” First the colour then the humans. That’s usually how i see things. Or at least how i try” – PG 13
This is deaths introduction and the first place where we start to build a fascinating picture of how he works, take note that he is also the narrator of the story. He likes to see the colour then the humans. To give supporting evidence that this is in fact death we must look at the way the narrator describes people. He says humans and not people suggesting that he is not one of them, an outside force watching over all. Seeing colours before everything else is something that you wouldn’t expect from death, but maybe he wants to see the brighter side of the situation, or maybe the colours help define the situation for him. For him to also say “Or at least how i try” he’s suggesting that he’s constantly failing to comply with either his or a higher being’s rules. For this to be the case there must have been something quite awful to have happened to even get death to try to avoid it. Just from this opening quote we learn a lot about death and the way he likes to try to run things, and that something quite terrible must have or will happen in this story.
“It was January 1939. She was nine years old, soon to be ten. Her brother was dead.” – PG 21
Here we find a list of four things but one is not like the others. In this list it’s talking about time, age and death. This list was made by death our narrator, and for some strange reason he included death in a place where it normally wouldn’t be found, well in the average persons lists. For some this could be seen as quite the realistic list, wherever there is life there is death. You could see this as in death can come at anytime no matter the current circumstances. For this it seems to be close to a nine year olds birthday, and with this you would automatically relate it to a good and exciting time, but unfortunate enough death has shown its face in a time of joy, but death dose not wait.