Story shared with permission, read: His last name is McGrimmon. That’s where the Reaper started. A joke, almost, something to put in my request form. Then we sat down. He told me about the accident. He got out of the car. Two of his friends didn’t. He said it plainly, the way people do when they’ve carried a thing long enough that it’s stopped needing dressing up. We talked about the years after, the habits that filled the space, the version of himself he’d been working to put down. The Reaper stopped being a joke somewhere in there. Later he mentioned the lambs. Nine of them. He feeds them every morning. He said it offhand, like it didn’t belong in a tattoo consultation, and I put my pencil down. I asked if there was one that stood apart from the others. There always is. The black sheep, the one that wanders, the one you have to go find. He laughed. He knew which one I meant. He also knew I wasn’t only talking about the lamb. What if the one who comes for life was the one hold...