Death's Day Off

Where did he come from so suddenly? Wouldn't it be so absurd, the young man could have sworn the figure just materialized out of the mist. The church clock just having completed striking midnight didn't help much to ease the eerie ambiance. The stranger slowly stepped out of the dark misty alleyway into the light of the street lamp, which would normally have brightened the whole situation somewhat—hadn't the stranger just been as pale as death himself. He appeared to be in his mid-forties… no, wrong, he seemed more like a late teen … although … on closer look, he was rather old, about seventy or eighty … What the heck? The young man felt reminded of some vampire story.

He definitely wasn't of the anxious kind, but that stranger … he tried to ignore him, tried to ignore the cold chill running up and down his spine. With no avail. The stranger had his eyes on him, and on his lips a very cynical sneer, more like a grin.

"Having fun?"

The young man felt trapped. Busted. But why? He didn't do anything wrong. He just wanted to teach that pervert a lesson …

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"And what lesson?"

That was too much. Could that stranger read his mind? Impossible!

"Whaddaya want?" The young man tried to sound confident. The stranger just raised his eyebrows and grinned even more taunting.

"We don't need that kind of scum here."

"They don't need the kind of unemployed school dropout drunk scum, either."

The young man felt an urge to just plant a fist in that grinning face - heavily wrestling with that other urge to crawl into the next mouse-hole.

"I'm no drunk." His feeble voice betrayed his anxiety.

"Not yet. But that still doesn't explain why you are more needed than him."

"I don't touch children."

"I see. You want to protect the children."

"Yeah."

"Then tell me how exactly it helped this boy to be taunted, called names and beaten up for being with him?"

The young man just stared.

The man flinched. That bum meant trouble. And that weird stranger he was with gave the man the creeps. He couldn't even determine what exactly made the stranger that eerie. Somehow he just knew, though, that this was no one to cross. For a moment he thought about just turning around and walking another way. But who knew whom he might walk across then. And this at least was a passably lit and somewhat frequented street. Besides, they might have seen him, and he did begrudge that bum the triumph of him backing away. So he went on, trying not to show his fear.

As he approached, carefully keeping an eye on the both, he got the impression that the young man was even more afraid of the stranger than himself. He refused to imagine what that would mean if they were associated, so he just decided they weren't. And hoping against hope he was right. It didn't help to ease his goosebumps, though.

"Oh, what keen bravery!" The stranger sneered, as the young man just pushed the passer-by off the sidewalk. "I guess that shall teach him to stick with people his own size and not to assault the weak?"

"You got it."

"I see. You being about two heads taller and about double as heavy as him makes him a perfect match to you, of course."

"What's that ranting supposed to be for?"

"Think about: You're the one who just assaulted a weak one, one not even approximate your size. Don't you think it might be a wee bit hypocritical to swagger about sticking to one's own size in your place?"

That moment something broke loose in the young man. "But that's quite a different matter!" he shouted. Strangely, he appeared very near to burst into tears.

The stranger's face suddenly lost any sign of amusement and turned to stone. As did his voice. "Not at all!" he thundered "There aren't too many kinds of taking advantage of someone's weakness. It's all the same cowardice. Yes, it's terrible for a child to be beaten by a father too strong to stand up against and knowing no one cares, no one will come to help. Do you agree it is cowardly to beat someone knowing he can't defend himself, and no one will help him?"

"Absolutely!" the young man pressed out, his face distorted from sheer hate.

"Then why don't you beat people as strong as you, or at least people others would come to help them?"

"But he …" the young man stammered, now with tears in his eyes.

"… is not your father." the stranger completed, suddenly letting some warmth in his voice. While the young man rang with his tears, the stranger turned to the older one: "Let's go."

The man followed, too upset to even thank the stranger. As he had settled down enough to ask the stranger who he was, he just said "A friend."

"And has this friend a name?"

"Call me Hein."

"Great. A Friend Hein. Just what I needed." He didn't see the stranger's wide grin.

"Don't worry. I'm on vacation."

"Hah hah."

As they reached the man's home, the stranger bade his farewell. The man entered the house, and didn't see the stranger dissipating into a mist.

At the other end of the world, in a quiet park, suddenly mist rose between the trees, condensed, and finally materialized into a small boy of apparently about seven or eight. The boy stepped out of the wood, strode to a nearby bench, where a very old man had fallen asleep, and sat down next to him, enjoying the bright sunshine. It wasn't long till the man awoke. At first, he seemed shocked by the sight of the boy, but soon he smiled.

"You came to pick me up?"

"Not yet."

"It's been too long."

"It'll be over soon."

"Why couldn't I go with all of them? Why had I to stay behind alone?"

"You never know what it's good for."

The old man snorted. "What good came from me staying behind?"

"You lived a successful life."

"Successful, yeah, that's it. But what for? What was all that money worth without anyone to spend it on? And what is it worth now?"

"There might be someone in need of it."

"I wouldn't know."

"I could tell."

After a long time of talking the old man stood up to go and settle his affairs. "You will be here?"

"I shall."

And while the old man walked away, the boy dissolved into mist.

The young man standing at the takeaway froze as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, what's with your friend?" another customer asked, and, turning to the owner of that hand "Oh man, you look like death on vacation."

"You got it."

The young man recognized the voice of that eerie stranger he had met just after midnight. Trembling, having dropped his food, and seriously trying to beat the stranger for paleness he slowly turned around and let himself be led away.

"What do you want?" he feebly asked.

"You."

The young man was stunned.

"No need to worry. As your buddy mentioned: I'm on vacation today. Besides that, you're still needed."

The young man snorted. "You said yourself …"

"Someone needs you. And you know it. He only needs you not to be an unemployed school dropout drunk."

"Why would he need me? What could I offer to him, even if they'd let him be with me."

"Love?"

A bitter laugh escaped his throat. "As if that counted."

"Not for them. That's exactly the problem. And I'm not having it anymore."

He opened the door as he saw his "Friend Hein" from last night. And he shouted as he saw who was with him "What do you bring that bum for?" The "bum", on the other hand, seeing where the stranger had led him, shouted no more gentle "What do we want at that pervert's?"

"STOP IT! BOTH!" The third one boomed. "That's exactly what has to stop - YOU" and he pointed his finger to the man on the threshold "Have you asked how it was for him in school? Or at home? Have you asked whether he ever had any chance in his life to achieve anything? Have you? Have you given him a chance? How dare you judge him for not having had those who helped him, as you had? How do you know you were not in his place, had you grown up like he has? And YOU" now pointing at the young man at his side "Have you even asked yourself whether he did what they say? Have you ever asked the boy how HE feels about all this mess? Have you? How dare you judge him, not knowing what really happened, and not caring for the boy's feeling at all?"

By now he had led the young man inside, shut the door, and was now standing between two abashed men, both very carefully studying their respective feet.

The host was the first to recollect himself. "So what's all that about?"

"As I already said: I'm sick of it. That's not what life is supposed to be. Life is supposed to be about love and being happy, but that's not what happens. All they care is sex and money, making life miserable. I'm tired of taking in people having lived miserably or even not having lived at all."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Taking in people. At the end of their life. What else do you think I'm talking about?" He shrugged.

"I see." The young man drawled. "You're Death. And you're on vacation."

"Friend Hein" smiled.

The two men looked at each other skeptically.

"And while on vacation you want to make a difference."

"Exactly"

"And why are you sitting here in my home, then, instead of working for it?"

"Isn't that obvious?" "Friend Hein" grinned.

Of course, both men were fully convinced he was completely gaga.

"Well, to do something with some impact, you need time. Lots of time. And I don't have time. I've only got one day every hundred years, and you can only do so much in one day. You, on the other hand, have a lifetime each."

"And how exactly are we supposed to make a difference?"

"By writing. There is no weapon more powerful than a word. But someone has to write that word."

The young man burst out laughing.

"Of course you won't write if you don't know how to. You'll have to learn, and you'll need a teacher - well, here is one. A really good one. But still, you will not write without a purpose to work for. Caring for your brother will give you one."

"I already said they won't let him be with me."

"They'll say you can't provide for him. I just wonder why it didn't matter with your father that he couldn't either, and why they didn't care that he didn't get love, or that he was beaten. As long as he wasn't sexually abused, they wouldn't care. But now that your father's gone, money is all that counts. They won't give him to you voluntarily, that's right. But I can be quite persuasive, you know?" He said with an evil grin.

"As for you" he continued, turning to the other man "you won't write if you broke over losing your friend, or ended up in jail."

"Now give us a break." The host said. "What about you having no time? I mean, death is around anytime - and to be honest: isn't death quite the cause of most of the suffering."

Now "Friend Hein" snorted. "I don't cause suffering. I don't bring illness and injury, I end it. I'm only the one taking them in. My only choice, if any, is to take them in, or not. I can't cure them by not taking them in - they'll be as ill or injured as they are. And I have no influence at what they do with their life."

"You still could just take in the right ones."

"And which are the right ones? How do I know? There is no simple good and evil, only good and bad. And nothing and nobody is pure good or pure bad. The one I take in to prevent him doing bad would have done good things, too, which now will remain undone. And you'll never know what will come out at the long end. Of course, I have my hints. I know what might happen. But that's not what will happen. What's bad now might turn out to cause the best …"

"Oh, don't come with that 'Bad things have to happen, so that good things can follow from it.' crap"

"Did I say that? That's crap, right. There is no plan. But it's still true that good can come out of bad. And also the other way round, by the way. And, as I said, I can only take in or not. I can't change things. It's like a big railway network, with all switches set wrong. By taking in I'll take a train off the rail, preventing him from running to disaster, all right, but that won't change the switches, nor direct the train to a proper destination. And the next train will go as wrong the previous. - Believe me, I've learned the hard way. I've tried to take the right ones in. What do you think happened?"

Silence.

"There was that infant. He hadn't any potential to ever achieve anything of import. But that wouldn't prevent him from being happy. And his mother - she had suffered enough, had lost too many children already. It couldn't be any harm in her having that child, could there? Of course, there were also dark shadows ahead, but where there are none? It wasn't a reasonable possibility. And so he lived …" "Friend Hein" trailed off, shuddering.

"And what …" the host was about to ask who it was, what became of him. But then he decided he really didn't want to know.

"Anyway" "Friend Hein" continued subdued, his head hanging "I won't choose anymore. I won't have it being my mistake ever again."

"But you're here."

"Today is different. I'm talking to you, I'm changing things. This one day I'm setting switches. At the beginning of today you" he turned to the young man "were on the road to being a drunk on welfare for the rest of your life, providing society with nothing than some more welfare recipients. And you" now turning to the host "were on the road to setting an end to your own life, broken by the suicide of your young friend and years of abuse in jail. At the end of today, you'll be on the road to teach the world what counts."

The caseworker was furious. How often had she said that cadger he couldn't care for his brother? And now he comes with that strange wannabe hypnotist who thinks she'd do otherwise just because he told her to.

"And who exactly do you think you might be to tell me how to do my job?" She asked in a very patronizing tone.

"Someone you don't want to see again, and someone you won't see again, as long as you comply."

The caseworker's sneer froze as she watched the stranger's grin turning into something else. And then sheer horror struck her from what happened next.

He must completely have lost his mind! How on earth could he let himself be persuaded by that crackpot? That was just insane. And exactly that, was what his attorney told him when he turned up to let him set up a petition for adoption. How could he even think of being allowed to adopt a child, especially with the recent allegations? Much less the boy's parents to consent? But here he was, with the prepared legal papers in his case, on the way to pick up his two companions from the youth welfare office, where he had dropped them before.

The young man's expression shocked him. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. The driver watched him quizzically as he entered the car and whispered: "He's real."

The couple was not amused, and very much so. They just couldn't believe that pervert had the nerve to actually show up at their house. And that intimidating stranger just shoving them out of the way and entering the house did not add any amusement at all.

"How dare you …" The man trailed off under the stranger's frightening stare.

"If you would excuse us, please" the stranger quietly said in a voice colder than ice "We are in need of you signing some documents."

Too shocked and intimidated to resist, the man took the papers his son's adult "friend" presented to him. He didn't believe what he read. That was outright ridiculous. "You're nuts." he barely whispered. "We'll make sure you'll never come near to our son, and let you pay for what you've done to him."

"Which would be what?" the stranger fell in "except loving him. Which, I guess, you think a crime, considering you never did it."

"How dare you? Wo love our son. And that pervert …" The woman shrieked.

"If you love him so much, then why is it that you never once listened to him, that everything he does is never right? How come you punished him for being with the one who did listen? And why did you never care for what he had to say about what happened, and what he feels, instead of trying to beat him to say what you want to hear?

And why, if I may ask, aren't you at his hospital bed right now, as he surely would be?"

"After what he did …"

"HE? YOU made his life a hell. You belittled him. You took away his friend. And you tried to force him to betray the one who gave him love. You wouldn't think that might have made him do it?"

Too shocked to protest, they just stared.

"And because you'll never change, and finally would succeed to destroy him, you'll just sign that papers and let him have a better life."

"And why would we do such a thing?" The man smugly asked.

"Because you wouldn't like the variant which worked without you, considering it would involve him being orphaned."

"Are you threatening us?"

"I do." And they watched with horror as he dissipated into smoke. And then their son's friend became a witness of just how persuasive his "Friend Hein" could be.

As they set off to the hospital, the man wanted to know why his young friend was there.

"He took sleeping pills yesterday."

"HE WHAT???"

"Don't worry, he won't die. Not today. I'm on vacation, remember. To be precise, that's why I'm on vacation today."

"I thought it was just one day every hundred years?"

"That's right. But actually, my vacation had been overdue some years already. I didn't want to take off." His voice became small and fragile, and he seemed to speak more to himself than to others "I couldn't enjoy it anymore. Not after what happened last time."

No one dared to ask.

He soon regained his composure "Anyways, so I had that overdue day. And as I stood beside your friend and realized I'd have to take him in soon, I decided I wanted to have my day off now. That gave him time to be treated, and by now he's out of danger, and awake."

"Couldn't you have given him this time, anyway?"

"I could. But it hadn't been what it's now. He'd have survived. But he'd still be with his parents. Still separated from you. Still under the pressure to finally accuse you - which he would do in the end, ending up with the guilt of having betrayed you. Would that be better than having died tonight?"

The man kept silent.

"That's what I tried to explain previously: By not taking him in I only could have prolonged his miserable life. To give him a better one, I had to be here."

"But you do take the happy ones, too."

They had reached the hospital, and Death pointed to a family of four just coming out of the main entrance "See that little boy over there?" referring to the son of that family, a boy about six or seven.

"Seems to be a happy family."

"It is. Especially today. You know, that boy nearly drowned a little while ago, as he fell into the pool. Of course, today, me being on vacation, he survived."

"Had you taken him in?"

"I don't know. He'd had a say in it, and I don't know how he had decided. But I probably had."

"But that would have been terrible!"

"Sure? You've seen him a happy boy. And he is. He loves his parents and his sister, and is loved back. He's very talented. And one day, so he knows for sure, he'll be an astronaut. And had he died today, that's exactly what he'd been in eternity. It'd prevented him any more fun, but it'd also spared him any more disappointments. Now he'll live, what will it be for him? - For one, he'll never be an astronaut. That's not so bad, he'll forget he ever wanted to be. - He has a great gift, if everything goes well, he might become a great doctor, have a great life and die contented. But one little disruption, one malign teacher, one school bully at the wrong time, could make him fail school, and finally die as a frustrated drunk. - Or he could meet a serial killer and not having any future at all. Of cours,e I could take in that killer - but his next victim could be the one who otherwise would turn out to be the one who blows up the earth. Or that boy himself could blow up the earth with his medical experiments. - Or he could succumb to the pressure to take over his father's business, which he doesn't have a talent for, ruining it in the end, and ending bitter. I could take that pressure off him by taking in those who perform it - but losing his whole family wouldn't be the best start, either. So now I ask you, would you want to decide whether it would have been right or wrong to take him in today?"

He didn't get an answer.

She couldn't believe her luck. How could she have been that dumb? That radio falling into the bathtub could have killed her. But, miraculously, nothing had happened. And she surely wouldn't do anything like that again.

Now she was at the hospital, giving an interview to a tv team about that abuse victim taking sleeping pills. And she couldn't believe their eyes, as non-other than that molester entered the hall. Immediately she screamed, "ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?"

It was one of his companions who reacted, a very creepy, pale stranger. She had no doubt he was another one from the child sex ring who, in her conviction, had exploited the boy to the point he didn't see any resort than suicide. Of course, the boy had denied anything had ever happened, but who could take that serious? After all, she knew how these monsters worked, and took care their victims didn't blab. How these naive downplayers could even consider the possibility that nothing happened, she would never understand.

And now these three stood in front of her, and that creep addressed her. "It's you who might be contented. You're the one who don't give a shit about those kids. All you care is your delusion about how kids should be. It'd never occur to you to ask any single kid how it really is. And that's why you never will get anything right. The world would be a lot happier if people like you would care about violence, coercion, and suppression, instead of about sex. And now, if you would excuse us, there's a boy in here waiting for someone."

She tried to intercept the three "We won't let you …"

"Try to stop me!" the stranger challenged her. "And let me rectify not having been with you this morning." he quietly added. And with horror, she saw him dissolving into smoke, and the smoke rematerialized into something else. And then the last thing she ever did was finding herself eye to empty eyehole with the Grim Reaper.

Even the boy's friend, who had seen it before, felt his blood freeze as a bony hand laid itself on his shoulder and he was led onwards. Nobody dared to even breath, as the skeletal figure, bones clattering and stomping its scythe like a walking staff, led his companions up to the children's ward. And one tv cameraman knew he'd just made the record of his life.

Before they entered the boy's room, the Grim Reaper again dissolved into smoke, and rematerialized as a young boy.

The boy was overjoyed as the door opened and his elder friend entered. He couldn't believe it was him who came to pick him up.

And while they celebrated their reunion, he thought sadly of the boy in the other bed, who was deadly ill and just slowly dying. He knew the boy only wanted it to be over.

"They don't care about how he feels," the unknown boy who was with his friend gently said "they only care about what they think to be morally. And because they think his life so great, they keep death out, and lie to themselves that they are protecting his life, while really they only prolong his dying. But today's different. Today death is free." And with tha,t he walked over to the other bed, stroked gently over its occupant's hair, and then reached for his eyes to close them.

After some happy hours with the man and his young friend, and with the young man and his brother, whom they had picked up from the orphanage, playing with the kids, and some cuddling with the adults, besides tipping them off about how to write so that it would have impact, to the boy who was Death came the time of farewell.

"How shall that work out?" The man asked. "They'll still suspect me, and torment the boy for it. And we still need what we write published."

"Don't worry too much. One of the things money can buy -and you'll have enough of it- is not having to care about what's told secretly, but what no one dares to speak out loudly. And after everyone saw what happened in the hospital, who would anymore want to cross you? And as to finding a publisher - let's say, I had a little run-in with one lately. It shouldn't be too much a problem." he grinned.

"I'll see each of you once more, a long time from today. Till then, make this world worth living in." And with that, he dissolved into mist.

At the other end of the world, an old man sat on the same park bench he had occupied the day before, when the same boy from yesterday sat down beside him. Wordlessly they smiled at each other, till the boy reached for the old man's eyes to close them, and then gently laid him down.

And as he dissolved into mist, he knew that one hundred years later there would be a day he would really enjoy.

---

Athour's Note:

"Friend Hein" (German: Freund Hein) actually does mean death, to the point that "I'm a friend. Call me Hein." (as used in the story) would indeed be understood as "I'm death."

Comments appreciated at Tigrillión