Memories of Slorda

Ralph was a peculiar man. The giant, blond Scandinavian had spent most of his childhood - and early adulthood - in his mother's cottage, experimenting with foul-smelling mixtures. When he was nearing his greasy-haired, thirty-fifth birthday, the inevitable occurred; Slorda Larsen had turned him down. He had met Slorda years ago, when they were both thirteen. He'd been rehearsing for twenty-two years, and finally had brought himself to ask her out.

But Slorda would have none of it. She had giggled, then pulled a face. And then she had walked away without answering, just shaking her head. He thought he saw her later on, mouthing something to her friend that looked like either "Slimeball" or "I'm bald." Ralph had hung his head in shame. Slorda was not bald.

It was then that Ralph had turned to his childhood heroes. He had pulled out a wooden box full of painted wooden slabs, the Medieval precursor of trading cards. He had plunged his hand into the box, emerging with a random slab. And there, staring up at him, was Fllyd the Alchemist. And Ralph had known exactly what to do.

He had stood on the doorstep of the Larsen home in the pouring rain, pouring out his heart and vowing to find a way to eternal life in exchange for Slorda's love. The upper window curtain had parted, and one of Slorda's shoes had fallen onto the porch in front of him. He had taken it as a sign of devotion.

Unfortunately, when he did, indeed, find the secret to everlasting life, seven years had gone by, and Slorda had moved to a neighboring village, working for a lutfisk import ship. He had searched her out, and she had informed him quite tersely that the shoe was, in fact, thrown, and that no amount of immortality would ever tempt the beautiful, middle-aged Slorda to desert her career aspirations.

Seven hundred years had passed, and Ralph had moved on. He had enjoyed what aspects of life were available to the immortal, although he had never asked a girl out again. Somewhere toward the end of the eighteenth century, he had moved to France and discovered the joys of fishless food. He had studied under every great chef he could find, devouring the knowledge and its results voraciously. Thanks to a swift metabolism, the giant remained thin as ever, but still had to change his hair color and appearance frequently to keep from being recognized too widely. Even after seven centuries, Ralph wasn't really interested in offering immortality to anyone else.

And then Death had come. He'd been expecting it, really, but he hadn't expected him to be so persistent. Or violent. Eventually, it had been decided that Ralph would help Death with his job, on condition his body receive no harm in the meantime. He wasn't worried about that; Ted the Reaper was a man of his word, as far as Ralph could tell.

And so, Ralph the Scythe (as he had fashioned himself) now stalked away from the soccer stadium, swinging Death's scythe idly by his side and whistling. Several hundred at one structural collapse, and he hadn't even hit lunch break yet. It was going to be a good day.

Ralph the Alchemist

Ralph the Alchemist - not an intimidating title. In spite of this he was really giving Ted a rough time. Usually Ted just hung around awhile and let nature take its course. Occasionally he'd speed things up a little, a good scare can hasten a heart attack or stroke. Not so with Ralph.

It wasn't that Ralph was resisting, he just wasn't dying. He had plenty of reasons to die; cancer, congestive heart failure, a ruptured kidney (Death did that one himself with a vicious blow from Frodo's stick when Ralph told him to take flying ... well it wasn't polite, or even possible.)

Ted was beginning to wonder if Ralph was actually right. Perhaps he was immortal.

Oh there are immortals, death came to mind. Of course it was more of a title than a person. After all, lots of people die, you can't expect one guy to do it all. Who did people think he was, Santa? Then there was Santa - special case, like fairies, all those kids faith can keep even a fat old man going forever. And vampires with all the murders and blood sucking. They weren't really immortal, just hard to kill. Even the gods die eventually. Whose seen Zeus in the last millineum?

But Ralph, who the hell believes in Ralph? He'd smell a devil pact. That only left one answer - science. Ralph had done it. He was immortal. Or at least his body was.

That was the problem. The body.

"Ralph, aren't you tired?" Ted asked.

"No, not really. Immortality means no sleeping."

"No sleep? No dreams? No rest? No waking up on Sunday morning to the paper and smell of frying bacon?" Death asked.

"I had bacon this morning, sausage too. I don't need to watch my diet. I'm immortal." Ralph shot back.

"I ment the waking part not the bacon part. Don't you miss it?"

"Well, yes. I guess I do. But I won't be waking up once I'm dead anyway."

"Why not have both. Be immortal and dead. We get to sleep you know, and travel and see things. And with an immortal body you could always come back and walk around, get a sandwich, whatever." Ted said.

"You're trying to trick me! You're Death."Ralph said.

"True, I am Death, but I'm not dead. I could use an apprentice. We have great benefits. You could meet all the great alchemist who failed at what you've done. Learn to transmute metals, and as Death you can do all kinds of party tricks. Animate the dead, possession, lots of cool things. I can even give you three out of four weekends off."

"I don't know. I worked really hard for this."

"So, we'll leave your body in a tomb in the cemetery, tucked in a corner and you can come back on the weekend after trying it out. I mean how bad can being Death be? Besides - there is no pain when you're dead." Ted told him.

"That is tempting. My kidney is really throbbing."

"Sorry, I bet the cancer is killing you too."

"Not anymore!" Ralph laughed. "You're right. I'll do it. I feel like I'm at a party and I've overstayed my welcome. Let's go."

Twenty minutes later Ralph's cold still form was settled behind the Smedley monument outside the old church. Death was taking a holiday and Ralph was in a new cloak, sporting a scythe and on his way to a soccer match in an old stadium that wasn't built to code.

Ted Death took a minute to watch the bulldozers come down the road to level the church. The bodies had been moved last week. Liberty Meadows would be building 200 houses here. Ted wondered how long it would take Ralph to look for his body. When Ted took the job it was almost twenty years before he went back.

It's nice to enjoy your work.

Day 2

Michael shuffled along, just one step behind Death. "What exactly do people do in the Realm of Souls?"

Death sighed to himself. Most of the Recently Dead had a good spell of denial to start off with, then resigned themselves to trudging silently behind him. Every now and then, some idiot would get it in his head to run, but eventually they'd come back when they realized there simply wasn't a way back into their old body. A soul needs a body to do anything really useful, although every now and then one would run off for good and Death would get impatient and leave them. On a slow day, sometimes he'd make some rounds at a local haunted house. A ghost of a hundred years was usually bored enough to come along by then.

Michael, on the other hand,was not quite frightened enough to remain silent, and not quite stupid enough to be entertaining. He was just, well - irritating. And not in a very active way, either; he was just bland and dull and awkward and irritating. In fact, Death suspected he might be a real twit. He slouched along his bespectacled way, nervously flattening a few wisps of hair that looked as though they were still deciding between the color of straw and cauliflower. He still had a butterscotch in his mouth; he hadn't spit it out since it choked him to death, for some reason.

"The Realm of Souls," said Death in his most businesslike voice, "is not a place for 'doing' things. It is a place for being. A place for becoming, if you want to be optimistic."

The Twit was relentless. "But how can you be something without doing something?"

Death sighed again. In all reality, it was a very good question. But Death was tired of answering nervous questions. In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn't actually been inside the gates of the Realm for several thousand years. He wasn't really sure how they were running things these days. He thought back to his last visit. He seemed to remember playing a lot of chess.

The Twit gave a small, startled yelp as they entered a Soul Tunnel. The flat, blank landscape of Kansas melted down the horizon like an impressionist painting, slowly forming the outline of a Chinese village. Michael gave another small yelp as Death took a more traditional form. He didn't particularly enjoy frightening small children, but the more superstitious elders would never follow him if he showed up in an American business suit. And the last thing anyone needed in this village was an old, cantankerous woman throwing a fit without a body.

The strange, gray bobcat jumped onto the dead woman's shoulder, staring at her with a Cheshire grin. It then leaped off and started back for the forest, where Michael was waiting. The woman followed, and didn't question him when he became a man again. He'd gained the respect he needed. He did, however, choose more traditional garb this time.


"Halt, Stranger! What business have you at the gates of the Dead?"

Death raised a hand and nodded his chin toward the gatekeeper. "Warm welcome to you too, Frodo."

The skeleton grinned (as skeletons are wont to do.) "Ted! Certainly you can't begrudge me a good introduction to the newcomers?" Of course, Ted couldn't. The Twit and the old woman stood with mouths agape as the two Myths exchanged news.

"Have you heard from the Oracle?"

"Nothing. I'm afraid she's been avoiding me lately."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"In a moment of rashness, I made an improper advance."

"Ah. That would do it."

"Why do you ask? Has she spoken of me?"

"No, I'm afraid not. She had some interesting predictions for the Gnomes, though. Rather high death count predicted in the east. Should be busy for awhile."

"How marvelous! Do send her my best, would you?"

"The best of a bag of bones might be difficult to work with, friend."

"I've told you, call me Frodo."

"We all know you haven't even read that book."

"But don't you think it's a fitting name? For a gatekeeper, I mean."

"Not really, no."

Frodo sagged a little into his ribcage. "Hmmph," he said moodily. "Well, then, let's see their papers." He waved a bony hand in front of the old woman, who was petrified. She had her eyes closed and was muttering feverishly in Cantonese. A large scroll of parchment appeared in the skeleton's hand, and he spent several long minutes examining the writing. Finally, he rolled it up, vanished it with another wave, and proclaimed, "C Sector, Lixlao Street, number 5K." A goblin appeared at his knee and escorted the woman through the gate.

The process repeated for Michael, whose knees appeared to be quivering like head cheese. "Do you still have that walking stick on you, by any chance?" Ted the Reaper asked.

"The All-Powerful Twig? You know only Time can use-"

"No, no," said Death. "I meant the knock-off. The Stick of Persuasion. I've got to pick up an alchemist next week, and it's going to take some doing. Thinks he's immortal, you know?"

Frodo nodded knowingly. "By all means. Let yourself in, Ted. It's behind my desk in the third office. I'd hate to have to persuade the man myself."