Death used to call me on the phone.

Under the fluorescent lighting of the insurance call center, my phone would ring with the news of whom Death had recently claimed. Death has always been a shapeshifter so the voice on the other end of the phone was constantly changing. Sometimes it was the grieving husband or parent whose voice shook with the force of everything that had been lost. Sometimes it was a voice that crackled with the fury of a begrudged mistress. Sometimes it was emotionless and simply demanded “how much?” Despite its changing appearance, I could always hear it for what it was: Death’s incessant bragging as it paraded the never-ending succession of people right past my cramped cubicle. 

At the insurance call center where I worked, I was trained to take all manners of calls. I was trained to listen patiently as someone screamed into my ear over a discrepancy in their bill. I was trained to explain how much someone’s arm or leg was worth under the provisions of their accidental death and dismemberment policy ($1,500 for a dismemberment below the elbow/knee and $2,000 for above). I was trained to professionally withhold judgment as someone changed their beneficiary for the third time that week. I was also trained to take death claim calls. Usually, those calls didn’t faze me for long because whatever gloom had settled over my desk would be abruptly lifted by the next screaming caller or careless chat with my coworkers. Until one day, two years into the job, a wire crossed or a signal misfired and all I received were calls from Death. 

Hour by hour, day after day, I would sit and listen to the aftermath of Death. I would strain my ears to hear past the crying, shaky voices of those standing in the wreckage. I would try to soften my voice and infuse it with empathy as I asked questions like “did they die of natural causes?” I would try to sound even more empathetic when I confirmed, “yes, I mean did they commit suicide?” The caller had no way of knowing the insurance company required certain information, and that in their worst possible moment, I existed only to extract that information. Even when all they wanted to do was hang up, I had to drag them along with me as we sifted through the debris until I found the information needed to satisfy the computer system. As arbitrary as it seemed, I existed to dilute someone’s life down into a few small details like the date, time, and cause of death. That was the only information the computer system accepted.

This task was made more difficult by the fact that the company had named the computer system “Toe Tag” complete with a digital icon of a paper tag and string. To combat the poor choice of name, the company sent out regular emails reminding us not to mention the name on the call. They worried we’d absentmindedly say to someone “hold on, let me check Toe Tag” and suddenly the caller would be transported to the morgue where their loved one lies on a table as we write down the details of their death on the little tag on their big toe. The company never asked us if clicking on the Toe Tag icon on our desktops transported us to that same morgue. 

They never asked if we imagined a cold, gray room slowly filling with all the bodies of the deaths we’d documented. 

If they had asked, I would’ve told them I felt like I lived there.

Sometimes the grief-stricken voice would linger on the line to offer me bits and pieces of their loved ones other than what Toe Tag asked for. They would tell me their hobbies and how many children they’d left behind. They’d tell me how long they’d been married and what song they danced to at their wedding. “Did it really matter if Carla didn’t die of natural causes if she loved yellow roses and Frank Sinatra?” “Did you know that George once completed the Boston Marathon even after that surgery on his knee?” I couldn’t enter that information into Toe Tag.  The blank spaces on the screen in front of me only allowed me to type a limited number of characters. But it didn’t feel right to me to bear witness to someone’s death and not the life leading up to it. So, I ended up keeping those details for myself. I collected them like little scraps of paper and tucked them away into the drawers of my desk. If someone had opened it, they would’ve seen a yellow paper mosaic made up of fragments like “taught me how to play the piano” and “loved the mountains.” If someone would’ve scooped them up and let them fall from their hands like confetti, maybe they would’ve been able to catch a glimpse of someone’s whole life.  I could’ve filled every desk drawer in the building with those scraps of paper, even though I seemed to be the only person collecting them. 

I spent my 10-hour shift trying to write “loved yellow roses” in the small, blank spaces before the line disconnected and I had to learn the name of another person who would never again listen to Frank Sinatra. All the while, my coworkers were taking routine call after routine call. They spent their days flipping through magazines or sneakily reading the paperback book they hid in their laps as they snacked on popcorn and chips. Their conversations would flit from the local news to pop star trivia effortlessly, while I experienced the painful snap of whiplash every time they tried to include me. Minutes after their calls ended, they moved on to the next checkmark on their agendas as I stared at my screen and tried not to imagine what the person who died on December 18th had looked like. As they packed up their knitting needles, well-worn paperbacks, and leftover snacks to head home, I was carrying around half-painted portraits in my mind for days after. With every tear-filled call, I felt my desk being swept away by the flood until I was so far out to sea that I could no longer make out dry land.

When my shift ended, I still felt like Death was all around me. I would leave the building and walk into the deepening darkness with my keys slotted between my fingers in case Death was hiding behind a car in the parking lot. I would avoid eye contact with strangers in public places to ward off the thought that one day I might learn who their favorite author was from a weeping voice on the phone. In my head, I’d compose draft after draft of emails arguing that Toe Tag should care about more than when someone died. I’d be shopping for groceries, squeezing past holiday shoppers in the crowded aisles when suddenly the tomatoes would tumble from my hands as I realized that everyone around me would one day become a call to an insurance company. I’d pick up the tomatoes from the floor while ignoring the worried glances from fellow shoppers and think one day someone will call for me. 

Even years later, Death still showed up in my conversations. A year or so ago, my grandmother handed me the card to a funeral home and calmly explained that she’d already made all the arrangements. “All you have to do is call them.” While I tried to remain present for the rest of the conversation as she chronicled the last trip she took with her senior center, my ears were filled with the sound of a ringing phone. The business card in my hand signified that one day I would be the caller. One day an overworked person in a cramped cubicle lit by fluorescent lighting will compress my grandmother’s life down into a few keystrokes and enter them into a system called Toe Tag. On the phone, they will try to reach past all the beautiful things I hand them and only keep the information they need. They won’t be able to document how she loves to crochet and that every person in my life has received a blanket made by her. They can’t type into those small, blank spaces the memory of how we stood knee-deep in the ocean and held hands as the water threatened to pull the sand out from under us. Toe Tag won’t be able to capture the sound of her voice as she glanced behind her and yelled “Looky! Looky!” before the water splashed against our backs. I hope they know the aftermath they’ll drag me through isn’t debris at all but a sandy beach littered with sea glass. I hope they know when they hang up the phone and prepare for the next call, I’ll still be sitting on that beach watching the waves come in.

Eventually, I left that insurance call center. I applied for and obtained a job that didn’t require me to speak to Death. Someone else moved into my old cubicle, disinfected the headset, and emptied the desk drawers of those slips of yellow paper. I fell into a new routine and learned to have conversations about award shows with my coworkers again. I went to the grocery store and managed to keep hold of all the produce in my hands as my thoughts drifted from daily tasks to the song playing overhead.  But the truth is, whether I’m the one who answers or the one who calls, the anticipation of a ringing phone has never left me. After spending so many of my days talking to Death, the conversation doesn’t feel like it’s over, just on hold.