A Story from Death In my line of work, I only see and do. I go about my day, taking the souls and sending them on. Or at least, that’s what I try to do. I never get a break. Don’t mistake my frankness as a complaint. It’s simply a fact. Humans never cease with the illnesses, the accidents, and, of course, the fights. I don’t blame you. It’s just how humans are. This is not to say humans are all the same. Not at all. Each of you are different, equine and unlike any other in some way. But there is one part of human nature which has remained unchanged throughout the course of history. War. War never changes. WW1 was no exception. 9,911,000 souls I picked over the course of this war. But, I digress. As I’ve said, I never get a break, but this does not bother me. Who else could take my place? That’s right, no one. I do allow myself the distraction of color however. I’ve seen every second of everyday, and every color that goes along with it. You may be wondering why I’ve brought up color. It’s to distract me from the newly departed, and the ones left behind. Some try to speak with me, pled for more time, ask why, exedra. I do well at ignoring these questions, for I have no answer. I do not control the nature of humans, I simply clean up after it. The colors do usually keep me distracted enough to just send them on. Usually. There have been a few instances where color has failed me and I become too interested in a soul. This brings me to a particular one, Derek Archer. This soul was fairly young, and one of the many unfortunate victims of war. I’ve seen so many victims over years, so why did this one matter? His story, his colors, and the ones he left behind. Those are what interested me. I met Private Derek Archer that December day in 1917, along with many others, on the blood drenched battle ground of Cambrai, France. The sky was a color I will never forget. A smoky greyish-red, with black lighting struck across it. The humans were scurrying through their trenches like lab rats in a maze. My presence was constant in those trenches; and I breezed through them unnoticed, collecting the fallen. I saw him before his death, a rare instance for me. I hardly arrive early, but I was practically living alongside those humans in their mile long, pre-dug graves. He was crouched near a higher wall of the trench, reloading his gun. All the humans on his side of the trenches had on plain green uniforms, though you couldn’t tell the uniforms were green on most of them. Derek had his dented metal helmet on tightly. He rose up and fired a shot across the open field of no-man’s-land. His shot landed itself in some Italian across the way; I met him a short while later. As Archer went to stoop back down for cover, a stray bullet buried itself squarely in his chest. He stood there, stunned for a moment, watching as red stained the front of his filthy uniform. The thing that has always struck me about him was his eyes in that moment. The realization was crystal clear in those eyes. He was going to die, he knew it right then and there, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The private slowly lowered himself to his knees, hand going to his chest. He slumped against the dirt wall and tossed his brain bucket to the frozen, red earth. It skipped across the ground, denting even more as it went. The abused helmet stopped before me. I was ten feet from him. Derek sat, his leaf green eyes focused on a locket in his hand as gunshots rang out around him. Then he looked right at me, and nodded. I’ve met humans that can sense me, but I have never been acknowledged by a living soul. Granted, he was gone the minute his eyes met mine. I walked over and sat beside what was Derek Archer. His soul was calm and warm. He had closed his own eyes. He could have been sleeping, if it weren’t for the blood staining the front of his chest. When I took his soul, I saw a flash of several colors; sky blues, soft reds, sharp greens, cloudy greys, and
