Death Co: 6 (Mirror Mirror)

6. Mirror Mirror

     As it turns out, being an agent of death is something you can get used to. Much like killing time while waiting for the bus, killing people becomes commonplace, and dare I say it, mundane. It still has exciting moments, but they come few and far between. I’ve seen a man hit by a meteorite, and a woman come into unfortunate contact with a moistened toaster, and they’re all the same. No one wants to go, and in the end they realize that I’m going to take them anyway.

     It shouldn’t have been a problem for me. I never took assignments personally, and I learned to look the other way when something disgusted me. The job had ups and downs, I was learning to roll with them, and I’d become a pretty good shot. He had to come and fuck all of that up for me. One persistent, little teenager had to come and throw and firebomb the mediocrity of my afterlife.

     I have said previously that in life I was a lawyer, a profession that neither I, nor anyone in human existence has truly been satisfied with. Whether it was common criminals or corporate investors bankrupting helpless old women, I represented them all. For the things I did, I probably deserve to go to the deepest rung of hell (I’m sure it has something to do with endless telemarketing after 6PM), but instead, I’m here. A wave of indecision seems to be my destiny.

     This kid has to come and screw that up. I met him just before my untimely demise (untimely having different interpretations). It was a particularly bad case. The man had everything stacked against him; his son had witnessed him in the act, but in open and shut cases there is always room for appeal. As far as I and the law were concerned, the testimonies of a teenager with an overactive imagination and a history of drug use weren’t trustworthy. The legal system is sort of like Swiss cheese, perceived as a solid, but filled with a myriad of holes.

     Long story short, I got the guy off, and the last thing I saw in the courtroom was his son’s face: Black hair, draped off to one side, leaving only one eye visible, bags under his eyes from the sleep he hadn’t been getting, and the purest look of disgust and anguish I have ever seen. He didn’t cry, he didn’t say a word, he stared me down while the verdict was read. I have never felt lower.

     That night I hit the bottle pretty hard and walked my way down to a local outdoors store. I had gotten the owner off on an illegal discharge of a firearm and public urination charge earlier that month (wicked combo, but who knew that illiteracy could shift the blame to Ambien?). He sold me a pistol without a waiting period and didn’t even ask for identification. My vision swam and shifted in the darkness of night. It was a miracle I made it back to my apartment alive, and not surprising that I didn’t leave it that way.

     I had planned to keep the gun purely as security. A man of my legal prowess made plenty of enemies. The darkest parts of good people are exposed when the legal system fails. I made a living off of that system failing. I went into the bathroom to wash and get some rest, but something was different. Rather than the cool numbness I was used to, I felt something. In the mirror there was the teenager’s face, staring back at me, judging every indecency and insecurity. It was high school all over again.

     “Screw you man! You don’t know me!” I slurred out at my own reflection, or at least, I think I did. Those moments were a little blurry. “I’m just doing my job! I have to do this! Our legal system is this way for a reason!” Rationalizing in the way only a belligerent drunk can. I smashed the mirror with a strength I did not know I possessed and shattered it onto the floor, and shortly found myself on the floor next to it. I was vaguely aware of the cuts on my arm, but even more aware of the vomit cascading out of me like a torrent of sour life choices.

     I then lay in my blood and vomit on the floor (once again in the way only a raging drunk can), and fell fast asleep. When I awoke there was a strange man standing in the room next to me and the white tile was painted red. The cuts had gone far deeper than I had thought, and in a quick but brutal moment of idiocy I had passed on to the other side.

     For the longest time I blamed the boy, but time passed and wounds healed (figuratively, my arms are still adorned with a glaring reminder of mirror safety). I thought after a few years that I was done with him. Sad to say, that once again I was wrong. Not only was he not gone, he’s probably the reason I’m going to lose my job.