Posted in Fiction

Is there such a thing as too polite?

Is there such a thing as too polite?

When Sandra entered her room after taking a shower, she discovered two things. For one, she wasn’t alone in her room and secondly, she had left her dirty panties on the floor. On the tip of her bed, touching as little of it as possible, sad a man in a beige suit that was slightly too big. Sandra screamed and clutched the towel closer around her.

“Oh, I am terribly sorry to disturb you like that!” the man said as he sprung to his feet. “Auch. Please stop throwing belongs at me.”

“GET OUT OF MY HOME!” She screamed, throwing a scented candle at him.

“Again, terrible sorry, but – auch- that is simply not possible.”

“I’m gonna call the police, you psycho!”

“I’m afraid that won’t do you any good. See, I can’t leave the house without your soul.”

Sandra stopped with her phone in her hand and looked at the shy man.

“What?”

He drew the tip of his shoes around the carpet and kept his gaze low.

“I am, you could say, a ahem, a reaper of souls. So to speak. I’m sorry if this is an inconvenient time for you. I will turn around so you can get dressed.”

“You will do no such thing, you perverted intruder. Look at me when I’m talking to you!” The man made a small jump in his big suit and looked at her as if it took tremendous courage to do so.

“You are not taking my soul, do you hear me? It’s mine and I’m using it. So get out of here. Right now.”

He ran his fingers nervously through his dark blond hair before answering.

“Well, that’s not… That’s not how it works. Your… Your time is up. One might say. And it is erh my job to- to collect your soul.”

Sandra opened her drawer and picked some clean underwear.

“No.”

“Excuse me? No what?”

“Just no. I’m not going. Neither is my soul.” She dropped the towel and the soul collector in the beige suit stumbled into the bed and fell on his face.