. . .But she doesn’t smell nearly as good!
Death has had all manner of bad press for centuries–even before there were media outlets. History, literature, music, and life are replete with death. It’s not something we can avoid.
But Death has her job to do. Death, a.k.a. Coco, climbs aboard the train of life to complete her mission of passing souls from the Earthly plane to the Metaphysical space. When she enters the train’s passenger cars, she fills the closed spaces with her “aroma.” As we find out in Deathlist, her odor is compliments of God, and it’s a definite turn-off. We want to know why it’s there, and so does Death!
“Why couldn’t I smell like bacon?” she might ask herself rhetorically in a quiet moment.
We all have odors. I mean, I feel like our odors are the mistakes we make. They are the hurts we pass to our fellow humans. And to ourselves. We have things on us that we think we cannot expunge, although we try desperately. Bad habits. Sins, maybe. A divorce! Well, heck. I think we all have those, and yet, we save our friends (and sometimes our enemies), our pets, spouses, and ex-spouses because, in a brave moment, we come above our sins. Maybe we step around them. Or we push them aside, even for a split second, to do something we never expected we could or would do.
And at that moment, we realize that we aren’t so bad after all. We can even hug ourselves or at least pat ourselves on the back.
“Well done!” you say to yourself in the mirror.
AND we need to remember that day for the funky times when all looks lost. Those are the times when the “odor” of unworthiness surrounds us. And we’re in the dumps.
@AustinKleon, in his book Steal Like an Artist, says, “Keep a Praise File.” Collect the pats on the back and the hugs, so you can find them when you’re sad.
In the meantime, chin up. Help a friend in need. Or… heck…save the human race. We’ll be glad! And for you… You’ll smell like bacon!
I’m often asked, “What was the inspiration for this novel?” 
cky to live in an age when we can publish our work without censor from a publishing industry that, while wonderful in its own way (thank you, publishing industry), has made the “author” word fearful. They also made publishing itself nearly impossible. Not so much now. We can author all sorts of stuff. But the coolest part is that we get to practice our art form (our writing) and eventually we can be a golly gosh darn gee published author! We learn every time we try and fail. If we don’t try, we don’t fail, and if we don’t fail, we don’t learn.
The Deathlist was a big help to me. I didn’t have to keep everyone’s dates in my head. Births, deaths, and all the Smiths were difficult to keep apart. It’s hard to concentrate on my golf game with all the going on in my head. We thought Death would want her job back but she is pretty stubborn. I had a good time after all. It scared me when Death quit. Who would we get to do her job? Anyway, I’m glad Kathryn Atkins wrote the novel the Deathlist. As the Holy Spirit said, it gets boring up here in Heaven. We had a good time hanging out together in Kathryn’s book. 
From the open window, the aroma of freshly baked bread wafts in from the nearby bakeshop, followed immediately by stale urine odors rising from the alley three floors below. She stretches and then remembers. She’s no longer a female. She’s no longer a powerful part of the team in Heaven. And she is no longer Death. She’s a human on Earth, her body reeks of New York summer humid, and her mouth tastes the bitterness of her predicament.