You’re a reaper escorting me to the afterlife and the road there is surprisingly long au Luster - Asked by Patrick
“I’m dead.”
“Yes you are.” Foster kept staring straight ahead as he walked alongside his newest charge.
“And who are you?” the boy asked.
“I’m the reaper that was assigned to guide you to the afterlife.”
“…You don’t look like the Grim Reaper.”
“None of us do. Keep walking.” Foster noticed that the boy stopped following him for a moment. It was bad enough that he needed to traverse this long road every single time that he was assigned someone to escort. Add in the fact that most of them had hundreds of questions, and it made Foster wish he could avoid all of this completely. “Those images of a reaper are merely fabricated by your society. We look nothing like that. We figure it would be easier to smooth the transition if we looked like you.”
The boy stared at him. “You keep saying ‘we’.”
Foster sighed. “Do you know how many people die at any given moment of any day? If there were only one reaper, it would be impossible to get to all of them. Therefore, there are multiple ones of us each assigned to a certain area. We take care of anyone in our area that dies.”
The boy was silent for a moment, walking alongside Foster on the long road. It looked like one of the old country roads that cut through a forest. There were trees all around, but the boy felt like there was no real life around him. Only something that looked like it. “How did I die?”
Foster looked over at him. “Do you not remember?” The boy shook his head. Foster sighed and pulled a small scrap of paper out of his pocket. He looked down at it. “Oh, that’s why you wouldn’t remember. Luca Priestley. Shot in the spine at point blank. Nasty way to go.”
Luca stopped walking and stared at the road. Foster stopped as well and sighed, though he didn’t turn back. He knew this process. When people found out that they were dead, they tended to have a brief existential crisis. Foster learned many years ago that it was best to let the person work it out on his or her own for a while before trying to off any assistance.
After a minute, Luca continued walking and the pair made their way down the long road. “So where exactly are we going?”
“The afterlife.”
“So like heaven?”
Foster shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t go into it. I take you to the end of this road, there’s a gate, and you walk through it. I’m just here to take you out of your body, walk you down the road, and answer any sort of questions you may have that I can actually answer.”
“You take my soul out of my body? I thought souls weren’t real. A bunch of philosophers I’ve studied have said that the likelihood of existence of a soul is almost negligible.”
Foster sighed. “It’s not exactly a soul. It’s more of an essence, or a life force. Once the life force leaves, then the host body is essentially useless. This.” He gestured towards Luca’s body. “Is the real you.”
Luca nodded a little, then looked at his body. “So if that was just a host body, why do I still look like what I did?”
“It helps with the transition. If you still look like yourself, then it helps with the shock of it all. Over time you will begin to assume your more natural state of being.”
Luca chuckled. “You sound like you should be a philosophy professor or something.”
Foster shook his head. “It’s not philosophy. It’s my job. I know all of this so I can answer the questions that you have.”
The two continued in silence for a while. Foster was surprised. Most people had more questions about everything, but Luca seemed to be pretty cool with the whole thing. There were those random cases when someone was fine with dying and eager to move on. But someone Luca’s age usually put up more of a fight during the walk and asked why them. It was refreshing.
“This road is long.” Luca said, finally breaking the silence.
Foster laughed. “It seems that way to most people. I’m used to it at this point since I travel it each time. We’re almost there.”
More silence before Luca spoke again. “Can I ask one last question before we get there and you leave me?”
Foster nodded. “That’s my job, so go ahead.”
“Are all reapers as hot as you?”
Foster laughed, and shook his head. “No. I’m the best. That’s why they send me the most.”