Just call me the errand girl of the afterlife. 
          I oversee the boss’s clients during their final goodbyes. They’re each given the length of one song to visit the living in a dream. When I started as a Song Spirit, I was a softie; I’d often get written up for allowing extra time. After all, songs are getting shorter these days.  
          But I don’t make the same mistake now while watching Mark, well, ghost Mark, sob into the neck of his much younger wife while Adele croons, make you feel my love. 
         Mark begs for five more minutes—ungrateful bastard. He should’ve picked a longer song. And he’s still dead, so what does it matter anyway? I pull the patented Grimtech earbud out of his ear. A wave of darkness envelops us: a steel curtain snapping shut between the living and the dead.

​

          Mark rejoins the mob on the Rubik’s Cube-like dance floor of Club Valhalla in a daze.
          Next assignment. The boss’s voice booms inside my skull despite the pulsating techno music cranked to max volume. Shelby Warhammer. 
          The boss appears as God, Allah, the Grim Reaper, and even Oprah when Ellen DeGeneres passed. To me, the boss is a churning thunder cloud. The summer night the drunk driver rammed me off the road was also a historic night of rainfall.
          The boss interrupts my thoughts. There’s no use dwelling on the past when—
          “—you have the afterlife to look forward to.” I wave him off. “Song choice?” 
          Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra.
          “Who’re we visiting?” I fail to keep the boredom out of my voice. Just once I’d like to have a Long Island Iced Tea with the souls on the dance floor rather than being their personal chauffeur. 
          Instead of a young soul, an octogenarian emerges from the circle on the dance floor. There’s a hole in her throat and pink tumors pepper her head. 
          “My son,” she croaks. “Matthew.”
          I place the Grimtech earbud and snatch her wrinkled hand, leaving Club Valhalla for the nine-millionth one-hundred-eighty-second time. I’m nothing if not efficient. 

​

          Matthew’s asleep on the couch, drool pooling in his gray-flecked beard. His wedding band and wallet are strewn across the coffee table next to several empty beer bottles.
          Shelby kisses his forehead. “I’m not in pain anymore, Matty.” 
          As the song starts, I explore the apartment. There’s a naked woman in his bed with angel wings tattooed on her ankles. Maybe I’ve visited whoever she’s lost. 
          Shelby’s voice murmurs through the walls. “You said this was playing when you met her. Are you happy, Matty? I just want you to be happy.”
          Cold air floods the apartment as a middle-aged woman with ringlets of auburn and freckles enters and closes her umbrella. She mutters about the rain as she opens the bedroom door—purse in hand to toss—when she sees the naked stranger asleep in her bed like Goldilocks. 
          She rushes to Matthew and her cheeks turn the shade of a ripe tomato as she notices Goldilocks’ naked photos poking out of his wallet. 
          “You … you said you stopped.” Her fingers tremble as she rips picture after picture, accidentally knocking over a beer bottle. She anxiously looks at Matthew, but he only snores louder. As she sets the bottle upright, she bumps his wedding ring and freezes.
          The woman’s guttural sounds as she grieves both her past and her future stirs up a dormant feeling in my stomach. I’m only supposed to glean souls that won’t survive the trauma of seeing their loved ones again, not the ones who cause trauma. Maybe I’ll finally get a promotion if I cut off the source. 
          A thunderclap. No one rescued me, but I can still save her.  
          Placing my hand on Matthew’s hairy chest, I squeeze his heart. Between my fingers, the organ squishes like Play Doh. The heartbeats of the livings in the room crescendo as Abracadabra’s refrain repeats. 
          Is this why the boss forbids the practice of reaping? The raw power in my hands is intoxicating, like a kiss. You can’t only do it once; you always come back for more. 
          Matthew gasps and his icy blue eyes bulge as our two worlds collide. His memories and emotions blend around me, creating a cocktail of his life’s ingredients. At a bar, he pulls out his phone and deletes his search history on cancer research and fertility drugs. Tears streak on his cheeks as he chugs another beer. Slipping his wedding band into his pocket, he reaches for Goldilocks’s hand from behind the bar as Abracadabra blares.  
          “You’re hurting him,” Shelby cries, snapping me back to the present. She glances between me and the life molecules floating from her son’s translucent spirit. 
          “Matthew!” The freckled woman drops the photo scraps. “What’s happening? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.” She clutches Matthew’s hands, entangling their souls as she whispers, “I’m still here.” 
          Lady Gaga finishes, Death or love tonight. 
          Shelby yanks out the Grimtech earbud and the familiar pull returns, distorting Matthew’s ragged breathing and the woman’s scream.
          I look up. “Wait, Boss! I’m—” 
          But the darkness always returns.

​

          Club Valhalla’s neon lights illuminate the woman’s freckles as she sits in a booth next to Shelby. Her lips pucker in confusion. “Shelby? Where-”
          A mistake. The techno music changes to jazz. 
          The woman’s lips move but she’s muted. Instead of the boss’s baritone, a robotic voice chimes, “A song spirit will escort you soon.” 

          “But I’m a song spirit!” My voice sounds distant. 
          The club’s lights flare, blinding me until I’m blinking in a hospital’s harsh fluorescent lighting. Classical music floats around the room as I stare into my new mother’s eyes and cry.
          “She’s beautiful.” It’s Goldilocks with the angel wings tattoo. Behind her, Matthew smiles, resting his hand on her shoulder.
          You know the rules, the boss’s furious voice echoes, A soul for a soul.