The God Who Stole My Expiration Date

How it begins

Liora's death date vanished while she was eating a pear.

One moment it rested beneath the skin of her wrist, faint as an old ink stain. The next, there was only the ordinary pale line where her sleeve had rubbed.

She put down the pear.

A knock sounded at the surgery door.

The man outside held a small glass disc.

“I believe I have something of yours.”

He looked neither ancient nor particularly divine. His coat was too light for the rain. He had brought no guard, offering or ceremonial animal. Only the disc and an expression of someone who had rehearsed an apology without reaching the difficult part.

Liora let him stand beneath the porch.

“Return it.”

“I need to explain.”

“Return it first.”

He looked at her wrist.

For a moment she thought he would try charm.

Instead he placed the disc on the step and moved away.

She touched it.

The date returned.

Relief came so sharply that she resented him for making her feel it.

“My name is Thes,” he said.

“A god?”

“Minor.”

“That is not a useful defense.”

“No.”

Rain gathered along the edge of the porch. Liora watched a drop fall from his sleeve. He seemed surprised by the cold.

He had stolen an ending. He did not appear to understand discomfort.

“What do you want?”

“A life that stops.”

She looked at him again.

In the waiting room, a patient coughed. A child asked whether the physician was coming back. Liora's day contained six appointments, a difficult letter and a pear going brown beside an open book.

Thes looked past her into the small warm room.

“You have so many things to do.”

“Yes.”

“And still you came to the door.”

She folded her sleeve over the returned mark.

“People knock.”

He considered this as though it were a form of worship he had never encountered.

Liora opened the door a little wider.

“One conversation,” she said. “No theft, no promises, and you wait your turn.”