There was a linen shortage when they made it. Something about using it all to wrap the actual dead people. Or maybe that's just my office manager screwing with me, who knows. He does that sometimes.

[In all honesty, it's something Bastian's never thought at any great length about, what it would be like to actually...not exist. The term they use around the office is "conquered"--someone picked it up from the lingo the fundies were throwing around, and it stuck. Life ends, Death is defeated, but there's really only two ways you could ever manage to achieve that.

One's the way that he used to be apprehensive of, eons ago, back before they'd figured out that Eternity was playing them against each other--breeding fear in Life, their favored daughter, who didn't know any better than to think he wanted to snuff her out; whispering threats to his existence, reminding him that his days were numbered, that someday he'd be defeated and she would win out over him. They might still be at it, too, if he hadn't fallen in love with the girl next door who just so happened to be Her, and made it possible for everything to get straightened out without the input of Eternity in the mix.

The other is the way he's still apprehensive of, but that he figures will almost certainly never come to pass. Death can't exist without a universe to exist in, so they could get rid of him by unmaking reality and starting over. That would always do it, too.

But they probably won't, and that's kind of a downer thought to dwell on anyway.]

You know what a great place for wallowing is? Cancun. There's this great place, right on the beach, and they bring you pina coladas with the little umbrellas in 'em, like, right out of coconut shells.