Graveyard Shift

The beeps were insistently loud, punctuated by ever-growing lengths of silence. He listened to each passing beep, as if they were grains of sand in an hourglass falling one by one.

The jagged pattern of green lines against black screen no longer crested and troughed, easing instead into a flat line. He watched the motion of lines on the screen, the same way he once watched the waters of the Nile flow past.

The chest shuddered, the lungs heaved out a final breath, the eyelids fluttered close. He stood ready and waiting for the soul to be expelled, for all souls began this journey frightened and confused, whether they were farmer or Pharoah or terminal patient.

When the soul glistened into shape, he took the soul by the hand, and led him gently through the stark white corridors, murmuring kind encouragements all the while. Together they walked past attendants and nurses, all the way out through the double doors of the hospice building, and finally into his realm.

And when his duty was done, Anubis returned alone. He adjusted his attendant’s uniform as he slipped into the next ward. And it was there that he continued to insert intravenous plugs and administer pain medications and wipe down bedpans, until the sun rose and yet another shift ended.