Death: A Life by George Pendle Page B

picked fights with big scaly creatures with sharp claws. Such literally mindless bloodshed gave me plenty of schooling in my nerve-racking new profession. There was a certain technique for ejaculating souls out of bodies that was not as easy as it seemed, especially when combined with the performance anxiety I felt so acutely during my early days. When dealing with souls, I tried to be as friendly as possible—after all, this was a new experience for us both. But many of the souls were suspicious and peered out at me through the mouths of their dead bodies.
     

    It Didn’t Know What It Was Either.
     
    “What?” they’d say. “Afterlife? What’s wrong with this life? No, no, you go on without me.” I’d then have to point out that they had drowned in quicksand, or been torn apart by bears, or otherwise convince them of the hopelessness of their situation before they would agree to come out.
    Most souls, however, were not so much obstreperous as impatient. If I took too long, or if there had been a particularly localized slaughter, say in a meteorite shower, or forest fire, the souls would start to back up, and I’d be harangued by dozens of plaintive voices all telling me to hurry up. Some of the older creatures, such as the mayflies, who had lived full and rich lives, were gentler. “You just take your time, sonny, and don’t listen to them others,” they’d say, as I sweated to find their tiny souls.
    Toughest of all in my early days were the dinosaurs, who were rife with design faults. No sooner had you scooped the head and neck of their massive souls out of their body and finally worked your way down to the tail, then you’d find the head and neck had popped back into the body. What’s more, as their life flashed before their eyes they would often become convinced that they were alive again. Their souls would get up and lumber off, and I’d have to ask the other dead in the vicinity if they’d seen which way they went. I rarely got a straight answer.
    “I’d like to help you, son, I really would,” said one field mouse, who had been killed when a stegosaur collapsed on top of him, “but I don’t think it would be fair.”
    “He did kill you, you know,” I reasoned. “He squashed you flat.”
    “I know, I know,” said the field mouse, “but one must have solidarity with the living on these occasions.”
    This puzzled me a little. I didn’t like to think that it was “me” against “them.” In fact, in my early days, I tried to make dying as pleasant as possible for the recently deceased, before whisking them off into the Darkness as quickly as I could. “Whisk them away to what?” you may ask. I never really thought too much about where they were headed. It was beyond the scope of my job. Sure, there was talk of Salvation and Damnation, but I was hardly going to pay much attention to that now, was I? It was only later when I was shown the Grand Scheme of Things that I found out that everyone was initially supposed to have gone to Heaven, but the place got so overcrowded that half the afterlife was outsourced to Hell. There were complaints at first, but one afterlife is very much like another, give or take an infinite amount of torture.
    When it came to my relationship with the dead, dogs were the exception to the rule. They always seemed to like me, and I liked them. They never argued or complained, but their souls did have a tendency to bound out of their bodies, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and run in and out of the Darkness barking wildly. I’d try to catch them, but they’d think it was a game and dash away from me every time I came close. This happened so often that during my early days on Earth I was constantly surrounded by the souls of ten or twelve dogs who I just could not subsume into the void. They’d all peer at me while I worked, their heads cocked to one side, one ear bent backward, and bark madly when I had freed the soul.
    “Not very dignified, this,” said the