THE SHADOW LANDS — In a long, rambling press conference held before the gates of the Realm of the Dead, Death offered a rare public apology for what should have been a routine “asleep-in-his-bed, natural-causes” departure and instead became a bloody, body-dismembering, “total body crunch” involving three vehicles and dozens of unnecessary witnesses in Chiang Mai.
Death, visibly agitated, opened his remarks with a sigh that rattled the microphones.
“Yeah, I’m going to have admit a big mea culpa here,” he said, tapping the lectern with his skeletal fingers. “We usually run a tight ship down here. I’m proud of the record — you die, I collect, we move on — but ever since the Trump administration gutted the USAID budget, I’ve been drowning in new work orders.”
He paused, rubbing his temples as the press corps scribbled notes.
“I mean, we’ve been everywhere — Ethiopia, Jordan, Afghanistan, the DRC — you name it,” he said. “I’ve got Shinigami, Banshees, even Charon working outside their normal zones. The office is chaos. I’ve been pulling hundreds of people with treatable HIV in Eswatini, numbers I haven’t seen in decades. The machinery’s ancient, and the surge in famine and preventable disease deaths has blown the whole workflow to hell.”
Asked about the victim, identified as Craig Davies, 51, formerly of England, Death admitted he had “meant to get to that one,” but said he and his staff had been “putting out fires everywhere,” including measles outbreaks in Texas and Florida.
“A measles outbreak in the United States,” he said with an ivory grin. “Can you believe that? I’m not saying we’re going to put up 1840’s numbers, but business has been too good. And yeah, you’re going to see cases slip occasionally through the cracks.”
Death said Mr. Craig “was supposed to go in his sleep two weeks ago — nice and peaceful — but I got distracted with that school collapse in Indonesia, and when I finally got out from under all those dead kids, I saw his lifemeter still green, and I lost my patience.”
“When I check in on him, he’s on his big bike, going too fast — that part wasn’t me, let’s be clear — so I figured I’d just handle it on the road.”
He explained that the Chiang Mai Traffic Division “hadn’t cleaned that stretch of highway in months,” leaving “a fine layer of dust practically begging for divine intervention.”
“So I nudge the back tire, just a little, enough to send him into the highway barrier. He’s slated for textbook blunt force trauma. Easy, a quick kill. Except I get a call in the middle of it for Lerato Mokoena, six years old, in Mokoroane — starved to death because her mother couldn’t get ARVs for herself, so she couldn’t work,” he said. “You see how everything’s connected? Anyway, I lose focus for, what, two seconds, and I don’t hit that tire hard enough. The guy ends up surviving with a shattered collarbone, dislocated jaw, and a moderate traumatic brain injury. Can you believe it? I stare at my command console — his light should be red, but it’s still green. I can’t tell you how pissed I was.”
Reporters described Death as increasingly defensive as he justified the next steps, admitting the following decision was made “in frustration.”
“Yeah, I panicked, okay? Tell me you’ve never made a bad decision at work?” he asked. “I look around, grab the first car available, and just kinda… shoved it at him.”
He mimed the impact with his bony hands.
“BAM! Three ribs through the right lung, textbook pneumothorax, but the cardiac rhythm didn’t skip a beat, oddly. Aspirating a lot of blood, though. Like a horror film, to be honest. Body looked like a rental return after Songkran, believe me. Still, that bastard clung to life. Unbelievable.”
He paused to shuffle a stack of parchment documents labeled Case File: 0910-CHIANGMAI-DAVIES.
“It’s not like I could leave the job unfinished, right? What was I supposed to do, walk away? Luckily for both of us there was a second car.”
Death scanned the document, muttering until he found the relevant section of the incident report.
“Yeah, here we go, you wanna know what it says? The second car impact caused a crushed pelvis, ruptured spleen, liver torn clean through, and compound fractures in both femurs — absolute catastrophe. You’d think that’d do it, right? Right? No. The man still had a faint pulse. It’s like unplugging something but the power light doesn’t fade out.”
At this point Death grew visibly agitated, removing his hood and rubbing his eye sockets.
“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
He straightened the collar of his robe and continued.
“Okay, by then I’m out of options. I took possession of the third driver — like, real demonic possession, I mean — and slammed the accelerator. My office estimates the speed of impact at 127 kilometers per hour. I’m not denying that was a little excessive, but I have a schedule to keep.”
“But check this out,” he chuckled, “That did it, for sure.” Reading from the report, Death quoted the findings verbatim:
“‘Deceleration forces at the cervical region caused a complete atlanto-occipital dislocation, effectively severing the head from the body at the junction between skull and spine. Simultaneously, the vehicle’s front axle crushed the left upper extremity from shoulder to wrist, reducing the limb to a pulped mass of soft tissue and fragmented bone. Remains of the victim were scattered across approximately…’ well, you get the picture.”
According to the autopsy summary, “no further physiological activity was compatible with life.”
“Yeah, high five, amirite?” Death giggled, scanning the audience, before returning his deathless stare at the paperwork. “Head’s gone, arm’s fish food — finally something I can file. In total, it took eight seconds, which goes by like that for you folks, but down here? That’s an eternity.”
When asked whether the delays reflected a wider management issue within the Office of Mortality, Death said the problem “wasn’t really my fault,” arguing that humanity had spent the better part of the 20th century eradicating communicable diseases, increasing crop yields, and systematically reducing preventable deaths through organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and UNICEF.
“Your civilisation accomplishes all that, then you let one guy undo seventy years of progress in a few months,” Death said, gesturing toward the mortal realm. “And you expect me to catch up with no increase in budget or staff? This isn’t the fourteenth century anymore, when everybody and their aunt worked here. We had whole divisions for plagues, Inquisitions, famines — real growth periods — but those folks are retired now. That kind of institutional knowledge is gone. Lost to the ages.”
Asked what operational changes might follow, Death offered none.
“You try running a global enterprise with Bronze-Age gearboxes and fax machines from the 1950s,” he said. “I’ve got two interns responsible for covering all of Southeast Asia, both ghosts from the Sukhothai period. One of them can’t even read Thai script after 1450. What exactly do you expect from me?”
At press time, Death declined to comment on whether any future appointments were scheduled with Presidents Trump, Xi, or Putin.
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