Death is the thought on the mind that stares at no clock. Such a mind knows only death, this dimension of time that we reach with mathematics and then decide that there is nothing there at all.

The chalk struck the board over and over again, rapidly scratching the numbers onto slate. White powder drifted in the light between the boards on the windows. The chalk stopped writing numbers, equations.

"Death is more than an equation..." said the old man with the chalk. He understood the mathematics behind higher dimensions and could explain to nearly anybody how it worked, exactly.

He could help most people comprehend how time and space interact, how they are not mutually exclusive. Time is merely an illusion of our senses and consciousness, but it is essentially the same thing as distance and space and physical reality. Beyond simple explanations time is simply a higher dimension and is built upon the one that seems like physical reality; which is yet another illusion generated by our own perceptions.

All of that can actually be demonstrated, argued and proven with mathematics. It means absolutely nothing, though. Physics and time and math don't change whether someone drops their toast butter-side up or not. That is dictated by a much simpler concept and the old man had become aware that his life's work had proven nothing to anyone.

It is only death, that makes us concern ourselves with time. A deathless being might forget the meaning of time, might instinctively understand the relationship between physical objects, distance and sequence. All of those meet at a point and are really the same thing.

How can a mayfly comprehend a year? How can an ant understand a mile? How can gravity confuse a fly?

"But I have these numbers. Yes I have them now. I stopped looking at the proof of our existence and started asking why do I ask. That is the real question. Death makes everything finite for us and everything must have a meaning for us. Our lives are short, our days are numbered. Many of us believe that there is more beyond death and that we have an immortal organ that exists in some higher dimension beyond death, some kind of soul for some kind of afterlife." He pouted, pondered and pontificated all in one breath to the empty dust-filled classroom.

One of the boards in the hallway creaked and he dropped the chalk to the tray at the bottom of board. Some dust motes floated serenely on the shafts of light from the boarded up windows.

"Who is out there?" the old man asked with fear in his voice.

"I only came here early to hear what you were saying."

"Who are you?" the old man asked.

Nobody came here, and it sounded ancient and mean, not the voice of a person. "You were talking about me. I was curious what you were saying."

"Come into here. Let me see you." the old man didn't like what he saw.

A hooded specter with a physical form opened the door and stood there, tall and menacing.

"Am I seeing things now? You look like the Grim Reaper."

Again it spoke slowly, deliberately and sounded far too darksome to be any kind of person. "Well, I am."

"I am not frightened. I expected something strange to occur at some point since I realized I am not in Kansas anymore. Just not something so...comprehensible. You are here now though..."

Then the Grim Reaper added defensively: "But I did come to you politely. I wasn't trying to sneak up on you or anything."

"Don't get defensive. I mean, what are you doing here?" the old man was baffled. All his work meant nothing, facing this entity.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"I manifest in the moment of death, for those that are dead. This is not your world. Look, doesn't it look different than yours? Where are your students?" the Grim Reaper argued patiently.

"This is your world?" the old man asked.

"This is the world between. Look down, you can still glimpse yours." the Grim Reaper's dark robes exposed a bone-finger that pointed down for him.

The old man looked down. On the ground the tiles looked like those in his classroom, clean, yellow and well lit. Upon the tiled floor was his own dead body. There were paramedics and others near him, but their living bodies were difficult to see. Only the way they were touched by the moment of death could be seen. It was a strange sensation, to sense with senses beyond those of the physical world.

"Where are we right now, exactly?" he asked. He looked at his calculations. "I was here for a long time. I finished all of my work on the board."

"Yes, I wanted to see that. I wanted to see my true name written with numbers. Nothing has ever drawn me that way before." the Grim Reaper sounded oddly gratified. "Time has very little meaning in this place, practically irrelevant."

"I understand. What do you mean by your true name...written with numbers?" the dead man asked.

"Many humans and other creatures have invented names for me, images and even poetry. I have no way to define myself, so I can only take what is given. It is the exchange."

"The exchange?" the dead man felt confused.

"Well yes. I am going to take you from here. You will go elsewhere and leave your consciousness behind. I only take your soul, a piece of you. The rest is left here, as your physical remains were left back there, on earth." the Grim Reaper seemed evasive of the question. It was not explaining everything. It had not taken him yet.

The dead man began to think, because he now knew that soon he would not be able to. What was the Grim Reaper waiting for? Why was it only half-answering his questions? It had some sort of malevolent cunning and he was making some kind of bargain or playing some kind of game with it, except he did not understand what was happening. It was obviously keeping a short distance and waiting for something.

"What do you want from me? You said an 'exchange' so what is it you are giving or taking and what is it that I am giving or taking? I don't understand what makes you stop right now from completing the act of taking my soul from here."

"Some are not so easy to capture." it said simply.

"Does that mean I am not at your mercy in this place? I can run and fight?"

"No. I can simply take you any time. I used the wrong word. Some are not so easy to collect. Harvest is another word. It is difficult to explain. I do not want to miss any details. I take my job very seriously, you know. This is just as important to me as it is to my clients. Each soul is unique." the Grim Reaper sounded almost sentimental. Evidently there was a complication at-hand, though.

"What more are you missing from me, then?" the old man looked from the Grim Reaper to his equation on the board.

"How should I know? I mean, is that complete?" the Grim Reaper pointed at the chalk board with its pointing bone finger that stuck out from the sleeve of its dark robes. "I would like to see it in its entirety. I have no way to know. The mathematics belong to you, I have no way of knowing."

"I think I understand why you have hesitated to collect me."

"Don't use that understanding the wrong way." the Grim Reaper sounded like it was warning him or threatening him.

But the old man sensed that it was bluffing. It could only take him or leave him, there was nothing else it could do to him. It seemed to know that he was considering this and added:

"I said time was irrelevant and that wasn't entirely correct. Look at your shoes..." the Grim Reaper had a skull for a face and its teeth could be seen smiling in the darkness of its hood, but not the rest of its skull-face. It shifted its weight under its robes from one bone leg to the other and the floorboards creaked, rotting and old.

"I should not linger here too long." he spoke the answer that he was meant to give. "I see this. So you just want me to finish this equation and then you will take my soul from here."

"Well, you are dead. It is what is done." the Grim Reaper had a strange kind of cunning. Some sort of ancient wisdom, but unimaginative with its devices.

"I don't know if it is done, but I am ready to go now." the old man spoke plainly, hoping to decide if he was right without affecting the subject of his theory.

"Can't you at least check it: make sure there are no errors?" the Grim Reaper asked, having made no special notice that the old man had changed his tone and was now observing the entity to conclude the facts.

"Why would that matter to you? If you don't understand what you are witnessing, then why does it matter if it is correct or not?" the old man had set it up to hear this question.

"I don't know." it admitted.

Conclusive enough.

"If that is the truth..." the old man smiled and looked at the board. "Then I can guarantee that this equation is entirely accurate."

"Good. I thank you for showing this to me. Now it is time." the Grim Reaper reached into the old man and extracted his soul.

The body thumped to the old rotting floorboards, here in this place there was no yellow tiled floor to land upon. The soul left the intellectual and emotional coils for another, higher dimension, an afterlife of-sorts.

The remains of his consciousness rested in peace.