Edwin Smithers did not notice the Grim Reaper standing in his kitchen.

Well, if he noticed that, he may have started noticing other things as he rushed around getting ready for work. He'd notice the reason his wife was eager to make him his morning coffee was to get him out of the house so the refrigerator repair man could come over and service her. He'd notice his son was a bully quickly on his way to juvenile hall. He'd notice his daughter was four months pregnant. But he didn't. So why notice the tall, hooded figure with a sickle who was standing next to the microwave oven.

He poured coffee into a travel mug, picked up his keys and exited the house. The Grim Reaper looked around in confusion. How did Edwin get by him so quickly? He was supposed to suffer a fatal heart attack that morning.

Edwin sped to work as he always did. He was an important business man and had tons of phone calls to make and meetings to attend that day. He couldn't let little things like stop signs and yellow lights slow him down. Time was money.

He talked on his cell phone while he sped around cars. The Grim Reaper in the passenger seat was as invisible to Edwin as the school crossing guard.

The Reaper held onto the "oh shit!" bar as Edwin took a corner at 50 MPH. It would not be wise to take Edwin's life while he was driving, there were too many innocent people at stake. The Reaper was already behind schedule, he was not going to give himself more paperwork by taking a few souls before their time.

As they entered the parking garage, the Reaper thought this would be a good time to snatch Edwin's soul. Before he could make a move, Edwin parked, jumped out of the car and raced toward the open elevator.

"Hold that door!" Edwin shouted at the passengers.

The Reaper tried to get out of the car, but the door wouldn't open. He had to vaporize himself and pour through the seams of the door. When he returned to his solid form, he ran toward the elevator.

"Hold that door!" the Reaper shouted, but it was only Edwin's time to hear him, and he was still talking on his cell phone.

The elevator door closed in the Reaper's face.



After climbing twenty-two flights of stairs, the breathless Reaper emerged into Edwin's department. In the lobby sat a large, half-circle desk. Behind it was a skinny, red-haired woman who was juggling phone calls and the intercom as if she were a circus performer. This had to be Edwin's secretary.

The Grim Reaper strode past her and tried to open the office doors. They were locked.

"Where do you think you're going?" the secretary asked him.

She wasn't supposed to see him, but the Reaper had no time to question this, "I'm here to collect Edwin Smithers."

"Do you have an appointment?" she asked him.

"I did this morning," the Reaper explained, "But I missed it."

"I'm sorry," she told him, "There's nothing open until a week from Wednesday."

"I need to see him today," the Reaper said, Edwin had to be six feet under a week from Wednesday.

"I'm sorry, sir," the secretary said, then acted as if he weren't there at all. The Reaper was accustomed to people not seeing him, but he found it very annoying to be ignored.

The Reaper vaporized and floated down the hall into Edwin's office. Edwin was simultaneously giving dictation to a timid young assistant, reading a sidewalk-long contract and talking on speaker phone.

"I'm looking for a sixty percent increase," Edwin bellowed.

His assistant wrote that down.

Edwin glared at him sharply and snapped, "I wasn't talking to you!"

The assistant frantically crossed it out.

The Reaper couldn't wait any longer. He reached across Edwin's desk to administer the Touch of Death--. Before his skeletal finger could touch Edwin's chest, he shot out of his chair.

"Let me see what you have there!" He shouted at his assistant and pulled the notebook out of his hands.

The Reaper fell flat on Edwin's desk. Even invisible, he felt embarrassed.

"No, no, no," Edwin berated his assistant, "This is all wrong! What are you an idiot or something? I'm telling you what to write and you can't even get it right. I'll type up the letter. You go file something. I doubt even you could screw that up."

What an asshole, the Reaper thought. He pushed himself off the desk and turned around to find the office empty.

He stepped into the hallway to see Edwin begin marched down the hallway by three heavy set me in business suits. They were off to a board meeting.

The Reaper chased them into the foyer, but again lost them at the elevator. At this point, he was tempted to make the cable snap and take them all out, paperwork be damned.

"Are you still here?" the secretary asked.

"Obviously," the Reaper replied bitterly.

"It's no good I tell you, he's in meetings all day," she told him then answered the phone.

The Reaper had never let board meetings stop him before. He especially loved when a CEO decided to commit a spectacular suicide by leaping out the window during a presentation. But he was too behind schedule for such a spectacle. People would grow suspicious if nobody died in the world for a few hours.

"I'll be back," he told the secretary, who was again ignoring him.



The Reaper returned to the office well after seven o'clock.

"You back again?" the secretary asked him. She looked defeated after a day's work. Her hair was as frazzled as her desk.

Edwin made his employees work late into the evening. If he were one to notice things, he'd notice all his employees were faxing out their resumes on a daily basis.

"I'm going to wait right here until he leaves," the Reaper informed her. He'd worked double time to get ahead of his daily list of deceased. He was not going to let this one get away.

The Reaper took a seat in the lobby and looked through all the old magazines. When he read articles about recently deceased, he reminisced on their meeting, "Oh, she was very sweet ... He was so surprised ... That guy was a jerk."

The secretary dimmed the lights and left. One by one, his staff quietly slipped out the door. A few times, Edwin called them back before they could escape.

Finally, the Reaper saw Edwin's assistant leave. It was nine o'clock.

The Grim Reaper marched into Edwin's office.

"Edwin Smithers!" he bellowed, "Your time is up!"

"Clean around me," Edwin said without looking up from his desk.

"What?" the Reaper was flabbergasted.

"And make it quick," Edwin snapped, "I'm trying to work here."

"Not anymore."

The Grim Reaper reached out and administered the Touch of Death--. Edwin's body collapsed on his desk. His soul stepped out of his body and continued to organize the paper work on his desk.

"What are you doing?" the Grim Reaper asked him.

"Just finishing up some stuff."

"But you're dead!"

"I need to fax something to Tokyo."

"Dead men don't fax," the Reaper tried to explain.

"It's only seventeen pages."

"Oh I give up!" the Reaper said and stormed out of the office.

The next morning, Edwin's assistant discovered the body. So much work had been done that evening, they assumed he'd stressed himself into a heart attack. His wife didn't notice that he had not come home, Edwin often worked until after midnight.

The office closed on the day of Edwin's funeral. When they reopened, the staff assumed they would find piles of work waiting for them. Mysteriously, everything had been done.

From that day forward, many tasks completed themselves in the office. Things were filed immediately. Faxes never sat around. The copy machine always had toner.
Occasionally, a foreign office would get a phone call: "Edwin? I thought you were dead... yes, yes, I got the fax..."

Edwin's staff never questioned these strange occurrences, it gave them less to do so they could leave at five o'clock. Though sometimes at night, the cleaning crew would talk about the ghost who wandered the halls, unable to stop working, even in death.

Originally published in The Writers Post Journal, August 2005