Damen Kobelkowski, Friday 5.20am, car accident

As soon as I saw his car hurtling towards me I knew this guy was gonna be trouble. My dealings with Natalie had already put me in a bad mood. I'd spent an hour talking to her and listening to her screaming before finally depositing her in the central processing waiting room. Even then she was insisting to anyone who'd listen (or who wouldn't move) that this was all some kind of mistake, that she wasn't supposed to be there. I'd sighed and rolled my eyes as I signed her in and Becca, the receptionist, had smiled back at me.

And now here I was, watching a metallic blue car with a spoiler that was taller than the car itself hurtled towards me. In an instant I was inside the car, in the passenger seat, watching Damen pop open another can of beer and take a swig as he swung the car around a turn, misjudged it and slammed the car head long into a tree.

He wasn't wearing a seatbelt so the last thing that went through his mind was bits of the windshield. His body came to rest on the hood, all inertia thoroughly spent. Check, please.

I got out of the car and walked around to where his mangled body was sprawled. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet.

He shook me off and turned to face his car, running around the back. 'What the FUCK?' He screamed.

Great. Another screamer.

"Who the shit are you?" He stormed up to me and stood an inch away.

I leaned back, amazed for the millionth time that beer breath lingers after death. "I'm Emily. You're Damen. And you are dead."

"Fuck that shit bitch," he tossed his hands up and stepped back, "I ain't dead, you stupid cunt."

I raised an eyebrow and brought out my board, jotting down the details while he continued to insist how wrong I was. After I'd finished he was still railing on and I looked at him wearily, "You are dead, Damen. Have you seen the hood of your car? Who's body do you think that is?"

He stared at me for a moment, his jaw set in anger. He brought the gun out quicker than any cowboy, "Well what the fuck you gonna do about it bitch?"

"I'm going to process you and send you along to your Field Manager who will give you your assignment," I replied matter-of-factly.

"No I don't think so bitch, I think what you're gonna do is get me back among the living." He cocked the gun, "Now."

"Or what?" I hugged the board to my chest and cocked my head to one side, "You'll kill me? News flash: I'm dead too."

He shot. And then shot again. Each time I forced myself not to flinch at the sound or at the sensation of those hot little bits of steel rushing through my body. Damen dropped the gun and then dropped to his knees, puking into the grass.

Very dignified. Sooooo very cool tough guy.

"This can't be real, man," he was wiping his mouth and sitting back on his heels, "This gotta be some kind of fucked up dream or some shit, don't it? You can't be doing this to me, man," he started bawling, "I been fucked over all my life, man. Abused as a kid and then fell in with some shit people, man." He scuttled back up to his feet and grabbed my shoulders, "You gotta let me go back, man, you just gotta. You can't let me go like this, you can't let my mom live with this, what kind of person are you? Have a heart, man, let me go back. I seen 'It's a Wonderful Life,' you can do it."

I stepped back and shook him off me. "There's nothing I can do. I'm not here as some sort of warning to prevent you from slugging back a six pack while speeding around the streets. I'm here to pick you up and take you on, that's it."

"But you can't do this!" He wailed, "It's not fair!"

That was it.

"You wanna talk about fair, Damen?" I stepped closer to him, "How's this for fair? I'm running around at five in the goddamned morning picking up people like you who insist that their death is somehow my fault. It never occurs to you to that you're responsible. You came to me. You got drunk and thought it was a good idea to drive. But it's all MY fault. You think life is so fucking hard? Well it's nothing compared to what you're about to go through. No more flash cars, no more wanna-be gangsta lifestyle. No more hanging around all day doing JACK SHIT while your mom works all day to keep you fed and clothed you god dam LEECH!"

His face registered shock and I smirked. Touching people and getting a sample of their life comes in handy sometimes.

"I don't know what preconceived notions you had about death, but you can forget just about all of them. There's no eternal rest for the likes of you," I glanced down at my board, "You're about to get an assignment and a job to do, just like me. You're at the bottom rung, my friend, so you might as well just suck it up and deal with it."

Damen stared at me, open-mouthed.

"What about heaven?" he finally enquired.

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

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TGIF
Four more sniper culls on Friday. It was the end of the week and according to what Paul had told me, the sniper was supposed to be stopping the following day. I didn't have another cull from him scheduled all day Saturday, though I hadn't checked the schedule for the following week.

Two of them were scheduled for first thing in the morning, at a gas station. I picked them up and they were shocked but otherwise, easy to shuffle along. Of course, even with these extra sniper culls I still had my usual rounds to do and I spent the rest of the day running all over the West Side picking up heart attacks, car crashes and a few others.

That afternoon, I made it to the scene early. Two others were about to be shot down in a mall parking lot and I slipped under, wandering around the parking lot and watching people scurry around, weighed down by bags containing things they probably couldn't afford in the first place.

I made my way towards the culls and, as I did, I noticed the van. Plain looking, white. Like a delivery truck but without the logo on the side. As soon as I saw it, I knew. I'd have been a fool not to. The shots rang out a second later from a small opening in the back window. I saw the culls drop and I started to make my way over to them. But not before I'd memorized the license plate on the van.

"I'm Emily," I smiled at them as I ran over. "Don't be scared," I continued to shout until I finally made it over to them. They were both young, maybe in their early thirties. I hurried them along and, I must admit, I was less than attentive. Once I'd dropped them off, I called Rosalie.

"Get the Nobodies together," I told her. "I saw the sniper and I know where he's going to be tomorrow morning at nine."

"What do you think you're going to do?" Rosalie sounded busy.

"We're going to stop him."

"The fuck we are!" I clearly had her full attention now. "You know we can't do anything to change the time when someone dies."

"Yeah, I know, but we can make it so they're not gunned down by some nutter. Maybe they'll luck out and get to die at home. At the very least they won't end up another notch in this guy's belt."

"But tomorrow the last two people die," Rosalie pointed out. "So it's going to end anyway."

"Yeah, well maybe it ends because we stop him," I could hear the stubborn tone in my voice. "Just get everyone together tonight. I'll meet you at Corky's at ten."

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The Sniper Drama Concludes

Rosalie told Paul.

He was waiting for me when I got home that night.

As soon as I unlocked my door I saw him. Standing in my living room.

"Fuck," I rolled my eyes and slumped against the door and I closed it.

Paul raised his eyebrows, "And a cheery hello to you too, Emily." He waved a drink at me. Fucker helped himself to my Pepsi. Probably had my rum in the glass as well.

I closed my eyes and walked past him into the kitchen. Sure enough, a bottle of Bacardi sat on the counter.

"I'll give you one guess why I'm here," he followed me to the kitchen.

I grabbed the bottle of rum off the counter and poured myself a glass before turning around and staring at him.

"Rosalie called me this afternoon," he began. "What the hell were you thinking?"

I shook my head and said nothing.

"I would have expected this kind of shit from a fresh cull, someone still pink around the ears," he drained the rest of his drink, "But not from you, Emily."

I looked at him but still wasn't quite sure what to say. He stepped closer to me and took the bottle from the counter, poured himself another drink and leaned against the wall across from me.
We stared at each other for a few minutes before I finally spoke. "So, okay, you caught me." I shrugged.

"This is about more than 'catching you', Emily," his voice had a hard edge to it, "What did you think you were going to do? Warn them? Take out the sniper yourself? How? Call the police? Tell them you're a Death Culler and you've got the inside track on where the sniper was going to be? Slip under early and let the air out of his tires?"

He stared at me and I shrugged my shoulders, "I didn't know what I was going to do, but I felt like I had to do something."

"Why?"

"Because those people didn't deserve to die!"

"And how exactly do you know that?"

I shook my head, frustrated, "I don't. And, okay, they were probably going to die anyway -"

"Not probably, Emily," Paul cut me off, "Definitely. Those people will die tomorrow morning."

"Okay, but why do they have to die because of some psycho? Why couldn't it be something else? Why that? Why have their families go through that?"

"Go through what? Losing them in some tragic accident? Have them shot in the middle of an armed robbery at a gas station?" He leaned towards me, "Having them run over by a car?"

I winced. I turned back to the counter and grabbed the rum bottle and took another long pull, nearly draining it as I turned around. "I don't know," I threw up my hands, "I just wanted to do something, I thought something should be done."

"That's not your choice to make. Your job now is with the maintenance of death. The time to work on saving lives was when you were topside."

"I never got the chance!" I screamed, "I died when I was twenty-four, Paul. Twenty-fucking-FOUR! My life had barely begun before it was over. What did I have time to do? What great crusades should I have taken up? What fucking lesson didn't I learn?" I threw my arms up in frustration and the bottle slipped, flying across the kitchen and smashing in the corner. Paul didn't even have the courtesy to flinch.

I bit my lip and shook my head. My last question surprised even me. I'd always been angry I'd died so early but I'd never spoken to anyone about it. There are no after-death therapists and you can't exactly spill your guts to a topside shrink without running the risk of them locking you up somewhere.

"Emily, I know it's frustrating, this whole dying young thing. But do you really think you'd feel any differently if you had died ten, twenty, even thirty years later? You've culled enough people to know that the longer someone's alive, the more they have to regret. Think about it: who are typically you're easiest culls?"

He waited for my answer. I stared at the broken bottle lying in the far corner and mumbled, "Children."

"And do you think that's just some kind of coincidence?" Paul crossed the short distance between us and leaned against the counter next to me. "This is the way it is Emily. I know it's frustrating and not fair, but trying to change things at this stage of the game is like trying to change the laws of gravity. It's just not going to happen."

I felt my bottom lip quivering, my throat tightening, and I coughed, willing myself not to cry.

"So," he said finally, "Are you clear on this? Do I need to reassign you to work with someone or can you pull it together."

Paul was nothing if not blunt. I shook my head, "No, I'm clear."

"I can get you in touch with a seasoned culler who was a shrink if you'd like. He's a friend of mine and I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"No," I answered quickly.

"Okay," he nodded and pushed himself away from the counter. "You're still on those culls tomorrow morning. I'll expect them to go off without a hitch. And, after that, we don't have any more hits from the Sniper on the board. My guess is the police catch him."

"Or some average Joe takes him out," I answered wryly.

Paul turned and smiled, "Anything's possible."

The next morning I got to the cull a bit early. As I watched them pull into the gas station and get out of their cars I curled my hands into fists, willing myself not to do anything. My fingernails dug into my palms as the last few minutes ticked by. I forced myself not to look around for the van, just waited until the last possible second before making my way over to them.

When the shots rang out I winced.

But I did my job.

Have I mentioned lately how much I really hate my fucking job?

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Gagging for it ... literally

Saturday, Brian Petrowski, 11:25pm, Auto-erotic asphyxiation.

When I saw Brian on my board I was sure Paul was giving me shit assignments again. But, as I scanned the rest of my culls I knew it was just par for the course. Still, though, I wasn't looking forward to it. Would there be a mess? Was I going to witness the big bang before the big boom?
I got to Brian's apartment around 11:15 and killed some time in his living room, watching the fish in his aquarium as I listened to the audio of the porn movie playing rather loudly in his bedroom. I didn't want to have to witness any more of his death than I had to.

Luckily, people who die as a result of their own behavior aren't automatically treated as suicides unless they actually mean to kill themselves. This is one rule I wish I could break when it came to Darwin Award Nominees, but this time I was happy for it. Even though I consider myself pretty open-minded, I didn't relish the thought of sticking around until someone walked in on the scene Brian would be leaving behind.

11:23 and I start to feel myself slipping under.

I walked through the living room and down the hallway, towards his bedroom. As I crept through the door I caught a glimpse from his TV. A man was strapped into a black harness but I let my eyes slip away before I saw anything else.

His body went slack then and I waited a minute before touching him. When I did I felt the last vestiges of the heady buzz he'd experienced. For a moment I saw the allure. I felt light headed and giddy, tingly and like I'd had a bolt of electricity run through my body.

"Brian?"

He looked at me and blinked.

And then he blushed.

"I'm Emily," I said, choosing not to dwell on the circumstances. I just let my touch fill him with the knowledge.

"Shit," he muttered, "You gotta be kidding me."

"Nope," I smiled and brought out my board. Brian stared at the television for a moment and then back at his body before turning back to me.

I launched into my stock speech and he listened patiently for a moment before asking "Can I wash up first?"

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Carter Farris
29, Monday morning, Broken Neck (Car Accident)

I really don't like working morning rush hour.

Carter was driving a BMW. You'd be shocked to know how many fatal car accidents I attend that involve a BMW. You'd be even more shocked to learn how many of those BMWs are usually the cause of the car accident. I like to think that if I had that much invested in a penis extension, I would be a bit more cautious with it.

Carter had been stuck behind a bus on the highway. He'd tried going around it, misjudged the distance and ended up bouncing off its back end and slamming into a concrete embankment. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and he hit the steering wheel and windshield like a ton of bricks.

I made my way around to the driver side door. Carter was already standing there but I could tell he hadn't quite twigged to it yet. He turned when he heard me coming.

"I'm Emily," I smiled and took his hand.

He looked down at our clasped hands as the wave surged through me. He stared for a long time before finally lifting his gaze.

"I'm dead," he said it with a high degree of certainty.

"Yes," I nodded.

He slumped a bit. He ran his hands over his face and sighed. "Is there any way of getting out of this?" he finally asked.

"No," I brought out my board and started on his processing forms. Carter looked at me a moment longer and then turned towards the accident. Already other cars were filtering around it, slowing for the usual amount of morbid rubbernecking before hurrying along. Off in the distance, sirens were wailing.

"I had a breakfast meeting at 9," he mumbled, "I was supposed to be signing a big deal today." He looked at me, "I was about to be a very rich man."

"Well, now you're about to be a very busy man," I tapped my board and started to explain what was about to happen to him. As I went through the usual spiel he just stared at me and I noticed his eyes flicking down my body.

"So you're dead too?" he asked when I'd finished.

I nodded, growing increasingly uncomfortable under his stare.

He leaned against the mangled wreck of his car, "So will you be showing me the ropes?"

"No," I shifted my weight, "You'll be assigned to a culler in whatever area you're assigned to after you've gone through a brief training course."

"Well then," he pushed himself off the car and leaned towards me, "Maybe you could help to ease me in? Surely they won't be whisking me away that quickly."

I frowned as it dawned on me, "Are you coming onto me?"

He smiled, "Hey, I'm dead, not married."

I sighed. That had to be the cheesiest post-mortem pick-up line I had ever heard. And, to be honest, it was the first post-mortem pick-up line I'd ever heard. I wasn't quite sure which I found more depressing.

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Friends in the Afterlife

"Sex in the City could ONLY be done in New York."

"Oh please," Rosalie shook her head and waved her hand at the TV as she spoke around the wad of chicken friend rice she was chewing, "You could have filmed Sex in the City in any fucking city where women are bitching about their lack of orgasms and back fat."

"So then let's watch something else, " I drained the last of my wine and grabbed for the remote.

"No," she slapped my hand away and buried the remote within the depths of my couch, "I love this show."

"Then why are you arguing with it?" I flopped back into my overstuffed chair and waved a fork absentmindedly at the television set, currently displaying the very last episode of sex in the City that Rosalie had taped so that we could watch it together even though I had only watched the very last season.

"Because this isn't the show," she explained patiently, "it's just a show about the show. And they're trying to make it out to be more than it was - which is just a great bit of TV that served as an all too identifiable diversion while it was on."

I nodded and scooped another forkful of General Tso's chicken into my mouth.

"And when they start in about what a life changing thing a particular TV show is, it really pisses me off," she continued, "Shit like that is the reason people don't go out and LIVE their own lives. They're too busy watching TV shows that are being hyped as redefining life as we know it."

"So then why are we bothering to watch the show about the show?"

"Because" she rolled her eyes, "It's all a part of the whole experience of the very last episode!"

I sighed and leaned over for the bottle of red wine we had opened only a half hour beforehand.

I love Rosalie - really I do. She's quickly become one of my best friends since I started this job. She had made a real effort to make me a part of her afterlife and for that I am eternally grateful.

Making friends after you're dead is pretty hard. It's like moving to a town where you don't know anyone, only it's a bit harder than that since you can only make friends with certain people. Friendships between Cullers and Topsiders isn't exactly against the rules, but it is frowned upon and heavily discouraged.

Still, though, a lot of us do have relationships with Topsiders. Rosalie dated a guy who worked at the place she had her car's oil changed. They went out for a few months, things got serious ... and then she backed off. It's hard to share your life (or lack thereof) with someone when you can't tell them about what you do with your days.

But you still want to know those people. There's always that pang of loneliness when you walk into a coffee shop and sit down alone. Always the aching desolation you feel when you realize that even though you're living among all these people you can't ever really know them. That the first time you meet most of them it will be to inform them of their own death.

It's not the best way to strike up a conversation with a potential friend.

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Shadows

Teresa was working in La Siesta Motel when I met her. That's a bit outside of my usual territory but she actually lives on the Upper West Side.

One of my favourite songs of all time is 'St. Teresa' by Joan Osbourne so when I saw Teresa hunched over the bathroom sink scrubbing at some hardened toothpaste I sighed and switched on my Discman. As those opening twangy chords buzzed against my ears I watched Teresa. She walked around the room, flitting from one thing to the next that either looked like someone who didn't know what to do with herself or else someone really focused on the tasks at hand - depending on how you looked at it.

Teresa was about to die of a heart attack. Nothing new there. Happens often enough. She wasn't too old, though, which sort of surprised me. Even now I'm still a bit shocked when I get a call to cull someone young who dies of a massive coronary or an embolism or something like that. By now I should be used to the bodies of the young giving out in much the same way older ones do.

I should be used to it but I'm not.

Teresa was set to pop at 11:32 in the morning and she went right on time. She fell to the floor, thrashed around a bit and finally blinked up at me.

As I was dropping her off Paul stepped out of his office and waved me in.

"How have things been going?" he asked as I slid into the chair across from his desk and toyed absent-mindedly with the headphones dangling around my neck.

I shrugged, "Okay I guess. I've been depressed lately," it was always best to be totally open and frank with your Field Manager - they're the closest thing to therapists you have on this side of the life coin.

"I know the last few weeks have been hard on you," Paul smiled at me, "But you've been doing a great job. Maybe you've forgotten how important your work is. You're able to connect with people on a level no one else can. Don't ever forget that."

I nodded and took a deep breath. "Something tells me you didn't call me in here for an impromptu therapy session."

"Well, no," he admitted, "I actually called you in here to let you know you're going to have a shadow for awhile."

Shadows are newly trailed culls. They've gone through the training required but now they need to have the hands-on field experience before they can become Cullers on their own.

I groaned. I'd never trained anyone before and really didn't feel like starting now. But, like always, it's not my choice. I only listened half heartedly as Paul filled me in on the details.

The next day I met Doug, my Shadow. We met at George's Kitchen, a small diner that had been around as long as I could remember - a real Cleveland institution, complete with regulars the waitresses greet by name as they put in the orders. Doug was already there, sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee and a copy of The Free Times. I leaned over and told him to join me at a table - ours was not a conversation I wanted anyone to overhear.

We found a table in the back and I ordered some breakfast. Waking up early has never really agreed with me, but with our first cull scheduled for just before noon I thought it best that we had some time to talk beforehand.

I briefly sketched out the administrative side of things and showed him the forms he would come to have nightmares about. I warned him about getting too involved and told him about The Carlos Incident. Doug listened and nodded a lot but didn't ask too many questions. Once I'd finished and he did start to talk he told me that he had worked as a Medical Examiner in a nearby state when he was topside and I was relieved. I knew I wouldn't have to field questions about what to expect so far as the actual death went. And he seemed pretty familiar with the general routine of paperwork. Even after death it's not all that different than the process most office workers grow accustomed to in life.

We chatted over breakfast and coffee and set off for the cull around 10:45. We were picking up Brian Hunter. A pretty routine pick up. Heart attack. We made our way towards his place by bus.

"Don't you have a car?" Doug asked me as we settled into the chemical smelling seats of the RTA.

"Cullers earn cars," I explained, "It takes a while. You can rent one if you want, but that gets expensive. Head Office just doesn't like to give new cullers an easy way to leave town and get lost."

"You're new?"

"No," I shook my head and tried to think of what to say, "But I've had a hard time getting used to the job."

Doug just nodded but didn't say anything else. We didn't say much else as the bus lurched it's way through the city.

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A Death in the Day
"What's a normal day like for you?"

I get this question a lot. I'm not sure why. I suppose this should be entered in the FAQ but I feel it warrants an entry. Plus my afterlife has been boring lately so entries have been hard to come by.
So first you should know about what we have to work with. It looks a lot like a run of the mill DayTimer. It's made to look that way - complete with what often seems like an entire ream of paper stuffed inside. But tucked in there, just left of center, is a pad. It's like a Palm Pilot, or whatever they're called. It's what our culls come up on. For the most part they're scheduled about a week in advance - very much like what topsiders have when they look at their own work schedules, but sometimes we go on call. We call it "Live Time". We're up on the same level you are, and we look like any run of the mill office worker, checking their DayTimers for meetings and the like. Only we're checking for new culls. Some Field Managers will call a Culler on the cell phone we all have but others don't. It's a lot to deal with and, depending on the manager, their schedules might not allow for them to send calls out. Luckily, Paul is really good at managing his time and nine times out of ten he'll give me a ring.

So, if it's a scheduled Cull, we can get there in plenty of time and if it's something of a surprise we can still get there pretty quickly. We handle them, fill out their paperwork (which just indicate who they are, when they died and where they're going) and plonk them into a waiting room in the Field Manager's office.

Getting a good Field Manager is a bit of a lottery. Sometimes you end up with someone who really knows their job well and even loves it, but other times you end up with someone who's just doing their job. Personally, I always feel better when I'm handing over a recent cull to someone who loves their job. Paul is good, but Nancy is better.

Nancy Trexler has been a field culler for a few years now I think. I don't think she was even ever a culler, but I'm not entirely sure on that point. What I do know is that she's exceptional at her job. I've been there when she's greeted culls for the first time and she's got just the right mix of compassion and no-nonsense "let's-get-to-it-tiveness". It can make all the difference in the world. I always feel better when I see that I'm handing someone over to her, I know that everything is going to be okay.

But I digress, the point is, it's a job. At the end of the day, I go home and usually dive right into a drink or a joint. Chemical addictions are for the living. In death we all just unwind.

So, truth be told, my day is a lot like yours.

My job is just different.

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Gerald McKay a.k.a. Doug's first cull

"So you were a doctor?"

"Not exactly," Doug balanced a hot dog on one knee as he popped open a can of Pepsi, "I was a Medical Examiner."

Doug and I were having lunch downtown before a cull. It was going to be the first cull he handled. I was just going to lurk in the shadows and watch him. Gerald was a great cull to start on. He was ninety-seven and, for all intents and purposes, the poor guy was dying of old age. But, really, he was dying of chronic heart failure. He slipped under at 4:21 on a Tuesday afternoon. Doug was right there, ready and waiting. Gerald was more than ready and he even smiled when he saw Doug.

Doug was sweating a little and biting the inside of his cheek. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

Gerald stared at him. "Are you an angel?"

That made Doug smile. After that he had no problem going through the speech he had heard me make a dozen times.

Afterwards we celebrated at a nearby bar with Long Island Iced Teas and a huge basket of nachos.

"So how'd I do?" Doug took a long pull from his drink and smiled at me.

"You were fabulous!" I raised my glass and smiled when he clinked his against mine so hard that some of it sloshed out and ran over my hand, sending chills up my arm.

"So what did you think?" I asked as I mopped up the small puddle with a handful of napkins the waitress had brought with the nachos.

"I don't know," Doug shook his head, "It all seems so weird. I mean, like not even real. Sometimes, I even forget I'm dead." He slapped a hand over his mouth when he said that and I laughed.

"Don't worry," I slapped lightly at his hand, "It happens. Hell, sometimes even I forget."

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No one dies of old age ... ask any census taker

Doug had been doing his own culls for about a week. I was still there for all of them, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he didn't need my help. I had even started to get culls of my own again - a sure sign that someone's training is coming to an end.

We were sitting in my kitchen on a sunny Thursday morning when Martha Auldsworth popped on my screen.

"Damn," I muttered, "I'm getting culls again."

"Does that mean I'm almost done being trained?"

I nodded and skimmed the details. Martha Auldsworth, 97, Stroke.

Doug was peering over my shoulder, "Cerebro-Vascular Accident," he sighed, "That's what killed my grandmother."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He shrugged and I caught a wry little smile flash across his face. I'd notice over the past couple weeks that most of Doug's smile were wry. ''Cerebro-Vascular Accident," he repeated, "CVA, that's what they used to call strokes sometimes. That was what they wrote on my grandmother's death certificate. It's what they write because they can't say someone died of old age. With age, blood vessels, both arteries and veins, get progressively weaker, eventually deteriorating to the point where they rupture. With the brain being such a tender part of the human structure, if part of it breaks, we die."

I poured him another cup of coffee, "How old was she?"

"Jesus, I don't really remember," he stared out the window as if the rooftops of the neighboring building held the answer, "Ninety-eight maybe? Ninety-nine even?" He shook his head again and poured some milk into his coffee, "I always just thought of her as old, but that cause of death always stayed with me. I was tempted so often to write 'old age' as the cause of death for so many people, but ..." he trailed off.

I waited.

"The body gets old. It's a machine. Some people have their machine broken by others and some are lucky enough to wear it into the ground. Nana was lucky enough to wear hers threadbare. She lived with us for the last few years and had three strokes before she finally slipped away. The first didn't do much, just slurred her speech. But the last two," he paused there, staring into his coffee, "Those last two just chipped away at her, left her bed-bound and at the end she barely recognized us." Doug shook his head at the memory and I was overcome with the desire to touch him.

Instead, I poured myself another cup of coffee.

"What time is the cull?"

I glanced down at my pad, "5:21 tonight."

"Can I come?"

I shrugged, "Do you have anything slated for then?"

He looked at his own pad, scanning slowly, still unfamiliar with the layout, "I don't think so."

"Then sure," I cocked my head to one side, "If you want."

He did.

That evening we met outside Martha's apartment. We walked inside without saying a word and waited for the time to come. Martha was sitting in front of her television set. She was already in her nightgown and slippers. Judge Judy was just wrapping up and she was staring vacantly into the glowing television screen. A dog lay peacefully on her lap and she was petting him. At 5:17 her hand began to falter, not so much petting the dog as petting the air around it, swiping at it without weight or meaning. Her eyes glazed over and I noticed Doug holding his breath.

5:20 and I felt myself coming up quick, 5:21 and there I was, smiling down at her while Judge Judy offered up scathing remarks to some insolent defendant.

Martha looked at me. I looked at her.

Cerebro-Vascular Accident. A brain deprived a blood. A life ended. A machine broken beyond repair. Worn into the ground.

Old age.

Death, in due time.

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Love After Death

I could hear my answering machine beeping as I struggled to unlock the door. Dave's voice filled the apartment and I ran across the living room and grabbed the phone.

"Hey," I grinned widely, "I was wondering when you'd finally call me back!" I had wanted my voice to convey a light ribbing but it came out with an accusatory tone I didn't like.

"Yeah, well, I've been, you know, slammed," Dave sounded far away and I imagined him staring out the window of his ridiculously high apartment, "This whole Nationals thing has been really intense. You have to go through training all over again."

"I didn't know that", I shrugged out of my coat, "So you're back to being a lowly shadow then?" I finally had the tone right.

"Yeah," he laughed, "But, you know, the culler I'm shadowing, she's great."

I hesitated and the pause grew heavy.

She's great.

She.

And I knew.

I licked my lips and swallowed, "Yeah, well, you know, I was just calling to see how you were doing. I haven't heard from you since," I paused again. Since the weekend we spent in bed, I thought.

"Yeah, that road trip, wasn't it?" He finished.

I nodded, stupidly.

After a moment I broke the silence, "Well, yeah, just wanted to say hi."

The conversation had suddenly become terribly awkward.

You'd think your love life would get easier once you were dead.

Later that night Rosalie was waiting sitting in my kitchen, waiting for me as I ran from room to room, trying to find my left boot.

"How do you lose a shoe?" Rosalie shook her head and fanned her nails out, admiring the work she'd just had done.

"Boot," I corrected as I passed through the kitchen and scanned the living room for the third time.

"I mean, when you take off your shoes, don't you just naturally put them together?"

"Yeah, well, you'd think so, wouldn't you?" I called from the living room where I'd finally located the missing boot under a pile of dirty clothes I'd meant to throw into the washer last night but ended up watching TV instead.

"Found it," I called out as I balanced on one leg to pull it on and tie the laces.

"Finally," Rosalie stood up and adjusted her coat, "I've never seen a woman take so long to get ready and still look so plain."

I raised an eyebrow as she dissolved into laugher, "Girl, you know I'm just shittin' you", she patted me on the shoulder as we walked towards the door, "So tell me more about this phone call from Dave."

I filled her in on the phone call as we walked towards Madison Avenue. A local paper had just published a review of the martinis from Capsule and Rosalie felt compelled to try them herself. I'd never had a martini in my life.

We were just passing the Dairy Mart when I finished the phone call story.

"He's with someone," she nodded, "But obviously he feels bad about leaving you in the lurch. I mean, why else pussyfoot around, you know? He'll be back," her voice took on a reassuring tone, "I bet he just didn't want to deal with a long term relationship, you know how men are. Attention span the size of fucking gnats."

I smiled at this and nodded my agreement, "Yeah, I guess so, but it sucks that it had to get all weird and awkward between us, you know?"

"Yeah, but just don't let it get to you. Get out there and find some fun of your own. Shit, girl, don't be sittin' around waiting for his ass to come slinkin' back to you, which he will," she threw a pointed stare in my direction, "But fuck it, chickie, don't let him know he's gotten under your skin. Let's cross here," she grabbed my elbow and shoved me forward.

Capsule was a block away and Rosalie stepped into the doorway of an apartment building and whipped out a compact. "So enough about you," she mumbled as she reapplied her lipstick, "ask me who showed up at my fucking door at two o'clock in the morning?"

"Who showed up at your door at two o'clock this morning?" I obliged.

Rosalie mashed her lips together and then bared her teeth in the mirror before answering, "Josh. I haven't seen him in weeks and last night he comes banging on my door, drunk as fuck and trying to talk his way between my sheets."

"So what happened?"

A saw a smile flicker across her freshly glossed lips before she turned her eyes demurely towards me, "That boy is good."

A few minutes later we were finally making our way into Capsule, which seemed to have been decorated by people lost in the 70s imagining what the future would be like. Lots of rounded corners and plastic chrome.

A woman with chopsticks in her hair led us to a small table and handed us small cards. Rosalie glanced down at hers and laughed. "It's the Martini menus," she waved the card under my nose, "They're Teeny Weenie Martini Menus!"

I nodded and rolled my eyes. Rosalie gave me a kick under the table.

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Saying Goodbye
Matthew Grandt, Sunday, 9:03am, AIDS

Matthew lived on a fourth floor walk-up on the West Side of Lakewood. I got there earlier than I thought. By 8:30 I was making my way through the chipped front door and into Matthew's comfortably furnished living room. He was lying in a hospital bed, though it was obvious every attempt had been made to make it as comfortable and fashionable as possible. The sheets were darker shades of the cream and beige the living room was decorated in. His comforter was a shock of teal and pillows surrounded his small, sunken frame. My heart ached as I glanced around the room and saw that every surface and most of the walls were covered with photographs of a smiling, healthy version of the wasted man I saw in front of me now. Matthew smiled out from dozens of pictures, some in frames while others were just scattered on end tables. There were a slew of them on the glass-topped coffee table and even a small stack on the top of a large stereo speaker in the corner.

A young man was bent over Matthew's bed, holding his hand and whispering something. When he stood up I recognized his face from some of the pictures in the room. He was blonde and in more than one photograph his eyes were shining with a love that was brightly reflected in Matthew's. There was another man in the kitchen that was responsible for the sultry smell of fresh ground coffee that was wafting through the small apartment. There was a woman near the stereo, sifting through a small stack of CDs before selecting one and sliding it into the player. All three of them were silent and smiling. I think they knew today was the day. Their movements were deliberately steady but I saw the wavering flicker in their eyes, the well of tears that poised in each of their eyes, threatening to spill as each of them took hard, long swallows.

Matthew's eyes were fluttering open occasionally and a weak smile struggled onto his face every few minutes.

"Steven," the coffee man set a mug on the night stand next to the bed, "Have some caffeine before you pass out."

Steven nodded but didn't let go of Matthew's hand.

I wound my way around the apartment, listening in on the softly whispered conversations of the people who would witness Matthew's final exit. I learned the other man's name was Michael and the woman's Rachel. I continued sliding around the apartment, looking at Matthew's photographs, flipping through his calendar. I didn't learn any life changing secrets, I didn't dig all that deep. I felt the love and affection in that room and I didn't want to pry, but I yearned to be a part of it.

I ended up near the bed again, watching Steven watch Matthew. Steven stared at him, waiting for the moments when Matthew's eyes would open briefly, a smile would cross his tired face and he'd slip back under. Each time, I felt the ache in Matthew's chest, felt the desire he had to really see Steven one more time. I could feel my chest tightening as the minutes ticked away. I glanced at my watch. 8:47am.

I swallowed and inched closer to the bed. Matthew's eyes fluttered open again and he stared at me.
"Who are you?"

I'm still not sure why it is some people with a terminal illness can see us before we come up to the right level. It's one of those things that is just the way it is. Some people never see me coming until they're dead and others see fleeting glimpses of me, some even know who and what I am. But they know it in a part of their brains so deep and hidden that they still wonder who and what I am.

But Matthew … Matthew knew as soon as he asked the question. As soon as those words were out of his mouth I saw the realization wash over him. And then I felt the pleading. I closed my eyes and leaned down, pressing my forehead against his shoulder, resting my hands on his chest. The spark between us was immediate and intense. I felt my own energy being sapped and flow into him and Matthew's eyes opened and focused directly on Steven at 8.59 on the last morning they would be together. In the distance I heard church bells beginning the ring. It was nearly nine o'clock. Matthew was going to be dead in three minutes.

I felt the chimes of the clock waving through me as Matthew stared at Steven.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Steven's eyes brimmed with tears and spilled over onto his cheeks as the smile on Matthew's face grew solid and focused. Steven squeezed Matthew's hands and he planted a soft kiss on Matthew's smiling lips.

"I love you so much," Matthew's voice was soft and broken sounding. Michael and Rachel stood behind Steven and Matthew moved his gaze over to them and his smiled widened as he said, "I love you all so fucking much." They both had tears streaming down their faces and Rachel failed at stifling back a gasping sob.

The church bells had stopped ringing by the time Matthew turned his stare back to Steven. "We're going to see each other again," he nodded, "I'll always be with you. You're not getting rid of me this easy." Steven nodded as the tears poured down his face.

I felt weights in my lungs pulling down my breaths, felt my muscles twisting and going dry. I knew I couldn't keep this up much longer. Matthew was sucking me dry in his last, desperate attempts to connect with the three people who loved him enough to stay until the end. I fought to keep my hold on him.

9:02am. Matthew and Steven stared at each other for a long moment and kissed again. As they kissed I felt Steven's energy pulse through Matthew and then through me. I pressed my hands into Matthew's chest as I felt the last seconds approaching. He squeezed Steven's hands one last time as Rachel and Michael circled round the bed and each of them hugged him, let their hands trail over his thin, small body. As Rachel leaned down she passed right through me and I felt her shudder.

Finally, at 9:03 Matthew was gone and he turned to look at me, "Hi." His eyes were bright again and it almost hurt to see how healthy he looked. Disease dies with the body, all that remains is the spirit and Matthew's spirit was obviously strong.

I smiled, weak but happy. "Hi," I grinned, "I'm Emily."

He turned and watched as Steven, Rachel and Michael all leaned against one another, sobs racking their bodies once they realized he was dead.

"They loved me," he sighed.

"They still do." I assured him.

"Will I see Steven again?"

I shook my head, "I don't know. That depends a lot on which assignment he gets."

Matthew gave me a confused look and I smiled before launching into my usual speech.

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Just Make Sure You Want to Know the Answer

Getting a day off when you're a culler is like asking someone to move the Earth a bit closer to the Sun in order to help you get a slightly better tan. But after the whole scene with Matthew I really needed some quality time in bed with some good books and a huge pot of coffee.

Calling in sick, however, is never an option. I spent my day bargaining with other cullers and trading assignments. I got home at ten o'clock that night and fell into bed still clothed but I had the next day off. That morning I woke up, stumbled into the bathroom, took a lazy shower and then snuggled up in a robe Dave had left behind on one of his many visits and crawled back into bed. I leaned over and grabbed one of the books that littered the floor next to my bed. I ended up reading 'Axe', an Ed McBain book I'd read years ago and had forgotten I even owned. Clearly it was time for a much overdue Spring Cleaning.

Later that morning I strolled into the kitchen and switched the coffee maker on. I'd invested in a thick French Roast the day before after getting coffee drunk on the smell in Matthew's apartment, along with a healthy amount of Amaretto coffee creamers.

The coffee had just begun to spit into the pot when the knocking began. I'd barely opened the door before Rosalie was shoving her way inside. She had a bag from Dunkin' Donuts in one hand and a large brown envelope in the other.

"Girl, you can't be takin' days off last minute like this anymore," she shook her head as she walked into the kitchen, "But at least you got coffee goin' already."

"And a cheery hello to you too," I smiled and followed her, "I just couldn't deal with working after the cull I had yesterday."

I recapped my experience in Lakewood for her and poured us both a mug of coffee while she popped open the donut box and took a large bite out of a bear claw. After I mentioned Matthew's question about whether or not he'd see Steven again and Rosalie let out a dry laugh.

"I hired a Private Dick," she muttered.

"You what?"

"I hired someone to tell me what was going on with my family," she nodded her head, "That's what the envelope is about."

It's funny the way sometimes events in your life line up like that. I looked at the envelope and then looked at Rosalie again as she was reaching into the box and grabbing a glazed donut. "So what's the news?" I finally asked.

She shrugged, "I've been too nervous to open it," she nudged the envelope towards me and nodded her head.

I tore it open without a second thought and let the pictures and letter spill onto the kitchen table. Rosalie dropped her donut and snatched up one of the large color glossies. In it a young woman was holding a toddler in the park. They were sitting at a picnic table with another older woman. All three were smiling - the toddler especially so. And I saw the striking family resemblance, especially between Rosalie and the toddler. The little girl had Rosalie's nose and her smile (though Rosalie, thankfully, had all her teeth and didn't drool as much).

Rosalie sighed and stared at the photograph and I silently filled our coffee mugs again. She picked up the letter and began reading as I flicked through the pictures still on the table. The three women were featured in several of them - sometimes together, sometimes alone and usually surrounded by a host of happy looking people, all of whom bore a striking resemblance to Rosalie.

I held up the first photograph when Rosalie put the letter down, "Is this…"

"Yeah," she cut me off, "That's my daughter."

She stared at the letter for another long moment and then turned her attention back to the photograph I was holding. "That's my moms," she began, pointing to the older woman, "and that's my girl," she pointed to the young woman holding the toddler and finally, her finger traced over the cherubic smile of the little girl, "and that's my grand-baby."

"Your what?"

She nodded her head, "I know, how whacked is that? My baby's gone of and had herself a baby."
"Jesus, Rosalie, how long have you been dead?"

Rosalie laughed, "Too long, girlie, too fucking long. I hired someone a few years ago to fill me in on what had happened with everyone I knew -all my friends and shit. After that I thought I wouldn't want to know anymore. Getting the report that first time was," she paused and looked into her coffee mug as if the French Roast would offer up whatever it was she was looking for, "I don't know. It was just really hard to see. Haven't you ever wondered? Haven't you ever tried to find out what happened to all those people?"

I shrugged, "I've wondered, yeah, but I just never really thought of hiring someone." Now, of course, I could feel the idea taking root inside my brain.

Rosalie and I hung out for a while longer, finished the pot of coffee and she eventually had to go back to the field. After she left I stared at the brown envelope she'd left behind. The pictures and letter were safely tucked into her notebook but the envelope had been left forgotten and ripped on the edge of the table. I looked at the return address and rubbed my fingers over it, letting my mind wander to my family. Pictures of my parents slid through my mind, family vacations, my high school prom, the day I got my first motorcycle, my fiancé. I shook my head. I hadn't thought about Mark in a long time. We'd been a couple for a little over a year and half when my days being a top-sider came to an end. I wondered idly what he was doing now.

I wondered what everyone was doing now. I'd been dead for a little over four years. I wondered how many people I knew then still thought of me. I wondered how many of them were even still alive.

I looked back at the envelope and picked up the phone.

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Death dulls your senses

Once you've been on the job a few months you feel it start to happen. You'll be going through your day, in the middle of a cull, and they'll be crying, weeping sometimes and begging you to give them another chance and you'll realize that your eyes are glazed over and whatever noise they're making has been reduced to a not all-together-unpleasant droning hum that does little more than tickle at the back of your brain. And then you'll find it hard to breathe for a minute because the realization of exactly who you are and what you do, coupled with the fact that you just don't care anymore will become overpowering in that moment.

Trust me on this. It happens to everyone.

To offset it I try and go to a funeral every few months. Reminds me of what it's like to be a topsider confronting what, for them, is the one big unknown variable. Once you're dead you tend to forget how truly frightening death is. Everyone has fears but you can spend time getting over them - you can buy books about conquering your fear of flying, spiders, bungee jumping and even success. (Though I could never understand that fear of success thing - isn't that just a nice way of saying you're a slacker?)

Anyway, the fear of death isn't something most people can really get over during their lifetime. You can accept it and be ready for it when it comes but I've never totally believed those people who say they no longer fear it. I've always suspended that they've just found a way to control that fear. I've culled thousands of people and every one of them who's been old enough to realize what's going on has had that moment of fear, that flicker across their eyes, that jolt of panic I feel as I press my hand against them. In some people it's overpowering - enough to thump the breath right out of your chest but there are some people for whom that panic is mild and just barely noticeable.

After awhile though, you forget what it's like to be feeling that fear for the first time. That's why I go to funerals every so often. I sit back and I watch the family of someone who'd just died and I see the intense grief, the emotional evisceration these people go through and it makes me a better Culler.

Plus, to be honest, I think it makes me a better person. And it makes me feel alive.

Nathan Pearce was 24 when he died. He had an epileptic fit while driving and rammed his car into a tree. Poor guy didn't even know he was epileptic.

Saturday afternoon I arrived a bit late and slipped into the funeral home behind a large group of people dressed in black, waving hankies and stumbling along in the shell-shocked sort of way the recently bereaved do. I followed them all the way into Nathan's funeral parlor and then grabbed a seat near the back. I can never be sure what it is I think I'll see at these things. Rosalie tells me it's sick and that I should just rent depressing movies to keep myself emotionally grounded.

But I'm addicted. Their grief reminds me of what I once was. I was once these people. Frightened of death, moving around in circles of friends and families, living, breathing, sobbing and snotting all over myself when confronted with something like the death of a friend. And now I'm as far removed from them as I could possibly be. I am what they fear. If they knew what I was their grief would turn to rage and I wouldn't expect to escape the room alive.

I was in the Ladies room splashing cold water on my face when Nathan's wife walked in. She walked up to the sinks and used a dog eared tissue to pat away the smears of mascara and eye liner that had drifted down her face.

"I read once that we're 90% water," she said.

I had always thought it was more like 75% but I didn't think this was the time to argue the point, "Yeah, I remember hearing something like that."

She shook her head and tossed the tissue in the garbage, "Well, maybe it's not that much, I don't know for sure. But it was a lot."

I nodded, not sure what to say.

"But even so, that's a lot of water. And still people expect you not to cry at these damn things," the bitterness in her voice sounded fresh and I wondered for a moment who had sent her off to the bathroom to clean herself up. "Don't cry," she continued, "Don't lose it, be strong, keep it together." She slammed a small, bony fist against the fake marble countertop, "Well fuck them!"

I just stood there, watching her shake.

"Nathan was," she gasped then, hearing herself talk about him in the past tense, "is my husband. I should be allowed to cry. Hell, I should be in there screaming and pulling out my hair, screaming at the top of my lungs and trying to crawl into the coffin with him. Isn't that what these funerals are supposed to be for? To show the world just how much you're going to miss the person who's died?"

Tears were flowing down her face again and she snatched a few tissues from the box on the ledge above the sinks. She stared at them in her hand and then threw them into the sink.

"I'm so sorry," my voice sounded pointless and stupid.

She shook her head, "It's not your fault," she looked at me, "Who are you anyway? I don't recognize you."

I shook my head, "I just come here sometimes because of the business I'm in. I like to check in on the funerals every now and then, that's all."

"What, like you're in the funeral business?"

I shrugged, not really wanting to lie but figuring it wasn't that off the mark, "Yeah."

"That's kind of fucked up."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

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Buried in a Zen Garden

"It's a Zen Garden."

I raised an eyebrow and looked again at the rather large wooden box Doug had just handed me. It was a Saturday afternoon and I'd been chilling out, listening to CDs and getting drunk, trying very hard not to think. As soon as I'd opened the door and seen Doug standing there I knew my plans had just been shattered.

He lifted a brown paper bag and motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen. Doug took the box and set it on the table. From the paper bag he'd been carrying, he brought out a smallish plastic bag of sand and poured it into the box and levelled it out with the palm of his hand.

Then he brought out a small Ziploc bag and handed it to me. Inside were five rocks and wooden hand rake.

"Really, it's a garden," he nodded and waved his hands at the box.

I smiled, suddenly feeling every bit as tired as I looked, "Yes, I know." I sighed and opened the small bag and spilled out the small rocks I imagined Doug had plucked from the shores of Lake Erie. I took out the rake and scraped it along my fingertips, "You trying to turn me Buddhist?"

Doug smiled and shrugged, "I don't know, maybe. I know you've been sort of stressed out and upset lately," his eyes flicked up to my face and then back down. He picked up one of the rocks and ran his thumb over it, "I thought this might help a bit. I mean, spirituality isn't a total loss, is it?"

My smile softened a little at that. I tapped the side of the box, "I guess it depends on how you look at it. Some people lose their religion once they die and some people find it."

"Well, I figured it would help," Doug smiled, "I mean, just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't have hope, right? I mean, you're still doing stuff, helping people, all that shit. You're dead but it's not like you're just rotting away and serving as plant fertilizer or anything."

"Actually, I am," I turned the wooden hand rake over in my hand, scraping it roughly against my palm, watching the red and white lines come up against my skin.

Doug frowned, "Yeah, I guess you are, aren't you?"

I let my eyes wander up slowly, "So are you."

He paused and then grabbed for a chair, sitting down with a soft thud. I grabbed a couple of beers and set one in front of him. I let him stew for a minute and closed my eyes, listening to the music that was still filtering in from the living room.

"Fuck," Doug finally said.

I opened my beer and nodded. I had forgotten what it was like to being new at this job. Even though I've only been dead a few years, I was already jaded and used to it, dulled to the reality-shaking realizations that pepper the first year or so. The moment you realize that there's a hunk of flesh that at one time was YOU rotting away in some hole in the ground is one of those moments.

My body is buried in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rosalie's is buried outside Los Angeles. Eugene's is still in an unmarked grave outside Billings, Montana. I've been to see my grave. I went six months after I started this job - a little over a year after I died.

Nothing I ever saw in life - or death - could compare to what I felt when I saw my name on that hunk of rock. It was everything I never wanted to know all rolled into one moment. I had been dead a year when I went to see my grave. I thought it would help me come to grips with what had happened to me - really drive home what was real now. And, to be honest, part of me thought it might be cool to see. But it wasn't. It was, perhaps, the most uncool thing I had ever seen.

Doug took a long pull from his beer and stared at the small, sandy garden. He shook his head slowly, "I guess I just hadn't thought about it."

I nodded, "Most people don't for awhile. It takes some getting used to."

He downed the rest of his beer in a series of hurried swallows, wiped his mouth and looked at me, "When does this job stop kicking me in the nuts on a daily basis?"

I grabbed another beer out of the fridge and handed it to him, "I'll let you know."

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In a Stranger's Arms

I sometimes try to get inside the head of a cull, especially if they're living a life I wouldn't have minded trying on for size.

Amanda was married - no kids - living in a small basement apartment with her husband, Lee. They'd been married for nearly a year when I breezed in her about-to-be-cut-short life. Twenty-four, working part time at the local Giant Eagle and, from the looks of things, couldn't have been happier. Too bad about that malformed aorta really.

She was my only cull that morning and I arrived early, watched her making breakfast for Lee. Sat in with them as they read the paper, passing pages back and forth as they found interesting articles and slightly amusing classified ads.

"Someone over in Medina's selling a used mattress for $5," Amanda took another sip from her coffee mug.

Lee made a face, "Good God, who'd want that?"

Amanda laughed, "It might be okay. Just because it's used doesn't mean it's all stained and nasty."

Lee looked at her a moment, "All I'm saying is that this is Ohio and it's the middle of August. Most people are sleeping naked."

Amanda laughed, her mouth open wide, white teeth shining like early morning sun.

Before he left for work, Lee planted a long kiss on her lips, a broad smile breaking across his painfully young face, "See you tonight."

He really did think so.

Amanda took a shower, got dressed and started braiding her impossibly long hair. I wandered around the cozy little apartment. Every possible surface was choking with pictures. Amanda and Lee on their wedding day (Amanda wore a lace dress the color of nicotine, Lee wore a suede vest and what looked like his very cleanest pair of blue jeans), at Niagra Falls, at a concert at Blossom, at Jacob's Field, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in the park, outside their apartment, sitting in lawn chairs, in front of an official looking building, standing in front of a hot dog cart and even one of them at Chuck E. Cheese, both of them playing Skee-Ball. I sighed and picked one of them up, ran a finger along their faces and felt a watery sigh escaping my lips.

I put it back down and wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes. I was so fucking weepy lately. It made an already hard job that much harder. I wandered into the kitchen, poked around in one of the baskets on the counter, found their stash of pot and smiled. Amanda's heart was going to seize up and give out by 12.37 - a little under an hour before she was due to be at work.

I checked my watch. 11.42.

Amanda walked out of her bedroom and flipped on the stereo, hit 'Play' and walked into the kitchen. She began to nod her head softly as Fuel's 'Jesus or a Gun' began playing and I felt myself smiling, staring at this vision of domesticity bopping around to hard rock (can Fuel still be considered hard rock? Or am I just way too out of the loop?) as she rolled a joint and began cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I so wanted to be this girl. This girl with her long hair that couldn't decide if it was brown or blonde, this girl with her comfortably wide hips and stubby fingers. This happy, slightly stoned girl. This married girl.

This living girl.

My entire chest felt like a giant, sucking wound as I watched Amanda clean the kitchen and wipe down the counters. I came dangerously close to actually groaning with desire. I wanted to be loved like her, to be happy like her. To be alive.

Alive.

It's the dream we're all eternally chasing. It's the hell that comes with death no matter how good you've been. It's the one thing you can't ever be. Alive. Sometimes I take a deep breath, fill my lungs and exhale and I wonder if what I breathe out is even carbon dioxide. Or is it's just some inert gas that doesn't even matter?

12.26. Amanda is starting to look winded. Pale. I can see her sweating and that all too familiar sensation of slipping under is licking my heels. I welcome in, happily slipping under the gauze, wanting to offer Amanda as much comfort and reassurance as I can, wanting to be there for her as though I were some sort of long lost friend. I grab her hand as she slips on the cracked linoleum floor. Her hand in mine. I squeeze and smile. She stares up at me, scared. Tears are already rolling down her face and I lean down, letting my face hover kissably close to hers.

I could smell her breath. I could feel it growing weaker, brushing against my cheek as she stared into my eyes. Her hands squeezed mine.

"Just let go," I whispered, "Let go, just let yourself slip away, I promise, there's nothing to be afraid of."

And there, kneeling on her kitchen floor, in the arms of a dead stranger, Amanda Wilson died.

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What a long strange trip it's been

To quote Bill Murray, "I am having the weirdest day!"

Things didn't start off weird. I woke up, got dressed, checked my schedule and made it to my first cull on time. Three car accidents, a heart attack and an embolism later I was back at home, grabbing a quick bit to eat before setting of for the afternoon crunch. I was sifting through my spattering of mail and waiting for my cup o' soup to cool off when I saw it.

The envelope.

In the corner was the address of the Private Investigator Rosalie had used. It had been months since I originally spoke to him and weeks since I'd sent off my payment and given him my mailing address. I had sort of let the whole thing slip from my mind - it was easier to just not think about what he might be finding out. And now whatever he had unearthed was sealed in a brown envelope, sitting on my kitchen table. I ran my fingers over my address and shook my head.

I checked my watch. No time for complicated personal drama now. My next cull was in an hour and I still had to get halfway across town. I gave the envelope a pat, gulped down my soup and left.

The sun was shining as I stepped outside and I decided to walk to the rapid station instead of grabbing the bus that came lumbering down the road as if on cue. I walked by as a handful of passengers got on and I stared at the bus and then up to the sun, which shone down from an amazingly blue, cloudless sky. I waved at the driver and kept walking the twenty blocks that remained between the station and me.

Four blocks later the clouds were rolling in. A sharp gust of wind had me pulling up the hood on my sweatshirt and wishing I'd brought a coat. I stopped at BP and bought a huge cup of their instant cappuccino, hoping it would warm and wake me up at the same time. Three blocks later I felt the first plaps of rain and I doubled my speed. By the time I got to the Rapid Station I was freezing, tired and soaked. As I stood waiting for the train, I peeled off my sweatshirt and squeezed out some of the rain. It was still heavy and wet but at least my shirt underneath was only damp. I was heading over to the East side but I got off at Tower City, bought an overpriced umbrella and an equally overpriced sweatshirt and then got back on the train.

By the time I got to the East side, the sun was blazing, the clouds were gone and the sidewalks nearly dry. I sighed and shoved my still wet sweatshirt into the plastic bag that had come with my new (and overpriced) dry one. I made a mental note to take it out of my backpack as soon as I got home or else it would start getting all moldy and stinky. The rain had soaked my bag and I leaned against one of the garbage cans and began picking out damp and sticky LifeSavers and sticks of Juicy Fruit gum. My fingers skimmed along the bottom and got covered with a scum of wet sugar.

I checked my watch, realized catching the bus was probably not going to happen, and caught a cab instead. I got to the well kept home with five minutes to spare. Another quick check of my backpack was slightly disheartening. I was definitely going to have to wash it that night. I slipped under and walked in through the back door.

I was there to pick up Tamiqua Montrose, a 35 year old housewife. She was about to die from a fall in the shower during an epileptic fit. Her two children, Felicity and James, were both still in school. You have no idea how many people die from falls in the shower each year. It's staggering. Household accidents account for something in the neighborhood of 20,000 of deaths each year (I remember reading that somewhere but can't remember where - if anyone out there knows the actual number, let me know) and being the one to do the picking up is no pleasant task let me tell you.

The shower was going full blast when I walked into the kitchen. I dawdled near the fridge, checking out school papers and post-its peppered among the magnets. The sun was streaming through the windows and bouncing off the bright yellow linoleum and almond colored wood and I stood for a moment, soaking that brightness in before making my way towards the bathroom. The rest of the house was similarly decorated - vibrant rooms rich with color. I got to the bathroom with less than a minute to spare and slipped through the door. Tamiqua fell just as I entered the steamy room and I immediately rushed towards her, sending her a powerful wave of light. She stared up at me through glazed eyes, her lips moved for a few seconds and then went slack.

I smiled, put my hand on her wet shoulder and waited.

"What the hell?" She stood up, shaking her head, more confused than angry. I grabbed her shoulder again.

"I'm Emily," I smiled.

Tamiqua nodded, turned to stare at her body and then started gagging. She was shaking, gasping for breath and doubling over. Eventually she caught her breath and began wailing. I waited and tried to subtly check my watch.

"My kids, my kids," she sniffled, staring up at me.

I shrugged, "They'll be home soon."

"They can't," she shook her head, "I don't want them to find me like this."

I didn't know what to say. There was really nothing we could do. You can't just move someone's body around. Hell, we couldn't even turn off the water.

"Well, we'll be gone by the time they get home," I stood up and offered her my hand, "You can get dressed if you want though."

She was clearly in shock, still shaking and just nodding constantly. I watched her walk into her bedroom and grab some clothes off the floor. I waited for a while before poking my head in.

"Can I take this?" she motioned to a small framed photograph sitting on her dresser. I nodded and forced myself up a few levels so I could grab it.

"Put it in your pocket or something," I told her, "Taking things isn't entirely kosher."

She nodded and we just started walking down the hall when the front door opened and slammed again.

"Mom", a young girl's voice, "We're home."

Pounding footsteps on the stairs. Tamiqua froze and watched the landing. "Felicity, baby, no," she whispered.

Felicity bounced into view, pigtails flying, and slung her backpack into the first open door on the right. "Momma," she shouted again, shrugging out of her coat and tossing it onto her bag.

She stared at the bathroom door. And then, I swear to god, that little girl looked right at me. She just stared and even though I knew she couldn't see me I felt my heart thudding in my chest.

Felicity broke her stare and marched to the bathroom door, pounding on it, "Mom, we're home. When are you gonna be done in there?"

Silence.

And, I don't know, maybe she knew. Maybe she just knew something was wrong. I knew from Tamiqua's file that she was an epileptic. Maybe she'd had fits in the past, fallen and knocked herself out. I didn't ask. I couldn't even speak.

That girl had looked at me.

Felicity opened the door. Tamiqua's body was sprawled out from the shower, water was all over the floor. Felicity screamed. "James!" Her voice was like an air raid siren, "James get up here, call 9-1-1! Do something," her instructions bled into more screaming and I winced at the pitch.

More thudding footsteps and James appeared, rushing down the hall, right past me. His head turned ever so slightly and I stepped back, almost cowering behind Tamiqua who was, by now, absolutely wracked with sobs.

James ran into the bathroom and his own scream sounded eerily like his sister's. Tamiqua broke into a run then stumbling into the bathroom door and catching sight of her children kneeling down and grabbing at her body. James turned the water off and slumped over his chest heaving, snot already beginning to mix with the tears. Felicity knelt by her mother's head, pounding the floor with her fists.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," Tamiqua was shaking her head, collapsed on the floor.

The girl had stared right at me. I couldn't shake the though even as I moved towards Tamiqua, already thinking in the back of my mind that I had nothing to lose. I took her by the arm and dragged her to her feet, she already knew what I was thinking and she looked at me and then back to her children.

We walked into the bathroom and I moved myself so that I was between her and the kids. I slipped into just the right groove and fell into the scene, Tamiqua fell behind me and then it happened.

I could suddenly feel everything. I knew that Felicity had just won her class spelling bee and was going to enter the school wide competition next month. I knew that James had been hiding Playboy magazines under his bed. I knew that Tamiqua had always dreamt of being a veterinarian. I felt everything - the amazing joy of their family, the boredom of their Sunday afternoons and the almost unbearable grief of the present. The air in the room was suddenly thick with XXX, Tamiqua's perfume, and both Felicity and James began to calm down. I wrenched us free once they were reduced to stunned sniffling.

As I stood up and led Tamiqua back into the hall, she was clutching onto me, already spent. James came stumbling out a few seconds later and I heard him speaking into the phone as we made our way down the stairs.

"Why did you do that?" Tamiqua asked as we slipped out the front door and stood on her lawn.

I shrugged and offered up a soft smile, "I don't know."

"Thank you," she was still crying, the tears flowing out of her in tiny rivulets, "Thank you so much."

I just shook my head as I let us drop down even further until we were standing in the central office. I dropped her off and stopped in the staff room where I cleaned up a bit and checked my pad for the next cull. I stared at the screen, not even really seeing the words, just reliving that moment over and over again.

I had felt everything. I knew those three people as intimately as you can ever know someone.

And I knew Felicity had seen me.

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Further Down the Rabbit Hole

The next morning I was tired and mildly hung over. I'd called Rosalie as soon as I'd walked through the door the previous night and had started telling her about my day. I only got halfway through when she's broken in to inform me she was on her way to a bar to meet up with The Nobodies and, from the sounds of it, I was definitely in need of a drunken night out. I couldn't really argue with that.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in a corner booth sucking down my first Long Island Iced Tea and relating my story to The Nobodies who, to their credit, only interrupted me twice. Once so Rosalie could go to the bathroom and once so Eugene could order another round of drinks.

After I'd finished I leaned back and held my palms up, "So what do you guys think? Have you ever been spotted like that?"

"I thought I was once," Joshua nodded, "I was working a Nursing Home gig and it was my second night there. I was Culling this one guy - massive stroke - and his roommate looked over at us and the guy's jaw just hit the fucking floor. He starts shaking his head and he grabs the Nurse Call Button and he's pushing it like a heroin addict on a fucking morphine drip. I'm only halfway through when the nurse comes in and the guy starts babbling and pointing at us."

"What'd you do?" Rosalie tapped out another Virginia Slim and lit it.

"I fuckin' high tailed it out of there," Joshua laughed and shook his head, "I pulled the Cull into Central Processing so fast I thought I was going to give him another stroke."

Dylan nodded, "Yeah, same kind of thing happened to me twice. Once in a hospital and once when I was working Halloween a few years back. These two chicks were walking down Madison Avenue as I was coming up on this homeless guy. I'd already slipped under and as I passed them one of them does a double take. Creeped me out."

I sighed, unsure whether or not I was finding any comfort in this. What if people were sometimes seeing us? What did they think? Why could they spot us? What did that mean?

We drank until closing time and then stumbled down the street. Rosalie and Josh crabbed a cab and the rest of us went our separate ways. Doug offered to walk me home but I shrugged him off. I was drunk, tried and confused. I needed some time alone and I figured the walk would do me good.

I started down Detroit Avenue going in the wrong direction but didn't care. Hung a right at West 117th and stopped at Taco Bell for some greasy tacos. I was just finishing them as I hung another right on Madison. Felicity's face wouldn't dislodge itself from my mind and the whole scene just kept looping around in my brain. I looked up at the stars as I walked and I felt lost and small. And angry. Really, unbelievably angry. Wasn't death supposed to offer up some kind of resolution? Isn't it what you spend your entire life preparing for? Isn't it what every religion in the entire god-damned world focuses so much on? Where's the payoff? Where's the enlightenment? Where's my fucking ZEN?

I turned left on 150th and didn't stop walking until I saw the Speedway. I stopped then and looked around. Christ, I was a far way from home. My feet began to throb the second I stopped so I shook it off and walked up to the blazingly bright store. I bought a Diet Pepsi and wandered around a bit, debating on whether to buy Hubba Bubba or Big Red gum. I grabbed a Plen-T-Pack of Big Red and made my way to the counter.

"That it?" A bored looking girl with obscenely large gold buckle earring cracked her gum at me while she rang the soda and gum up. I stared at her nails, which had to be five inches long, and found myself wondering how long it had been since she was physically able to insert a tampon.

"Is that all?" she widened her eyes and bobbed her head slightly, pulling me out of my trance.

"Uh, no," I shook my head and nodded behind the counter, "a pack of EZ-Widers, one and halfs, and," I glanced around the cornicopia of cigarettes, not sure what to buy since I don't smoke, but desperately wanting a cigarette all the same, "I don't know, a pack of Marlboro's."

"What kind?"

I shook my head, "What do you mean?"

She waved her hand towards the row of Marlboro's, "Lights, Mediums, Menthol… what do you want?"

"Oh, uh, just plain." I nodded and tried to smile as she rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her earrings made a soft clacking noise.

"Basic's are cheaper," a voice behind me.

I spun around and a curly haired man smiled at me.

"Sorry?"

"Basic's," he leaned in and set a Slushee and three Slim Jims on the counter, "They're like a dollar cheaper."

"Oh," I turned back to the counter where the woman was now giving both of us the evil eye, "Those are fine," I waved a hand at the red topped box on the counter.

I dug out some money, paid for my stuff and turned around again.

"Jimmy," he held his hand out and I reacted automatically, sticking my own hand out and mumbling my name.

He slapped a few bucks down and waved away the change, walking out the door at the same time I did.

"You look tired," he grinned and sweet little lopsided grin that I imagined melted the hearts of girlfriends and infuriated his mother, "Been out partying?"

I nodded, "Sort of, some friends and I went out for some drinks. I'm just making my way home."

He offered me a lift and I didn't really hesitate accepting. My feet were really starting to hurt and I was too drunk and tired to walk home, so I jumped into his truck and smiled sloppily as he pulled out onto West 150th. I gave him directions to my place and then invited him in. We finished off a bottle of Boone's Farm I had in my fridge and fell into bed.

The next morning he was gone but there was a note on my fridge with a phone number and his name. I smiled as I started the coffee machine and stared out the window, wondering if I should get a cat.

An hour later I was curled up on the couch watching 'American Beauty' and deciding that, yes, I should definitely get the cat. After the last few days I felt in desperate need of something warm and fuzzy to come home to. I was also offering up a small prayer of thanks that the week had ended and, with it, my streak of strange days.

I never should have thought that.

When I went into the bathroom and pulled down my pants I saw something I hadn't seen since late February 2000. I stared down, confused, afraid and befuddled.

I had gotten my period.

Obviously, I was entirely unprepared for such an event so I grabbed some toilet paper, shoved it between my legs and quickly got dressed and walked to Discount Drug Mart. I picked up what I needed (as well as another few bottles of wine and enough chocolate to kill a diabetic) and got home as soon as I could. Since the moment I'd left the apartment my mind had been trying to come up with some explanation for it, but each idea was entirely implausible.

When I got home I shoved the wine into the fridge, took a shower, got dressed and called Doug.

"I just got my period," I blurted out as soon as he answered.

"Uh, okay," he drawled, "Is this some sort of bonding moment for us?"

"No," I sighed, "I haven't got my period since I became a Culler."

"Oh. OH! I get it, okay."

"So why would I get it now?"

"I don't know," I could hear the frown in his voice, "I'd have to give it some thought."

"I thought you were a doctor," I moaned.

"I was a Medical Examiner," he pointed out, "Big difference."

"Okay then, give it some thought and meet me tomorrow afternoon."

"I've got back to back culls tomorrow starting at 1, but I can meet you around 3 or so."

I checked my pad and nodded, "Yeah, that works."

We hung up and I flopped back onto the couch and began eating my way through an entire bag of fun size Snickers bars. I thought back to the times when my period was met with either mild annoyance or happy relief. Now I just felt confused and scared. It didn't make sense and I hated it. When I first died I'd almost gone inane from the whole thing. It took me a long time to come to grips with my new reality and I was only able to do it by clinging to a certain routine. I woke up, drank inhuman amounts of coffee, did my job and kept myself busy performing bizarre rituals that probably place me well within the boundaries of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But they keep my head on straight, they allow me to focus and, until this morning, they didn't bring any negative side effects. But now everything was different. Reality had changed again and it wasn't just a case of me not having the right kind of mug for my fourth cup of coffee. This was something big enough to be causing me some serious anxiety.

As I walked into the kitchen I noticed the envelope form the Private Investigator still sitting on my table. I groaned and tossed the newspaper on top of it.

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Crimson Musings

The following afternoon I made my way to the Denny's on 150th and slid into a seat across from Doug.

"I ordered some coffee," he smiled at me.

I smiled and scratched my neck, "Thanks. So what did you find out?"

"Well, it's sort of hard. I mean, it's not like there are any medical texts floating around about the physical health and well being of cullers. I did a bit of research online and read up on similar cases involving women who had already gone through menopause."

"Menopause?"

Doug blinked. "Well, it's a comparable situation wouldn't you say?"

"I'm twenty-four!"

The waitress coughed as she set the coffee in front of us. Doug stared at me a moment and said, "Emily, you called me last night with all this. I was already elbow deep into a bottle of vodka. It was the closest thing I could come up with off the top of my head."

"You could have tried barren women or women who've had their tubes tied or something."

"I could have. But does it really matter that much?"

I frowned but then it really didn't. "No," I pouted, "I think I'm just being ridiculous."

Doug rolled his eyes, "Jesus, is that post-mortem PMS?"

I stared at him and shook my head, suppressing a grin, "That is a terrible joke."

Doug smiled warmly and proceeded to tell me what little he had managed to learn before passing out beneath a bottle of Absolut. He hadn't learned anything terribly helpful, but he did come up with the idea of talking to Rosalie.

"The chances of any physical condition happening to just one person is about as close to impossible as you can get in science," he told me after ordering a plate of cheesy fries, "My bet is that if this hasn't actually happened to Rosalie, she'll at least know someone who it has happened to."

That night I bought two bottles of wine and invited Rosalie over.

"Okay, what's wrong?"

I stared at her for a minute and poured two glasses of wine. I took a large gulp before telling her. I felt like a teenager again, unsure of what was happening to me and turning to the one source of information I could trust: my friends.

Rosalie's smile was wide but sympathetic.

"You slept with a topsider didn't you?"

"How did you know?"

Rosalie laughed, "That's just what happens, sweetie." She smiled and shook her head, looking down into her glass, "It's freaky the first time it happens. I remember doing it, like, right after I got out of training," she looked back up at me, "I thought I was going crazy."

I leaned over to refill her glass and then my own, "So, why does it happen?"

Rosalie shrugged, "Dunno. It's just one of those things. I guess there must be some sort of scientific reason for it, but fuck if I know. I think it's just one of those things that just is the way it is. Like how you always piss when you have a shit."

I frowned and tried not to figure out whether or not she was right.

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Blue Skies and Bagels

I absolutely love traditional stoners. They aren't as common as you might think. Sure, there are people who club and roll on weekends but they're not stoners in the traditional sense of the word.

James, however, is. Or was. I met him on a cloudless Saturday afternoon - a rare occurrence in March. I was scheduled to meet him at 2:25 outside Einstein Brother's Bagels. I was early so I decided to get a coffee and a bagel. I walked in and got in line before realizing I was, in fact, in line right behind James. He smelled like pot and I shuffled a bit closer and smiled. He ordered slowly, waving at the board as he searched for words like 'bagel' and 'juice'.

He took his food and his bottle of juice outside as I ordered. After I'd gotten my own order I stepped outside and sat on the small patch of grass in front of the building. I spotted James sitting on the curb between two parked cars. I watched him eat and checked my watch.

At 2:25 the pick up truck to James' started up and pulled out - driving over James in the process.

His death was quick and that can be something of a curse depending on the recently departed. Some people refuse to believe they're dead if they haven't experienced some sort of overwhelming fear or pain. Peaceful or instantaneous deaths can result in a long debate with a cull and I was hoping this wouldn't be the case with James.

I needn't have worried. I walked up to James, introduced myself and shook his hand. The jolt between us was smooth. The energy was strong but felt like molasses and I realized that even now James was incredibly stoned.

He looked at me a moment, cocked his head to one side, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. I watched as his long fingers dipped into the pack and pulled out a joint from amongst the cigarettes. He remained sitting on the curb as he lit it and started up at the sky.

"So what happens now?" he asked, trails of smoke circling around his head.

I sat down next to him and began telling him about the central office and training.

He sat silently through my little speech and, when I'd finished, he offered me the half smoked joint. I accepted it gratefully as James continued to stare at the sky.

"I've never been to Egypt," he finally said, "I always thought I'd put my hands on a pyramid." He turned to look at me, "I guess I won't."

"Oh I don't know," I took another kit before handing the smoldering roach back to him, "I didn't go to Las Vegas until after I was dead."

James nodded sagely, taking a hit off the roach and passing it back to me.

We finished the joint in silence, both of us staring into the clean, blue sky. After James had sucked down the last lungful of smoke and touched him on the shoulder.

"It's time," I smiled.

James nodded, "I'm going to miss this," his hand waved towards the sky.

"The sky will still be there after your training," I assured him, "Things will change, but that's not always a bad thing."

As I left James in the Central office he hugged me and pressed another joint into my hand.

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As many of you know, the good man Arthur Dent spent a crazy amount of time editing and weeding out all the little spelling / grammar problems from the Death Blog. After he'd finsihed he told me he had been inspired to write an entry of his own and after he emailed it to me I thought it was only right that it have a place on this page. So... enjoy!

Some Days You're the Windshield (by Arthur Dent)
Lindsay Williams, Thursday, 4:16pm, Suicide

Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. Either way, things are bound to go wrong for you eventually. You're either covered in guts, or you're smeared across something sturdier than yourself.

In any organization with a hierarchical structure, things that go wrong at the top of the food chain have a way of negatively impacting the grunts in the trenches at the bottom. Ours is really no different. At the top of the ladder is where the big decisions are made, at middle-management the actual work is distributed to lower-level managers. At lower-management, the tasks are then delegated and at the grunt-level, where I and all the other cullers are, is where the bodies get picked up, so to speak. Just like any other corporate structure, with the exception being we don't bury the bodies in the basement.

Our system is pretty foolproof, errors are extremely rare, and usually quite trivial. Almost all processing and documentation is electronic, and there are safeguards and redundancies in place to ensure that all the 'i's get dotted and the 't's get crossed, and that everything works exactly the way it's supposed to. Technology is NEVER at fault. If anything does go wrong, it's ALWAYS a human error of some sort, but even this is pretty rare.

I was having a rare kind of day.

I had just finished my last cull of the day. A transient had slipped on a greasy rung while trying to jump a moving box-car. Although he was rather horrified at the manner of his passing, there wasn't any reason why he didn't either go totally numb from shock, or pass out from the pain. He took far too long to die. I helped him as much as I could, but he was somehow resisting me to boot. After taking far too long to actually die, it took a little longer than usual to bring him around and take him in for processing.

At least my day was over.

I was just collapsing on my couch, when the phone rang. I glanced over and saw that I had fifteen messages on my answering machine. Unexpectedly, it was Paul calling.

"WHY THE FUCK IS YOUR CELL OFF?" he shouted into my ear, before I even had a chance to say hello.

This was not the way to endear himself to me today. I was in a rather pissy mood myself. It's been years since I'd had my period (death will do that), but like amputees who are missing limbs and can still feel an itch occasionally, many of us still feel non-existent cramps every four weeks. Death can be as un-fair as life.

"Fuck you very much," I replied before slamming the receiver back into its cradle.

Paul is one of the most level headed, un-excitable, professional people I know. As the phone started ringing again, I considered just ignoring it, then the thought occurred that if something got Paul that upset, it was probably pretty important. I answered the phone.

"I'm sorry, Emily, really, REALLY sorry, but we have a big problem and I need you on this a half-hour ago," he whined, "It won't happen again." I knew he meant it, and I started to get a bit worried.

"What the hell happened?" I asked calmly, now that he was no longer yelling at me.

"Somebody in processing screwed up, spilled coffee on a work order or something, and set it aside to dry off instead of re-doing it. Bottom line is we've got a suicide on the way that isn't IN the system, the paperwork is so badly smudged, we only know the name, address, time, and the fact that it's a suicide."

Shit.

I knew what was coming next anyway, so I figured there wasn't much point wasting any more time. I grabbed my pad, "Give me what you've got then," I said in a tone that he couldn't mistake for anything other than frustration.

"Her name is Lindsay Williams. She's 38 years old, 6'1", brunette, and she will be calling it quits at 4:16… or 4:18,… that's one of the parts that are hard to read," he paused, "She will be punching her card at the corner of Williams and Tenth Street. I called you because it's in your neighborhood."

It was 3:55. The corner of Williams and Tenth was twelve blocks away. Bastard.

"Fine," I said, "Give me the rest."

Instead, Paul replied with, "That's where things go from bad to worse. We can't make out the rest."

"Are you freaking KIDDING me?" I bellowed into the ceiling of my apartment rather than into the phone, but Paul seemed to get the message.

"I wish I could tell you more, Em, but I've got four other cullers on their way there to help find her."

I was about to go play 'needle in a haystack' with someone who was suddenly short a body. If we didn't find her, and fast, there would be hell to pay. I was glad it wasn't my screw-up.

"I'm on my way, I'll call you when I get there. And Paul?" my tone became menacing, "You don't owe me one for this… you owe me three or four."

The Barclay Building was on the corner of Williams and Tenth. Sixteen floors, downtown, and between twenty and thirty rooms on each floor.

There were good things and bad things about this situation. I made a checklist as I ran downtown. It is hell to catch a cab during rush hour and I figured I could run faster than traffic was moving anyway.

Good thing: she would be the only person walking around in there without a body.

Bad thing: she was a suicide, so she probably suspected she would exit her body if she believed she had a soul, and therefore wouldn't start screaming at the sight of her corpse.

Good thing: we knew she was a 6'1" brunette, she should stand out in a crowd.

Bad thing: as long as we watched the exits, the five of us cullers looking for her might catch her trying to wander off.

Good thing: she was a suicide, so she couldn't leave the proximity of her corpse until it was found.

Well, so far the good things had out-weighed the bad ones. I called Paul back as soon as I arrived at the building. It was 4:14, and I was badly out of breath when I called Paul back.

"Paul, I'm at the Barclay Building, do we have any idea WHERE in this place we are going to find her?"
"Sorry, Em," Paul paused, "I'm going to put you on a conference-call with Eugene, Marguerite, and Rosalie. They are on their way still, Dylan and Joshua are already in the building looking for her."

It took a few moments to get all of us on the conference call together. Once we were all tied-in, Paul took charge. Paul wanted me to monitor the main entrance while Dylan and Joshua continued to search in the building for Lindsay. If Eugene, Marguerite, and Rosalie didn't arrive by 4:16, Dylan and Joshua were to hold their search and monitor the other exists until the other three arrived. Once all six of us were on-scene, we would monitor all exits, and wait for most people to go home for the day, to avoid loosing Lindsay in the shuffle of commuting suits.

While waiting for 4:16 to arrive, Rosalie came up with an idea.

She decided, "Hey, since this team-effort isn't because of anything we did, I think Paul should buy a round of drinks for the team after this is done, and buy drinks all night for the lucky one who tracks her down."

There was a solid, wet, sickening 'phwump' beside me. I glanced at my watch, as I looked down at the pile of broken person beside me bounced once on the sidewalk and came to rest at my feet.

4:15.

"I think he should also spring for a new outfit," I said into the phone, mentally kicking myself for not going under before I got there. "Would one of you who has gone under please come out front and take Lindsay? Oh, and Paul, the smudged time wasn't 4:16 OR 4:18."

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Lethal Etiquette
Saturday, 1.17pm

After a few minutes I realized someone was knocking on my door.

I opened it, feeling slightly confused and more than a little stoned. Doug smiled at me, holding a brown paper bag.

"If it hadn't been for the music, I would have thought you weren't home."

I let him in and walked across the room to turn down the stereo. I considered for a moment telling him that I sometimes left the stereo on to keep the plants company but decided against it.

"Have a drink with me," Doug called over his shoulder as he walked into the kitchen.

I shrugged and followed.

Doug was standing at the counter, pulling out a bottle of vodka. "Do you have any orange juice? Lawson's only had that from concentrate shit."

I pulled the juice out the fridge and set it on the counter, "What are you doing here anyway?"

Doug laughed, "Nice to see you too, sunshine."

I raised an eyebrow and rolled my eyes.

Doug sighed loudly, "I had to do laundry today."

I frowned, rained my eyebrows and nodded, "That sucks, but I don't know that it warrants hard liquor in the middle of the afternoon."

Doug cracked open the vodka as I grabbed two glasses from the cupboard. He eyed the cartoon design on the sides but said nothing.

I poured in the juice and he handed me a glass before slumping into a chair by the table.

He stared at the glass for a long time and then gulped it down. "I just never thought that I'd be doing laundry, you know," he looked up at me, "After this happened."

I blinked slowly and smiled. "Do you want some peanuts?" I leaned over and dug around in the outside pocket of my backpack, pulled out a handful of small peanut bag and threw them onto the table as I took a seat.

"Did you have some time off?" Doug asked as he eyed up the blue and silver airline peanut bags.

"No, I culled a stewardess over at Hopkins last night."

Doug raised an eyebrow.

"She had a heart attack in that little kitchen bit," I began.

"The galley," Doug brought the vodka over and poured another drink, "It's called a galley."

I laughed and downed the rest of my drink, motioned for Doug to pour another, which he happily did. I picked up the glass and eyed the liquid. Doug hadn't added any juice but a few leftover bit of orange pulp swum lazily inside. "That's kind of funny," I took a drink and looked at Doug, "Galley. Sort of like gallows."

Doug drained his glass, "You're morbid."

"Occupational hazard."

We drank another round in comfortable silence. Doug grabbed one of the bags and ripped it open, pouring half of its contents into his mouth. "So did she give these to you?"

I shook my head, "There was a big box of them so I took a few handfuls while I was waiting."

Doug stopped chewing, "You stole from a dead woman?"

"Of course not," I spat, genuinely offended, "I stole from the workplace of a dead woman." I drained my glass once more.

Doug picked up the bottle and unscrewed the top. He leaned over to fill my glass and smiled, "I don't think that fact makes it any better."

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DIY at the CPI
Friday, 11.47pm

"Do you have plans for tonight?" Paul's tone was casual but I'm no rube.

I was still signing the paperwork on my latest cull - 57 year old mother of four, slip and fall - so I continued filling out the fiddly bit and shrugged, "Usual Friday night stuff. Meeting up with some friends," another shrug, "Enjoying a well deserved Friday night off."

I had worked the previous four Friday nights. I had spoken to Paul on Tuesday and he assured me he'd clear up some space so I could kick back for a weekend and be somewhat normal.

"Yeah, about that," he sighed, "I just got this case and in and literally everyone else working is busy."

"No."

"Emily, I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to."

"No," I refused to even look at him and I kept my eyes focused to the small blue writing on the bottom edge of the intake form.

Paul sighed.

I stared.

"Emily, I'm sorry, but I'm not asking."

I closed my eyes and turned towards him, "Give me the sheet."

Fucking suicide. Why can't they just ruin their own lives? Why do I have to be dragged into it?

I left the office at 8.30 and called Rosalie.

"Hey Chaquita," Rosalie's voice always reminds me of cinnamon, "I'm just leaving my place now, I can be at the bar whenever you're ready."

I chuckled then sighed, "Actually, I've got kind of bad news about that. Paul just gave me a last minute pick up."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"No such luck. I've gotta be there at," I scanned the paper and did a bit of quick math, "11.30 at the latest."

"Well, you could always pop out and get it done and then come back, speed it through the paper trail and you could be back by midnight with still plenty of time to drink and dance the night away."

"I don't know, it's a DIY-er. I'll have to stick around awhile."

"Where's she at?"

"How'd you know it was a girl?"

"Just a guess, I always assume DIY-ers are girls."

"That says something about you, Rosalie."

"Yeah, it says I'm a good fucking guesser. Now where's she at?"

"Over at CPI."

Rosalie laughed, "Shit, you'll be outta there in no time. If she's waiting on the bus in CPI they'll be checking her room every ten minutes."

"You think?"

"Fuck yeah, I'm surprised this was so last minute, woulda thought she'da put in a shitload of planning."

"Well, it doesn't say how long she's been there, maybe she's new."

"Even better then," I could hear Rosalie slapping her leg, "They'll be checking on her constantly. I'll be surprised if you even make it through the intake form."

I shrugged and promised to meet her and the rest of the Nobodies at 10 for a few quick drinks beforehand and then hope to meet back up later. Luckily, culling doesn't require driving.

Corky's was crowded at 9.30 and by 10 it was hard to hear anyone without shouting. By 11, I had already downed three Long Island Iced Teas and was feeling good. I wasn't looking forward to the DIY-er and when the alarm went off on my cell phone, I groaned.

"I'd better go," I finished the last of my drink and stood up.

"I'm tellin' ya," Rosalie waved a cigarette at me, "it won't take more than a few minutes and you'll be right back here."

"Hey yeah," Eugene piped up, "You should bring her back with you."

I got the hospital with a few minutes to spare. I wandered around the halls for awhile, slowly taking the place in and making my way toward Laura's room. I've never been a patient in any kind of hospital and I've grown to enjoy the surreal atmosphere of them. I loitered near the nurse's station and listened for awhile as they peppered routine conversation with gossip about medical staff and a few patients.

I walked into Laura's room at 11.35.

She was on the bed, knees drawn up under her chin, staring out the window. She didn't look particularly depressed and I wondered for a moment if this whole trip would be wasted.

The door opened behind me and a smiling bald man poked his head in.

"You should get some sleep, Laura," his voice was friendly but authoritarian.

"I know," Laura kept staring out the window.

The guy paused for a moment, staring at her. I could see a flicker of concern flicker across his eyes, but it was quickly swept away by the responsibility of 30 other patients, some of whom were doing things a lot stranger and potentially more dangerous than staring out windows.

"Well," he finally nodded, "If you need anything, just press the button on the side of your bed and I'll be there."

Laura nodded but still didn't turn around.

He left and I glanced at my watch. 11.39

Laura was up in a flash, walking into the bathroom and immediately dropping to her knees. She was picking something away from the bottom of the toilet tank. I cocked my head to one side and wondered how she'd managed to get something dangerous in here so quickly. It never ceases to amaze me how determined, focused and tenacious the suicidal can be. It's a shame, really.

I wasn't surprised to see the blade but I'm still shocked at just how much blood comes out once the razor does its job.

Laura looked pretty surprised too.

But she didn't panic. She didn't cry or scream or even try to staunch the blood. She just slumped against the door and looked at the shower curtain. I wondered if she was thinking of the shower scene in Psycho. I was.

I let her bleed for a few minutes and picked her up twelve seconds early so she wouldn't have the final cold blast before dying. She looked at me for a long moment but didn't say anything.

"I'm dead," she finally whispered.

I nodded.

"And I'm a good person."

I raised my eyebrows.

"This is heaven," she looked at me and a smile slowly lit up her face.

"Well, actually," I scratched my right earlobe nervously, "This is just …"

"Heaven," she cut me off softly, "This is fucking heaven."

She obviously wasn't ready to hear anything I said so I sat on the edge of the tub and let her talk. In the back of my mind I wondered about the wisdom on having a full bathroom in a hospital room of someone in a mental hospital. Of course, I guess in this case it didn't matter.

"The noise," she finally said, cocking her head to one side and closing her eyes, "It's gone. It's totally gone."

"Noise?"

She nodded. "You have no idea what it's like - to live with that noise. The constant hum, it's like," she paused, opened her eyes and looked at me, "It's like being in a crowded theatre all the time. It's confusing and frustrating and," she laughed, "It drove me insane."

I almost laughed but managed to just smile.

"This is definitely haven," she began crying then, "I can't believe this."

I let her cry for a minute, certain that we wouldn't be found as quickly as Rosalie predicted.

"Laura," I began, "There are some things I need to tell you."

She looked at me, still grinning from ear to ear.

"Since you committed suicide, we have to stick around and wait for someone to find you."

She nodded and leaned against the bathroom wall.

"Then we'll go to the central office and you'll find out what will happen. Chances are you'll be placed under the care of a Senior Culler and begin you're training but there's a chance you won't."

"What happens if I don't?"

I shrugged, "I'm not entirely sure. I just know some people don't become Cullers."

"Is that what you do?"

I nodded.

She smiled again. "I think I'd like that."

The door flew open then and a small man in green scrubs and a pink coat came in, surveyed the scene and ran out shouting for a nurse.

In a flash a small army of nurses and orderlies swarmed the room, walking right through us and descending on Laura's body. Someone pressed two fingers against the side of her neck, looked up and shook his head, "She's gone."

The bald man I'd seen earlier was standing in the doorway and he closed his eyes. For a moment I could feel the wave of guilt that rushed through him and I knew Laura could feel it to. Her smile faded into something soft and bittersweet.

"One man's relief is another man's guilt," she said.

I took her hand in mine and we walked out of the room.

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Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas….

Christmastime is a very dangerous time. I've always heard that suicide rates go up over the holidays. I have no idea if that's true or not, but stupidity rates sure as hell go up. We get more electrocutions, falls from ladders or rooftops (sometimes both at once, believe it or not), slips on the ice and fatal nut allergy attacks that it borders on hilarious. After a few weeks of it, you start to think you're living in a Three Stooges or Laurel & Hardy movie.

And if you think death means you et out of Christmas Shopping then guess again, Schmucko.

I was wrapping presents on Wednesday afternoon when Doug called.

"Hey, I'm in Lakewood with some time to kill, wanna grab a beer?"

I tried cradling the phone with my shoulder while I taped up one last edge of a package for Rosalie, "Can't," I managed to say before the phone clattered to the floor. I growled, picked it up and slopped onto the couch, "I'm wrapping presents."

"Presents?"

"Yeah, it's Christmas."

"We get to have Christmas?"

I laughed, "Of course we get to have Christmas. We're dead, not Jewish."

"What's wrong with being Jewish?" Doug sounded hurt.

I shrugged, "Nothing, they just don't get to have Christmas."

"Neither do Buddhists."

"True."

"So why not say 'We're dead, not Buddhists'?"

I shrugged again, "Doesn't sound as good."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and I felt a pang of guilt, "Doug," I braced myself, "Are you Jewish?"

"No," I could hear him laugh, "The Christmas thing just caught me off guard."

I smiled, "Then grab some beer and come over, you can help me wrap."

Doug arrived with a six pack of beer and a bottle of Boone's Farm. "Okay, I'm here and ready to wrap," he smiled.

"Actually, I just finished," I pointed to a small pile of poorly wrapped gifts on the coffee table, "But you can help me be happy about finishing."

"So what do you do for Christmas when you're dead?" He handed me two cans of beer while he put the rest and the bottle in the fridge. We sat on the couch and I began rolling a joint.

"The usual," I shrugged, "Meet up with everyone for a drink, open presents, eat too much food. It's Christmas without the family drama," I looked up at him as I licked the edge of the paper, "Consider it a perk."

Doug frowned, "No one invited me."

I took a long drink from my can and shook my head, "Don't take it personally," I assured him, "No one thinks anyone who's new will be into it. The first year is a bitch and some people react really badly when you bring it up."

Doug took a drink as I lit the joint. We sat in silence for a moment and I passed the smoke to him, "If you want to come you should" I exhaled, "It would be fun."

When Doug smokes pot he holds his breath like a high school kid and can't talk so he rolled his eyes and shook his head before exploding into a coughing fit. "No," he gasped, "I didn't like Christmas when I was alive, I don't think it would be much better now. Besides, it doesn't make any sense."

I took another long drag and watched him drink. I felt bad for him in that moment but resisted the urge to correct him. I remembered my first Christmas after death. I remembered feeling as though nothing would ever feel the same and that I'd never really be happy. I thought a lot about my family, my friends … my life. And I knew better than to try and get him round to my way of thinking.

"Well," I passed the joint back, "The offer is there. Like it or not, we're your family now."

Doug looked at me, took the joint, and smiled.

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Happy Holidays
Jason Lindley, 2.14am, Accident

The holiday season is always a bit of a downer. I spent the week after Christmas working nights ending with a double shift on New Year's Eve/Day. Jason Lindley was my first cull on New Year's Day. I had been working non-stop since 6pm on New Year's Eve and had already been vomited on four times.

At 2 in the morning I was waiting around in the Taco Bell parking lot on West 117th. I picked up a Meximelt (no Fiesta Sauce) and sat on one of the cement parking space blocks in the back. I heard Jason a few seconds before I saw him. He was tearing up 117th on a black Suzuki. It was obviously new - shining like ink under the streetlights. He hit a patch of ice, spun like a top and crashed gloriously into the front sign. The noise was almost unbearable but somehow managed to be beautiful. I walked up to the wreckage as I listened to employees inside Taco Bell screaming and shouting. A young girl with bad skin and a polyester shirt ran out, stopped short then high tailed it back inside screaming "Call Nine One One!"

Jason was already standing up when I got to him. He was holding his head, staring down at his bike … and his body. I touched his elbow, watched his eyes flick in my direction then lock again on the pile of twisted metal, flesh and bone at his feet. I slid my hand up his arm and across his back, pressed my palm into the small of his back and felt the jolt.

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and the pain in his eyes was almost unbearable. I tried not to think about the jolt, tried not to dwell on the brief glimpse of memories I'd just seen. Their entire lives, broken down, transferred and taken in. Every moment whips by in the blink of an eye and suddenly you know this stranger as well as you know yourself. It's always an awkward moment - a bit like being caught reading someone's diary.

Jason looked at his bike again and I stared at it with him. I thought about the excitement when he'd opened his garage door Christmas morning. Tina, his wife, had bought it two months before, had hidden it with a neighbor until Christmas Eve. I thought of the party he'd been to this afternoon - the careful drinking - the pacing - the light buzz he thought wasn't so bad when he hopped on his bike to leave. I felt the pang of regret, the crippling sense of lost that compares to nothing any living human being can imagine.

I took his hand in mine as the crowd thickened and sirens wailed in the distance. He allowed me to lead him away easily and when I looked at him again I saw the tears on his face, the resignation in his eyes. As I stared up at him, it began snowing again. We both looked towards the sky. Jason held out his left hand, watched the snowflakes fall through his fingertips.

"It feels like feathers," he whispered.

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Heading East
Michael Sanovich, 7.27am, Stroke

"They work you too hard, Emily," Becca shook her head and snipped the plastic twine around a batch of newspapers.

I was standing in front of the cappuccino machine, holding down the English Toffee Coffee button with a weary finger. Becca worked the night shift at the BP I stopped in at for coffee when I worked mornings. Over the past few years she and I had grown used to each other and I could always count on her to have the cappuccino machine stocked up and ready to go. She thought I worked as a personal assistant for a rather demanding corporate exec downtown in the Hannah Building.

"You shouldn't let them have you running around at this time of the morning," Becca clicked her tongue and watched me struggle with the lid of the coffee cup.

I made it to Michael's house by 6.57 so I slipped halfway under, crept into the back yard and had a cigarette. I sat at the picnic table and eyed up their birdbath. I was really beautiful, carved stone and a marble basin. It looked strangely out of place and I wondered where they had gotten it. I checked my watch, figured it was time to slip inside. The house looked pretty big and I wasn't exactly sure where he'd be. I slipped through the back door and crossed my fingers in the hope that he wouldn't be on the toilet.

I found him in an upstairs bedroom with West facing windows. His body jerked a bit a few seconds after I walked in but that was it. I leaned over and touched his shoulder, watched his eyes open slowly and helped him to sit up. The jolt was mild and I could tell he thought he was dreaming so I knelt down, got to eye level with him and offered up the best smile I could considering the hour.

"Who are you?" his voice was slow and thick with sleep.

"I'm Emily."

"Am I dreaming?"

I shook my head, let my eyes drift to his body still lying on the bed. He looked down and sighed so deeply I thought he might start crying. He looked over at the woman sleeping on the other side of the bed, reached over and tried to touch her.

He spoke without taking his eyes off her, "What time is it?"

I checked my watch again, "Almost 7:30, why?"

He turned to me then and smiled, "The sun rises at 7:30. I'm usually up in time to watch it rise from the bay window downstairs in the kitchen. If I can, I'd like to do that again before we leave."

I nodded, gave a soft shrug and followed him into the kitchen. The first burst of orange light was already filling the kitchen and I watched the light creep up the walls and fill their bright, spacious kitchen with the glow of a new day.

Michael stared out the window, tears welling up in his eyes. He spoke softly, fingertips stroking the smooth countertop, "When we leave here, what direction will we go."

II cocked my head to one side and gave it some thought, "It doesn't really matter which way we head, we'll end up at the same place."

"Can we head East, into the new day?"

"Sure."

"I'd like that," his voice sounded the way I thought velvet would if it could speak and I took his hand, felt all the years he'd lived, all the sunsets he'd watched. My heart swelled and stopped for a moment before settling back down into a slow and easy rhythm.

After I dropped him off I stopped off at Einstein Brothers and bought a bagel and a coffee. I sat on a bench near the library and watched Lakewood come slowly to life. The sun still hung low in the sky and people walked around in a daze. February had kicked off with a blustery cold snap and I watched my breath evaporate in front of me.

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Float Like a Butterfly …
Layla Rose Wagner, 3.37pm, Anaphylactic Shock

I'm not naturally a superstitious person. If anything, I'm pretty cynical. Nevertheless, it's a proven fact that West 58th Street has something against me. Every time I have a cull down there I get hopelessly lost. I dread seeing "W58TH" on my cull pad more than anything else. I'd rather have a day full of DIYs than even a single cull on West 58th.

Today I have two.

I sighed when I noticed them on my pad in the morning. Paul has this new system of clumping culls together so that each of works a smaller patch on any given day. Overall, it's meant that our days are a bit shorter since we don't have as much travel time, but I have to admit that I miss wandering around the city. Nothing gets the adrenaline going like trying to make it from Coventry to Rocky River within an hour. With those days gone, the trade-off is that you can really spend some time wandering around neighborhoods between culls. Today I was working West 25th - West 150th. Sure, it doesn't sound all that big but when you think about all the people who die in a day ... well, you'll see.

On average, the yearly death rate for America is 8.26 deaths for every 1,000 people. That works out to a little more than 2.4 million a year, which is around 6700 a day. Even if you split it between all 50 states equally, you'd still have each state offering up 134 souls every day.

Today I have to find and deliver 17 of those souls. And just my luck, two of them are on the only street in Cleveland that's out to get me. The worst part is, no one else I talk to seems to have this problem with West 58th. I can't believe they don't have the same problem. West 58th zig-zags all over the city, it jumps over streets and completely disappears for a few blocks and then magically reappears later with no warning. Both ends of it are dead ends and if you look at it on an aerial map, it looks like something drawn by a drunkard. Tiny little streets branch off from it and neighborhoods are so dense that sometimes when I'm walking through them I feel like the street itself is trying to absorb me. I pass clusters of people standing outside corner stores with ancient Pepsi signs hanging in the window and I would swear they're all eyeing me up, trying to figure out how to make sure I never leave.

I would be beginning my day on the top end, near Dennison and would be meeting Layla a little after 3.30 for the last cull of the day down past Detroit. The first was easy enough - car crash, three cars, two culls - one now and the other a few hours later at Grace Hospital (which was on Doug's patch today) The day passed easily enough and I even had enough time between some culls to grab a quick joint and have a walk through tight little knots of neighborhoods. March had stumbled into Spring over the last week and today the sun was shining in breath taking blue skies. There was a stiff, cold breeze but with the sun on your face you barely noticed. The city was alive with people venturing out of their houses for the first time in months. In January and February we had all taken a beating and everywhere you looked people were blinking in the sun.

Layla lived in a small tan and blue house near the tail end of West 58th. The cull before had been up on 140th and Lorain so I grabbed a bus down Lorain and watched the neighborhoods change back to the cement gardens of West 58th. As much as 58th vexed me I had to admit it had a certain charm to it. People worked on their cars parked at the curb. Women sat on painted concrete porch steps and watched their kids run around on scrubby dirt-patched front yards. Spring had brought out the inner June Cleaver in most Clevelanders - including Layla. Every window of her house was open, thin yellow cotton drapes fluttered in and out of the front window and the steel guitar twangs of WGAR's playlist thumped out of her house.

I had slipped under across the street and slipped through the front door early. She was in the back of the house, dancing around the kitchen with a mop while music flowed out of the speakers like highway miles under well worn tires. She was singing along to Darryl Worley's "Awful Beautiful Life" while she scrubbed away at the stained linoleum floor. I stood in the doorway awhile and watched her. The back door was open to the metal screen door and I could see a man outside the garage, leaning against a rusty red pickup truck drinking a beer and talking to another guy with his head under the hood.

Layla dropped the mop back in the bucket and kicked open the screen door to set them both outside. I checked my watch - 3.17. I still couldn't believe I had made it this early. I had gotten off the bus at Lorain and West 65th. It took a bit of wandering around, but I finally picked West 58th up again at Madison. The walk down to Detroit Avenue hadn't taken nearly as long as I thought it would and I'd stopped in at a Convenient on Detroit and 59th and bought a blue slushee. By the time I'd arrived here I was chilled to the bone from the breeze, the slushee and the walk down the shady streets of West Cleveland. I'd tried to walk through as many patches of sun as I could but there weren't many and the shade gave the breeze and chillier edge. I stood in the doorway of Layla's kitchen door and tried not to shiver as the breeze blew through the house.

She was pulling clothes out of the washer when I noticed the rip on the screen door. I glanced down at my pad again and noticed the cause of death - Anaphylactic Shock. I had seen more than a few of these and each one (except two) had been the result of bee stings (or maybe they were wasps - they all look the same to me as I'm desperately trying to get away from them) It seemed a bit early in the year for bees or wasps to be flying around, though. I walked back through the house, down the hall and around the corner, scanning the ceiling until I saw it - the attic door. I walked back to the kitchen slowly, checking out the vents. I don't know why I cared so much about where it would be coming from but somehow the thought of wasps nesting in the attic all winter long just to come out a few months too early to kill some poor woman seemed inordinately unfair to me.

Layla's twisted the dial on the dryer and punched the chunky silver button. She was pouring another shot of detergent into the washing machine when I noticed the little fucker zipping lazily through the kitchen and I mentally kicked myself for not noticing where he'd come from. Layla screwed the cap back onto the blue plastic bottle and stretched to put it back on the white wire shelf above the dryer when he got her right in the back of the neck. I ran across the kitchen, trying to grab her as soon as I saw him land on her neck. Anaphylactic shock doesn't take long to do its thing.

I grabbed her as a DJ talked over the intro of something that sounded more rock than country. Layla slumped forward, head dangling over the washer as it filled with water. She held onto the edge with one hand, grabbed her throat with the other before taking a desperate gasp and falling to the floor. I knelt by her side, listening to her gasps and the washer's hiss. I put my arms around her shoulders, slid my fingers through her hair and watched. I glanced outside, wondered how long it would take one of them to come back into the house for something. Layla was gone by the time the washer had filled up.

Her eyes flew open, stared right into mine, then widened. I smiled, felt the realization seep through her body.

She closed her eyes again, pinched the bridge of her nose and whispered "Shit."

I leaned back and stood up, offered her a hand up. She stared at her body for a few minutes then looked up at the washer, "I didn't even get a chance to put the clothes in."

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Morpheus Rising
Samantha Dunfer, Heroin Overdose, Wednesday, 3.30pm

There are some true constants in life and death. Some things are always inarguably good or bad no matter how or when you cut it. Being endlessly on hold is bad - doesn't matter if you're waiting to find out about a problem with your internet connection or if you're waiting to find out how much the recent rash of dodgy drugs or the upcoming Super Bowl or the suddenly cold front that's coming in will affect your schedule for the next week.

Which is exactly what I was doing when Doug came round Wednesday morning. I had already been on hold for about fifteen minutes and Doug gave me a sympathetic smile that made me think he'd already gone through the same routine - so at least it wasn't just me. Finally Paul picked up, sounding stressed and tired and gave me the changes to my schedule.

"You're still off Thursday," I could hear the papers he was shuffling out of the way and then tapping on his keyboard, "But you have extra pick-ups on Saturday, Monday and, yeah, and today, too."

"Great," I was jotting all this down and rolling my eyes, "When am I supposed to be there?"

"Don't worry," I could hear him lighting a cigarette now and hoped Nancy didn't catch him - even in death she's sort of a rabid non-smoker, "It's not until this afternoon. 3.30 and it's on the West Side - shouldn't take you more than 45 minutes or so to get there."

"It would only take me 20 if I had a car."

I felt a second of guilt when I hear Paul sigh. I could see him hunched over his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose, smoke pouring from his nostrils. It's hard to feel bad for him for too long, though. He doesn't have to subject himself to the horrors of RTA on a daily basis.

"And I could probably find more resources for my cullers if I had an assistant."

"Yeah, well," I let my voice trail off, "Just see what you can do about my application, would you? I don't think I'm asking for a whole lot here."

"I'm sending the changes over to your laptop now."

I hung up the phone and flipped on my laptop. Doug was in the kitchen and I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply as the surprisingly inviting aroma of his cheap ass coffee wafted out from the kitchen.

I was just logging onto the Network (aka The Deathwork) when Doug brought in two steaming mugs.

"Here," he plonked one mug onto the table, "Drink this, you look like death."

His stupid grin - and stupider jokes - were really starting to grow on me.

"So what's with the deep sigh?" he flopped against the cushions on the couch and lolled his head around.

"Eh, another change," I shrugged, tapped my password in, "Had been hoping to have today off. I'm thinking about getting a cat."

"I don't think you're really the cat type."

I shot him a look - not sure if I was supposed to be offended or not, "What's that mean?"

"What's the change?"

"Eh," I shrugged, only slightly annoyed he'd ignored me, "Some OD over on the West Side. You'd think people would just learn to do a bit less."

"I read this thing awhile back," he didn't take his eyes off my water-stained ceiling, "this study on line. Said that most ODs weren't the result of someone having done too much of a purer product, really. Said that it was down to more shit they cut it with now."

I clicked the Map-It button and glanced over the screen at Doug, "Who was the study funded by? The National Foundation of Functional Heroin Addicts?"

Doug frowned, "Does that even exist?"

I shrugged, "Probably," and scanned the map on my screen - this place wouldn't be too hard to find after all. I finished off my coffee and looked up, "You wanna come along?"

Doug finished his coffee, shook his head and swallowed, "Can't. I'm busy all day today, I just stopped by here to annoy you since my first cull is just around the corner - heart attack at that 7-11."

I tried to imagine how much it would suck to die in a convenience store and felt an evil grin spread across my face. Doug stuck around for awhile, borrowed my copy of Fight Club and continued to insist I was most definitely "not a cat person", though I had some trouble making any sense out of that. How can anyone not be a cat person? I like cats. Doesn't that, by default, make me a cat person?

That afternoon I wandered through the front door of a cheap and clean apartment near Parma Heights- tan carpeting everywhere, cheap doors with brass locks, lots of late model Fords and Pontiacs in the parking lot. The apartment was in the basement - jut outside the laundry room - and I wondered if the rent was cheaper in this unit than it was in the others. Five washers and four driers thump-thump-thumped with life and I ran a finger along the door jam and felt the tiny bits of dirt that had been hastily painted over. I checked my watch, slipped under and walked in.

"Don't be such a pig about it," Samantha was sitting on a clapped out couch so old and battered there was no way they had gotten it from anywhere other than a dumpster.

A man stood in the closet-sized kitchen taking great, long gulps from a carton of Minute Maid Orange Juice. He finished the carton off, wiped his mouth with his bare hand and tossed the empty carton onto the counter. "I'm not being a pig about it," he shook his head and walked into the main room, "I'm just being smart. You don't want to do too much, dude, it's not like you've even been out that long."

Samantha sighed and rolled her eyes, "That's not the fucking point. I was only in rehab for, what? A month? Shit, it's not like I'm some fucking novice. Besides, I bought it so … I'll do whatever the fuck I want with it."

She shoved herself off the couch and onto the floor, sat in front of the chipboard coffee table and started setting up a hit.

The guy watched, shook his head, and then disappeared in the kitchen. He came out a minute later with a glass of water and knelt down next to Samantha.

"I'm sorry," he set the glass on the table and kissed her on the side of her head, "It sucked when you were gone, you know?"

Sam sniffled and nodded while she played with a needle. After a minute she turned her head and looked up at him with wide, wet eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment. I held my breath, waiting for them to fall into each other's arms. The room was already filled with a heady, warm scent of sweat, skin and tears. But they didn't. He kissed her softly on the forehead and a smile melted over her face.

Then she went back to fixing the hit.

I know almost nothing about heroin or how to take it. The only things I know about it, I've picked up doing culls like this one. But I watched as she got her hit ready and it didn't look crazy big to me. Actually, it looked even a little on the light side. I've seen junkies slam copious amounts of shit into their bodies. More than once I've been in the middle of a cull, watching one of their oblivious friends, shovelling more and more in - up their noses, into their veins, into their lungs - and I've wondered why I wasn't there for them instead. Usually, I try to avoid being too early for drug deaths - waiting around and watching people getting stoned is a lot less fun than you might think.

Sam was ready to go and she waited while her boyfriend got his own hit ready. I wondered how they knew who's needle was who's … and then I wondered if they even cared. They shot up at the same time, stared at each other as they tied themselves off and looked for veins. It took him a little longer than her but she waited, needle poised, making an obvious effort to be patient while he checked one arm, then the other. Finally he nodded, made a grunting noise from behind the terrycloth robe-belt he was using and they sunk their needles in, fingers working frantically for a moment before finally pushing down and sending their entire bodies reeling back. Sam leaned against the front of the couch, her boyfriend slid out onto the textured tan carpet.

I walked over to Sam, watched as her body went through a small, surprisingly unimpressive spasm and I felt her coming down. I leaned in close, perched on the coffee table in front of her and waited. She saw me and I smiled, held out a hand. She took it instinctively (most people do) and I felt the sleepy, doped up surge of energy from her. I hate to admit it, but it's moments like those that make me understand why people get addicted to the shit. I was never a real drug user when I was topside. I drank a bit, had the occasional joint, shit like that - but I never messed around with things that had to be injected or snorted. I was after a bit of a good time, not a lifestyle. So, I can't honestly compare the feeling of heroin whilst culling to that of taking heroin while being alive. But if they're anything alike, it's definitely not hard to imagine why people get addicted. The sensation would probably even have the most rabid War on Drugs crusader reconsidering. It feels …. It feels like the inside of your body is being covered in silk. It feels like flying and melting into the sun. In short, it's just plain amazing. And, whiles being dead isn't all that great, not being able to die is the best thing ever.

Sam stared at me for a few minutes and I didn't say anything. The dope felt good in my body and I knew the information that had begun to seep into her brain when I touched her was hitting harder than any drug could ever hope to.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and sighed loudly. She stared at me while she shook her head and smiled. "I'm dead," she whispered.

I nodded, returned a lazy smile.

"Woah," she touched the sides of her head, "Fuck. That's a little … fucking shit." She ran her hands over her face and sighed again.

She leaned forward, rocked a bit on the floor and I leaned over and grabbed her by the shoulders as gently as I could, "Don't worry," I smiled, "This is all totally normal."

She nodded, shook her head, nodded again, sniffled. She made a noise that sounded like a cross between a groan and a sigh and whipped her head around and stared at her boyfriend who was just beginning to stir from his place on the carpet. He heaved himself slowly into a sitting position, looked over at her body and smiled, "Hey baby," he croaked, poked her with his right foot.

A moment of understanding flickered across his face but was quickly dismissed by a smile of denial. I was still sitting on the coffee table with Samantha slumped against the couch at my feet. She was sitting a little straighter than her body, watching her boyfriend finally twist around and begin to reach for her.

"Come on," she groaned, "let me tell him I'm okay," I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, "At least let me tell him it was beautiful - everything we always thought it would be."

I took a deep breath, shook away the tears and reached for her hand. She let me pull her up to her feet and as we stared down at him grabbing her body, crushing it against him, the wails that suddenly filled the room I said, "My bet is that he'll find out soon enough."

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I See You (again)
Janie Hampton, Fall, Saturday 12.17pm

Back on the East side today - have been pretty much all morning. It's been pissing down with rain for weeks and last night we had a sudden cold snap - I've already picked up four slip and falls today and I'm on my way to the fifth.

Cleveland is alive today - it's biting cold but the sky is the crispest blue I've seen in a long time. The cold air makes my lungs ache as I make my way toward my next appointment. Janie's already walking across the frozen wooden porch as I slip under and make my way up the flagstone path. The fall takes all of three seconds - her death quicker than that. Head slams on the edge of the concrete steps, body hits the rest at an angle, a cracking noise you can hear if you're nearby. It sounds extra loud to me and I'm not sure if that's because I've slipped under or because of the crisp, winter air.

She doesn't make a sound as I take her by the hand and help her to her feet. She stands there for a moment, then turns to stare at her body.

On the sidewalk there's a rustle of noise. I turn and see a guy from across the street rushing over, calling over his shoulder for his wife to call 911. He's rushing up the stone path when I see her - standing almost directly in front of the house, carrying a bag from the Lawson's store on the corner: Felicity. For a minute I'm oblivious to everything else that's going on. Janie was babbling next to me - the soft, incoherent ramblings of someone accepting their own mortality. Felicity just stands there, eyes wide and staring right at me.

I glance around, watch the guy from across the street kneeling down by Janie's body, a handful of other people rushing over. I'm in the middle of a growing knot of people and I turn to stare at Felicity again. I wave my hand slowly and swallow hard when she waves back. That's it, I'm outta here. I grab Janie by the elbow and drag her away from the crowd.

"We have to go," I tell her, cursing the shake in my voice, "Don't worry."

Janie nods, sniffles and we slip further under. We're in the office by the time we reach the end of the driveway. I drop her in reception and wander into the staff coffee room.

The chipped table and hard plastic chairs seem comforting somehow and I sit there, staring at a crack that runs straight across the table.

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Going Postal
Calvin Bagley, 54, 7.32pm, Broken neck and punctured lung

Calvin was my last cull of the day. He was also two and a half hours after my second-to-last cull of the day. I've stopped asking Paul about a car - I think my last outburst has landed me well and truly on his shit list. Who schedules a day like that? First cull at 7.21am and then spread out over the next 12 hours. That's just insane.

I resisted the urge to wing by the 7-11 on my way back that afternoon. Slipping into the afternoon slouch of beer, pot and television was tempting. For once the wind was at my back and as I made my way up the street and away from temptation I resolved to clean off the kitchen table and empty the various trash cans/piles peppered throughout the place.

Motivation feels good when your MP3 player is cranked up to full volume.

Forty-five minutes later I'd finished collecting and bagging all the partially contained garbage. I was stopping long enough to get the coffeemaker going. I thumbed the switch and rolled my head around on my shoulders. I had packed up three big garbage bags full and I still had the kitchen table to do. While the coffeemaker burped along I began to half-heartedly poke through the mess. I sorted out the newspapers and sheets of coupons that had expired without me have ever bothered to cut them out. I poured the coffee, dumped in the milk and took a long, beautiful gulp.

Drinking insanely hot coffee is the only way to really feel it working. The glorious central body warmth was just beginning to spread when I winced down my third oversized gulp which nearly drained the mug. I immediately filled it up again, dumped in more milk and started sifting through junk mail, half read magazines and old TV Guides. There's a house next door to the apartment building and they have a recycling box. I've been sneaking things into it for months. It's not that I feel a deep desire to recycle, but I do get a strange thrill from sneaking onto their property late at night and creeping around to the back of their garage in order to put my papers in their recycling bin. Too often lately, I've been wondering what it would be like to get caught.

Everything had taken a lot longer than I thought it would have and as I downed the remains of my fourth cup I picked up the last handful or random stuff. It was the bottom of the pile and I felt a certain swell of domesticated pride as I flipped through the top three envelopes and immediately dropped them into the garbage.

Then I only had one thing in my hands - the envelope with the report I'd ordered from the Private Investigator ages ago. I wanted to lay it back down and walk away. I glanced up at the clock. I had to go. I kept the envelope with me as I stomped through the house, suddenly full of anxious anger and shoved it into my bag as I slipped into my coat, grabbed my MP3 player and walked out the door. The same brisk wind was still there when I stepped out onto the sidewalk. I promised myself I'd buy a six pack once I'd collected Calvin and I'd celebrate my productivity …. And steel my nerves to finally read that fucking report.

Tonight.

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Wish You Were Here

I got home three hours and forty seven minutes ago.

I had stopped at the 7-11 and stocked up on enough booze to incapacitate Charles Bukowski. I actually made that joke when I was buying it but the new guy behind the counter didn't get it. Once I got back home I swore at the ceiling awhile and stomped around. Anything to avoid that envelope.

Finally, I realized the only reason it had become such a big deal was because I was making it into one. That report represented my only link to my family, my friends, my LIFE. I had been a fool to sit on it for so long. The information would be old and outdated. I should actually just get another one done. I shook my head, feeling the seductive allure of wanting to throw that one away, order a new one and put it off yet again.

I didn't want to know they had gone on with their lives.

Without me.

I picked up my bag, feeling the full weight of it with arms that had suddenly become incredibly weary. I laid it on the floor and turned on the stereo. WMMS had been hyping up with Pink Floyd Night for weeks and even though I was kind of happy I'd have it on tonight, I also found it oddly depressing. I felt myself making a drink but my brain was already sliding a finger under the glued edge of that envelope. I sat on the floor, pulled the bag toward me and dove in.

The report spilled out of the envelope along with a handful of photos. I flipped through those first. Mixed another drink after staring at a picture of my mother pulling shopping bags out of the trunk of her car, another one of my father rubbing his hand over his head while standing in front of a vending machine. I didn't want to see any of this - I hadn't expected this. I hadn't expected to feel such an aching sob over pictures of mundane day to day life. I shook my head, unable to accept the fact that I was getting choked up over a picture of my mother walking out of a Blockbuster Video.

Almost all the pictures were of my parents. There was another handful of Mark. When I saw the fist one of him - standing at a Starbuck's counter - I dropped the pictures. I sat there for a long while, staring down at him, wondering when he had finally given in and started going to Starbuck's. Had he completely given up bitching about how they were "McDonaldizing Coffee into some nameless, tasteless, variantless form of 'warm beverage' loaded with so much sugar that they make pixie sticks look like vitamin supplements."

I stood up to make another drink, felt my knees pop and decided to take a break for a few minutes.

Just a few minutes, I promised myself.

Vodka was depressing me so I cracked open a can of beer and stared out of the kitchen window while the thick and lazy opening to Us and Them oozed in around me. The sky was still and quiet. As much as I love Cleveland, I suddenly found myself wishing I were somewhere far away, somewhere I could see the stars.

Somewhere I wouldn't feel quite so alone.

No one I know now knew me when I was alive. I no longer exist to anyone who witnessed my amazing life. I have no Social Security number. Every April we laugh and joke about not having to pay taxes. We drink and crack jokes, we pretend we love it. But we'd all happily go pack to paying anything - absolutely any price - to just exist to someone we used to love again. I want to hug my mother. I want to be reminded of my disastrous 15th birthday party by a friend. I want my father to lecture me about finding a real job and living up to my potential. I want to daydream about the future.

I want to feel like I can still be something.

I grabbed another can and went back into the living room, picked up the pile of papers and pictures and flopped onto the couch. Mark was still standing at that counter and this time I smiled down at him, even laughed a little before sliding the picture away. The next one was of him sitting in the park with some woman. I squinted and leaned in, tried to see who she was, but her head was thrown back, mouth open, teeth blazingly white as she laughed. I snatched up the printed report. Each page had someone's name in bold at the top. There was only one with Mark's name and I skim read it.

"…. Married to Sarah Gumbish in April 2003. Two children, Eric James and Emily Kay …"

Sarah and I had been friends in grade school. I met her in kindergarden. She had been the only kid who would even speak to me after I'd thrown up in the water fountain on my first day.

I looked at the picture again, suddenly able to place that dimpled chin, those apply cheeks and tousled brown hair. The next picture made it even more obvious - they were standing in a line outside a movie theatre. She was looking away from him, toward the front of the line - she'd always been so impatient. He looked like he was talking but he might have just been counting since he had some crumpled bills in his hands. I wondered if his inability to use a wallet bothered her as much as it had me.

I flipped through the rest of the pictures. I felt scraped out and raw, and even though each picture seemed to rip through me it also felt dulled. My entire body was throbbing and I felt like an open wound by the time I got done. I picked up the report again and began reading.

After the pictures it was hard to take any of it in, though, and I felt the information washing over me. My mother was still smoking in secret and my father was still pretending he didn't know. My Grandma had died a little over a year after I had and my Aunt Jackie had follow not long after. My old high school had burnt to the ground. Mark and my parents still exchanged Christmas cards, which I found oddly disturbing. I leaned into the cushions of the couch and rubbed my eyes.

I sighed and looked at the clock. Almost midnight. I got up, walked into the kitchen and stared at the fridge for awhile. Without even thinking, I picked up the phone and dialled. He picked up on the first ring, as though he'd been waiting.

"Hi Jimmy," I opened the fridge and grabbed another can of beer, "This is Emily."

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Post-Mortem Puberty
Martin Hauser, 57, Multiple Unintentional Injuries, 11.45am

I met up with Doug in the morning. He's developed a real hard of for these Hyper-Mochacinnos things a girl down at Phoenix started making for him. He keeps telling her they should add it to the menu, keeps trying to smile his way into a date and she's all shrugs and raised eyebrows, a smile that's halfway to a sneer. Whenever I watch him flirt with this girl I feel strangely protective, as if no girl could ever be worth his time.

I fished out as crumpled ten dollar bill from my pocket and paid for the drinks. Doug had his friendliest (which was, by a stroke of terrible luck, also his doofiest) smile on and took a long sip from his cup. "Seriously," he licked his lips, "You should add this to the menu, you'd have a line around the block."

Another ambiguous smile, another raised eyebrow. I wanted to shake her and demand she actually hold a conversation with him. She only ever spoke to him rarely - usually because the place was packed - but also, I'm sure, because she saw how much power it gave her over him. Today she licked her lips, gave a shrug of her shoulder and said, "But if we always had a line around the block I'd never have any time to talk to you."

Doug beamed, I tried to cover a laugh with a cough (poorly) and stuffed the change back into my pocket.

Outside, Doug took another long pull from the cup and shook his head, "I am so going to date that girl."

I didn't say anything, just took another sip and glanced into the street. It was still early and Detroit Avenue hadn't filled with its usual crowd of overheated cars and steaming drivers. I love Lakewood mornings, the feel of the city just beginning to wake up and stretch its way into the streets.

"You workin' today?" Doug finished his drink and threw the cup into a garbage bin on the corner.

"Yeah, but not until 11.30 or so. Starting my day with a car accident," I flashed a cheesy smile, "Always so much fun!"

"Multiple Unintentional Injuries," Doug grinned.

I shook my head, raised an eyebrow.

"That's what we used to write on Death Certificates for people killed in a car accident - 'Multiple Unintentional Injuries'," he laughed at the memory, "It's funny, I still use all that now when I'm filling out the CRs at the end of the day. Drives Paul mad."

We stopped at a 7-11 and I picked up a paper and some gum while Doug wavered in front of the Slushee machine. "Don't you think it's a little early?" I asked as I walked past him to grab a bag of funyuns.

"Eh," he shrugged, "The sugar will do me good. I've got four back to backs today spread out all over Ohio City."

I dumped my stuff onto the counter and began counting out my change. When I dropped the money into the woman's hand, our hands touched for a minute and I felt this jolt, the electric spasm race up my arm. I pulled my arm back quickly, let out a noise but not before I'd seen it - splayed on the side of the rod, underwear in her mouth, eyes covered with flies. She stared at me, wide eyed and asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," I shook my head, swallowed hard, "Uh, just got a shock or something. Sorry." I grabbed my stuff, shoved it into a cheap plastic bag and waited outside while Doug paid for his slushee.

Doug went off to his first cull of the day and I went back home. I remember Rosalie telling me about this ages ago when the whole Jimmy thing first happened. Something about parts of your brain that don't even start to develop until after you die. I don't know, I couldn't remember how it went but I knew that this was something that wasn't going to stop. If anything it was only going to get worse, more intense. See how people are going to die isn't something I had ever looked forward to have happen and it isn't something they really prepare you for when you start this job. Now that it was happening, I felt like I was going through puberty again. All these changes, all this development in death, it doesn't make sense. When you hit puberty as a topsider it's preparing you for your adulthood - the rest of your life. But when you're dead, what is there to get ready for or develop into?

I sighed and stared out the window, wondering for the millionth time just how far does this rabbit hole go?

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Nathan Haskell, Car Accident, 7am

I don't mind Mondays, really. Never have, not even as a top-sider. No, for me, the cruellest day is and always has been Wednesday. Two days behind me, another two in front of me, the beginning side effects of sleep deprivation offset by caffeine overload. Ugh. And that was back when I was guaranteed weekends off.

As luck would have it, I've been pulling swing shifts that end with a double shift on Wednesday. A double shift that begins at the bone rattling time of 6.30 in the morning.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much this irritates - and pains - me.

So there I was, 7am sharp for the second cull of the day. Corner of 150th and Puratis Avenue. Nathan stepped off the corner, gas station coffee in one hand, copy of the Plain Dealer in the other. Nathan was scanning the front page headlines when he stepped off the corner and directly into the path of a rust-bucket Buick Riviera.

Broken neck - he didn't feel a thing.

We stood on the corner and I filled out his Intake report while he got used to the idea of being dead. We went through the usual round of "You mean I'm really dead?" questions and then he got quiet - stared at the tangled mess on the street and then stared at me.

"You remind me of a girlfriend I had once."

"Really?" I checked my watch and scribbled the time on his Intake Report.

"Yeah," he toed the ground and shook his head, "I gave her crabs."

That stopped me. I looked at him, blinked and said, "I remind you of a woman you infected with crabs."

He nodded, then frowned and asked "Do you think I'll go to hell for that?"

"Uh," I blinked and tried to focus, tried to think of anything other than itchy, swollen genitals, "I, uh, I really have no idea."

Fucking Wednesdays.

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The Beginning of the End

Wait. What? No, seriously, wait.

What?

Those were the first things that ran through my mind when I was culled. When I stopped living.

When I died.

Then I felt every emotion I had ever felt in my entire life incredibly strongly. It only took a second but I felt everything. Everything. I felt the stomach somersaults from my first grade recital, the giddy childhood hysteria of my first kiss, the combination of both that I felt when I fell in love for the first time. I felt it all and it was like being punched in the stomach over and over again by someone strong enough to rip phone books in half.

And then … then I felt so incredibly good, then I felt like I was somewhere safe, as warm and secure as a smooth pebble in someone's hand.

But it's not always like that. I died pretty quickly. The last thing I remember thinking as a topsider was that I felt like flying. For others the moments leading up to their death aren't so free. There are a lot of people out there who spend the last seconds, the last minutes, sometimes the last hours of their lives desperately frightened, in pain so intense that their body feels like it's about to explode. These people pray for death.

Regular readers know my job doesn't come with many perks but every so often, I get to actually help someone. Cull times are, for the most part, non-negotiable but if know the rules as well as I do, then you know how to work around them. It took me a long time to get used to this job and I spent the first year or so constantly screwing up and getting hauled into Paul's office at least once a week. At first it was a lot of rebellion and the effect of me being pissed off about being dead. But even after I had come to accept that this was my reality, I still couldn't keep it all straight. There are a lot of rules in the afterlife and dying is as much a process as any other major life event. It's a bureaucratic nightmare of the highest calibre.

The Culler's Guide is downloadable but is also given to you during your orientation. There are rules and guidelines pertaining to everything from when and where you can slip under to exactly what you're supposed to say to someone when you're culling them. It's not so much big as just boring as hell. Try reading through your local city ordinances and you'll have an idea of where I'm coming from. I've poured over that book a million times since I died and I know just about every loophole there is to know … and there ain't many.

But my absolute favorite is the Circumstances Extremeus Clause. It's only to be used in the most extreme cases and isn't a clause you can use very often. Any cull invoking the CEC is processed by Field Supervisors directly and must be entirely justifiable if you want to avoid pulling at least 6 months of vet duty or something worse. Basically it says that if the circumstances surrounding someone's death are horrific enough to traumatise the cull so badly that it will affect their ability to "perform and execute duties directly related to their first two weeks of post-life" then you can grab them early, just before their moment of death and spare them those final moments.

Today I have a fairly run of the mill schedule. A few pick ups this morning and a few in the early afternoon but at 5.30 I'm scheduled to pick up a woman who definitely falls within the CEC. She'll die as a result of her injuries after being tortured and raped in the backseat of a Buick Imperial. Technically, I shouldn't pick her up before 5.28 but I already know that I'll be grabbing her and holding on tight by 5.25. Culling someone early is rough, we absorb the jolt so they don't have to and its been weighing on my mind since I read the details last night.

Right now I'm getting ready to head out and start my day. I don't know if I'll feel up to giving you all the gory details when I get home tonight - to be honest, I think my first port of call after I've picked her up will be Rozi's Wine & Liquor down on Detroit Avenue to pick up the biggest bottle of vodka I can find.

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Sweet Dreams
Margaret Fowler, Tuesday, 2.56 am

I've been on a month of night shifts which makes the inside of my head itch. All I do is watch TV and sleep. When I get home I tell myself I'm going to DO THINGS. Not big things. But it would be nice to eat dinner, clean the bathroom or, better yet, the kitchen. But it never works. I've been getting home at around 5 in the morning lately, and the world is still asleep. The only thing open is the 7-11 and Wal-Mart. Since shopping at Wal-Mart is committing a crime against humanity, I just make the best out of what I can get from 7-11. I can't be totally certain but I'm pretty sure I have officially eaten enough slushies in the past three weeks to kill a person. My tongue is permanently blue.

But not tonight. Tonight I declare a Blue Slushee Fast and a general hiatus on 7-11 grocery shopping. I woke up especially earl today and bought some real food from Marc's. Hey, it's step up. And tonight Margaret is my last cull so I might even make is to bed before 6am.

Travel is a bit of a bitch for these late night culls. Luckily, she doesn't live far and she's right on the route for the number 26. Riding the bus this late on a weekday still feels strange. It's usually just me, the driver and someone standing up at the yellow line talking to the driver. I think this must be the sweetest route for drivers. Late night sift, driving around the nearly empty streets of Cleveland with a friend to keep you company. I frowned as I sat down and looked up at the guy leaning against a rail and chatting wit the driver. Unless that's not really a friend of his, just some rambling stranger who won't leave the bus driver alone. But then why wouldn't the driver tell him to fuck off? I frowned again, wondering if I would have the nerve to tell someone to fuck off if I were driving a bus late at night. There are signs on some of the busses that claim the driver is in constant contact with the police but I don't think that's really true. I've seen some pretty gnarly shit go down on these busses.

I do my best not to think about any of this as I watch the dark city slip by the window. When I step off the bus the night air feels good on my skin and I take a deep lungful as I scan street signs and check addresses. It only takes me a few minutes to find the right building. Upstairs I check my watch and crack my neck. I slip under and enter the apartment. I scan the coffee table and notice Margaret reads Vogue, Vanity Fair and The Week.

I step into the bedroom and see a man snoring softly beside her. I check my watch again and circle round to her side of the bed. She's fast asleep and I already know she won't wake up. I kneel down beside her and don't bother checking my watch, I've just heard her breath catch in her throat.

I slide my hand up her arm and squeeze her shoulder. In an instant I'm pulled down into her last dream long enough to catch a flicker of a man throwing plates that shatter into a million pieces which turn into doves that feel so real I duck.

Mary moves her head and sits up. If she looks behind her now she'll see herself still sleeping and I gently pull her away so she doesn't have that brain trip right away.

"Who are you?" she asks but her voice doesn't sound afraid and I know that, deep down, she already knows who I am.

I don't say anything, just squeeze her shoulder again and smile. We walk away and arrive in the Central Processing Office. I leave Margaret in Nancy's capable hands and make a quick exit before Paul can notice I'm there.

Back home, I'm frying up an omelette and kicking myself for not buying any beer. I find a bottle of Vodka in the back of the freezer and dump a generous shot into a glass of orange juice. I have two voicemail messages from Jim which I'm in the process of ignoring. I try to flip the omelette and it falls apart so I turn it into scrambled eggs.

As the sun is just beginning to struggle up past the horizon I'm eating eggs, sucking own my second helping of Vodka and Orange Juice and feeling pretty damn good.

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The Fear
Malcolm Fowler, Aneurysm, 2.34pm

Einstein Brothers is wall to wall packed. I'm waiting in line to pay for my toasted Everything Bagel with cream cheese and a bottle of orange juice. The guy in front of me reeks of garlic but is holding a cinnamon bagel and a smoothie.

When I finally get back outside the wind and noise from the city feels like a cool bath. I walk down to the library and sit on the front steps, eating my breakfast and watching the city shake off the hangovers from the night before. I'm smack dab in the middle of a double shift so my senses are on fire and I can tell who spent the night in the company of a tequila bottle (brown suit, blue tie) and who didn't get a wink of sleep thanks to a marathon viewing of first season Star Trek episodes (green skirt, comfortable shoes)

I'm sleep deprived and a bit loopy from 7 back to back intakes within the past 5 hours but the heady buzz it leaves me is almost worth it. I check my watch and realize I should be on my way to the West Side by now. The bus stop is only a block away so I don't rush, not today. I'm tempted to just slip under right here and let people move through me, but I don't.

Several hours later the heady buzz has worn off and I'm just plain tired. One more intake to go and I stop in at BP for a coffee.

"You don't want that one", a voice from across the shop. I put the coffee pot down and look up. A woman with the black, kinky hair of a gypsy walks over to me, "For reals," she's chewing fruit gum, "This shit has been sitting here all day. If you really want Columbian, I'll fire up another pot."

"Uh, no," I shake my head, and blink hard, "No, I just need caffeine, I don't really care what it is."

She smiles and nods toward an unlabelled pot behind the others. "That's the one I make for myself. If you really need a punch then it's there. Otherwise, the French Roast is pretty nice." Her smile makes her gum snap.

I offer up a smile of my own as she walks back to the counter. I grab the pot from the back, pour a cup and throw in a few shots of milk. I take a cautious sip and realize she's right - this shit is strong. There's a line of people behind me when I get up t pay so I just life the cup and thank her for the recommendation. She takes my money but hands most of it back again with a wink, "No problem, darlin'."

Halfway down the block and less than a quarter through the coffee and I feel the surge. It feels like she's brewed the shit with meth. It's early afternoon and the streets are peppered with people on their lunch breaks and others who have been lounging around the city all day. I begin to make my way toward the rapid station, digging through my pockets for my RTA card and thinking about how good it will feel to sink into the couch after this pick-up.

The walk from the station to Malcolm's office is just far enough to smoke a cigarette and clear my head. By the time I push open the door to his building I feel a second wind coming on. It's not hard to find him in the bank offices. He's on the phone, smiling as he twirls a pencil between his thumb and fuck you finger. "You let me know when everything's in place," he leans back in his chair, "and we'll go forward from there."

He nods twice and hangs up the phone. I check my watch and come around to his side of the desk. The spreadsheet he has open makes my head swim and I check my watch one last time, hear the catch in his breath and slide a hand across his shoulders.

That's when it hits me - The Fear. Very few people are totally unafraid when they die - most people are frightened, nervous, confused and sad. But then there are those who are out of their minds terrified. Malcolm, as it turns out, is one of these people. His fear shoots through me with a freezing edge and for a minute I almost jerk my hands away.

But I don't.. Instead I hold on that little bit tighter and I feel it, take a deep breath and try not to hyperventilate. I feel his panic and I instantly know that he never wrote the book he thought he would, that he never went back to Niagra Falls after he divorced his first wife, that his last words to his current wife that morning were "Why do I have to do every god damn thing?" before slamming out of the house. I feel his brain scrabbling for something to hold onto and I do my best to give it what it needs - a soft landing.

Two minutes later and his body is still in his chair but he's in my arms, on the floor. His eyes are nothing but tears as he looks up at me.

"This can't be happening," he sobs.

I smile, try to steady the shake in my hands, "I'm Emily."

Top

Kindness in the Kill
Marcus "Pistol" Dunn, 8.57pm, Car Accident

An hour before I'm due to meet Marcus Paul calls me in.

"We have a transfer," he says, not even looking up from his monitor, "I need you to give her a tour."

I know better than to complain. I agree to meet her after I see Marcus.

"Oh," Paul finally looks up, "And we're loaning you a car."

I can't hide the smile but I do manage to keep myself from hugging him.

"You can pick it up outside."

Outside there's a beat up Ford pickup truck waiting for me. It's rustbucket green and has obviously seen better days. But it looks perfect to me and I grab the keys from behind the back left tire, shake them in my hands and slide in.

She starts up with a screech and a shudder and it rings like sweet, sweet freedom in my ears. I doubt I'll have her long - loaners never tend to last more than a few months at best - but already I want to fill up the tank, pick a highway and just start driving.

Instead I shake off the edge of the buzz and head downtown. I park up in a little known alley not far from Tower City and walk the few remaining blocks.

Marcus earned the nickname Pistol when he was four and jumped from the top of the stairs, barrelling into his father's midsection as a way to postpone bedtime. That's one of the great things about this job. The random memories that filter in as the time grows near and you zero in on the next mark.

When I turn the corner I hold back a second. Marcus is pissing into the street. He finishes but doesn't move for a second and I check my watch. Please don't let him die with his dick in his hand. No, I still have a few more minutes. It's always terrible when they go out like that. This job is awkward enough.

He stuffs himself back into his jeans and shifts under the layers he's wearing. He looks like he's been homeless awhile and I don't try to find the memories that tell that story. Being under tends to dull any senses connected with the real world but even through the fuzz Marcus reeks of cheap liquor and greasy sweat.

He turns and begins walking down the street, I follow and pick up the speed as the minute hand nudges a little closer.

He never sees the black Cavalier which screeches to a halt less than a second after it hits him. A man with sloppy hair shoves his head out the passenger side window and then starts shouting "Go! Go! Go!"

Marcus is in my arms by then. I hold on tight as he shudders from one existence to another.

He looks up at me and smiles. I can feel him melting into me and it's not sorrow, or fear or relief. A million memories pass between us and when I open my eyes I realize I'm crying.

"I'm so glad you're here," he says.

I smile, stand up and offer him my hand. "Let me give you a ride."