A Devout Death

I unearthed this story from the beginning of eighth grade. With a little tweaking... maybe it's good?

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The old man was sitting unresponsive in his old armchair, snoring severely with a cylinder in his mouth. The smoke was swirling mutely, almost calmly, when the man heard a knock on the back window.

The old man stirred, his fat chin wiggling like hospital jelly. “Who, who?” he grunted, when an unfamiliar face of a young woman grinned from the window. “Oh!” the man yelled gladly, “Oh! And who is this young beautiful lady?” he asked, rapidly rising from the lounger, as if he recognized her.

He let her in through the front door. Her eyes focused on the man’s face with a slim smile slithering across her lips.

“Hello!” she said, holding out her hand. “My name is Debbie Abrams. Nice to meet you.”

“Debbie?” the old man croaked. “Debbie? Did you change your name? I always though your name was Jackie!” and before Debbie could answer, the man started: “But you obviously modified it, didn’t you, such a lovely gal with the name of Jackie, oh no, obviously not. Why, now that you remind me, your mother, (she was a wonderful woman), she herself abhorred the name Jack! I never understood why she gave it to you, but still.” He unfolded a dotted handkerchief and coughed into it.

“Yes, well,” she said, “I was never called Jackie. I am…well, I am actually a religious consultant and I came here to discuss with you the terms of your sister’s unfortunate death.”

The man’s face abruptly turned grave. He walked over to his arm chair and leaned on it, and then he took the cigar from the coffee table uneasily and puffed once. The trail of smoke gathered in his face, which was turned away from Debbie. “Which one? I’ve had three dead sisters so far, and I feel like I have… I have already dealt with them, you know, nothing more to worry about.”

“Sir,” Debbie said, standing straight like an old, pine tree, “We worry. It is our job to worry. Some people kill themselves because they have no one to talk to, and this is why we are here, to talk to you, to see what troubles you. Do you understand?”

The man gazed at her reflection in the glass window: her ginger hair, her emaciated eyebrows, her ruby lips. Her skin was nearly ideal, with only a hint of microscopic blemishes.

“And it is our honor, too, to respect you and your ideas. We don’t want to burden you. We just want to aid you with the misery of Naomi’s loss. You understand?”

The man nodded. He dropped into the fluffy pillows on the lounger, taking another whiff from the cigar, closing his eyes as he did so. The creases on his hands were not at all vague, covering every inch of his body. “It’s just that…” he started, his eyes still closed. “It’s just that I can’t understand how she died, why she died, what made her so. I don’t have anyone anymore, and anything that feels significant for once just disappears.”

As he said that, Debbie smiled gradually. “Don’t worry about it, sir. It was her time.” She didn’t say it spitefully, but she did it coldly, like an android.

“Religious consultant, you say?” he asked. “But what is so religious about you, Debbie? That’s what…”

“You’ll understand soon, sir. I will take you to my church,” she said, and hastened again at the surprise on his face, “But of course, only if you want to come.”

“I think I do, Debbie.” He rose.