Death sat at the bus stop reading the latest newspaper.
Why was death sitting at a bus stop? Well he has to get around somehow doesn’t he? The last time he tried to take the horse out for a jaunt, he’d been ticketed, the horse booted and impounded, and that was the end of that. So Death sat at the bus stop and read the newspaper. He had at least 30 minutes before the next bus came and expected the wait to be as boring as usual. He saw a woman in her 40s, overweight and frazzled, sit down two seats away from him but didn’t make much of a note of it. Death was so common that very few people recognized him for what he was. About 5 minutes went by before Death was startled by a small hand tugging at his sleeve. The reaper turned to find that the hand was attached to the chubby arm of a girl in pink. At the most she was 7 years old, he guessed. She was surely the first human to talk to him in what seemed a eternity.

“Yes?” Death said in his many voices.

“Aren’t you the skeleton man who took my gramma away?” The girl said.

“I could be. I tend to be many different versions of myself. So it might not have been me who took your ‘gramma’, child.”
The little girl’s brow wrinkled as she puzzled over the Reaper’s words. Last time she checked, there was only one death.

“So there are many deaths?”

“Yes. You see, people die everywhere, all the time. When they die, someone has to show them the way to the light. And that someone is different depending on the person’s faith. This is why I cannot tell you if I was the one who took the old woman you called ‘Gramma’ because I simply can’t. That is just how it is.”

Death rustles his paper pointedly and went back to reading. The little girl sat down next to him and puzzled over his latest divulgence. She kicked her little pink mary janes to and fro on her pink socked feet.

“Mr.Death, why are you at the bus stop?”

“I have to get around somehow, don’t I? A bus is as good as any other transportation when you get to be as old as I am, child.”

“How old are you? 50? That’s really old.” She said.

“I wasn’t born until Pandora unleashed me, so surely thousands of years and then some. Much older than 50 in any case.”

“Oh.” Was all the little girl could say. She didn’t even know how to count to 1000, much less a thousand and then some. She and Death sat in silence until the bus arrived. The little girl took the hand of her frazzled mother and sat in the back. Death stood. The stiff seats of the bus always made his back ache so. The bus started and began its ponderous journey through the city. Death rode for about two hours until he reached his stop. He was surprised to find that it was also the stop of the little girl and her mother.
It wasn’t a sense of dread that began to grow in his stomach, Death was the source of all dread after all. It was more like a sense of discomfort. And in all of his years on the job, Death had never felt uncomfortable about what he had to do. Death watched the little girl and her mother walk into an apartment building near the bus stop and he waited. He waited an hour, and then he waited two. When he heard two gunshots in quick procession he entered the building and was pulled to scene like a shark to blood. He found the little girl’s mother and father sprawled on the floor, each bleeding to death and with a gun in their hands. Death had always felt a sense of distaste for the human condition what with the constant spewing of bodily fluids, but this double homicide once again filled him with a sense of discomfort. Death was startled from his reverie by the bickering souls of the woman and her husband.

“Worthless, Henry! That’s what you are! All this money and you make me and your daughter ride the bus? I should’ve shot you sooner.”

“Well surprise surprise, Priscilla. Guess who was getting a car today?”

“…Oh”

Death showed them the path to afterlife and they disappeared. All that was left was the girl. She was still in shock he supposed. Watching your parents destroy each other could do that he had heard. Once again he felt uncomfortable so he left without a word. The little girl stared at her parents a while.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Death sat at the bus stop as he had been doing for a while now. He read the newspaper while he waited for the bus. He had another 30 minute wait. Out of the corner of his eye, death saw a woman in pink sit down next to him but he didn’t make much of a note of it. After 5 minutes he felt a manicured hand tug at his sleeve.

“Are you the same Death from that day when I was 7?” she asked.

Death blinked and turned to look at the woman who had once been a little girl. The little pink mary janes had been replaced by little pink heels.

“Yes, for once you’ve found the right Death.”

“I looked for you a long time you know. I wanted to let you know that I learned how to count to a thousand and then some, how to cook, how to love, how to sing, how to cry, and that when I was a little girl I already knew you better than even you know yourself. “
Death’s newspaper shook. “Is that so, Child?”

“Yes. And I’m hardly a child anymore, am I?”

Death didn’t deign to answer, as he was experiencing nervousness for the first time.

“You’re a lonely man, Death. I’ve been lonely too. Shall we wait for the bus together?”
Death nodded. The woman took his hand and they waited for the next bus to arrive.