Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish by Andrew Buckley Read Free Book Online Page A

an angel or talk to one would later forget the encounter completely, leaving only the slightest echo that anything ever happened. The only exception to the rule was messenger Angels, where memory retention was rather important. And so the waitress was constantly forgetting Death's drink orders. This made it difficult to just sit and relax, as he had to keep walking to the bar and getting his own drinks.
    On his little visits to the bar, Death would complain about the waitress to the bartender, who in turn shouted at the waitress for a reason that he suddenly couldn't remember. It then took Death a few tries before the bartender could hold the drink information in his head long enough to actually make the margarita.
    Death thought back to the night before.
    While he had been standing outside the pub in Ireland, he’d begun to think that quitting might not be one of his best ideas. That was, up until that nice cat told Death that he deserved a break and asked had he ever considered visiting the Bahamas.
    Despite the fact that the cat was just a cat and not only that, a talking cat, Death found him very convincing. In fact, the conversation with that cat landed him where he was now, staggering like a baby giraffe up to the beach bar with the beautiful Bahamian sun reflecting off the radiant, clear blue water behind him.
    Death ordered another margarita from the bartender, this time with a green umbrella instead of a blue one, as he wanted to balance out the colours in his collection.
    Oh what freedom
,
to be able to choose my own colour of umbrella.
    The small TV mounted in the corner above the bar featured an overly broad man with fake-looking hair who introduced himself to be Martin Hitchcock and attempted to report the news. Not that anyone in the Bahamas cared what happened with the rest of the world, but the news was reported nevertheless, just in case anyone in the Bahamas suddenly decided to care what happened in the rest of the world, which probably wasn't sunny and didn't serve margaritas as tasty.
    The subject Martin Hitchcock reported on was very serious. Death decided to pay attention to the news broadcast for a while, for the simple reason that he could.
    Martin Hitchcock shuffled his papers.
    "The top story again, dead people all over the world got up and walked around today." Martin Hitchcock adjusted his tie and shuffled his papers again for dramatic effect.
    Death dropped his fresh, new margarita into the sand and stared open-mouthed at the TV, which was difficult, as theoretically, he didn't have a mouth.
    Martin Hitchcock shuffled his papers once again, removed a sheet and, using the ancient art of origami, folded it into a swan before placing it next to him on his desk and then continued.
    "Those occurrences began a little after eleven last night and have continued to shock the nation and indeed the world. The local government agencies have released a notice advising any relatives of the recently deceased to contact their local authorities as chances are, they're not entirely dead yet."
    Martin Hitchcock then launched into some possible scientific explanations, but by that point Death had already passed out.

    Jeremiah the goldfish swam around in his glass fish bowl in his little, uptown London apartment. Due to his three-second memory span, he found it very easy to entertain himself. He would swim across his bowl and see a castle.
    "Oh, a castle," he would say to himself. He would swim around the bowl, come back to the same castle and say, "Oh, a castle!"
    He could entertain himself like that for hours at a time, sometimes days. Things had been increasingly difficult for him lately, though. Strange thoughts and pictures would pop into his head at random times throughout the day or night, even when he slept. He would forget those three seconds later, but it would appear that he had been receiving premonitions. Not that he knew what a premonition was, and even if he did, he wouldn't remember it after three