Recently, in the Eternal Realms...

Death reached out a long skeletal hand to tap a shoulder. Its scythe was poised in the other, ready to make his point, so to speak, if this next subject balked. Sometimes they did that, balk, not believing it was truly their time or thinking that they could bargain or bluff their way past the inevitable.

Usually the eyeless stare quashed that notion, the empty bony sockets offering nothing that a person could see and no spark of hope. If that failed, the babbling would trail away when the eyes traveled down to the mirthless namesake "death's head grin" that signaled neither mercy nor compassion, just implacable assurance that the time for bargaining and complaining and imploring was over.

Sometimes, though, neither hollow gaze nor mirthlesss grin persuaded a person that this was indeed and truly the end. A small tilt of the scythe, then, the blade somehow seeming at once to be both ancient and pitted and worn but bitterly sharp, promising a touch that would burn and rip as much as it cut. The scythe was enough. It was always enough.

The shoulder straightened as the bony finger touched it. It and its companion squared, and they rotated as their owner turned, his own eyes shaded under bushy brows and boring into those same eyeless sockets that stilled dissent. Brows furrowed, a chin thrust forth like a weapon. Death hesitated, unaccountably faltering, but then asserted itself and raised its hand again, beckoning with its finger.

"Come with you?" the man said, and sneered. Sneered! At Death! "I don't think so, Skinny. Now why don't you drop that toothpick. And. Give. Me. 20!"

Unbelievably, Death found its grasp on its scythe loosening, the iconic dread blade clattering on the ground. Death dropped to its hands and knees, then rose up and down on bony phlanges and tarsals, joints clicking as it did pushup after pushup.

Sgt. R. Lee Ermey, United States Marine Corps (Ret.), raised on eyebrow in satisfaction. "You see, there are three ways to do things, Mr. Death. There's the right way, there's the wrong way, and there's my way. And from now on, you miserable sack of doggie treats, we are going to do things my way."