The Angel of Death appeared before him. He had neither scythe nor hourglass, nor did he beckon with a bony finger, but Kevin knew who he was. Death was tall, blond, and fine featured, and although he had a robust physical presence, the Angel shimmered and sparkled in a visual feast of 'pretty-boy-ness'.
Kevin, on the other hand, was a large portly slob who had always seemed to be unnecessarily ugly.
"Kevin," Death began, "it is your time."
"Bugger off, ya big Nancy-boy bitch!" Sneered Kevin.
"Now," said the Angel, "we can do this the easy way or…"
SMACK!
Kevin's grapefruit sized fist connected with Death's jaw, sending the Angel sprawling backwards onto the sticky floor of Kev's basement hovel. Death looked somewhat flabbergasted as he tried to unstick himself from the matted shag-pile.
"Not feeling so friggin' sparkly now, huh bitch?"
'The Hard Way', Death thought to himself…'
Ten minutes and lots of broken furniture later, Death dusted himself off and left Kev's hovel by it's only door. He didn't need to use a door but had always thought that this simple act added a certain gravitas to the situation.
Kev lay on his back on the floor, rigor-still, eyes staring blankly. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright and belly-laughed in triumph.
"Up yours!" He yelled at the departing Angel. "Thought you had me, didn't you? Huh? It'll take something bigger and sparklier than you to do the job…"
Death shrugged off the insults and smoothed off his bruised ego, mumbling to himself, determined not to look back.
"Fat, ugly, bast…." He had started to mumble until his lips healed over. He looked up and gesticulated his apology. His lips un-healed. "Thanks Boss," he muttered.
Half an hour later, Kevin was down the pub.
"Seen Death, kicked the crap out of him, and got the t-shirt," Kevin boasted to his 'mates'. A couple of more beers and it was time to stagger to the next pub on the circuit to spread the word of his grapple with Death.
"You be careful, Kev," Warned the bar manager as Kevin walked through the door of the pub, already open due to the clement weather.
Kevin turned to the manager whilst continuing to walk, backwards, through the door to the street outside.
"Right you are," he shouted back. "I have a funny feeling that Death will give me a wide berth from now on," he continued, his bloated face rosy with the warm glow of free alcohol.
The raucous laughter from the pub was rudely interrupted by the rattle-snake-on-steroids hiss of enormous air-brakes, the manic squealing of eighteen monstrous tyres, and a loud sort of squelchy-scrunch, as blubber and gristle made deep and intimate contact with steel, rubber, and concrete.
"Not as wide a berth as you may have thought, old son," Death said smugly to himself, as he gave the thumbs-up to the smiling bar manager through the side window of the big-rig cab…
