A Reap of Faith

Jobs suck, all of them. I have never met a person who hasn’t, at some point, said “I hate my freaking job.” Honestly, rack your brain and provide me with examples of people who love their jobs every day.

You know that guy you’re watching on TV right now? He’s about to score the game-winning goal. He gets paid five million dollars a year to play your favorite sport. Guess what—he still has days where he wants to quit.

The very nature of work is to make you have points where you hate it. Its redundancy guarantees you will get to that point.

The saving grace? Retirement—the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. That might be all that keeps you from starting your car in the garage the week your boss rides your ass for one mistake and just won’t let it go.

Here’s the thing: I hate my job too. Maybe more consistently. But I don’t have the luxury of looking forward to a set retirement plan. It makes me bitter and not particularly compassionate.

My only way out is to convince some poor sucker they want this job for what could be eternity. There aren’t many people as stupid as I was—who skipped the fine print on this one. But if I fell for the trap, anyone could.

That is where I find myself today: another day of work in a job that actually has no days off or any labor law protection, waiting for my latest customer.

This will be maybe 57,659 reaping. I am good at making sure all things are in order and getting souls to the right spot. I might be a top performer in the company, but it all seems hollow with no rewards. I need this to be my last one.

A little idea of how this works: when you die, you end up a drifting soul, looking at your body in astonishment. “Dammit, it’s really over” is a common refrain, followed by “Hey, where the hell is Saint Peter?”

That second one is where I come in. It is my job to get you to Saint Pete or whoever. Honestly, I haven’t gotten that far. I made a mistake when I croaked.

I was young and dumb when I died. I bet you watched all those Evel Knievel stunts and thought they looked easy. Turns out it takes a lot of preparation to jump a canyon. Also turns out if you didn’t know that before the jump, you learn it as a floating soul.

So here I am—dead, pissed off that I’m gone—and my reaper is there waiting. Jensen. Great dude. Well, he seemed that way. He started talking to me about how things were going to go and going over the paperwork.

“No way, man! I am not ready for cloud walks and all that. I want to stick around. Isn’t there a way to help me out?” I demanded, leaning into my white-privileged Karen voice.

Jensen smiled broadly. “Well, Steven, as a matter of fact, there is. You can’t go back to living, but you can stay right here on Earth and visit the entire globe. See the best shows. Watch the Toronto Maple Leafs finally win the Cup.”

My excitement overtook me. “Really? That sounds awesome! That can all happen?”

“Well, all of it besides the Leafs winning the Cup. That one probably will never happen again. But yeah. Look, I’ve been a reaper for a long time. You seem great. If you want, I would be willing to retire and that would allow you to take the job. In between reaps, you do whatever you want. You can’t physically interact with anything, but you see it all.”

“Where do I sign?”

That was 1987. I’m coming up on four decades. And you know what? I liked this gig for about three weeks. Turns out the interacting is the best part. Watching other people enjoy steak isn’t the same. And it appears he was right about the Leafs.

But today I found my guy. I’m making my pitch for freedom—to get to whatever eternity has to offer. That is why I am standing here, beside a river, below a bridge way up above. In a canyon where this all started.

Brett is his name, and he has always had a bucket-list dream of bungee jumping. The problem here: he is a tall gentleman who loves food and soda. So Brett is a very heavy dude. Clocking in at about three hundred sixty-five pounds. But his height makes him carry it as not quite as bad.

So the bungee-jumping operator took Brett’s word for it when he said he was two-seventy-five—twenty-five pounds below their maximum weight rating. Brett is going to find out why we don’t lie. It’s going to be sad to watch.

Ah, there he is now, at the edge of the bridge… and… off he goes.

The bungee extended and kept extending. Splat. Brett’s head just smashed into a canyon-floor rock, and off to work we go.

“What the hell? Oh crap—am I dead?” a distraught Brett-soul cried out.

My cue: “Brett, sorry to say this, but you have in fact passed on. This is a lot—I will give you a moment to absorb it, then we can discuss options.”

“Oh God, scared me there. Who the hell are you?”

I pulled back my black hood from my robe to reveal my face. “Brett, I am Steve, your Grim Reaper. I am here to help your soul with the transition to its next stage.”

“Sounds like a cool and interesting job.”

“It is indeed interesting. I’m glad you sound excited about it, because it is a role I would be willing to offer you… if you would like it.”

“Really? That’s cool. What’s the catch?”

“No catch, my new friend. I would have to be willing to relinquish and cross over. You get to stick around, watch the world, and perform reaps when you receive a message of one.”

“Like… what? A God-phone?” Brett said, his face twisted into confusion.

“Actually, not God. We have a Director of Death Support who communicates to us via a direct message to your brain. At first it’s weird, but then it becomes the norm.”

“I don’t cross over if I accept?”

“No, you stay here until you find someone who wants the job and you think can live up to your standards. Are you able to carry on my work as good or better? I can’t have you let me down. This job is very important for people to help with the transition.” I laid on the sales pitch thick.

“I am your guy!”

I’m not an idiot—I didn’t give him a chance to rethink. I quickly produced the transfer-of-work documentation and had him sign it in triplicate.

As he stroked his last signature, I knew I was free. Next stop: pearly gates and paradise. Brett looked at me. “I got this, man. Enjoy your afterlife.”

“Thanks. See you in heaven when it’s your turn to retire.”

“For sure.”

With that, I felt my soul ripped into a new dimension. It was a jarring trip. Then all went dark for a few seconds.

Thud. My soul’s motion stopped and my eyes started to blink the world around me into view.

“Oh shit… you aren’t Peter. Aren’t the horns a little cliché?”