Halloween Treat. Or Trick.

I figured since it's Halloween I'd share a little treat. Or maybe you'll think it's a trick. Whatever. Sometimes I get ideas that I lose interest in fast. I don't know why, but I'll pound out a few hundred words, and then my excitement fizzles in the realization that if I were to keep going I'd have to, like, WORK. This is one of those ideas. But who knows? Maybe it'll go somewhere eventually:

If I weren’t already dead, I’d be dying of boredom right now. The old woman “sleeps” in the hospital bed, her face pinched in discomfort. This has been her expression for the last four days. Her family members think she’s exhausted from the disease, but the truth is she just doesn’t want to look at me, her angel of death.

Reaper, technically. Death gets so worked up when his minions are confused for him. I figure it’s his own fault for not doing the dirty work, not that I’d say that to his face.

“Erline…” I say softly, trying not the rock the chair I’ve inhabited for too long. Don’t want a passing nurse to notice. “It’s not so bad. I promise.”

Her lips scrunch together.

“I’m telling you, you’ll like the Underworld. Once you get past the three-headed dog, it’s quite pretty.”

She raises an eyebrow.

I prop my feet up on the bed. “Okay, there’s not really a dog, but I wasn’t lying about the pretty. My favorite are the lavender fields, always in bloom and the most intense purple.”

Still no answer. I hate when they’re stubborn like this—it only makes it worse. “Look, do you want me to level with you? You have two choices in this: take my help or not. If you do, passing is a breeze, like walking from one room to another. If you don’t, it hurts, a kind of agony I cannot describe but promise I know all too well. And if you decide to haunt relatives, I’ll be forced to drag you there the hard way. You really won’t like the hard way. It involves chains and tiny, uncomfortable urns and…punishment.”

Like being stuck as a hospital Reaper.