Opposite

How had this happened. How did it happen? How?

Could anyone explain it? Probably not. Passersby didn't see the tall man draped in the black robes in the room with a woman crying at the top of her lungs.
It might have been that no one was really paying attention, too caught up in their own lives and emergencies to ask about it.

Either way, something was happening.

A man -just barely a man after the hundreds of years he'd walked the Earth, but still a man when you got down to the foundation- was stood in a Hospital room, having paused time with a shake of his withered, bony hand. Today wasn't his day. In fact, it had been the opposite, with this moment sitting on the very top.

"This is not my job! This is the exact opposite of my job!" Screamed the Grim Reaper as he stared at the woman giving birth. Well, she was in labor at least. That baby wasn't coming out of her yet, but it was close.

Grim had faced soldiers on the battlefield, child patients, innocents in an accident that wasn't their fault. He had led them through the tunnel and into the afterlife without thinking about it twice.
He wasn't even supposed to be here! He was supposed to be in the several rooms over, where there was an old man whose wife had just pulled his plug. But mishaps happen.

It could have been because he'd been distracted by an elderly woman discussing her many cats, or that he had been trying to focus on the person after the old man, trying to remember who they were and why they were dying. Whatever it was, it had led him here, just a few rooms away.

The woman was frozen, and he supposed that he could leave her for the Doctors, they surely had enough experience in this situation, right?

Grim sighed, passing a tired hand over his face. Oh how he wished he could retire.

Suddenly, time started again, and the woman was crying again. And the crying only worsened when she saw the dark figure in front of her, standing beside her bed ominously.

"Please! Please not now!" She pleaded.

Grim moved to stand in front of the lady, at the end of her bed, not really sure what he was doing, but ready to catch if he had to.
"No! No no no, I'm not here for you. You see, there was an old lady with a lot of cats, one named Ginger, Scruffy, Spotty, Spock, Fluffy, Junior, Daisy, Dandy, Delilah, Snowball, Snuffles, Collin -I think you get the point, there was a lot of cats- and she was talking about her son, who was going to have to take care of the cats -poor lad- and how he wasn't going to feed them right. When I finally got her done with, I had to come here, well not here, several rooms away where there's this old man and his wife just stopped his life support. They've been together for sixty years you know, married when they were thirty, or maybe twenty nine. I can't quite remember. Her grandmother had a heart attack during the reception and had to be rushed to the hospital. Anyway, I was trying to remember who was supposed to come after the old man, I think it was a dude named Bart? Maybe Barry? I can't remember and that's what brought me here. I don't mean to scare you I promise, I'm really a nice guy when you get to know me, everyone's always put off by the whole death thing, and the fact that I look like a skeleton. I'm not, by the way, just malnutrition. And-"

There was a loud shriek. Well, two of them. One belonging to the woman, the other belonging to the little person that had magically appeared. But grim knew it wasn't magic. He had talked through this woman's birth and now there was a baby in his hands, crying loudly. Quickly, Grim grabbed a blanket from the counter nearby and wrapped the baby up carefully, wiping away the goop that was on its face. He checked.

"It's a boy, if you wanted to know."

When there was no reply, Grim looked over. The woman had quietly gone to sleep. Sleep.

But it wasn't. It wasn't sleep and Grim knew it.

"Sh. Shh. Hey there, it's okay." Grim told the little baby, holding it in his arms. "You're okay. I promise. She's just sleeping."