A Six O'Clock Appointment With Death (A Short Story)

A Six O’Clock Appointment With Death
by Matthew Stalbaum

Max answered the door to find the mailman there, looking inexplicably solemn, holding out a stack of bills and magazines. On top, eclipsing a bright IKEA logo, sat Death’s appointment card. Max, only twelve, had never seen one in person before, but he knew the image well from movies and TV shows: Death’s scythe, tilted to the right, the long blade shimmering against a glossy black background. The quality was impressive, actually, but Max didn’t see the family keeping it around. “Sorry about this,” the mailman said. “Is Gary home?”

Gary was Max’s Grandpa, and was, for a man in his 80’s, in great health, well enough to take long walks through the neighborhood, then come back and lift Max up off the ground, feet dangling freely. He spoke loud and laughed louder, and enjoyed boasting that he could still shoot a deer from fifty yards, and would if Grandma hadn’t forbidden him from hunting ever again. This was not a man marked for Death. “Must be a mistake,” Max told the mailman. “Grandpa’s fine, date’s probably wrong. Thanks anyway.”

He forced a smile to be polite and started closing the door. It stopped sharply on the mailman’s foot, wedged against the door-frame. The mailman shook the pile of mail impatiently, the black card sliding along the IKEA magazine, silver blade glinting in the sun. “No mistakes,” he said. “Just take it to him please? This is hard enough as is.” He sounded honest and uncomfortable, his eyes pleading for an easy exit. A few cars drove by slowly, while the white mail-truck hummed softly by the curb, ready to continue on with the day’s deliveries. USPS policy required Death’s cards be hand-delivered to an actual person at the address. Max felt a tinge of remorse over this. He also didn’t believe much in bureaucracy. He opened the door back up, enough to stare at the mailman, and stood dead still. His nose itched, but he held his hand back to maintain the glare. “You can keep it,” he said, with a nod to the card. “Pretend it got lost. Mail gets lost.” He liked the idea of Death being waylaid by his cards falling out of sight to the mail-truck floor, slipping between the seats, getting blown out an open window and carried away with the wind.

“Doesn’t work like that,” the mailman said, “he’ll show up anyway.” Max stared at him a bit longer, his mind reaching for another bargaining tool that couldn’t be tossed off by a strict adherence to scheduling and paperwork. He stomped his foot in defeat and took the mail. “This sucks.”

“I deliver these every day kid,” the mailman said, “I know.” He began to leave, paused for a second. “You’ll live, trust me. Take it easy.” Then he walked back to his truck to continue his route, driving over to the next house to slip their mail into the slot. Max watched him carry on, but the mailman couldn’t sense his ill-will across the street. He settled for sitting down in one of the iron-work chairs on the porch and dropping the stack of mail on the small table beside him.

Cloud-shadows passed over the house and the lawn, casting the neighborhood in alternating light and shade. A cool wind blew through, nearly carrying the black card away. Max snatched it in mid-air, by reflex. He still had yet to read the details, but his curiosity wasn’t burning for them.

He and his parents had come down from New York City to Virginia for their once-a-year trip – they all hated Virginia. The air was too humid, there were too many mosquitoes. But Grandma and Grandpa were there, and despite being eaten alive by the insects, Max loved when his parents and grandparents sat on the front porch after dinner, during sunset, and talked of days past, becoming their younger selves again. Everyone had good stories, but Grandpa’s were the best. His words were the most poetic, his voice growing deep and rugged as he lost himself in his days growing up in the deep-south, working in the Navy, then as an ambulance driver. Max could close his eyes and see the old man’s life play out: the ocean stretching to the horizon as a battleship swayed beneath his feet; driving, sirens blaring, through rush-hour traffic, weaving only inches away from other drivers. Time shifted beneath that voice. Now there was Death’s card, and Max felt that the day should match the event, that storms should have been howling and hard rains falling. As it was, he sighed and glanced at the card.

It was a typical appointment card, unassuming and ominous. The surface was so smooth it was unsettling, the sensation sticking to Max’s fingers until he rubbed them along his jeans. Up close the scythe-blade was cut sharp, and the wooden handle was finely detailed, with swirling patterns in the grain, impressive if not a little too showy. Max flipped the card over for the details and winced. Printed neatly by hand on three separate lines: “Gary Parson, 6 PM, Natural Causes.” “Are you kidding me,” he huffed under his breath. It was already noon, which meant only six more hours of Grandpa, and not even enough time for sundown, when the day’s circumstances and the fading light made his stories glow in Max’s head. He noticed, at the bottom, a phone number, under the heading “Death Services.” Max walked around to the side of the house and pulled out his cell-phone.

A woman picked it up, speaking in a hollow, monotone voice: “Death services, how may I help you.” Max wondered vaguely if the souls of the dead could be hired as receptionists.

“Gary Parson residence?” she asked.

“How did you know who…”

“Caller I.D.” she explained. She added, “Sorry for your imminent loss.”

“Could we possibly reschedule?” he asked, “maybe next week? Or even move it down a few hours? Nine or ten tonight would be great.”

“No-can-do, no rescheduling. We understand this is a difficult time and can refer you to grief-counseling…”

“I don’t want grief-counseling, I just…can’t he come some other time?”

“Can’t swing that honey, the boss has to keep his appointments. If he let you change a time of death, then suddenly everyone…” Max could hear the mailman’s hopelessness in her voice too, droning on her pre-prepared speech that she probably gave every caller. Now Max wondered if Hell meant being hired to work for Death. “I can put you through to our complaint department,” she offered, “though you may be on hold for a while…”

“I don’t think I have that kind of time,” he said.

“Well thanks for calling,” she said before hanging up. Max wondered how many people called to complain about Death – bad timing, absurd causes, poor service to his clientele. He probably misspelled names, frequently.

Grandpa, seated in his recliner in the living room, took a few seconds to read the details of the card, then flipped it around to admire the front. “Nicer than they used to be,” he said with a chuckle, “I’m surprised. They used to look like they came straight from Hell.”

“But you’ve only got six,” Max checked his watch, “five and a half hours left! The card’s practically useless.” The rest of the family was out back, still oblivious of the news. “You don’t even look sick. Don’t you think it’s messed up?”

“It seems a little soon,” Grandpa said, “but no pain is a blessing. Not many get that.” He tossed the card on the table and sank deeper into the recliner. “And at least I get to be with you all before he comes.” His eyes closed, he breathed easy, the wrinkles on his face smoothed in peace.

“But it’s unfair!” Max said, “he’s ruining our visit. Death sucks!”

Grandpa smiled, leaned forward, ruffled Max’s hair. “Dying’s no big thing,” he said, “we all gotta do it. Now,” he said as he stood, taking the card, “better go break the news.”

Out back the air was cooler, and there was the smell of freshly cut grass. Everyone took the news easy. Grandma hugged Grandpa for a long time and kissed him. “It was a good life,” she said quietly, “we’ll just have dinner early then.” Max’s mother, Denise, cried calmly for her father, then wiped her tears away and smiled. Grandpa gave her and Max’s father a hug. They all spent the day with Grandpa casually, letting him choose the TV channel, sitting in silence with him on the porch. The house was quiet and calm, the family at peace. The black card sat on the coffee-table.

Max trailed Grandpa through the house, hoping for him to tell more stories, but the old man was content with silence. He wanted more, wanted his family to break their complaisance, to share his own outrage, confront Death, hold him off at the door when he finally came. He wanted consideration, someone to acknowledge what was sacred and suddenly ephemeral. Even more than all of that, he wanted Death to realize, for once, the importance of time to those who did not have nearly enough of it.

They ate dinner at 5:00. Conversation was lively; for spare, fleeting moments, Max would even forget about Death’s appointment. For one last time, Grandpa began to tell stories about when they first moved into this house, when they were younger people, different, adventurous – Max was enraptured. “Your mother” he began, and suddenly he saw her, his age, nothing like the calm, book-loving homebody she was now, racing boys (and winning) for fun, taking in stray cats, breaking her arm climbing a tree that was too tall. And Grandpa became 40 again, racing ambulances across the county, dodging traffic, driving incredible distances at impossible speeds, seeing people he’d delivered to the hospital walk out days later, alive and smiling. Max could see them super-imposed over each other, ghosts of the past possessing the present, their younger selves laughing through their older bodies. Max wondered if this is what happened when people died: a window opened up and the past sprang back to life one last time before something else was swallowed up into it.

At 5:59, Max glanced toward the front window and saw him coming across the sidewalk, black robe and all. Where his face should’ve been was a cavernous black hole, covered by his hood. Max saw him look around at neighbor’s houses, wave to a car driving by. He seemed strangely friendly, if not a little awkward. At 6:00, when the doorbell rang, the family shared pained smiles and glances with each other. “I’m guessing that’s for me,” Grandpa said with a wry smile on his face. He stood up to answer the door. No one had noticed that Max was already there, swinging it open.

Death’s head reached to the top of the door-frame, while his scythe reached his shoulders. He looked down at Max and waved hello with a hand covered by a black glove. “Just in time,” Grandpa called out to him. “Max, let him through. Could I get you anything? Tea? A bit of food?” Death shook his hand politely and patted his stomach.

Max stomped a foot to regain his attention. “You’re late,” he lied. Death shook his head calmly. “Fine, you’re early then. Come back some other time.”

“Max,” his mother shouted, “Don’t be rude to guests.”

“He’s not a guest,” Max yelled back, “he’s Death, and he could’ve picked any other day, any other time to come. He didn’t even bother to ask us when would be convenient.”

Death heaved with a sigh, his robes swaying gently, and reached into the loose, hanging space of one of his sleeves. Max hoped it would be a blank appointment card on which they could write whatever date and time they wanted, “Gary Parson, Date to Be Determined, Cause: However He Wants.” Instead, Death pulled out a brightly-colored brochure, holding it out to Max. The cover read “Understanding Death: Not an Enemy, But a Friend.” Beneath it was a photograph of Death on a playground, young children climbing along his robes and laughing.

“I don’t want a brochure,” Max yelled. Death’s hand twitched back nervously. Max looked up into the space where a face should’ve been and began to feel like a bully. The way Death’s hood was slumped down gave Max a vague impression of sorrow, but he chose to ignore it. Death sighed again and placed his gloved hand on Max’s back, leading him out onto the porch.

They sat on the steps out there, Death on the left and Max on the right, looking down the endless street at the houses, people coming home from work and going out to dinner. Death’s robe brushed against Max’s skin – silk. He leaned his stick against the ground, pointing the blade towards himself. Max saw that the metal was worn and dull and had probably never been polished. The wooden handle was splintered and rough.

Death took a deep breath and began to make frantic gestures with his hands, somewhere between sign-language and charades, trying to explain himself. Occasionally he shrugged helplessly as he gestured to himself and the things around them. The longer he went on, the more Max wanted to stop him. He had imagined Death would be commanding. Now he thought it was a marvel he didn’t trip over his own robes. Death finished his display, breathing heavily, and the blackness of his face was tilted as he looked over at Max.

Max avoided Death’s gaze, looking down at the brochure he was still holding. “Your Death, unfortunately, cannot speak,” a bullet-point read, “but he has your dearest sympathies.” Another one: “Death, like your local policeman or the mayor of your town, is an essential job that must be done to keep our Cosmos running smoothly.” Even Max felt like it was talking down to him, but he could feel his thoughts shifting, his anger giving way to something more difficult to cope with.

He glanced down the street and saw another Death knocking at someone’s door. The Death glanced around casually and noticed Grandpa’s Death, and the two waved cheerfully at each other. The other Death gestured to his wrist, where a watch would be, but Grandpa’s Death just gave him an OK sign. Max could almost imagine them working at an office, typing in cubicles, chatting over coffee. The Deaths’ conversation was interrupted by the door opening on the other Death. The people of the house welcomed him in politely, the door shut, and the street was quiet again.

The sky had begun turning a dark blue. Passing cars honked their horns at Death, waving back as he waved to them. Max hunched over and wrapped his arms around his knees. “You just came too soon, is all.” Death rubbed a hand across Max’s back and shoulders, the glove moving awkwardly over his shirt. Max looked up and saw the blackness of his face staring at him with that tilted look again. He was so painfully human, it was hard not to imagine eyes there, filled with sympathy for the people he left behind.

Finally, Death stood up and went inside. Max followed him in, but stayed by the door. Death approached the dinner table, where his family still sat, listening to Grandpa tell a story about the first time he had ever seen Death, when his own mother had died. The Death in the story sat down and had tea with her and listened to her complain about the world as it was then. Grandpa’s Death leaned against a chair, too taken by the tale to bear stopping it. No one said a word, they only listened. Despite the black robe and scythe, Death looked entirely natural, comfortable, part of the family too.

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It's not often I post short stories here! Hopefully and ideally, I'll have a new one here every couple weeks, so here's hoping I can maintain that schedule.

I had this story idea for years before writing it to have workshopped by my Advanced Fiction class this Spring semester. It began just as a story about a boy confronting Death, but the bits about the past and storytelling, about the appointment cards and the kind of world that would make, didn't come up until later and later drafts.

This is my latest draft so far, mostly the product of laboring over this the past two nights. I'll say, I don't think it's a perfect story, but I am pretty pleased with it, which is maybe what you have to accept at a certain point when you're a perfectionist. It's a simple and enjoyable little tale, and that's good enough for me. Feel free to leave comments and criticisms (they'd be preferred actually!), and I'll be back next week, most likely with a set of poems to post.