“Death calls in sick and you're chosen as his temp.”
I hung up the phone. I couldn’t believe my luck. For decades have I worked in this job, and I was finally getting a promotion. It was only for a week, but it was a promotion nonetheless.
I grabbed my coat and raced to the elevators. From the red sign glowed a big “O”; the elevator was right at the top. I pressed the up button and the sign slowly changed to “REAP”, then “SOW”, then “PLAGUE”. The elevator dinged and I quickly jumped in, frantically spamming the “O” button. I was extremely nervous; my fingers were shaking so hard you’d think that I’d be one of the victims of those working on the “ACHE” level just beneath.
Despite this, I was surprisingly still pretty calm, given the situation. I had never met The Omni before, and that phone call was the first time I had even spoken to him. Apparently one of the guys on the Reaping level caught something from a victim he was meant to harvest. The victim had contracted The Agonia, our most recent and most successful plague since the Bubonic, and the Reaper had not followed infectious protocol. Agonia plagued its victims for seven days before signalling for harvest, so the Reaper would be out for a week before he could get back to working functionality. Of course, being a Reaper, he was contracted to be immune from Death so long as he was employed, but that wouldn’t stop him from feeling the full effects of the plague. Besides, even when we employees would die, we were contracted to die peaceful and painless deaths.
Agonia was my pride and joy. It was the first time I headed a full on Pandemic project, and while I was confident in my capabilities, I was still so surprised at how successful it was, wiping out 0.9% of the population.
I had started off in this company working in the Aches division, working directly under Parkinson and Alzheimer themselves. That was a true blessing and honour, and from then I knew that this company was my calling. I had always dreamed of working on the reaping floor, and now I can finally live these dreams out.
The elevator dinged again as the doors slid open. I had hardly any time to even attempt to fathom the fact that I was standing in the presence of the Omni at the very top of the floor, when a bright and white light temporarily blinded me. The sheer brightness of the room rendered my limbs useless and I fell to the floor.
All I could do was tense every muscle in my body as The Omni spoke to me. His voice sounded as if it came from right next to my ear, but I couldn’t actually feel him next to me. All he said to me was, “Well, I told you what you needed to know on the phone, but the reason I wanted to call you up here to my office was because I’m very proud of the work you’ve been doing. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you. I saw you when you first started as a youngling doing the Aches, and I saw you when you moved up to the Plagues, first doling them out to the victims, then actually helping with creating them. Now that your work on The Agonia has been so successful, I thought I would reward you with what your heart truly desired. The Reaper that fell sick did so because of your little Agonia, after all, and since the plague was so successful and we are now so short on reapers, I thought you were the perfect person to call up. If you do well this week, you might be looking at a permanent position on the Reaping floor. One of the senior Reapers is waiting for you now to teach you all you need to know. Just be careful: you of all people don’t want to catch the plague yourself.”
And with that, the elevator doors closed, and automatically started moving down. I opened my eyes; the bright light was gone. I lay still on the elevator floor, trying to absorb the craziness of what I had just experienced. I was in the midst of replaying it in my head when the elevator doors opened again. A senior Reaper stood before me, and he welcomed me in.
The process of harvesting was pretty simple, as he explained. I was starting off in one of the easiest sectors of the Reaping division, Maladies, and didn’t have to deal with any complexities, such as the Reapers who dealt with Accidents, Homicides, or Suicides. Since I was one of the heads in the Plagues division, not much of the Maladies protocol was new to me, but I had to make sure that my contamination suit was properly worn. As The Omni said, I of all people would not want to fall victim to The Agonia.
I started to put on the suit. I wasn’t used to it, and it took some time to figure it all out. Back when I doled out the aches and the plagues, I never had to wear a contamination suit since we would generally only deal with healthy people. It was only ever the Reapers who would have to deal with the plagued.
I first put on a black spandex suit that covered my entire body up to my jawline. Next were my black goggles, followed by my mask. It was a large, white mask that covered the entirety of my face. The top half was slightly rounded to allow room for the goggles, while the bottom half extended straight down to a little past my chin. It looked like a large skull.
On went some black socks and black gloves, and above all this I needed one last layer: the contaminations robe. The guy I was replacing must have been taller and heavier built than me, because his robe draped over me quite loosely. I grabbed the scythe that would allow me to hook onto the victims’ souls, and I pulled the black hood over my head.
Staring into the mirror, I couldn’t help but think:
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
-J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita
-J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita
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