The first Terry Pratchett book I read was Mort, about Death taking on a rather hapless apprentice. It took me only a couple of pages to realize Terry Pratchett’s works are funny and charming, and then just a few more pages to see how empathetic they are:

“Death pulled up short, so that Mort walked into him. When the boy started to speak he waved him into silence. He appeared to be listening to something. THERE ARE TIMES, YOU KNOW, he said, half to himself, WHEN I GET REALLY UPSET. He turned on one heel and set off down an alleyway at high speed, his cloak flying out behind him. The alley wound between dark walls and sleeping buildings, not so much a thoroughfare as a meandering gap. Death stopped by a decrepit water butt and plunged his arm in at full length, bringing out a small sack with a brick tied to it. He drew his sword, a line of flickering blue fire in the darkness, and sliced through the string. I GET VERY ANGRY INDEED, he said. He upended the sack and Mort watched the pathetic scraps of sodden fur slide out, to lie in their spreading puddle on the cobbles. Death reached out with his white fingers and stroked them gently. After a while something like gray smoke curled up from the kittens and formed three small cat-shaped clouds in the air. They billowed occasionally, unsure of their shape, and blinked at Mort with puzzled gray eyes. When he tried to touch one his hand went straight through it, and tingled. YOU DON’T SEE PEOPLE AT THEIR BEST IN THIS JOB, said Death. He blew on a kitten, sending it gently tumbling.”

I took a creative writing class in college, and the first story I wrote was about a young girl finding a sack of kittens in the river, and how devastating it was. Yes, I am a type. I remember my professor noted that the ending scene, my protagonist taking a shower and coming out telling her mom not to call her by her childhood nickname anymore, was “like a baptism.” I didn’t intend that at all. She was just sad about those kittens with faces like flowers getting killed for no goddamn reason except people can suck sometimes.

On the plus side, people don’t always suck. Take, for instance, this whole stadium of people unified in wanting this little cat to make it (and they did!):

That’s all I’ve got, folks! “Every now and then, people surprise you.”

Have a great Night Thread, Avocados!