City of IF :: View topic - Grim Reaping Chapter Thirteen

through

[^/[Print]\]

City of IF -> Grim Reaping

#1: Grim Reaping Chapter Thirteen Author: ashkent, Location: Conversing with the Backside

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:35 pm
—
After cleaning up the mess in the Cote d’Azur, I had just enough space to add Gordon Gibbs to my list before more names continued to fill it up.

I’m certain some entities, humans in particular, believe that I have infinite control over life. If it were that simple I would be able to control when everyone and everything died and make my existence a much simpler affair.

Over many uncounted millennia I have been able to manipulate the list in small ways. None of them have ever made lasting impressions on reality. I have not caused Black Holes to open up and swallow worlds, or disturbed too many television signals so these little amendments have gone largely unnoticed.
I do say largely.

I almost triggered something they named The Millennium Bug by trying to reconfigure the name generation speed. No one could blame me for wanting to slow the process down for a short while. I just mixed up the paths of energy that bring the names to me with those that happen to run many devices on Earth and other planets. Thankfully, I realised what would happen with one second to spare before the first galaxy tripped into the year two thousand and someone noticed I’d been tinkering with the list.

Adding the occasional name does not register even a slight blip on the fabric of reality providing I am very careful about the names I add. Removing them is strictly forbidden though. I cannot extend the life of any being, whether it be human, animal, or Uranian, without causing unknown damage to every other living thing.

The name of Gordon Gibbs manifested on the list as thought it had arrived of its own accord. His name sat in line, patiently waiting behind those preceding it. The only thing that singled it out from the others was a lack of death mode.

If adding names to the list did not cause destruction on a mass scale, it created the headache of needing to instigate the passing of the soul.

“Arr ar?”

Of course, nothing said I needed to instigate it.

“I’ve got a few more calls to make first,” I said. “You know they need to be collected in order. However, if you think you can manage to watch him until I get there…”

“Arr! Arr!”

“Calm down before you break something.”

“Arr.”

“Right. Touch the name and get going.”

Pinkie scuttled over to the list dangling from my fingers, his strangely short but skinny legs carrying him quickly to my side. He stretched out a thin, large knuckled finger and tapped Gibbs’ name.

“Well done,” I said. “You didn’t stick your nail through it this time.”

Pinkie made a happy grunt and poked the same nail up inside his left nostril.

“Must you?” I said. “Just when I think you’re becoming a little more civilised you go and lower yourself. Now, go and keep an eye on him.”

* * * *

There are first times for everything. Pinkie managing to follow my exact instructions for once - and I do believe it will only be once – took me by surprise and made me wonder if I was being observed in my work by senior management. Either that or Carla Chance was having a slow day and playing around with her own rules.

I arrived at the site of Gibbs’ impending death to find Pinkie sitting on the table with his face less than a hair’s breadth from that of our target.

“What are you doing?” I found myself asking.

“Arrar,” Pinkie replied without moving.

“Are you short sighted? Or are you watching his nasal hair?”

Pinkie shuffled backwards, his shiny rear end squeaking as he moved. Gibbs looked around, appearing to sense something amiss but unable to pinpoint what or where it was. If the space between my time and that containing everything else were any thinner, I wondered how many would be driven insane by the sounds they could not place.

“So I assume you have just been sitting here watching him?” I asked, propping my scythe against a cupboard.

Pinkie nodded, his attention still dedicated fully to Gibbs with a determined focus the likes of which I had never seen from him. The one time I relied on the most accident prone, incapable cretin from hell to make a balls up of a simple task and he suddenly developed a sense of pride in his work.

I have heard a saying that to get a job done right you must do it yourself. It seems that getting one done wrong shares the principle.

“So,” I said, gazing around the room. “How are we going to do this?”

Usually the location of a death had hazards littered as far as the eye could see. Blunt instruments. Deep water. Loose electric cables. Nooses and knives and nails and pills and…something. The difference was that those places were meant to be a place of death, and became so because someone was in the right place at the right time. For me anyway.

The problem I found here was a distinct lack of…anything. The room had little more than a table, a cupboard and a sink. It seemed peculiar that there were no personal possessions, no signs that anyone actually used the room, no life as it were.

Yet Gibbs sat at the table, unmoving, waiting perhaps. Waiting for what though?

Curiosity wiggled a tempting finger in my eye socket. I could easily wait with him, I had eternity after all. I also had a job to do and the longer I spent with Gibbs, the larger the subsequent clean would become. I had been in the room no time at all and already the list had compiled itself beyond the point I could see the names. They were still adding, just out of my perception until I cleared some room.

“Has he been like this all the time?” I asked Pinkie, moving around to view the seated man from a different angle.

“Arr.”

“He hasn’t moved at all?”

“Ar.”

I thought a moment. “Pull yourself across the table again.”

Pinkie obeyed without his eyes leaving Gibbs.

The squeal of shiny flesh rang in my head for a moment then two things happened simultaneously.

Pinkie, his concentration still set dead ahead, slid just a little to far and toppled to the floor with a shriek and a thump, and Gordon Gibbs looked directly at me.

“Are you planning on staying here all night?” he said.

#2: Author: scissorkitty, Location: Escaping the Hair Lair

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:39 pm
—
yay!

that's exciting.

And, i GUESS.... the answer would be, "Not exactly. Were you planning on offing yourself anytime soon? Id' be willing to leave after that."

is he a medium?

#3: Author: Chinaren, Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:16 pm
—
Ha! Nice one. Well...

"Well, if you would hurry up and die, I'd be able to get out of here."

Very Happy

#4: Author: Crunchyfrog,

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:11 am
—
Well, the outcome of the previous DP (how can Mr. Gibb help) was a tie between him being a tailor who's got an order to make 256 green lycra suits, and he has also sold his house to Mr. Wee.

Perhaps that is why the room is so empty - everything's already been moved out, including the 256 green suits (in various states of assemblement)

Since Grim doesn't know about the green suits and the house sale yet, his answer would have to be something that would trigger Gibb to provide that information. I think his answer would be thus:

"I want Wee."

#5: Author: ashkent, Location: Conversing with the Backside

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:05 am
—

Crunchyfrog wrote:

Well, the outcome of the previous DP (how can Mr. Gibb help) was a tie between him being a tailor who's got an order to make 256 green lycra suits, and he has also sold his house to Mr. Wee.

Perhaps that is why the room is so empty - everything's already been moved out, including the 256 green suits (in various states of assemblement)

Since Grim doesn't know about the green suits and the house sale yet, his answer would have to be something that would trigger Gibb to provide that information. I think his answer would be thus:

"I want Wee."

Well Crunchy, you got the reason right for the house being pretty bare. Keep these lines coming and I'm going to try and use as many of them as possible in the conversation that will dominate the next chapter.

#6: Author: scissorkitty, Location: Escaping the Hair Lair

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:30 am
—
yay! That's fun.. getting to write the dialogue! Interesting DP kind of thing, Ashkent!

In answer to Crunchy's input of, "I want Wee"

i would suggest that Gibb would answer...

"If you need to use the little Reaper's room, I should think you'd hardly need to ask. Then again, if you furry friend was able to hold it in all day, and you don't even have a bladder... perhaps your reputation is greatly overrated."

#7: Author: Crunchyfrog,

Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:10 am
—
Pinkie - "Arr arr arrrr."

(translated - Nah, I relieved myself in your sink while you weren't looking.)

#8: Grim Reaping Chapter Fourteen Author: ashkent, Location: Conversing with the Backside

Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:54 pm
—
Chapter 14 is now up. I did use three of the suggestions, although my fingers kind of took over and altered them slightly.

City of IF -> Grim Reaping

output generated using printer-friendly topic mod. All times are GMT - 8 Hours

Page 1 of 1