Death's Life

Part II

The shade of Albert Rhino watched his mourning family with satisfaction.
"Guess you should'a called yer old man more when you had th' chance!" He muttered as a news-bearing doctor returned to her office, "But ooohhh noooo! No time fer yer father! You're much too busy making fancy computer whatsits to have a fifteen minute conversation! Maybe you could have used one of those apples you've been making for that phone to remember Father's Day, eh?" Albert's family didn't respond as they quietly embraced one another. You could practically hear the violins. "And don't you go skimping on my funeral now, or I'll haunt'cha, y'hear?" Grumbled the white-bearded ghost, "I want a nice, fancy casket with cushy insides! And you better serve good sandwiches to the ones who show up! An' take an itinerary, because I ain't leavin' nothing to the lousy bums who don't show up! I put that clause in my will!" He continued to shout as his family slowly made their way outside. "An' I'm not giving anything to yer mother, whether the ol' bat bothers to show or not!"
The doors closed, and Albert was left alone. He wondered what was supposed to happen now. He looked around the drab hospital waiting room, a few of the magazines were old when he was a boy. He continued to wait, and nothing continued to happen. Was it broken? Perhaps this is purgatory, he thought. A little lobby where you wait for an appointment with one of two doctors. Albert took a seat in one of the chairs, and attempted to take a magazine titled The Future of Medicine is Here, dated 1972. It passed right through his hand. The spectre frowned. He was pretty sure this wasn't how it was supposed to-. The doors burst open, revealing a tall figure in a shimmering black cloak, carrying a scythe that flickered with ghostly blue energy. They were currently bent over double, gasping for breath as they leaned on their mystical farming implement.
"Hah...Albert...hah...Rhino...hah...your time...hah...has come...hah."
"You're late!" Grumbled the late Albert Rhino, "I died a good half-hour ago! Do you not have respect for other people's time, Mr. Grim Reaper?"
"Sorry...hah." Gasped Death as he straightened, "I...hah...slept in."
"Well that's some lousy work-ethic if y'ask me! I always said, if you aren't gunna even try, why bother?
"It's...a living."
"Not from where I'm standing, bucko! If you were workin' my job back at 'th mill, you wouldn't last a single day! Now there was a tough job! O'course, we was tougher back then, too! You kids today are gettin' all soft! Can't meet a single deadline to save yer life!"
"Right, yes, sorry." Said Death as the spirit rambled, "now I'm already behind schedule, so if you could just..."
"-and that was on th' good days! Normally it would snow somethin' fierce, and we'd have to pry icicles from our noses every night, if our hands weren't too frozen to manage that! Then in th' summer, there was these great big swarms of pine locusts! And we didn't have any of th' handy doodads you have now, mind you..."
Death groaned inwardly. It was going to be another long day.