A haze of grey, an emptiness, no feeling at all – a man slowly awoke in a graveyard, unsure if he was alive. His memories felt far away. As he reached for them, they retreated into the ether. He lay, eye’s closed, hoping his body would choose to move, or the nothingness would return.

His eyes drifted open. The colors around him bled together into clouds of greens, whites, blues, and greys. His eyelids began to shut again, the hazy splotches stretched into pancakes of muted color, but a dull sound kept him from closing his eyes completely. It was hard to discern, but it kept repeating – once, twice, thrice – a pause, then more insistently.

“---”

He recognized the sound. It was voice. Someone was trying to speak to him. He listened.

“--l-o”

It sounded clearer. His eyes too, began clearing. Some of the colors before him coalesced into a human form.

“Hello?”

The voice was trying to greet him? No, it was inquisitive. It was asking if he was there. Or was it asking if he was ok?

Was he ok? He tried to think, to focus until his memories began to return.

His name was… Edgar. He’d been running away from someone and had gotten injured, seriously injured, and more than physically, too. Something had gone wrong deep inside of him. Something had…

“Hello?”

“H-Hello?” His voiced surprised him. He hadn’t expected to speak, nor had he expected to sound so confused when he did.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re still here.” The voice sounded relieved.

Edgar tried to focus, to bring himself back to reality. Eventually, images began to form. He recognized the person kneeling in front of him.

“Are you still hazy? Do you feel any dizziness? Here, eat this.” It was the boy who had pretended to be a police officer, or had it been an FBI agent? He held his hand out. In it was some kind of… granola bar? It took a few seconds for Edgar to process the boy’s words.

“Oh, ok.” Edgar accepted the bar. He nibbled silently. The blanks in his memory steadily filled in. None of it felt real. When he’d spoken inscrutable words holding that book, it had messed with his head somehow.

“What…” he began after a time, “happened to me?” There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but this was probably the most important.

“Don’t worry about it” the boy replied.

“No, I need to know.”

“hmm…” the boy considered for a moment. “You read out of his grimoire, I think.”

His grimoire? “You mean the book he was carrying?”

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“Yeah… casting something from that takes energy from your life.”

“My life!? Am I going to – “

“No, no, you’re fine.” The boy made an x with his arms. “It shouldn’t have any permanent effects as long as you get something to eat and get some rest… and make sure you have fiber in your system.”

Edgar took a larger bite of his granola bar. “Who are you?”

“Me? I’m Grey.” He extended his hand.

“No, I mean… what are you? Why do you know all of this? How can you do… what you do?”

“It’s my job to track down people like him.” Grey still had his hand out, so Edgar shook it in awkward silence.

“People like Evan? People who use grimoires?” People Like me.

“Was that his… Yes – I mean – no, I track people who have come back from death using things like that book. Evan was one of those people.”

“And you kill them?”

“I return them to where they’re supposed to be. People like Evan can’t live without a source of life. They drain the life out of other people and use them to fuel their existence and their magic.”

“That’s what he wanted to do to me.” Edgar felt a shiver go through his body.

“Yes, it is.”

“So have you already – “

“-Yes, before you woke up. Evan is gone.” Grey sighed. “I’m really sorry. I tried to deal with this without drawing any attention, but I’m really new at this and you ended up getting really hurt.”

They both sat for a few seconds silently.

“So, what happens now?” Edgar began. “Do you wipe my memory or something?”

“I… don’t know how to do that. I guess I just have to ask you to not talk about it, but…” Grey reached into a bag that probably hadn’t been there second ago and scrounged around until he pulled out a small golden slip of paper. “Here, for your troubles.”

Edgar took the slip of paper. It looked like some kind of theme park ticket and had ‘1-Day’ written across the front in impact font and nothing else.

“What, what is this?”

“It’s a paradise ticket. It’s for when you die. It lets you spend a day in paradise before you move on to oblivion.”

“Umm, thanks…” The explanation gave Edgar an unpleasant feeling in his gut. He hadn’t expected, or wanted, to know as much about the afterlife as he’d just been told.

“So, why…” Edgar began, “… why did he go after me?”

“I thought I already – Oh, you mean why you specifically.” He pondered for a few seconds. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” Edgar dropped his shoulders. Both sat silently for a few minutes before Edgar resumed. “So that’s it right? Do you have something to do afterwards?”

“I have to fill out some paperwork, but I can stay if – I mean, I’ll only leave if – “

“I’m fine.” Edgar’s words carried finality. “You can go.”

Evan looked over Edgar concerned. His worried face slowly faded into a thoughtful one. Eventually, he bid Edgar farewell, and in a few seconds, he was gone.

---

When Edgar had returned to his store, he had been surprised to find it completely unburnt. For a moment he considered that everything that happened to have been a dream, but the pain in his body and the general mess brought him back to reality. He spent the next few hours standing still as he processed what had happened.

Edgar looked over his empty store. Rows of flowers, bulbs, and seeds sat silently in their places, slowly decaying. The bulbs and seeds would become flowers if they were planted. They would be put in the ground, watered, and grown into flowers. Then, they would decay and die. Edgar ran his fingers over the leaves of a purple chrysanthemum. He silently noted the lack of ring on his finger. Grey must have taken it before he woke up.

With all that happened, Edgar had left the shop empty for almost a full day, but he doubted he missed that much business. Unless there was a funeral, his shop barely made enough money to get by. Most of his days were spent quietly tending to the empty shop.

Nearly five o’clock, Edgar began shutting down for the day. He wondered if the shop’s low visitation was his fault. Maybe he hadn’t done enough to draw in customers. Perhaps waiting for people who needed flowers wasn’t the best way of doing things. Waiting for people to die, or get married, or have children was…

Edgar finished shutting down. It was a few minutes to the end of the day, but no one was going to show. There were changes he’d wanted to make to the store, but he’d start tomorrow. At some point during the day, he lost track of the paradise voucher, or whatever it was called. It was probably hidden in a desk corner or beneath a flowerpot. It didn’t really matter. What’s one day in eternity anyway?