The man was sitting at a small folding table in a daze. Albert wasn’t sure if the man had been aware of the time that had passed between being placed in the arbitration room and right then. Albert wasn’t sure if time even passed in the arbitration room at all, or if it only passed when he was there. It was just a void now. No clear walls or surfaces apart from the table, chairs, a small patch of visible concrete floor that it all sat on, and an old fashioned light bulb dangling from a wire that came from nowhere. It was clearly not the same room Albert had dealt with Death in—if you could even call it a room at all.

It only took a moment for the man to take notice of Albert, but by that point they were both fully coherent and aware of their surroundings. The man was clearly upset, and about to get up from his chair, which was an interesting detail to Albert; he had been standing when he arrived to his arbitration and Death had been sitting, now he was arbitrating on Death’s behalf and the roles were reversed.

“I apologize for the rude introduction and the sudden change of scenery.” Albert sat down and cut the man off from talking, doing his best to imitate Death’s casual businesslike demeanor. “Please remain in your seat. I’m in a bit of a rush, you see. Or well, you are. You’re confused, your mind is racing, you don’t know what’s happening or why the world is being so off. Am I missing anything?”

“No, that’s… That’s what it is.” The man seemed to calm slightly as he settled in his chair again. “What is this? Why can’t I talk to nobody or touch nuthin?”

“I hate to be the one to inform you, but you’ve died. The form you see yourself in now is nothing more than a lingering spirit, detached from the physical world.” Albert set his folder down on the folding table in front of him, just out of the man’s reach, and set the ink pot down next to the folder.

“Naw. That ain’t it. This is somethin else. I musta smoked something and forgot.”

“I regret to inform you sir, that you are probably about as sober as one can possibly be. But, the longer we go at this, the closer you get to total annihilation.”

“No.” The man pushed his chair back and moved to sit up but only made it an inch off his chair before falling back into it. Albert couldn’t tell if there was something wrong with his form or if he was just confused, but it meant he had another chance to bring the man back it.

“Look around. Does this look like the natural world to you? Did you not just get pummeled into the dirt by a teenage girl? Or is that something normal for you?” Albert goaded the man.

“I don’t know what you’re on about kid, but I ain’t dead. And if you don’t get me outta here fast, I’m gonna lay hands on you.”

“This doesn’t need to end in violence. But if it does, know that while you may be an errant spirit clinging to the world, I am not. I could batter you like a rag doll if I wanted to. But that would waste time and energy.” Albert hadn’t wanted to resort to threats, but it seemed to be where the discussion was going. He needed to steer things in a new direction.

“Listen here, punk…” The man finally stood up and smacked his hand down on the table.

“You can waste this time trying to fight me, which will not work. Or you can use your last few minutes of time leaving something behind. Because if I let you wander off back into the night, you’re going to fizzle out in to nothing. Your spirit won’t be going anywhere else. You’re just going to be gone. Useless. But if you sit back down, we can talk about how you can pay off debts for your family, let someone you're leaving behind know that you care, or screwing over whoever or whatever it was that got you killed.”

“You think someone killed me?” The man paused for a moment.

Albert remembered that moment himself, that brief moment of clarity as some of his last living memories came back to him. Not clear, but slowly flowing back as he tried to focus.

“I don’t know why you’re dead. I’m just here representing Death. I have opportunity, you have unfinished business. I’d like to make a deal.”

“I… I think I remember. I was picking up some stuff for my girlfriend. She used to work at the salon before it closed. She left some of her kit there. And I slipped on something.” The man put his hands to his head, as if to squeeze more sense into his head. “Ugh. That was so stupid.”

“I can arrange to have those items taken to your girlfriend and a note to be left.”

“Yeah, and what do you get out of it?” The man looked suspicious now. “You seem real eager to help, but you ain’t said anything about what you want.”

“I wanted you to grasp the stakes first.” Albert was sure this is where it was going to go wrong. It was the part he’d been afraid of this whole time. “I want the last thing you have left to give me. Death is a collector of souls, and I’m here to get yours for him.”

“Ah hah. Hah. Yeah. Right.” The man was halfway between laughing and sputtering in disbelief. “You want my soul? Of course you do kid. Like that’s possible.”

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“You’re already dead and talking to me, here, and you still think that isn’t possible?”

“Look, kid.” The man sat back down. Finally a good sign. “Just in case this is real, I’mma let you know, my soul ain’t exactly great. I done a lot of stupid things, messed up a lot of good opportunities. Disappointed my mother, rest her soul, and I’m still disappointing my old man. And even if I could give it to you, because you’re making it sound like it’s my duty or some crap, I’m not gonna let you have it for like… a favor? If I’m selling out I’m going hog wild on my price.”

Albert struggled not to roll his eyes, but it was getting difficult. This man was making this harder in ways that Albert himself had never struggled with in terms of valuing his own life. This was nothing like his arbitration.

“You’ve already said it isn’t worth much. So, I’m not liking your odds of getting much in exchange.”

“Ten million.” The man slapped his palm against the flimsy table. “No. Ten billion.”

There was a paused and Albert squinted his eyes at the man. He couldn’t tell if he was being serious. Obviously he wasn’t really taking any of this seriously to begin with, but this was just a whole new level of stupid.

“I’m not going to impart a fortune for one soul. If every soul got off leaving their loved ones millions of dollars when they died, the world would crumble. I can provide you enough for your girlfriend to close out some debts, but that’s about all I’m willing to offer you on that front.”

“Alright. How much?”

“How about twenty-five hundred?”

“Kid, I got at least four grand in credit card debt.”

“I’m pretty sure your credit card debt won’t be passed on to your girlfriend. I’ll wager she had less to cover in terms of debt than you do?” Albert had talked about debt refinancing with his mother a few times. It was always a depressing conversation, because he knew she had some debt to pay off—though she’d never say how much—and it always ended in an awkward trailing off.

“Yeah, she’s smarter about money. She could probably do with a couple extra grand though, get her feet back under her. It’s rough not having a steady place to work, and hair dressin' work ain’t easy to lock down.”

“Thirty-five hundred then?”

“Yeah.” The man nodded somberly. He seemed to finally be taking the arbitration more seriously. “Yeah, she’d probably make it out with that. And you’ll get her her stuff out the salon?”

“That can be arranged. And if you’d like to leave her a note, I can provide you with paper.”

“Nah, my writing’s garbage. Just tell her she was my only, and I’d quit it all again for her… but like, I wish I didn’t have to quit livin for her? You know, make me sound romantic.”

“Consider it done. I’ll just need you to sign some papers for me to make sure it’s official.”

Albert opened the folder and flipped through until he found the material trade contract form. He quickly dipped the pen into the ink pot, checked the box for financial compensation, scrawled in the amount, checked the box labeled services, scrawled out ‘delivery of goods’ and then handed the paper over.

“You’ll fill your name here,” Albert pointed with the feather end of the pen to the top blank, “and sign here at the bottom. Your girlfriends name will need to be given as well, here and here.”

Albert handed over the pen. The man looked at it skeptically for a moment, like it was the wildest thing, before taking it and writing out names and signatures as instructed. Once the spaces were filled, Albert filled out his own signatures and name spaces where it was indicated for the arbitrator to do so. He only gave a parting glance to the man’s name, but it was enough to stick it in his mind as he completed the contract. When he looked up again, Arnie Goldman was gone and Albert was at a loading dock once again. The only other person there to watch was Amy. And while she had a mild curiosity, she looked more impatient than anything else.

“I see the pen’s not broken. Did you get him to sign?”

“Yeah, he signed. Uh, we have some things to deliver to his girlfriend. But he signed.”

“That’s excellent. Let me see the contract.” Amy held her hand out for the paper and Albert handed it over weakly. “Okay, that’s not bad. I half expected you to come out needing the whole ten grand and a hired assassin. So this isn’t half bad at all.”

“Ugh… I just realized that I never got her address.” Albert smacked himself in the face and twinged as he felt the pain of the scrapes that had been glued shut. He experienced another jolt of surprise as he realized that he’d actually felt the pain. And then all the pain began to cascade over him.

“Ooh, looks like the halfway measures are changing. Let’s get you back home… and I guess I can take care of the rest of this. I’ll just sign under you as a sub-contractor.”

Amy walked closer to Albert and wrapped an arm under his to support him. She stuffed the folder and contract back into her backpack and the two of them made their way back to the apartment. The walk back felt longer than it did the first time, but that was probably the pain spreading slowly throughout Albert’s body as he regained at least part of the sensation that he’d lost.

“Wait.” Albert stopped Amy at the door to his apartment. “When it’s all done. No one else comes here. Okay? My mom has already met you, but I don’t want her involved in any of this. If anyone is going to come by, they need to send you.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Amy nodded. For once her militaristic appearance shifted into a genuine sympathetic expression.

Amy unlocked the door for Albert. Albert had tried, but his hands were shaking worse now than they had been when he had first gotten back home and couldn’t feel anything. He was practically being carried at that point and barely made it inside and on the couch.

“You should probably sleep, if you can. I don’t know what sort of shifting halfway measures you're experiencing, but if you can sleep it’s probably a good idea.” Amy turned back to the door. “I’ll come back with a pizza or something, I shouldn’t be more than an hour… maybe longer. We’ll see. I might need to check in with someone else while I’m out. Just…”

“Yeah, get some sleep.” Albert interrupted Amy and waved her back to the door.

He was beginning to experience what he could only describe as exhaustion. It wasn’t exactly like being tired, his eyes weren’t threatening to close on him, but he felt like all of his body was bruised— as it may well have been. More than that, it felt like he was being stretched apart very slowly; like he was a torture victim on a stretching rack that was pulling him apart in all directions. Albert closed his eyes and waited for something to happen, but the sound of the door closing again came and went and it felt like hours passed before anything felt even remotely different. And even then, the only difference was that he found himself slowly becoming physically tired.