Writing Prompt

STORY STARTER

What does the Grim Reaper do in their time off?

Writings

Death Gets a Hobby

Desire sniffed her plastic wineglass and grimaced. Nudging her shoulder, her brother Dream came up behind her. Sighing they both stared blankly at the canvas before them. The hum of the gallery’s halogen blended with the murmur from the sparse crowd around the free bar.

“What is it?” Desire whispered.

“Maybe, it’s hung the wrong way?” Dream answered.

The Endless siblings cocked their heads to one side. The globs of chewed gum and fingerprints covering the giant canvas looked just as confusing in landscape mode as in portrait mode. Guzzling from a bottle of mid-range Chablis, Despair joined them.

“Trust me that won’t help,” Despair said. “I’ve haunted artist studios from Paris to Pennsauken and I know crapola when I see it.”

“Well we can’t say that. Desire, you’re the poet. You have to come up with something wonderful to say before Death comes over here and asks what we all think,” Dream said.

“Look, first we went through Death’s whole standup comedian phase, glassblowing, then funky macrame. I still have all those squishy pull pots from her pottery kick. We’re immortals with the ability to shape humanity and big sis spends all her corporeal time making weird stuff. Let’s just tell him the truth and get tacos,” Despair said despairingly.

“Dude, Mom would kill us. Quick think of something classy,” Desire said.

Despair snorted while Dream scratched his head. Concentrating, all three siblings tipped their heads to the other side. Dressed in her typical all-black but with a jaunty beret instead of her hooded shroud, Death walked over. She watched her family confused. Death cleared her throat. The trio jumped in surprise. Desire drained her glass.

“Guys I am so thrilled you came out to support my show. But why are you staring at this old access panel?”

"

Sir Therapy Guy

Without all the pain and suffering, I’m just a chill guy. Sure, my job calls for some, well, immoral tasks, but underneath the robe I’m a misunderstood dude trying to serve his sentence. Honestly, the way “normal” mortals describe me is insulting. I’ve kept track of every single representation and name I’ve been given. Old Man Death? The Bone Man? Come one, give me something to work with. How about Jim? No, Jimmy. Yeah, Jimmy works. Jimmy the Chill Guy, I can dig it. But those depictions. Jeez, people act like I don’t have a face. I mean, no one has ever actually seen me, so can I really blame them? No. It’s still insulting though! I can’t go a day without some new catalog or something popping with some new representation of me. Then those who say I don’t exist! Look people, I just wanna sit on my beanbag, watch my Rom-Coms, and eat Cheese Balls. Is that too much to ask? I bet these people think I just go around, guiding people to the light. Well, I don’t! I have a life. Kinda. Sortal. Okay, so maybe not but I get holidays off. My buddy George does that. And, I get the first minute of a holiday all the way to the very last second. That stretches between time zones too. And George complains about having to do it about 50 days a year. I still do the majority! Those 50 days are the best though. I watch TV, go full bigback mode, and lie in my bed all day. That’s the life. …

“Ah, Mr…” “Grim Reaper, but my friends call me Jimmy.” “Mr. Reaper, I feel this therapy session has gone very far.” “As do I, Mr. Therapy Man.” “Don’t call me that.” “Why not?” “This is not in my job description…” “Be a chill guy, Therapy Dude.” “Please leave.” “What about my payment? I still have to pay for this session.” “Your payment is leaving. Now go.” “Too-da-loo, Sir Therapy Guy!”

Who got the Gen Z/Alpha refrences?

A Day Off

I’m just a regular guy. I know I have one of those jobs that requires me to be in several places at once, and you know what, it puts a toll on a guy. I need a vacation just as much as anyone so that is why I take one day off each month. It isn’t much but it is my time.

The cool thing is that I get to take off the cloak, put the cycle up, and just let loose as a normal dark angel. I’m not worried about people dying and taking them off to the other world, or as I like to call it home. I get to just cause chaos. A lot of people don’t know that I am actually a dark angel. That doesn’t mean I’m evil or work for Satan, no, I’m a private contractor. I just like to mess with people.

When I say I take a day off it is always on the 13th of the month, and this last month was no different. I made my way to this small town in Wisconsin called Neenah. It is like small twin cities, any way, they have this intersection with these stop lights and I kept alternating which ones were yellow and which ones were read. It was the funniest thing ever.

They also have roundabouts. Have you ever seen midwesterners and roundabouts. That was my idea. I put that in their heads to build these and it has been so fun to watch. I usually make a quick stop there to watch them try to navigate them. They still can’t.

I know these seem like trivial things and maybe they are but when you have to deal with all of the darkness that I do on a daily basis. They allow me to just chill and have fun at the expense of others and their misfortunes, but no one dies. That comes later for I’m the Grim Reaper.