It was how people had begun. It was how all new things began. He understood this, the life and death of species, as he had always understood the life and death of individuals. But perhaps he had been too preoccupied with the latter, as a result failing to notice the former.
The little octopus detached itself from the side of the tank and dropped back into the water, darting in for its own share of the mother's corpse. Death felt himself ignored and forgotten — but that was all right. The young did not often think about Death, but Death was no less eternal for their disinterest.
He smiled with the realization that some concepts would always be the same, no matter who conceptualized them. Still... lifting his hand, he contemplated the shape and structure of tentacles. They would be very versatile, he decided, though they would take some getting used to.
Then he turned and headed for home.
A few days later, Death went to Union Square. He walked over to the worshippers on the south-end steps, and asked them what to do.
"Just... think about the one you're trying to help," said the Dragon King, who had been looking at him oddly since his arrival. "That's all any of us really needs, y'know. But if you don't mind me saying so, buddy, I never expected to see you here. I figured — " He paused, abruptly looking embarrassed. "Well, I figured you didn't mind seeing the rest of us crash and burn."
Death understood. Others usually assumed worse. "Death comes on its own," he said. "I don't have to do anything to facilitate it. But everyone deserves a chance to try and survive." Even us, he had decided.
"Well, sure. But..." The Dragon King scratched his long, curling moustache, finally letting out a weak laugh. "Man, you're weird."
Death smiled. It pleased him to be called "man," though eventually there would be other names and other manifestations for him. He would not be the same, filtered through such different imaginations. None of them would be — but it was now important to him that his fellows hold on, take the opportunity to adapt if they could. The world had not ended, after all. The stuff of which he and his kind had been made, had not vanished. The thinker did not matter, so long as thought remained.
"Thank you," Death said, and then he clapped the Dragon King on the shoulder. (The Dragon King started and threw him a puzzled look.) "Now tell me: are bagpipes easy to learn?"
While he still had fingers, he would need a way to pass the time.