He wiped the bristles of a dirty makeup brush with a towel. "It has been gone since she sent your body last night. Brinkley came to pick you up and go home."
At this moment, Kirk reached out and touched a sensor, letting Brinkley know that he could enter the room now.
As soon as I saw my boss, I fell into a coma pretending to be unconscious.
A familiar voice said: "That thing doesn't work for me. I don't feel compelled to give up pretending to be dead at all. I would rather die than deal with Brinkley.
"Get up," he said, placing his hands on his hips.
I groaned and dragged myself out of Kirk's desk. My legs became stiff immediately because my feet were connected to the floor. I groaned, stretched my arms, then raised my eyes to meet Brinkley.
"Have I told you how funny you are?" I asked.
"More than once."
Brinkley was a little shorter than Kirk, shoulders wide, and early signs of a beer belly. I thought they met from the past. Before joining FBRD, I knew that Brinkley was serving in the army and the Federal Bureau of Rebirth Death. Maybe he knew Kirk at that time, which is why Brinkley asked him to be my funeral director when we moved from St. Louis.
Regardless of his past, Brinkley is now more like a Jǐngcha than a soldier because of his work at FBRD. But his gray hair and sour face said it all. He saw some things he didn't like in this world, and he has been dealing with them ever since.
I often feel that I am that kind of person.
"I got another batch of your comments," Brinkley said.
Brinkley waved a bunch of replaced survey cards at me, then threw them to me for me to catch. They are tied together by rubber bands. Everyone is marked with handwriting in different colors.
I mumbled, I already felt that the speech was about to begin.
"My personal favorite, let me quote," he said with his closed lips. "Ms. Fan Fan is like a human Chihuahua, barking at anything that moves."
"I'm not called" I flipped through the card.
"I believe this is a constant sarcastic comment on you," Brinkley said. He reached into his pocket. "None of us has ever experienced this ironic pleasure."
"My comments are not static," I argued. I played the card. "The woman was angry because I called her a hoarder. She has two million weird dolls."
Kirk grumbled, suppressing laughter. "how is it like?"
"Porcelain—some of them are clowns," I replied, craned my neck, and then to the left and then to the right. My neck muscles are sore, like I’ve been bumping my head all night. "If I were really a bad person, I would make fun of you with the stains on your pants."
All our eyes were on Brinkley's crotch, and the black stains four inches under his gun.
I frowned. "I can say-"
Brinkley stopped me with red ears. "That—" He refused to look at his crotch, which caused him to point at it. "It's your fault."
"I will remember to make you urinate"
His tone even became dangerous. "The doctors missed a piece of glass. When I pulled it out, you sprayed me," he said, gritting his teeth. "It seems that even your corpse is a sarcastic little bastard."
As we argued, Kirk's eyes just turned between us, coughing politely.
"If you don't mind," Kirk said, squeezing my shoulder. Kirk and Brinkley did a man nodded. Brinkley and I were standing in the back room.
We worked together for seven years, but I found it awkward to be alone with him. Maybe embarrassment is not a good word-uncomfortable.
"I don't even dare to ask how Mr. Reynolds is," he asked, relaxing his shoulders a bit. "I hope you made a good impression on him, that is the necromancer. We paid him to make you look better."
"I saved his life," I said. "If that counts."
"This is just part of the job."
"The hardest part," I mumbled. "I didn't even get thanks."
"You have to comfort them. People need to feel safe," he said, as if he hadn't said it countless times.
"They are not safe." I thought of those ungrateful bastards. How many lives did I save? 67 years old, but on the one hand I can count on those who have truly thanked me. "If they are safe, they don't need me." I made a big display, flipped the survey card, and didn't actually see them.
"Do you want to be fired?" he asked.
Yes, I think. I dream of quitting my job twenty times a day. The moment I regain ZìYóu, I will say something smart to Brinkley.
"It's not like it's raining zombie."
"Don't use that word." His anger returned, spreading out as quickly as I did.
"Okay. Necromancers seem to be two percent of the people. You have managed to convince less than half of us idiots to become the gangsters. Pretend you can call an old friend to do my job. Uh, please."
The room is full of silence, and the air is amplified by the whirling sound of the air vents above the head. I am not very good at silence, so I keep talking.
"I just hope you don't work twice as much as other agents."
He squinted his eyes. "what does that mean?"
"Meaning, I have to make twice as many substitutes as Cindy, and Cooper avoids a substitute every five minutes."
"I am not their boss, I am your boss"
It's too late to look back now. "The key is that I work harder, and I will be scolded harder. This is the definition of unfairness."
Brinkley's face changed from white to red. "You don't know how good you are."
"Obviously," I said angrily.
"Cooper is fulfilling a military contract," Brinkley said. "He goes where they want to go, and when they want to go. He doesn't know where he eats or sleeps. Both you and Cindy are hired as private consultants. You should be grateful for that."
I clucked and said angrily, "Why?"
"Cindy and Cooper work five times as long as you at community seminars, hospitals, and Jǐng police stations," he continued, waving his hands. "They do this to protect you, all of you. In Utah and Alabama, the rights of a necromancer are invalid at the time of death. They amended the state constitution to stipulate that once you die for the first time, you You should no longer have rights. You are no longer alone. What would happen if they did this in Tennessee? The bill has been drafted. I can't even believe you will pass in a five-minute interview."
"Because you think I am a socially disabled person. I don't know why," I said. I pointed to the feedback card above. "This person gave me points."
"one tenth."
"Isn't it the best?" I asked.
"Ten is the best," he said. "You promised me ten years."
The temperature has changed. An imaginary block of ice slid down my spine, and Brinkley's eyes became dangerously stable. When he walked quietly like this, I was frightened. If he were a cat, its tail would waver, indicating that it was going to rush over.
He took a step closer.
His large body blocked the light in the corridor, making the room darker and darker. I am stuck.
He put his hands on his hips to make himself look bigger. His voice fell. "After I did those things for you, Fan Fan, you owe me."
I looked up at his dark eyes. "Do you like blackmailing your slave?"
"Slavery is life imprisonment," he said. "If it weren't for me, you would serve your sentence in Illinois State Penitentiary."
Of course, he is right.
The suffocating smell of smoke and the sound of the Jǐng flute in the distance came back clearly and clearly. Wooden rafters fell around me, like a human flesh, burnt, black, and scorched before my eyes. My first death was a barn fire, not an accident.
I only remember some vague parts of my life before I died. I don't even remember Ellie, even though she told me that we have been friends since childhood. There are very few memories in my early memories that were not parties or dances.
But I remember I killed someone.
I resisted the memory until I was dizzy and grabbed the edge of the table.
Brinkley knew he had won. "Don't talk to me about your emotional pain. What if I add a year to every bit of grief you give me?"
I bit my lip until Brinkley came together, but I couldn't smell the burning meat in my nose.
"I can't help it." I shrugged. I must do this to relieve the terrible tension between my shoulder blades. "This is my job."
"What else are you going to do." He took another step towards me, and I took a step back. This is to stick to my position. "You have to do your job. Smile until your lips bleed. Bend back to make your customers happy. Become the spokesperson for death substitutes until every one of these extremists believes that the dead have a soul. Saving lives is only a small part of what we need to accomplish here. We must change the world."
"God, you don't want too much, do you?"
"I mean it, Fan Fan," he said. "You may not take your work seriously, but it is very serious. This is a war between us and them, and I want you to stand in the middle. You think I make your life difficult, but believe me, I Know that there are many people who want to make your life harder."
"Very motivating, Boss."
He turned and left. "If your next review is less than 7 points, I will unplug and you can spend the rest of your life wearing an orange pullover."
"That's it? The discussion is over?" Someone needs to teach Brinkley how to communicate.
"Just wait until the prisoner hears about your talents," he added, and finally walked to the door. "They will be happy to discover all the ways you might die."
Greenbrook is a lovely suburb of Nashville, accessible via two roads that cross on both sides. There are about fifty houses located six blocks away. These houses are not uniform, and I like them very much, although each unit has certain similarities. (To be continued) (End of this chapter)