actually deceased floats past. Grimacing, because bodies that float suck even more than bodies that swim in Hell, I drag him out of the stream of people entering Heaven.

"Are you aware you are dead?" A perfect, carefully scripted first sentence. I didn't say anything mean!

His expression goes from ghostly - very dead, to shock - paler, and more dead looking than before. It reminds me of Sisyphus after that boulder pushes him back down the hill so his eternal torment may continue - though of course, he looks much more fed up. This guy, this old, wispy, man, reminds me of something much more afraid.

"I'm dead? No, you must be wrong. My wife, my grandchildren, my-"

"-daughter?" I finish. 

"Yes! My daughter! Oh I cannot be dead! I haven't planted the geraniums yet?" He sounds exactly like a cliche grandparent. Geraniums indeed. Wow you're dead and all you care about are stupid plants. They can join him up here for all I care.

"Well, Sir," I emphasise, "you are very much dead. So dead, that I can smell it. It's gross."

I think he gets the message and runs - if you can call it running since it's more like a fast waddle, as fast as he can away from me. That is a specialty of mine. This death explanation thing is easier than it looks.

"Thana!" Julian asks without seeming to raise his voice. He sounds like his father -condescending, and I absolutely despise it. "Can you be a little nicer please?"

Nice? I simply oose niceness! I told a man he was dead! What's not nice about that?

The next ghostly being floats up towards me, muttering something about her cats. I would so love to go back home right now.