Death Pays Rent.
While tending fire, Death smiled and turned to his companions. "Pick a card, any card, and I will tell you of it's face." His companions grinned at Deaths marked cards and would not play. They knew that to humor Death might make him want to wander the subways of gay Paris for the evening drawing lots with the passengers and winning the expressions right off of their faces!
"We must be careful," the Girl said to the Boy "Death hasn't paid rent."
Death plays with a marked deck.
The Girl played clock solitaire, while Death rearranged the coals. The Boy mused whether or not Death would pay his rent with unmarked bills.
Suddenly, the fire gave forth a pflash of flame and smoke, consuming the room. When the air cleared, only Death, the cards and a pair of red shoes remained. Death cackled, "It's all in the wrist."
Death gathers wood.
Death cruising for faggots in the cemetery knows Girl is cold and Death needs tend fire for her. Death carries all the fuel he needs and never asks for assistance, for Death is a proud man.
Death makes a mess on the floor. "It always seems to be the messiest chores are the funnest!" Death reflected. "I can always bring the Boy back to clean up later." He wondered if he still remembered how to do it.
The Girl stretched out on the couch and addressed Death: "Knead me, O ever-pleasant demon".
Death sleeps on the porch.
Death returned home from a hard day's work asking people to explain themselves. The Boy offered Death a roast beef on rye sandwich, which Death gratefully accepted. "Even Death must needs eat," he thought.
"No mail for Death today," remarked the Girl, which saddened Death. "Even Death likes mail once in awhile," he mused. Oh well. Death proceeded to the back porch, which was covered by an inch of snow. Looking down he saw the prints of a winter wolf in the snow, along with that of several Eskimos....
"Good thing I bought that electric blanket" reflected Death as he prepared for sleep.
Death cheats fate.
"What have I to do with drop/add" mused Death while standing in line. "Satan hath no hold over me, and this is worse than hell."
A large pale horse approached Death. "Rabies kill humans too," said Death as he sharpened his scythe.
Death jumped on his horse and proceeded to mow down those standing in line ahead of him. When he reached drop/add, he handed the clerk a single form which read:
"DROP: Dead ADD: One large plague, with rats."
With these cryptic words, Death was off.
Death goes shopping.
Death proceeds to the nearest food market.
"Hmm... the lamb looks good, and I remember a wonderful marinade recipe from Guadalupe." Eggs, milk, and bread later, Death found himself at the express lane waiting on someone with over twenty packages of koolaid ahead of him.
"Koolaid, hmm... perhaps scientists will find it causes cancer in rats" mused Death.
The next day found the man dead in his apartment by a rare form of blood cancer.
Death gets drunk.
After a hard days work, Death crosses the street to go to a bar. "Me thinks me needs sustenance that only an establishment of ill repute can provide!" Death muses as he walks among the traffic.
At the entrance to the bar, the bouncer asks for an ID. Death just gives him a cold stare and walks on in. "It works every time!" he thought to himself. Several Bloody Mary's laced with strychnine later finds Death playing cruel jokes on the patrons.
Death goes to heaven.
Death joined hands with the immense crowd and began the frantic dance. Soon they were all dead from exhaustion.
Death builds a home...
"This suits me well," commented Death, viewing the mass of bodies now littering the plane of heaven. "Methinks 'twill suit me well for home." Saying this, Death summoned his minions from the nether world and set them to build him a house.
"And stable, too, for the horse!" amended Death to the author of this sad tale.
Death honors the Mother Goddess.
The Elder Death greeted Death and the Girl at the door to his abode. Death handed his Master a gift of rare poison as a token from the Girl. Across the room, the cauldron bubbled and emitted strange odours.
The aged Death found the present form of Death's Consort most pleasant and laid his head in her lap, inviting the Younger Death to partake of the subtle foods of the mansion and offered all the guests a drink from the cauldron. (Editors note: You see, it was the time of year when Death, in one form or another, always pays homage to the Mother, in one form or another.)
Death, the Elder, laughed a the Young One, forced to redo the work of the Elder. "It is always so, at this time of year." The Young Death had drunk the poison of the cauldron, and now his term was ended.
The Mother smiled through the face of the Consort of Death. "So must the old pass away to provide a place for the new; the cauldron is rebirth as well as Death."
Death finds a replacement.
Death, knowing his time to be near (for being Death, he could sense the approach of his own demise), and guessing the import of the cauldron, set out to find a new incarnation for his post.
As he left his mansion, he chanced upon a young man walking the streets alone. "I have come for you", said Death, addressing the stranger by name. "But yours is not to be the Fate of the rest, for you have been chosen to be my new incarnation". At this, the man stammered, the words of Death being of such enormity.
The Girl looked out the window and smiled, for she had already ensnared the young man to be Death's replacement in the mansion. "After all, someone must pay the rent," she mused. So all was going as was fated, and Death's replacement was assured.
"But still, I must be certain," said Death as he continued on his way. "The office of Death is not one to be taken lightly...
Death transmogrified.
Death returns to the house, he goes to his favorite watching place. Soon the Young Boy arrives. Death watches his replacement, Death's strength waning. "Die" he says, the Young Boy only becomes black.
"I am you and since you are already dead I cannot die". Death thinks that the young Boy will a good Death make.
The New Death carries his name in both hands and feet. Black is the colour of the New Death, dark is his time. Friends with Goddesses many, Enemy of the Light. He is more powerful, for Light always loses to Death. For all pass through Death on the Way to the Light.
Death finds his resting place.
Old Death, his task now complete, sets off for the Elder Death's mansion.
Elder Death greets the Old Death at the door of his mansion. "My task is complete, O Deathless One!" proclaims Death as he enters the mansion. "I have come to my reward, my eternal rest".
So saying, Old Death presents the Elder with the traditional gift of passing, an instrument of Death. This one is a handsome guillotine, with sharp blade and strong timbers.
Elder Death is pleased with the gift, and beckons Old Death make himself at home.
"You have done your task well, long will mortals remember your reign".
So ends the life of Death, whom some shall long remember. Long Live the New Death!!!!!
Death's first night out.
"Kings pawn to Queen 5, check". "You play well, mused the Elder Death as he pondered his next move, "But the game is not yet won".
Old Death and Elder Death were sitting in Elder Death's mansion playing chess. "How goes the New Death?" inquired the Elder of the Old. "Well," responded Old Death. "Perhaps his mien is not quite as visible as mine, but his outcomes are always imaginative."
So saying, Old Death passed his hand over the chess board, which slowly cleared to reveal the visage of the New Death. He had just managed to finish one of his more trying Deaths of the day.
A cat had jumped in front of a car, causing the car to swerve (but not soon enough to save the cat) and crash into a shopping buggy which in turn crashed into a ladder holding up a man working on the power lines. The man in turn fell to his death, in the process grabbing and ripping a high tension cord which fell to the ground and electrocuted a shopper just as she was opening the trunk to her car. The shock of her death caused her car to blow up and kill four people who happened to be near the car at the time.
"Well done," mused the Elder Death. "He shall make a good replacement."
Death gets drunk again.
Death finds himself drunk wandering the halls of a university dormitory. With a pang of loss Death realizes he does not know who he is. He is Death, but what was he before? Elder Death, Old Death, New Death, they all run together.
Death muses on Eternity.
Death realizes he should not get drunk. Death thinks he thinks these things every time he gets drunk. Death is depressed.
Death sees a student standing on his head in the absurd belief that this will rid him of his hiccups. Death muses that this student must be even drunker than he. Suddenly, the student's feet touch a candy machine and a change machine at the same time. The student is immediately electrocuted and dies.
Death wanders away, amused with himself and feeling the better for it.
??
Contributors included: melpomene/muses, peterk/neophyte, euterpe/muses, heeter/minstral, weage/jsep, chrisd/neophyte, and risher/minstral (who tried to end it).
