Day 241 - Reap Story

Reap Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

In life Jonas had never given much thought to the idiom “you reap what you sow.” In death he gave it extended consideration. He certainly had enough time on his hands to give. In life Jonas had walked the walk of evil men. He had lied and cheated and stolen. He was a boozehound and a gambler. He was also a killer. It was the killing that would set the tone for his afterlife. In life he hadn’t given it much thought. He had taken jobs and he had performed them admirably. He didn’t think twice about the ramifications. He didn’t worry about fate or karma or justice or sin. He believed in getting paid a lot of money to do a job and then doing it precisely. He was cold and efficient. He didn’t blink. He didn’t miss. He was a good killer. For that he was rewarded handsomely in life; for that he was rewarded malevolently in the afterlife.

It was called the harvest and for each harvest there was a harvester – the Harvester of the Soul. The Harvester found those that deserved to be punished and dragged them kicking and screaming to be tortured in hell. The rules were different during the harvest. No one needed to die in order to be harvested. It was a feeding frenzy. There was spiritual blood in the water and the Harvester was the shark. They didn’t necessarily take the most evil of evil men or the most depraved of depraved souls. They took tasty souls or souls they could do something with. The harvest wasn’t about justice or retribution. It was a harvest and like any other harvest it was a matter of reaping at the right time.

Jonas was an evil man and had been for most of his life, but his harvest didn’t come until his forty-third year. He hadn’t done anything especially bad that year or that day in particular; it was just his time. The harvest came and Jonas paid the price.

Jonas was sorted, processed and packed away, frozen, held until the next spiritual equinox. There was no hellfire. There were no demons or damnation. No, nothing like that for Jonas. The worst punishment possible was for Jonas to get to do nothing. That was torture in itself. But talent wasted was torture for the man of talent and in a way for the torturer as well. The Harvested hated to see talent go unfulfilled. Jonas was a man of talent and men of talent have their uses, no matter whom or what they were. Jonas was a man of talent and the Harvester knew how to recognize and use talent. Even in the afterlife, men of talent get a chance to use it.

There was no redemption for this wicked, but not all of the wicked wanted to be redeemed. When it was time for hunting season, Jonas would be unlocked and set free to run wild. He was stored, but he would get his chance to hunt and to do what he did – kill and kill precisely. All Jonas had to do was wait his turn. Waiting was the hard part. He had never been a patient man in life. But here he was learning. In life he had profited from his abilities, but here he was truly recognized for being what he was. In many ways he had earned his keep and learned his lesson – that a talent was recognized no matter what the talent was, and that he truly had gotten just exactly what he deserved.