“Must be frustrating,” Dustin observed. “Showing up for work and the work won't cooperate.”
“You have no idea.”
“I've been called difficult before.”
“By whom?”
“Pretty much everyone.” Dustin took a bite of his pie. He barely registered the taste. “Teachers. Coaches. My mom. My—” He stopped.
Greg waited.
“People,” Dustin finished. “Lots of people.”
Silence. Greg didn't push, which was either tactful or oblivious. Dustin couldn't tell which.
He decided to humor Greg a little while longer. “What's it like?” he asked. “Being a reaper?”
Greg considered the question seriously. He picked up the burger again, took a smaller bite this time and chewed while he thought. Only a little sauce escaped.
“It's supposed to be simple,” he said finally. “Normally. You arrive at the appointed time, wait for the death to occur and guide the soul through the transition.”
“And then what?”
“Then you do it again.”
“Forever?”
“There's no 'forever' for reapers. We don't experience time the way you do. We just... continue. Until we don't.”
“Until you don't?”
Greg's hands had gone still around his burger. “We don't die, but we can dissolve.”
“Dissolve?”
“Yes, if we don't want to continue. Or if we spend too long in the mortal world without returning to headquarters. We're not built for prolonged exposure. Eventually we just... come apart.”
Dustin's pie suddenly tasted like cardboard. “That's fucked up.”
“It's just how it is.”
“That doesn't make it less fucked up.”
Greg shrugged. “Humans die. Reapers dissolve. Everything ends eventually. That's what gives it meaning.”
“Is that what they teach you in reaper school?”
“Yes, actually.”
Dustin didn’t know what to do withthat information.
“Can I ask you something?” Greg said. “Something personal.”
Dustin tensed. He kept his face casual, his posture loose, but something in his chest tightened. “Depends on what it is.”
“The day you were supposed to die. The jump. Were you scared at all?”
“I'm never scared.”
