Frank Hitchens

There wasn’t that much going on in my life when Death came to visit. I was studying for my Masters, that was a headache, I was recently married, which was fantastic, but the excitement of the day had ebbed in to the fondest of memories and life just carried on as it were.

I went to and from work everyday while chugging along with my second novel in any spare time I could muster, and my wife and I had been blessed with a child in the form of a Golden Retriever puppy named Rufus, who was more bitey than anything else, but that was the ham and eggs of the life of Francis Gregory Hitchens.

Anyway this Death blighter, she sort of just appeared in my kitchen when I was staring into space one day, that is to say I don’t remember hearing her knock, or seeing her come in through the front door. She wasn’t there one moment and the next ‘Poof!’ she was. She sat across from me all grim and menacing and said “Hullo Frank, I am death and I have come to visit you.”

I said “Shall I speak up or can you read my lips?” She just looked at me, (I assume she looked at me, I never actually saw her face underneath that ominously large, black, hooded cloak) but she tilted her head just the same and I heard her emit a little sigh. I guess she had heard that one before.

“I have a very crucial job for you and I need you to understand the magnitude of its importance.” She croaked in her cold voice that reminded me of gravel. The woman in black with her shiny little scythe was extremely formal and business like, (thankfully the ghoul has lightened up a bit now but I still have fun at the annual Christmas get together reminding her what an uptight bender she was when we first met. I put my sweater up over my head and try to imitate her voice, which ends up sounding more like Christian Bale’s Batman than the reaper of souls, but it makes all the other demons laugh just the same.)

“Yes indeed, magnitude of importance,” I repeated. “Would you like a cup of tea and some hobnobs or shall we get straight down to it?” She tilted and sighed again. I guess undead spirits don’t drink tea which is a mighty shame as they don’t know what they are missing, and I bloody well told her so.

“I require no sustenance” she informed me, really drawing out both the ‘S’s in sustenance so she sounded like a slow, slippery, slithering snake. (Go on, admit it, you just lisped that one out too didn’t you?)

“Well do you mind if I put the old kettle on, I’m gasping myself and I, of course, do require sustenance.” I sprung to my feet expecting no objections but was shot down mid-flight by the lisping wonder.

“SSSSSIT DOWN!” she roared like a beast who refused to be tamed. Lo and behold, my behind found that seat faster than The Flash and Quicksilver racing to a buck naked, spread eagled, Black Widow a mile away. Ssssssso with my arse firmly glued to my chair for the time being, I decided to play her game. I put on my best Dean Winchester voice and donned my scowliest Karl Urban frown and proclaimed “Who sent you? Speak I say, foul Demon!” The Demon of Foulness replied,

“Lucy.” she said simply. I was a little taken aback by this. So much so that the Dean and the Karl were slapped straight off my face and I reverted back to default Wooster dork mode. I’d expected something more sinister, Lucy was one of my best friends who was dating another one of my best friends who both lived in Oxford. We were either talking about different Lucys OR my friends had sent me the world’s strangest strippergram.

“Lucy” I repeated like a scratched and skipping CD, still none the wiser to the identity of her sender, and half hoping she was about to jump up on the table and ride the handle of her scythe like a broomstick while spinning her cloak over her head in circles shouting ‘YESSSSSSS YESSSSSS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.’

“Lucifer, of course, but he prefers Lucy.” Oh of course, how foolish of me, I should have known that’s what the Devil likes to go by these days. I later went on to discover that demons can be a particularly particular about such things, I once called Lucy ‘Boss man’ as a joke and he got so mad that he…...Well that’s probably a story for another time.

Anyway, back to my visitor. “Cool, sweet, hip.” I stuttered a little lost of words, I squirmed uncomfortably on my chair under what I assumed was the scrutinising gaze of my uninvited guest. “Secret mission or some such you were saying?” I paraphrased which enticed a fantastically dramatic monologue that I felt like giving a standing ovation at the end of it. Which I might have done so had my legs not been made out of Rowntree’s finest wibbly wobbly jelly on a plate. I will try and remember her speech verbatim, but it was such a long time ago now, one forgets little bits and pieces as time marches on and all that rot but I’m sure you will get the gist.

The house lights were dimmed, the spotlight beamed down upon the peak of Death’s black hood and every eye and ear in the house belonged to her. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are in for some exceptional excitement tonight!

“The universe is in a terrible, deathly imbalance. One so sinister it threatens the very existence of your world and ours. The equilibrium of life and death, good and evil, yin and yang is in disarray. The demons of hell, lead by our fearless leader Lucy, are burdened with glorious purpose (Perhaps Loki said that but it sounds cool, right?) to thwart the forces of human evil, which are becoming ever increasingly vast, and return their soiled souls to the depths of hell where they belong. But to achieve this we need glorious souls to help us in our fight. We are able to work interdimensionally through time and space to place our stock of glorious souls into new bodies that we create in hell and deliver them to any point of our choosing in order to defeat the forces of human evil and collect their souls.(I interrupted by asking her if she needed the number for the Ghostbusters, but she wasn’t impressed!) We need soldiers who are able to fight, who can stand up to adversity and reclaim the balance of good souls and evil souls in our universe. Why can’t we? I hear you ask? Demons must not interfere directly in human affairs, it is one of the laws written in the demon code. We may direct and orchestrate but never touch. Lucy has picked you to help us to restore order to the universe.”

Well you could knock me down with the proverbial feather. Death was in my kitchen and she needed my help to save the galaxy. I almost asked her if she was my father, but thought better of it.

“So you’ve come to take my soul, hey? Then what, put me in another body and let me loose thwarting wrongdoers? This sounds a little familiar? Are you saying you can turn me into Robocop? Because if so, where do I sign?”

Another hefty sigh from the big D. I got the feeling she was getting tired of my antics but she wasn’t the one calling the shots. Lucy wanted Frank and Frank he was gonna get. she surprised me though as what I had imagined as a lifetime of shooting rapists in the dick in old Detroit with my big ol’ Robogun turned out to be something much more ugly.

“You are required for your writing. I have a gift for you.”

She handed over a foutain pen that was engraved with grotesque skulls, their faces pulled into wicked, distorted screams of pain. The shaft seemed to glimmer unnaturally in the kitchen light, it seemed as if it was almost hungry.

This was the first time I caught a glimpse of Death, other than her cloak. I will never forget the sickness that washed over me when I saw the bony skeletal hand that jutted out from the creature’s robes and passed me this pen. She saw how white I had become, how sickly and pallid I looked and I think it pleased her. Uptight bender.

“This is the Pen of Death. It has the power to turn mere words on a page in to reality in your world. You must write about death, about murder and about tragedy, for these are the themes the pen responds to, any attempt to better your life will be ignored by the dead spirits trapped inside the pen. You must kill with your words Frank.”

Now this was the part of the movie where I would have paused and picked a thousand holes in the thin plot, while my wife looked bored and annoyed at my outbursts. So once I had composed myself and digested the sales pitch from Ms. Business across from me, I did exactly that. A big part of me really wished that I hadn’t.

“Right, so why all this bollocks with good souls and bad souls and souls of glory and all that rot? Why can’t I just write about these baddies getting mauled and save us all a lot of trouble.”

She paused a moment, savouring the words on her bony lips.

“They have to be people you have a connection with Frank. Your friends, your family, people you have known and touched. The Pen needs a connection to conduct through.”

Well shit. As you can imagine I was almost sick right there and then all over Death’s nice, fresh, black robes. Even before I had started to take all this in, some archaic, survival instinct part of my brain was ranking my friends in order of likeability.

“And if I refuse?” I said in what I hoped was a brave and defiant tone, although in retrospect I am guessing it was the sobbing whine of a baby with no candy.

“Then stand by and watch the universe implode, and when you go with it, it won’t be that hard for your soul to arrive at my doorstep in hell.”

“Well you drive a hard bargain Big D. I guess I have no choice. Its murder my loved ones or murder the universe right?”

“Indubitably.” she replied. Indubitably? Who even says that? I have since tried to teach her ‘Correctamondo’ and ‘Awwwww yeeeah’ but alas she refuses to use them. Uptight bender.

Well after that she pretty much up and left. Although I asked her for her picture before she went. Another sigh and an “If you must.” I clicked away with my phone, not entirely sure what I intended to do with pictures of a black cloak but why waste an opportunity like that.

She disappeared with a ‘poof’ and left me to mull over my experience.

Katherine, my wife sauntered into the kitchen, catching me staring in to space, a practice I indulge in most early mornings, and asked me who I had been chatting to. She had heard my voice.

“I’ll show you” I said, trying to see where on my likeability list Katherine sat. No comment. I passed her my phone and she stood, staring at the screen perplexed and a little worried.

“Are you off your meds dear?” she asked simply. I raised an eyebrow as I tried to remember the last time I had taken any pills. “Well yeah I guess, but that’s got nothing to do with it.” I protested. She placed the phone back down on the table and walked to the other room to make me yet another doctor’s appointment. I turned the phone over and all that showed on the screen was a picture of an empty chair. The same empty chair that I spend most early mornings staring at. I shook my head and looked at the skull pen in my hand. The words of Hermione Granger rung in my ears “Even in the wizarding world hearing voices isn’t a good sign.” I shook her helpful words of wisdom from my brain. Flippin' demon I thought, couldn’t she of at least given me a Laptop of Death, or a PC of Death? Who writes anything down these days? It was at that moment that I heard that gravelly, cold voice croon in my ear.

“And I will be back Frank, so you better make this Volume 1.”

Well I guess Hermione was right. I’d better get writing then, right after I make myself that cup of tea. I’m gasping.