Familiar Meetings
“I regret to inform you sir, that you are dead”
The man sitting on the red velvet chair looked around and then at the sharply dressed butler. “You sure?” he replied.
“Most definitive.” The butler returned.
The man scrubbed his face with one hand and a smile spread across his face. “Hot damn” He stood up and started to shake the butlers hand. “I’ve waited for this moment for my whole life. Every single second I waited, damn, never thought I would see the day”
“Sir?”
“Wheres your boss, he around” The man rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck “You know, the big boss. Scary dude, eleven feet tall, sickle or something , I don’t know.”
“The grand Master”
He snapped and pointed “Thats the one”
“He is only found when he wants to be seen, which is never when looked for” The butler moved back against the wall stiffening. It was a large room draped in curtains of dark blue and gold. The poles and sheets extended into a ceiling that one could not see with their eyes. Two chairs facing each other, one red, the other blue, both velvet sat in the room. Floor, green with a hint of fuzziness. The man moved towards one of the draped walls and moved it aside. A long corridor all made out in marble ablaze with torches stretched into to endless leagues.
“Thanks for showing me the way pal, till next time” The man said while moving into the corridor. His shoes clicked loudly on the marble and the flames danced casting shadows.
He walked.
Then walked some more.
And walked a little more.
The butler appeared again. This time, finally at the end of the corridor where a large brown door stood behind him.
“Sir” the butler said. “The Grand Master would like to see you”
“Now was that hard?” The man scowled as he pushed past and into the brown door.
The sound of pool balls cackling together and glasses being toasted greeted him. A large window over looking some sort of city lay behind a group of people. A large pool table was being racked and off to the wall was a bar with liquor stacked into shadowy heights. Velvet chairs and couches spread across the room where some mingled. He approached the pool table at the center of the room. It grew silent.
A large man stood chalking his pool stick, his back turned to everyone.
“So, death has finally claimed you. And how might he have done that” the man rubbing the pool stick said in a deep voice. He turned around. “Gods, are not so easily killed these days” The mans eyes glowed a sapphire blue. His skins was dark like the night, but his features were gentle. He threw the pool stick.
The man caught it.
“If you can beat me” he nodded at the table “Maybe I will tell you”
Inspired by the opening sentence and a pool hall. Is death just a transition?