Fired!

Mrs. McGrady's Visitor

Mrs. McGrady was busy making tea when the knocking started.

She looked up from her kettle, frowning, and wondered aloud, "Now who could that be?" before slowly shuffling across the wooden floor to answer her door. She had to kick her fat old cat, Stubbons, out of the way. The cat looked up at her with that serious, angry look that cats always wear when they've been disturbed, then slowly turned and waddled off to find a more comfortable place to nap.

Mrs. McGrady finally reached the door and flung it open.

"Oh," she said, feigning surprise at the figure that stood on her front porch. "It's you." Her old, withered face twisted into something that resembled a sneer.

The skeleton face beneath the black hood smiled back at her, but said nothing. He merely shrugged, his bony shoulders clacking as he did so.

Mrs. McGrady crossed her arms defensively across her chest. "I know why you're here."

Death grinned. The old woman ran a hand through her frizzy rain cloud gray hair and sighed.

She looked over her bifocals and squinted, taking in the skeleton figure at her door. His bones were yellowed with age, though most were concealed beneath his black robe, which seemed to swirl and darken, as if woven from threads made of shadows. His bony fingers clasped around a twisted scythe with a blade that seemed to wink at her in the fading light of the evening.

"Well, it was only a matter of time," Mrs. McGrady sighed.

The reaper's smile appeared to grow wider. "Yes," he said, his voice low and oddly melodic. "It was."

The woman was a bit taken aback. She'd been expecting something more sinister to match the image.

"Well," she huffed. "Come in then. Make yourself comfortable. It's not like I'm going to get rid of you very easily am I?" She turned to go back into her house and shuffled, almost angrily, toward the kitchen, muttering to herself.

Death followed her slowly, apparently not in any hurry at all, and casually took a seat at the table in the kitchen. He rested his scythe up against the wall.

"Would you like some tea?" Mrs. McGrady asked, not even bothering to look up from her kettle.

"Yes, please."

"Sugar?"

"No, thanks." Death reached for yesterday's newspaper, which sat opened on the table, and turned to the classifieds. "I'm on a diet," he added. When Mrs. McGrady failed to find the joke, he cleared his throat and said, "I'll have two, please."

Mrs. McGrady sniffed and handed him his cup of tea. "Looking for a job, are you?" She took a sip of her own tea. "Thinking of retiring?"

Death shook his head. "It's for a friend," he explained, glancing over the want ads.

"Got lots of friends, do you?"

Death shrugged. "I meet lots of people." He tapped a bony finger thoughtfully on the counter. "They aren't usually as inviting as you, though."

The old woman scoffed and took a seat, more than a bit reluctantly, across from the reaper. "Well, go on," she said after a moment of rather odd silence. "Get on with it."

Death looked up innocently from the paper. "Get on with what?"

Mrs. McGrady gestured toward his scythe. "That," she said.

"Can't we just talk a bit first?"

"Why?"

"Why?" The reaper set down the paper and stared at her. "Are you in a hurry to go somewhere?" Mrs. McGrady averted her gaze, unable to stare back into those cold, dark sockets.