Chapter 1: The Misplaced Soul
It must've been sometime after-hours when they set up the decorations for Kent. There were streamers strewn about the office, some covering the desks and computers of irritable workers who had to swipe them off once they got in and saw the mess on their workspace. The mess of decorations led towards the break room of the office, where a fairly large chunk of workers were congregating in celebration of Kent's recent triumph, and soon his departure.
The office break room was fairly large with several square tables spaced about, a counter with a coffeemaker, and several refrigerators where the employees could keep their lunch if they didn't feel like dealing with the hustle and bustle of the lunch hour rush. Several of the square tables had been pushed together to form one long row, and the chairs that had went with them were pulled away and stacked in a corner.
There was a cake at the center of the row, half vanilla and half chocolate split right down the middle. There was paper plates neatly set to the side along with an assortment of plastic utensils, all neatly organized and sorted, forks with the forks, spoons with the spoons, knives with the knives. Above the table hung a banner that read in black bold letters,
10,000,000 CONGRATULATIONS KENT 10,000,000
Standing underneath the banner was the man of the hour, Kent Iverson. He was looking down at the cake with eyes sunken into his head, their bright blue irises looking as if they were trying to sunset behind his cheekbones. Despite the hesitant smile on his face, the man looked tired and on the verge of keeling over. The people standing around him, his teammates, watched him with solemn yet envious eyes.
"Did he get ten million, or twenty million? The sign confuses me," Mickey said to Charlie. The two were sitting at one of the only tables of the break room that hadn't been nuked with cheap party decorations. Mickey took a bite from his peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was sloppily put together with an uneven ratio of PB to J, this time around way too much jelly. He awkwardly held the sandwich up and unabashedly slurped the grape goo leaking out the bottom.
"Just ten million," Charlie said as he stirred his modest cup of noodles.
"Wowza," Mickey said with a mouthful of sandwich, "that's a lot isn't it, especially for the Suicide Division, yeah?"
"Yeah, he's been here for awhile."
Porcelain, the manager of the Suicide Division, was speaking to Kent and the group, possibly words of gratitude and congratulations, but her voice was too soft to be heard from where Mickey and Charlie were sitting. She stuck out amongst her subordinates with her long white hair and ghastly pale skin.
"And how long is awhile?" Mickey asked.
"A couple of years, I can't remember right now. I would have to go back and check the numbers," Charlie said, carefully lifting his fork to his mouth. He had twirled around a good amount of noodles and didn't want to spill any of the broth onto his pants. He still had someone to meet later in the evening and he wanted to look presentable.
"Years? Took years for him to get ten mil? If he were on my team, he would've cranked out ten mil in a few months."
"You don't have to brag, everyone knows Illness is the best."
"You're damn right. You see my team's numbers. You know what we're pulling."
Charlie smiled, "Yeah, and I also know that your numbers have been on a steady decline for the past few decades."
He knew that was a weak spot for Mickey. He looked over from his noodles and saw Mickey already squirming in his seat, using one hand to sweep a lock of black hair behind his ear. It was one of his give-away ticks before he went on a tirade. Over at the table, they were cutting the cake. Kent looked like all he wanted in the world was to just leave the office and never come back.
"Fuckin' modern medicine," Mickey began.
And here we go, Charlie thought.
"I swear to ya, no matter what I do, no matter what I throw at them, they just happen to find a cure within the next year or so. Fuckin polio? Dealt with it. Swine flu? Dealt with it. Ebola? No problema. I swear they're about to crack AIDS, and there goes one of my other heavy hitters.
They just stick a needle in your arm, and bam, that disease I put so much work and thought into, disintegrated. Vaccinated. Inoculated. Charlie, buddy, do you know how much trouble I had to go through to get AIDS approved? I had to even tone it back a little bit, too scared of letting it spread through saliva, something something 'gonna wipe out the human race'. They just wouldn't let me have it as it was."
"Well," Charlie interrupted, "you have to understand it from their point of view. On paper, AIDS could've potentially been like the sexual version of the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs. People just want to, well, ya know."
"I KNOW! That's what made it so good! That's what was gonna keep the Illness Division on top, but now here I am having to let go workers because the numbers are dropping and there's not enough souls for my guys to reap."
"The numbers are still high, you don't have to worry. Heart disease is still going strong too."
"But the numbers are dropping, you said so yourself," Mickey said, slouching in his chair.
Charlie patted him on the back, "You've still got cancer though. They're not taking that away from you anytime soon."
"You're right, but they're getting close to it."
Charlie enjoyed setting his friend off, but this time felt different. Usually he was able to talk him back up after breaking him down, but the cancer comment didn't seem to lift his spirits. Mickey had been right. Charlie was the office's number cruncher after all, and he had noticed a large drop in deaths from cancer over the past couple of years. The folks on the breathing side certainly were getting better at making death by illness less of a concern. If they kept it up, Mickey and his entire division would surely become obsolete, but the execs wouldn't let that happen, would they?
In an attempt to change the topic, Charlie nudged Mickey, "Look at him," he said while nodding towards Kent. "Looks like he just wants to flip the table and get out of here."
"Right," Mickey said, "I'd want to leave too after having to deal with that dull broad of a boss for all these years."
"Porcelain isn't so bad, she's just quiet."
"Eh."
"Ten million souls by suicide. Must've been hell on the poor guy. They really should just get on with the cake and celebration and let him get on out of here. He's done his time–
"Mickey?" a woman's voice whispered from the side.
Standing there was Jewels, a lively woman with curly brown hair that hovered above her shoulders with unexplainable springiness. She was the office secretary and in charge of handling meetings for the president of the office, Lucy.
"Yeah, what is it?"
"I hate to bother you, but Lucy needs to see you. You too Charlie. Hope y'all are finished with lunch."
"What's the matter?" Charlie asked, already standing from his chair.
"There's been another mix-up," Jewels said shyly.
Mickey's eyes went wide, "By one of my guys?!"
Jewels cringed.
"Bloody bastard!" Mickey yelled before storming out of the break room and towards Lucy's private office. Jewels quickly followed behind.
Before leaving, Charlie looked over at the party and saw that everyone there had gone silent and were staring.
Porcelain raised an eyebrow, and Charlie responded with a shrug before leaving to follow Mickey and Jewels.
"Can I go now?" Kent asked softly.
Lucy's office was filled with cigarette smoke. She had been puffing away since getting the news. She sat behind a large oak table that had folders and documents scattered about. Somewhere beneath them was a keyboard, and her monitor was barely balancing on the edge of the desk.
Sitting in a chair in a corner of the office, covering his mouth with a shaky hand to avoid breathing in the acrid smoke, was Seth Burgess. His gaze was down at the floor, afraid to look up and meet the fiery stare from Lucy. Seth didn't need to look up to know that she was staring a hole into the top of his head. He could feel the rage pouring off of her in hot waves.
The two had been sitting in silence for several minutes as Jewels collected Seth's boss and the office accountant. The silence was broken by Mickey, slamming the door open and immediately yelling:
"What the fuck?! Seth? Again? That's the second time in four years!"
"I, it was different this time boss, I, I swear, I–
"Oh yeah? How was it different this time Seth, huh, how was it you bloody dumb bastard!" "Mickey, hands to yourself," Lucy said in a stern voice. "We already have a problem right now, we don't need more problems with you putting hands on another one of my employees."
"Yeah? He deserves it though doesn't he?"
Charlie slinked passed Mickey and over to Lucy's desk, "He grabbed the wrong soul?"
Lucy puffed on a cigarette held deftly between her index and middle finger, and nodded.
"Do you have documents on both of them ready?" Charlie asked.
She padded around on her desk until she found two folders, one red and the other blue. "Blue one is the one he nabbed, red one is the one he was supposed to get."
Charlie opened the blue folder and pulled out the document. It was a detailed soul report with a picture of the person in the top right corner, a blonde woman by the name of Hannah Morenez. According to today's date, she was scheduled to die fifteen years and a handful of days from now via stroke.
He opened the red folder and winced when he saw that this soul report was for a man by the name of Roger Clementine. He was scheduled to die today due from complications during his quadruple bypass surgery. Charlie turned back to look at Mickey.
"At least tell me they look similar, twins maybe, and this daft bastard happened to grab the wrong one," Mickey said in a defeated yet desperate voice.
Lucy huffed, exhaling large plumes of cigarette smoke.
Even the normally reserved and relaxed Charlie was baffled at the mistake. "How?" he asked Seth.
"They, uh, the hospital, the sign on the door, it said Roger, I swear it said Roger, so I went in, and I grabbed the soul, because, well, the sign–
"Seth, does this look like a Roger to you?" Charlie said, holding up Hannah's picture.
"I, I dunno, I mean, have you been to breathing side lately? All this talk, of, umm, gender fluidity and what not, she could've been a, um, she could've been a Roger, she–
"Shut the hell up before I dig a hole in the ground and send you there my bloody self," Mickey said, "you fuckin' disgrace of a reaper."
Seth promptly complied.
Lucy spoke abruptly, "There's an Angel on the way to the hospital right now. He's got Hannah's soul. I need you two," she said pointing with index and middle finger at Charlie and Mickey, "to go there and meet him. Get the soul situation straightened out."
"Aye aye captain," Charlie said jokingly in an attempt to lighten the mood. No one laughed.
"And this bastard?" Mickey said pointing to Seth, who had once again rooted his gaze to the carpet floor.
"I'll deal with him," Lucy said.
"Good, because I don't want to lay eyes on him ever again," Mickey said, opening the door and briskly walking out of the cigarette smoke fogged office.
With both folders in hand, Charlie followed, pausing just before leaving the office to look at Seth. The employee looked up at Charlie with red teary eyes. His lips were trembling, and he was opening his mouth as if he was trying to say something, but all that came out were mumbles. He kept rubbing at his forearms as if he were freezing, despite the small cramped office being exceptionally warm.
Charlie moved his hand as if he meant to place it on Seth's shoulder, but pulled it back.
"Sorry guy," he said before leaving the office.
Charlie half-jogged down the length of the office building to catch up to Mickey, who was briskly walking towards the traversal room. He peered at the break room as he passed by and saw that the Suicide Division employees had cleared out. Kent was long gone, and deservedly so.
He finally caught up to Mickey as he turned the corner to enter the traversal room; a place in the office similarly sized to the break room, but instead of tables, countertops, refrigerators and such, all there was were doors lining the walls. The managers of the death divisions had their own personalized doors, while all the others employees had generic and unassigned doors.
Mickey's personal door was painted black, including the brass doorknob. He had a hand on the knob and was ready to throw the door open. "Will you come already? Slow-poke, I'd rather get this done as quickly as possible, and I swear if that Angel gives me any shit I might, Charlie, I just fuckin' might."
"I'm coming," Charlie huffed, "you do know that Seth is going to lose his job right? You could've tried to get him moved to another division or something."
"Charlie, look at the documents, how in the world can anyone mess that up? It's embarrassing."
"But you do realize what will happen to him, right?"
"Oh I know, and he deserves it, now come on, let's get this over with."
Mickey pulled open his traversal door, revealing the long hallway of a busy hospital with nurses walking to and fro. The smell of medicine and sanitary products filled both of their nostrils.
Charlie breathed deeply, admiring and treasuring every chance he got to experience the scents of the breathing world.
Mickey scoffed, "Fuckin' hospitals, putting me out of business."
Together they stepped through the door into the breathing world, leaving Purgatory behind only long enough to get Hannah's soul back into her body.
Submitted April 01, 2017 at 03:15AM by Dimitri1033 http://ift.tt/2mWFDs5 WritingPrompts
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