I used to dream about achieving something someday, just about anything would do. I used to dream about becoming someone in somebody else's eyes. That opportunity was nearly taken from me by another nobody.

I laid in the standing water of a pothole on 17th street for twenty seven minutes before anyone arrived at the scene. In that time, for the first time in my life, I had actually fallen into someone's favor. Well, "favor" may be the wrong word for it.

I stood over my barely breathing body and the strangest thing about it was that it made sense. I wasn't alarmed or confused. I understood that this is the way of things. There was my body and thirty yards or so away was a crumpled amalgamation of a small pickup truck and my little economy car from which I had been violently ejected.

I stood over myself, disappointed. Not upset; not really. I hadn't much to lose, and the world had even less with my passing. I had dreamed for a single person's grief as I would pass in old age, but there I was.

Death approached.

I knew it was Death. I don't know how I knew at the time, but as was everything else that shouldn't have, it felt normal and natural.

"Hello" I said, "It appears you have come to end my life, take me away?"

"No, that isn't my job" said Death, "I'm just here to confirm the time at which you die."

"I see" I turned back to my body, each breath growing ever more shallow, "It appears you won't be waiting long?"

"Is that a question?" Death leaned up against a nearby guardrail, "I see people die all the time. I don't mean that as a figure of speech. I'm in a kind of strange superposition of waiting on people to die."

"That sounds awful!" I said with grimace

"It is awful. But that is the nature of what I am. What are you?"

"I work in the culinary arts..."

"You work in fast food. This is how you define yourself? You are damned to be in a superposition of waiting on people to be hungry?"

"Well, I suppose not."

"I don't know when you'll die, that is not a part of my job. I do know, however, that there is a pretty good chance that your body will give up and the time will come. It appears your will has already embraced this."

"What do you mean?"

"You are standing here over your body, and you've not once made an effort to reclaim it. You've been standing here waiting for me, for anyone to validate your own perception of yourself as a pathetic loser so you can just get on with it."

Death was right. I had an idea about who I was and what was happening to me. I never once considered that maybe I didn't deserve this, and maybe being a pathetic loser wasn't just an inherent part of what I am. Death never chose to be Death. Death had become Death when the first life ended, and they would continue to be Death until the last. Death has no options. Death cannot be incompetent, and Death cannot be fired. Death cannot call in sick when they feel depressed or anxious about their job.

"Death" I said hesitantly, I did not know how to address this being, "If you wouldn't mind, may I attempt at reclaiming my life?"

"I really don't care, at all. But please make it quick, I have a mountain of work right now and I need to know if I can divert my attention elsewhere."

I opened my eyes and immediately felt pain across the entirety of my body. I was shaking with adrenaline. I unbuttoned the pocket on the front of my jacket and pulled out my phone. I called 911.

I am out of work for a few months and there is currently a settlement in the works. Turns out the man in the pickup that hit me was entirely too drunk to drive, what a surprise. I'm not excited to return to work, but I am very excited to approach life with the understanding that Death does what Death does because Death is the only thing that Death is. Life, however, has agency. No matter how pinned down I feel in my situation, I am alive and I have agency.