"In all my contemplations, I never imagined that... well..."

"Well, you're dead now. It doesn't matter any more."

"Even so, I thought I'd leave a prettier corpse."

"Not going to win any posthumous beauty contests, no. Closed casket and whatnot."

"Closed bucket, more like."

"Are you going to stick around until the street sweeper goes by? I'm not one that time observes, myself, but for you, the handbook recommends no more than 45 minutes between the reaping and the psychopompaniment."

"Well how long has it been, then? It doesn't feel like time is even working for me any more."

Death withdrew a large sandglass from within its shroud. "I didn't turn it. I could tell you 45 minutes from now, if you like."

"Don't you have a smart phone or something? Keep up with the ages?"

"I don't even get bathroom breaks. What else would I use it for?"

"Good point. I think I'm done. What do you mean no bathroom breaks? That's labor abuse."

"No holidays or vacations either. Or pay."

"What a terrible job."

"It's nice to get a bit of sympathy from the souls, though, even if I'm technically only an instantiated abstract concept that will reintegrate into a collective gestalt when we finish."

"Was sort of hoping for the goth mommy, actually."

"Like in Sandman? Yeah, I like being her. Or Pratchett's Death. TALKING ALL CAPS IS FUN. I got to be Manny Calavera a few times."

"Who?"

"Character from a computer game about an afterlife. Never mind. You got what you expected. I don't get to pick."

"So...."

"Right! Let me just start the transition program." Death twisted the sandglass in a plane heretofore imperceptible to the mortal eye, and it collapsed down to a rounded rectangle of black glass.

"I knew it!"

"Yes, you're very smart. Were very smart." Death tapped and swiped on the glass.

A bright light sparked into being. It wasn't a white light, but rather an abstract concept of brightness that lacked any nuance of color. Death gripped my selfness with its surprisingly warm, bony hands, and shoved me into it.

---

Conceptual travel is a lot more convenient than physical. There are no security checkpoints. There are no fueling stops. No luggage. No passports.  The downside being that there are also no homes and no destinations. I found myself in a void--one of infinite extent, or perhaps zero. I had no way to know.

A line of text imposed upon my perception. I wasn't exactly seeing it, as I didn't have eyes any more, but it felt like a written message anyway.

"Your afterlife is important to us. Please wait for the next available deity."

"Fuck! They put me on sould!"

After an unmeasurable interval, lacking any sense of space or time, I was moved again.

"Human soul. Earth origin. How do you plead?"

"What?"

"Soul pleads confusion, for the 5th time. Verdict: emotionally accurate.  Human soul, We sentence you to reincarnation, until you are able to change your plea. Better luck next time."

Back to the void. A line of text-but-not-text proclaimed "Reincarnation queue: now serving #301,152,030,299." The least significant digits ticked up faster than I could perceive. In moments, or perhaps eons, I was transported.

"So you kissed a truck grill, at age 25 years. And not a very high score, either. But not terrible. The good news is you get to try again! Perhaps not on Earth, though. We're starting to get complaints again."

"Wait. Hold up. Wait a minute. I got killed by a truck?"

"Yes."

"And I'm getting reincarnated?"

"Yes."

"On a different planet?"

"Yes."

"Is this a motherfucking isekai story?"

"It isn't... not... that."

"And does this new world have a game system? Are you going to grant me a cheaty protagonist skill to make me OP enough to beat the Demon Lord?"

"Nnnnnnn... ohhhhhhhhhh...." The unintroduced deity surreptitiously tapped on their rounded rectangle of black glass. "Okay, fine. Yes. You guessed it.  What do you want, a medal? Young person flattened by truck with neutral karma.  This is the protocol. One lifetime of frivolous wish fulfillment as reward, and then back to the regular soul grind. Just answer the questionnaire and we can get this over with."

"Why? Why is that the protocol?"

"Too many whiny brat souls screwing up the 'real' worlds with N lifetimes of responsibilities and N-minus-1 lifetimes of maturity. The isekai catches them up to what they would be if they had ever played the adult levels. And also mrr mrr mrr."

"How did you mumble that at the end there? You don't have a mouth and I don't have ears. There isn't even any air here. And why were you not-mumbling?"

"And it's fun to watch a dumbass soul screw up a whole world when there's nothing at stake. It's like soap operas for deities. With sports rolled in.  And porn. You get to fuck around in a jerk-off world, for funsies. And if you somehow don't screw it all up, you can catch the attention of a sponsor deity that can put you on their world for your next run."

"So whose world is it I'm going to--this world that doesn't matter because it's god television?"

"Mine. I'm Adriavastalenourion Talganneni-Feshtur."

"Can I call you just Adria?"

"No. Short names are reserved for deities with important worlds. 'Adria' rules Terra-Nur, Gaiadin, and Ascalon. That's the shitty end of having an infinite pantheon; all the good names are already taken."

"And your world is...?"

"Panalex Diamachtin. The Fourteenth. Third Eon."

"You're not really selling me on this."

"How do think I feel, getting only the shit souls that no one else bids on?  It's bad enough you're from a Jehovah world already, but you're road-kill on top of that. And it's not just any Jehovah world--it's Earth, the third, tenth eon, timeline 8. Capitalism? Fascism? Greenhouse Crisis? Somehow racist as can be, but with only one race of human on the whole planet? And only one planet in the universe inhabited? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Yeah, that's my home you're trash-talking there."

"That's why I get you. I don't have to pay Jehovah anything. No bids in the soul auction. Which is just my speed, because I have like zero manna in my account anyway. If you do literally anything interesting at all, that's pure upside for me. So can we work on your character now? I have this great idea for a love triangle in the fifth act where you-"

"Nah, I'm going to pass."

"You can't 'pass'. That's not a thing."

"Still. Pass. I'll figure it out on my own. Shit soul that I am." I reached into the feeling I felt during the previous conceptual transports, and vanished out of Adriavastalenourion's awareness.

"Ah. Fuck. That was supposed to be my protagonist."