Two: Hello

"I'm coming home, I'm coming home, tell the world I'm coming home."
- Coming Home

In collecting humans from their mortal encasement, there's only one color the sky never is.

Pure white.

No, the pure, angelic white is reserved for the delivery of souls only. It's white, no floor, no sky. No golden shining gates, just the white, the fog and the souls.

After showing the Book Thief her book, I brought her to this drop off point, her chatting amicably with me the entire way. It's always strange when a soul speaks to me. All day I carry them and it's one in a million that actually talks- and Liesel was certainly one of these.

I set her down on what I have always percieved to be the floor. She looked around, and for the first time, I saw trepidation cross over her face.

"But, there's nothing.."

Her voice is small and childish, like the first day she arrived in Molching and refused to get out of the car. She stands there, staring wide eyed in the fog around us, unmoving.

Now, I don't know exactly where souls go after drop off. They usually just wander off into the fog- or I push them that way if they don't move. But with the Book Thief it's different, I can't bring myself to nudge her along.

Then, very faintly, I hear it.

"Saumensch? Liesel? Liesel!"

A shadow breaks away, running full force at us. He's smiling and his hair is yellow. Liesel turns to the younger boy and when she does, years disappear and it's two children standing before each other again.

"Hello, Rudy," the Book Thief says, a grin firmly plastered to her face. He smiles back at her, eyes alight with decades of something I can only call love.

"How about a kiss, Saumensch?"

She obliges.

* A new realization *
Sometimes, death is beautiful.

And that makes me feel much better about this job.