Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

We must, by law, keep a record of the innocents we kill. And as I see it, they’re all innocents. Even the guilty. Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true. We must, by law, keep a record. It begins on day one of apprenticeship—but we do not officially call it “killing.” It’s not socially or morally correct to call it such. It is, and has always been, “gleaning,” named for the way the poor would trail behind farmers in ancient times, taking the stray stalks of grain left behind. It was the earliest form of charity. A scythe’s work is the same. Every child is told from the day he or she is old enough to understand that the scythes provide a crucial service for society. Ours is the closest thing to a sacred mission the modern world knows. Perhaps that is why we must, by law, keep a record. A public journal, testifying to those who will never die and those who are yet to be born, as to why we human beings do the things we do. We are instructed to write down not just our deeds but our feelings, because it must be known that we do have feelings. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow too great to bear. Because if we didn’t feel those things, what monsters would we be? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

It is the most difficult thing a person can be asked to do. And knowing that it is for the greater good doesn’t make it any easier. People used to die naturally. Old age used to be a terminal affliction, not a temporary state. There were invisible killers called “diseases” that broke the body down. Aging couldn’t be reversed, and there were accidents from which there was no return. Planes fell from the sky. Cars actually crashed. There was pain, misery, despair. It’s hard for most of us to imagine a world so unsafe, with dangers lurking in every unseen, unplanned corner. All of that is behind us now, and yet a simple truth remains: People have to die. It’s not as if we can go somewhere else; the disasters on the moon and Mars colonies proved that. We have one very limited world, and although death has been defeated as completely as polio, people still must die. The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor. I understand why there are scythes, and how important and how necessary the work is… but I often wonder why I had to be chosen. And if there is some eternal world after this one, what fate awaits a taker of lives? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

2042. It’s a year that every schoolchild knows. It was the year when computational power became infinite—or so close to infinite that it could no longer be measured. It was the year we knew… everything. “The cloud” evolved into “the Thunderhead,” and now all there is to know about everything resides in the near-infinite memory of the Thunderhead for anyone who wants to access it. But like so many things, once we had possession of infinite knowledge, it suddenly seemed less important. Less urgent. Yes, we know everything, but I often wonder if anyone bothers to look at all that knowledge. There are academics, of course, who study what we already know, but to what end? The very idea of schooling used to be about learning so that we could improve our lives and the world. But a perfect world needs no improvement. Like most everything else we do, education, from grade school through the highest of universities, is just a way to keep us busy. 2042 is the year we conquered death, and also the year we stopped counting. Sure, we still numbered years for a few more decades, but at the moment of immortality, passing time ceased to matter. I don’t know exactly when things switched over to the Chinese calendar—Year of the Dog, Year of the Goat, the Dragon, and so on. And I can’t exactly say when animal activists around the world began calling for equal billing for their own favorite species, adding in Year of the Otter, and the Whale, and the Penguin. And I couldn’t tell you when they ...

I had my cultural audit today. It happens only once a year, but it’s never any less stressful. This year, when they crunched each cultural index from those I gleaned over the past twelve months, I, thankfully, came up well within accepted parameters: 20 percent Caucasoid 18 percent Afric 20 percent PanAsian 19 percent Mesolatino 23 percent Other Sometimes it’s hard to know. A person’s index is considered private, so we can only go by visible traits, which are no longer as obvious as they had been in past generations. When scythes’ numbers become lopsided, they are disciplined by the High Blade, and are assigned their gleanings for the next year rather than being allowed to choose for themselves. It is a sign of shame. The index is supposed to keep the world free from cultural and genetic bias, but aren’t there underlying factors that we can’t escape? For instance, who decided that the first number of one’s genetic index would be Caucasoid? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

Forget what you think you know about scythes. Leave behind your preconceived notions. Your education begins today.

Do not be so arrogant as to think you have a license to glean. The license is mine and mine alone. At most you have… shall we say… a learner’s permit. I will, however, require at least one of you to be present at each of my gleanings. And if I ask you to assist, you will.

We are above the law, but that does not mean we live in defiance of it. Our position demands a level of morality beyond the rule of law. We must strive for incorruptibility, and must assess our motives on a daily basis.

You shall study history, the great philosophers, the sciences. You will come to understand the nature of life and what it means to be human before you are permanently charged with the taking of life. You will also study all forms of killcraft and become experts.

You shall live as I do. Modestly, and subsisting on the goodwill of others. You will take no more than you need, and waste nothing. People will attempt to buy your friendship. They will lavish things upon you. Accept nothing but the barest of human necessities.

I will not tolerate childish pastimes or vapid communications with friends. Commitment to this life means leaving behind your old life as fully as possible. When, a year from now, I choose between you, the unchosen one can return to his or her former life easily enough. But for now, consider that life a part of your past.

The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government. Back in the days when the world’s digital network was called “the cloud,” people thought giving too much power to an artificial intelligence would be a very bad idea. Cautionary tales abounded in every form of media. The machines were always the enemy. But then the cloud evolved into the Thunderhead, sparking with consciousness, or at least a remarkable facsimile. In stark contrast to people’s fears, the Thunderhead did not seize power. Instead, it was people who came to realize that it was far better suited to run things than politicians. In those days before the Thunderhead, human arrogance, self-interest, and endless infighting determined the rule of law. Inefficient. Imperfect. Vulnerable to all forms of corruption. But the Thunderhead was incorruptible. Not only that, but its algorithms were built on the full sum of human knowledge. All the time and money wasted on political posturing, the lives lost in wars, the populations abused by despots—all gone the moment the Thunderhead was handed power. Of course, the politicians, dictators, and warmongers weren’t happy, but their voices, which had always seemed so loud and intimidating, were suddenly insignificant. The emperor not only had no clothes—turns out he had no testicles either. The Thunderhead quite literally knew everything. When and where to build roads; how to eliminate waste in food distribution and thus end hunger; h...

‘Have not a hand in the blade with abandon’ ”

“I feel bad for you,” said Citra. “Even when you’re food shopping, death is hiding right behind the milk.” “It never hides,” the scythe told them with a world-weariness that was hard to describe. “Nor does it sleep. You’ll learn that soon enough.” But it wasn’t something either of them was eager to learn.

The Scythe Commandments 1) Thou shalt kill. 2) Thou shalt kill with no bias, bigotry, or malice aforethought. 3) Thou shalt grant an annum of immunity to the beloved of those who accept your coming, and to anyone else you deem worthy. 4) Thou shalt kill the beloved of those who resist. 5) Thou shalt serve humanity for the full span of thy days, and thy family shall have immunity as recompense for as long as you live. 6) Thou shalt lead an exemplary life in word and deed, and keep a journal of each and every day. 7) Thou shalt kill no scythe beyond thyself. 8) Thou shalt claim no earthly possessions, save thy robes, ring, and journal. 9) Thou shalt have neither spouse nor spawn. 10) Thou shalt be beholden to no laws beyond these. Once a year I fast and ponder the commandments. In truth, I ponder them daily, but once a year I allow them to be my sole sustenance. There is genius in their simplicity. Before the Thunderhead, governments had constitutions and massive tomes of laws—yet even then, they were forever debated and challenged and manipulated. Wars were fought over the different interpretations of the same doctrine. When I was much more naive, I thought that the simplicity of the scythe commandments made them impervious to scrutiny. From whatever angle you approached them, they looked the same. Over my many years, I’ve been both bemused and horrified by how malleable and elastic they can be. The things we scythes attempt to justify. The things that we excuse. In my earl...

In my early years, I wondered why it was so rare to catch a scythe out of his or her robes and in common street clothes. It’s a rule in some places, but not in MidMerica. Here it is just an accepted practice, although rarely violated. Then, as I settled in, it occurred to me why it must be. For our own peace of mind, we scythes must retain a certain level of separation from the rest of humanity. Even in the privacy of my own home I find myself wearing only the simple lavender frock that I wear beneath my robes. Some would call this behavior aloof. I suppose on some level it is, but for me it’s more the need to remind myself that I am “other.” Certainly, most uniformed positions allow the wearers to have a separate life. Peace officers and firefighters, for instance, are only partially defined by their job. In the off-hours they wear jeans and T-shirts. They have barbecues for neighbors and coach their children in sports. But to be a scythe means you are a scythe every hour of every day. It defines you to the core of your being, and only in dreams is one free of the yoke. Yet even in dreams I often find myself gleaning.… —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

There was more to learn about death than either of them had ever considered.

They quickly learned that Scythe Faraday was very creative in his gleaning methods. He never repeated the exact same method twice. “But aren’t there scythes who are ritualistic in their work,” Citra asked him, “performing each gleaning exactly the same?” “Yes, but we must each find our own way,” he told her. “Our own code of conduct. I prefer to see each person I glean as an individual deserving of an end that is unique.” He outlined for them the seven basic methods of killcraft. “Most common are the three Bs: blade, bullet, and blunt force. The next three are asphyxiation, poison, and catastrophic induction, such as electrocution or fire—although I find fire a horrific way to glean and would never use it. The final method is weaponless force, which is why we train you in Bokator.”

Scythes are supposed to have a keen appreciation of death, yet there are some things that are beyond even our comprehension. The woman I gleaned today asked me the oddest question. “Where do I go now?” she asked. “Well,” I explained calmly, “your memories and life recording are already stored in the Thunderhead, so it won’t be lost. Your body is returned to the earth in a manner determined by your next of kin.” “Yes, I know all that,” she said. “But what about me?” The question perplexed me. “As I said, your memory construct will exist in the Thunderhead. Loved ones will be able to talk to it, and your construct will respond.” “Yes,” she said, getting a bit agitated, “but what about me?” I gleaned her then. Only after she was gone did I say, “I don’t know.” —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

There’s a poem by Honorable Scythe Socrates—one of the first scythes. He wrote many poems, but this one has grown to be my personal favorite. Have not a hand in the blade with abandon, Cull from the fold all the brazen and bold, For a dog who just might, Love the bark and the bite, Is a carrion raven, the craven of old. It reminds me that in spite of our lofty ideals and the many safeguards to protect the Scythedom from corruption and depravity, we must always be vigilant, because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature. I fear for us all if scythes begin to love what they do. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

Was there ever a time when people weren’t plagued with boredom? A time when motivation wasn’t so hard to come by? When I look at news archives from the Age of Mortality, it seems people had more reasons to do the things they did. Life was about forging time, not just passing time. And those news reports—how exciting they were. Filled with all nature of criminal activity. Your neighbor could be a salesperson of illegal chemicals of recreation. Ordinary people would take life without the permission of society. Angry individuals would take possession of vehicles they didn’t own, then lead law enforcement officers in dangerous pursuits on uncontrolled roadways. We do have the unsavories nowadays, but they do little more than drop occasional pieces of litter and move shop items to places they don’t belong. No one rages against the system anymore. At most, they just glare at it a bit. Perhaps this is why the Thunderhead still allows a measured amount of economic inequality. It could certainly make sure that everyone had equal wealth—but that would just add to the plague of boredom that afflicts the immortal. Although we all have what we need, we’re still allowed to strive for the things we want. Of course, no one strives like they did in mortal days, when the inequality was so great people would actually steal from one another—sometimes ending lives in the process. I wouldn’t want the return of crime, but I do tire of we scythes being the sole purveyors of fear. It would be nice...

We are not the same beings we once were. Consider our inability to grasp literature and most entertainment from the mortal age. To us, the things that stirred mortal human emotions are incomprehensible. Only stories of love pass through our post-mortal filter, yet even then, we are baffled by the intensity of longing and loss that threatens those mortal tales of love. We could blame it on our emo-nanites limiting our despair, but it runs far deeper than that. Mortals fantasized that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know that neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal. Only scythes can equalize that, but everyone knows the chance of being gleaned in this, or even the next, millennium is so low as to be ignored. We are not the same beings we once were. So then, if we are no longer human, what are we? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

She wanted to tell him how much she admired him for what he had done. Choosing compassion over obligation. There was a lesson to be learned in every gleaning, and today’s was one she would not soon forget. The sanctity of the law… and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.

Sometimes, when the weight of my job becomes overwhelming, I begin to lament all the things lost when we conquered death. I think about religion and how, once we became our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have been frightening. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring. There are the tone cults, of course, dressing in sackcloth and worshiping sonic vibrations—but like so many things in our world, they seek to imitate what once was. Their rituals are not to be taken seriously. They exist merely to make the passing time feel meaningful and profound. Lately I’ve been preoccupied with a tone cult in my neighborhood. I went into their gathering place the other day. I was there to glean one of the cult’s congregants—a man who had not yet turned his first corner. They were intoning what they called “the resonant frequency of the universe.” One of them told me that the sound is alive and that harmonizing with it brings inner peace. I wonder, when they look at the great tuning fork that stands as the symbol of their faith, if they truly believe it to be a symbol of power or are they just joining in a communal joke? —From the gleaning journ...

The quota system has worked for over two hundred years, and although it fluctuates region to region, it makes it crystal clear what each scythe’s responsibility to the world is. Of course it’s all based on averages—we can go days or even weeks without gleaning—but we must meet our quota before the next conclave. There are those eager ones who glean early, and find themselves with little to do as conclave draws near. There are those who procrastinate and have to hurry toward the end. Both those approaches lead to sloppiness and unintentional bias. I often wonder if the quota will ever change, and if so, how much. Population growth is still off the charts, but it’s balanced by the Thunderhead’s ability to provide for an ever-increasing population. Renewable resources, subsurface dwellings, artificial islands, and all without there ever being any less green or a sense of overcrowding. We have mastered this world, and yet protected it in a way that our forefathers could scarcely have dreamed. But all things are limited. While the Thunderhead does not interfere with the Scythedom, it does suggest the number of scythes there should be in the world. Currently there are approximately five million people gleaned per year worldwide—a tiny fraction of the death rate in the Age of Mortality, and nowhere near enough to balance population growth. I shudder to think how many more scythes it would take, and how many gleanings would be required, if we ever need to curb population growth al...

The first order of business, once everyone was settled, was the Tolling of the Names. One by one, in no particular order, the scythes came to the front to recite various names of people they had gleaned over the past four months. “We can’t recite them all,” Scythe Faraday told them. “With over three hundred scythes, it would be more than twenty-six thousand names. We are to choose ten. The ones we most remember, the ones who died most valiantly, the ones whose lives were the most notable.” After each name spoken, an iron bell was rung, solemn and resonant. Rowan was pleased to hear Scythe Faraday reciting Kohl Whitlock’s name as one of his chosen ten.

I do believe people still fear death, but only one one-hundredth as much as they used to. I say that because, based on current quotas, a person’s chance of being gleaned within the next one hundred years is only 1 percent. Which means the chance that a child born today will be gleaned between now and their five thousandth year on Earth is only 50 percent. Of course, since we no longer count the years numerically, aside from children and adolescents, no one knows how old anyone is anymore—sometimes not even themselves. These days people roughly know within a decade or two. At the writing of this, I can tell you that I am somewhere between one hundred sixty and one hundred eighty years old, although I don’t enjoy looking my age. Like everyone else, I turn the corner on occasion and set my biological age back substantially—but like many scythes, I don’t set it back past the age of forty. Only scythes that are actually young like to look young. To date, the oldest living human being is somewhere around three hundred, but only because we are still so close to the Age of Mortality. I wonder what life will be like a millennium from now, when the average age will be nearer to one thousand. Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had the time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but suspect the latter. —From t...

There are times I long for a relationship with the Thunderhead. I suppose we always want what we can’t have. Others can call on the Thunderhead for advice, ask it to resolve disputes. Some rely on it as a confidant, for it’s known to have a compassionate, impartial ear, and never gossips. The Thunderhead is the world’s best listener. But not for scythes. For us, the Thunderhead is eternally silent. We have full access to its wealth of knowledge, of course. The Scythedom uses the Thunderhead for countless tasks—but to us, it’s simply a database. A tool, nothing more. As an entity—as a mind—the Thunderhead does not exist for us. And yet it does, and we know it. Estrangement from the collective consciousness of humanity’s wisdom is just one more thing that sets scythes apart from others. The Thunderhead must see us. It must be aware of the Scythedom’s petty bickering, and growing corruption, even though it has pledged noninterference. Does it despise us scythes, but abides us because it has to? Or does it simply choose not to think of us at all? And which is worse—to be despised, or to be ignored? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

I am not a man easily brought to fury, but how dare the old-guard scythes presume to dictate my behavior? Let every last one of them glean themselves, and we can be done with their self-loathing, sanctimonious ways. I am a man who chooses to glean with pride, not shame. I choose to embrace life, even as I deal death. Make no mistake—we scythes are above the law because we deserve to be. I see a day when new scythes will be chosen not because of some esoteric moral high ground, but because they enjoy the taking of life. After all, this is a perfect world—and in a perfect world, don’t we all have the right to love what we do? —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Goddard

I think it’s wise that scythes may not glean one another. It was clearly implemented to prevent Byzantine grabs at power; but where power is concerned there are always those who find ways to grasp for it. I think it’s also wise that we are allowed to glean ourselves. I will admit there were times when I considered it. When the weight of responsibility felt so heavy, leaving the yoke of the world behind seemed a better alternative. But one thought always stayed my hand from committing that final act. If not me, who? Will the scythe who replaces me be as compassionate and fair? I can accept a world without me in it… but I can’t bear the thought of other scythes gleaning in my absence. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

I have never taken an apprentice. I simply never felt compelled to subject another human being to our way of life. I often wonder what motivates other scythes to do so. For some it is a form of vanity: “Learn from me and be awed because I am so wise.” For others perhaps it is compensation for not being allowed to have children: “Be my son or my daughter for a year, and I will give you power over life and death.” Yet for others, I imagine it is to prepare for their own self-gleaning. “Be the new me, so that the old me can leave this world satisfied.” I suspect, however, if I ever take on an apprentice, it will be for a different reason entirely. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height. And it was funny. Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell. I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles. And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear. Immortality has turned us all into cartoons. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

I am disturbed by those who revere us far more than those who disdain us. Too many put us on a pedestal. Too many long to be one of us—and knowing that they can never be makes their longing even greater, for all scythes are apprenticed in their youth. It is either naivete in thinking that we are somehow of a higher order of being, or it is the product of a depraved heart—for who but the depraved would revel in the taking of life? For a time years ago, there were groups who would emulate and imitate us. They would fashion robes like those of scythes. They would wear rings that looked similar to ours. For many it was just costume play, but some would actually pretend to be scythes, fooling others, granting false immunity. Everything short of gleaning. There are laws against impersonating workers in any profession, but no law preventing anyone from impersonating a scythe. Since the Thunderhead has no jurisdiction over the Scythedom, it cannot pass any laws concerning us. It was an unforeseen glitch in the separation of Scythe and State. However, it wasn’t a glitch for long. In the Year of the Stingray, at the Sixty-Third World Conclave, it was decided that all such imposters shall be gleaned on sight, publicly, and most violently. While one might expect such an edict to produce a bloodbath, very few gleanings ever took place. Once word got out, the posers shed their false robes and vanished into the woodwork of the world. To this day the edict remains, but rarely needs to be ...

In the business of death, we scythes have no competition. Unless, of course, you consider fire. Fire kills just as swiftly and completely as a scythe’s blade. It’s frightening, but also somehow comforting to know that there’s one thing the Thunderhead can’t fix. One type of damage that revival centers are powerless to undo. Once one’s goose is cooked, it is truly and permanently cooked. Death by fire is the only natural death left. It almost never happens, though. The Thunderhead monitors heat on every inch of the planet, and the fighting of fires often begins before one can even smell smoke. There are safety systems in every home and every office building, with multiple levels of redundancy, just in case. The more extreme tone cults try to burn their deadish, to make it permanent, but ambudrones usually get to them first. Isn’t it good to know that we are all safe from the threat of the inferno? Except, of course, when we’re not. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

We are wise but not perfect, insightful but not all-seeing. We know that by establishing the Scythedom, we will be doing something very necessary, but we, the first scythes, still have our misgivings. Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest. Our hope is that by a set of ten simple, straightforward laws, we can avoid the pitfalls of human fallibility. My greatest hope is that, in time, our wisdom will become as perfect as is our knowledge. And if this experiment of ours fails, we have also embedded a way to escape it. May the Thunderhead help us all, if we ever need that escape. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Prometheus, the first World Supreme Blade

There is no official media coverage of gleanings, much to the chagrin of the more publicity-minded scythes. Not even large-scale gleanings get on the news. Even so, plenty of personal pictures and videos of gleanings are uploaded to the Thunderhead, providing a guerilla record—which is so much more exciting and enticing than anything official. Notoriety and infamy quickly evolve into celebrity and fame for scythes—and the most brazen acts harden further into legend. Some scythes find the fame addictive, and seek greater and greater celebrity. Others would rather remain anonymous. I cannot deny that I am legend. Not for the simple gleanings I do now, but for the audacious ones I did more than a hundred and fifty years ago. As if I weren’t already immortal enough, I am further immortalized on collectible cards. The newer ones are prized by schoolchildren. The older ones are worth a fortune to hard-core collectors, regardless of the condition. I am legend. Yet every day I wish that I was not. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

I fought against the purge. There are things I’ve done that I am not proud of, but I am very proud that I fought against that. I can’t recall which scythe began that odious campaign to glean only those who were born mortal, but it spread throughout each regional Scythedom, a viral idea in a post-viral time. “Shouldn’t those who were born to expect death be the sole subjects of gleaning?” went the popular wisdom. But it was bigotry masquerading as wisdom. Selfishness posing as enlightenment. And not enough scythes argued—because those born in the post-mortal age found mortal-borns to be too uncomfortably different in the way they thought, and in the way they lived their lives. “Let them die with the age that bore them,” cried the post-mortal purists in the Scythedom. In the end it was deemed a gross violation of the second commandment, and all those scythes who participated in the purge were severely disciplined—but by then it was too late to undo what had been done. We lost our ancients. We lost our elders. We lost our living lifeline to the past. There are still mortal-borns around, but they hide their age and their history, for fear of being targeted again. Yes, I fought the purge—but the Thunderhead did not. By its own law of noninterference in scythe affairs, it could do nothing to stop the purge. All it could do was bear witness. The Thunderhead allowed us to make that costly mistake, leaving the Scythedom to wallow in its own regret to this very day. I often wonder, ...

While there are only ten hard-and-fast laws to the Scythedom, there are many accepted conventions. The most darkly ironic is the understanding that no one may be gleaned who wishes to be gleaned. The idea of truly wishing to end one’s own life is a concept completely foreign to most post-mortals, because we can’t experience the level of pain and despair that so seasoned the Age of Mortality. Our emo-nanites prevent us from plunging so deep. Only scythes, who can turn off our emotional nanites, can ever reach an impasse with our own existence. And yet… There was once a woman who knocked on my door requesting that I glean her. I never turn away visitors, so I let her in and listened to her story. Her husband of more than ninety years was gleaned five years prior. Now she wanted to be with him, wherever he was, and if he was nowhere, then at least they would be nowhere together. “I’m not unhappy,” she told me. “I’m just… done.” But immortality, by definition, means that we are never done, unless a scythe determines it to be so. We are no longer temporary; only our feelings are. I saw no interminable stagnation in this woman, so instead of gleaning her I had her kiss my ring. The immunity was immediate and irrevocable—so she could no longer entertain thoughts of being gleaned for a full year. I ran into her perhaps a decade later. She had turned the corner, resetting back to her late twenties. She had remarried and was expecting a child. She thanked me for being wise enough to...

… Yet even in dreams I often find myself gleaning. I have one dream that recurs far too often. I am walking on an unfamiliar street that I feel I should know, but don’t. I have a pitchfork, which I’ve never used in real life; its awkward tines are not well suited for gleaning, and when it strikes it reverberates, giving off a sound that is something between ringing and moaning, like the numbing vibration of a Tonist bident. There is a woman before me whom I must glean. I jab at her, yet the pitchfork fails to do the job. Her wounds heal instantaneously. She is not upset or frightened. Nor is she amused. She is simply resigned to stand there, allowing me to futilely attempt to end her life. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice is soft and her words are drowned out by the fork’s ghastly moans, so I never hear her. And I always wake up screaming. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

Immortality cannot temper the folly or frailty of youth. Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo. So we lay to rest the wide-eyed wonder we once thrived upon, replacing it with scars of which we never speak, too knotted for any amount of technology to repair. With each gleaning I commit, with each life taken for the good of humanity, I mourn for the boy I once was, whose name I sometimes struggle to remember. And I long for a place beyond immortality where I can, in some small measure, resurrect the wonder, and be that boy again. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Faraday

The longer we live, the quicker the days seem to pass. How troublesome that is when we live forever. A year seems to pass in a matter of weeks. Decades fly with no milestones to mark them. We become settled in the inconsequential drudgery of our lives, until suddenly we look at ourselves in the mirror and see a face we barely recognize begging us to turn a corner and be young again. But are we truly young when we turn the corner? We hold the same memories, the same habits, the same unrealized dreams. Our bodies may be spry and limber, but toward what end? No end. Never an end. I do believe mortals strived more heartily toward their goals, because they knew that time was of the essence. But us? We can put things off far more effectively than those doomed to die, because death has become the exception instead of the rule. The stagnation that I so fervently glean on a daily basis seems an epidemic that only grows. There are times I feel I am fighting a losing battle against an old-fashioned apocalypse of the living dead. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

Each day I pray as my ancestors did. They once prayed to gods that were fallible and fickle. Then to one God who stood in harsh and terrifying judgment. Then to a loving, forgiving God. And then finally to a power with no name. But to whom can the immortal pray? I have no answer to that, but still I cast my voice out into the void, hoping to reach something beyond distance and deeper than the depths of my own soul. I ask for guidance. And for courage. And I beg—oh, how I beg—that I never become so desensitized to the death I must deliver that it feels normal. Commonplace. My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Faraday

The power of life and death cannot be handed out blithely, but only with stoic and weighty reserve. Ascension to scythehood should by no means be easy. We who have established the Scythedom have faced our own struggles in the process, and we must ensure that all those who join us in our mission face a trial that is not only instructive but transformative. Scythehood is humanity’s highest calling, and to achieve it should cut one’s soul to the very core, so that no scythe will ever forget the cost of the ring they bear. Of course, to those on the outside, our rite of passage might seem unthinkably cruel. Which is why it must forever remain a secret sacrament. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Prometheus, the first World Supreme Blade

I am the blade that is swung by your hand, Slicing a rainbow’s arc, I am the clapper, but you are the bell, Tolling the gathering dark. If you are the singer, then I am the song, A threnody, requiem, dirge. You’ve made me the answer for all the world’s need, Humanity’s undying urge. —“Threnody,” from the collected works of H.S. Socrates

It is with bittersweet joy that I watch the bejeweling of new junior scythes at the end of each conclave. Joy, because they are our hope, and still kindle the idealism of the first scythes in their hearts. But bittersweet because I know that someday they will become so tired and jaded they will take their own lives, as all those first scythes eventually did. Yet each time the new scythes are bejeweled, I still rejoice, because it allows me, if only for a few glorious moments, to believe that we will all choose to live forever. —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie