What the Ghost of Death By Me Does Not Understand About Work

The Ghost of Death By Me has a great deal to say, which is not, in itself, a disqualification from a man in this business, provided the words are backed by something harder than wind.

He says I have been talking too much. He may be right about that. A man who works as I work does not require volume to establish his position, and if I have been generous with words, then I will correct the imbalance on Friday in the only currency this worksite respects.

He says he will put me away in under a minute. I have heard that measurement before, from men who arrived certain and departed considerably less so. Certainty of that kind is inherited, Ghost of Death By Me, and I do not accept inherited things on credit.

What he calls piling on, I call an audition. Every word he has aimed at me is a declaration of territory he does not yet hold, and territory claimed in speech still has to be taken by hand in that ring.

I will see him Friday. I will be on time. I will do the work. That is all this house is owed, and that is precisely what it will receive.