Gabriel Jeroschewitz, August 25th, 2025. Dedicated to the shape of water, and my two favourite friends.
So that’s one symphony of splashing incompetence.
The sun beat down on the perfectly manicured lawn of Donald and Anna Bratwurst, glinting off the turquoise water of their kidney-shaped swimming pool. At the edge of the azalea bed, perched on a small, moss-kissed stone, sat Know Me, the garden gnome. His painted-on smile had not faltered in fifteen years, a ceramic stoic who had witnessed countless barbecues, awkward family gatherings, and the slow, creeping acquisition of things. Today, however, he had company.
Lounging in an invisible deck chair, a presence of shimmering heat and cold shadow that only Know Me could perceive, was Death. He wasn’t clad in a black robe; today, he’d opted for the ethereal equivalent of Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He tapped a long, bony finger against a spectral piña colada.
“Look at them,” Death sighed, his voice a dry rustle of autumn leaves. “He’s arguing about the pH balance again. She’s convinced the new inflatable flamingo is losing air. The sheer, unadulterated triviality is almost poetic.”
Know Me didn’t speak aloud, of course. His communication was more of a direct, grumpy transference of thought. They spent two hundred dollars on that flamingo, you know. Two hundred. For a glorified piece of plastic destined to fade in the sun and be pecked at by sparrows.
The argument escalated. Donald, a portly man with a sunburn perpetually fighting a losing battle with his SPF 50, gestured wildly with a water-testing kit. Anna, whose face was a testament to the fact that money could buy many things but not genuine contentment, snatched at it. A clumsy ballet ensued—a trip, a flail, a splash. Donald went in, his arms windmilling uselessly. Anna, screaming his name, leaned too far over the edge in a futile rescue attempt and followed him in with a shriek.
What followed was not a dramatic, heroic struggle. It was a symphony of splashing incompetence. They couldn’t swim. Not really. They could doggy paddle in the shallow end, but out here, in the deep, panic was a lead weight. They clawed at each other, pulling one another under in a frantic, gurgling embrace.
Death took a slow, deliberate sip of his non-existent drink. “And so it begins,” he murmured.
The messy part, Know Me projected. I hate the dirty part. The sirens will ruin the petunias.
“Oh, don’t worry about their bodies,” Death chuckled, a sound like gravel turning in a cement mixer. “That’s the one thing they no longer have to manage. It’s funny. They spend a lifetime moisturizing, exercising, dieting, and ultimately, they hand over the maintenance to others. Their relatives will handle it.”
Death settled back, narrating the inevitable future as the last bubbles broke the pool’s surface. “Cousin Helga—the one Anna always called ‘frumpy’—will be the one to go through their closets. She’ll take off their wet, chlorinated clothes. She and an undertaker they’ve never met will wash them, dress them up. Donald will be put in that navy blue suit he hated, the one he said made him look like a bank teller. They’ll be wheeled out of the house they mortgaged their happiness for and delivered to their new address: six feet of curated real estate at ‘Golden Slumbers Memorial Park’.”
Know Me added that the funeral will be a spectacle, his painted eyes fixed on the now eerily still water. The neighbours from number twelve will come, the Hendersons. They’ll cancel their tee time and complain about it in the car on the way home. Donald’s boss will appear, check his watch thrice during the eulogy, and think about who will get Donald’s parking spot.
“Exactly!” Death exclaimed, pointing a skeletal finger at the gnome. “The world won’t stop. The economy won’t even hiccup. Brenda from accounting, who is far more efficient than Donald, will have his old job by Tuesday. And the things, Know Me! The glorious, useless things!”
His gaze swept over the Bratwursts’ meticulously curated domain. The outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven was used only once. The shed was full of gleaming, top-of-the-line tools that Donald was always too afraid to scratch. Anna’s vast collection of romance novels, their spines uncracked.
The things I’ve had to watch them polish, the gnome groused. His keys to the vintage Porsche, which he only drove on Sundays? They’ll be sold. Her ridiculous collection of commemorative spoons? Donated to a charity shop where they’ll sit in a dusty bin. His precious first-edition sci-fi novels? Burned in an estate clearance, probably. An intern will be tasked with wiping his laptop, and all his carefully curated playlists of 80s rock will vanish with a single click.
“And the heirs,” Death continued, warming to his theme. “Their nephew, Thomas, who they always thought was a slacker, will inherit the lot. He’ll walk through this house with his girlfriend, pointing and laughing. ‘Can you believe they had a gnome?’ he’ll say.”
Know Me projected a wave of pure, unadulterated indignation.
“Someone else will sit on their Italian leather couch,” Death mused, ignoring the gnome’s silent fury. “Someone else will eat off their wedding china. The deep, theatrical pain will last for a week, maybe two. The good friends, their weekly bridge partners, will cry for an afternoon, then find a new couple to make up the foursome and laugh again. Their photos, the big smiling ones from the cruise to Alaska, will hang on the wall for a year. Then, they’ll be moved to a side table during a redecoration. Finally, they’ll end up at the bottom of a box in the attic, filed under ‘Misc.’”
A faint shimmer began to form above the pool. Two confused, translucent figures were coalescing in the air, looking remarkably like the Bratwursts. They stared down at their floating bodies with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
Their dog, Know Me, thought, a rare flicker of something other than cynicism in his mind. What about Bartholomew, the beagle?
“Bartholomew will be sad for a week,” Death said gently. “Then he’ll realize Cousin Helga gives him bacon scraps and get used to his new owner. He’ll be fine.”
The spectral Donald and Anna turned, noticing the lounging Reaper for the first time. Their ghostly mouths opened, but no sound came out. They looked around at their house, pool, and perfectly striped lawn, a dawning horror on their faces.
Death finally stood up, his form shifting from a casual vacationer to something taller, grander, and infinitely older. The Hawaiian shirt melted away into a robe of pure starlight and shadow.
“It all ends here, you see,” he said, his voice now a resonant boom that only the newly dead and the perpetually ceramic could hear. “It ends among people, ends in this world. But your story is just beginning. In your new reality, all of this…” He made a sweeping gesture encompassing the property and the entire concept of suburban ambition. “…is meaningless.”
He began to tick things off on his bony fingers. “The beauty of your bodies, your last name, the property, the loans, your working positions, the bank accounts, this house, the car, the academic titles you framed, the trophies from the club championship… it all loses its value. It’s currency for a country you’ve just left forever.”
The ghostly Bratwursts looked down at their shimmering, insubstantial hands.
“In your new life,” Death finished, his voice softening to an echo, “you will only need your soul. That is the only property that lasts.”
He turned to the gnome and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “It’s always the same, isn’t it, my little friend? They spend their lives gathering, hoarding, and polishing. But as the old saint said, ‘You won’t take what you have from here. You only take what you gave.’”
With that, he gestured for the bewildered souls of Donald and Anna Bratwurst to follow him. They cast one last, longing look at the inflatable flamingo, which had, indeed, begun to list slightly to one side, before turning and dissolving into the shimmering air behind the Reaper.
Silence returned to the backyard, broken only by the gentle water lapping against the pool tiles. The sun continued to shine. The sprinklers would come on at six. Know Me, the garden gnome, remained in his spot by the azaleas, his vacant smile a fixed monument to the magnificent, hilarious, and ultimately transient folly of it all. He was already waiting for the subsequent owners.
