Dying Wishes

*** Finalist for 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Speculative Fiction category ***

When I was seven, my mother died. I struck a bargain with the Gods to bring her back to life.

For thirteen years now, I have served as a Harbinger of Death, coaxing dying wishes out of mortals so that the God of Death may grant them moksha, liberation from the cycles of birth and death.

The man about to die this evening claims he has nothing to offer me. He is dying a content man, a rarity in our world...