Waiting for the elevator was not something Marceau Violette Mort-Maudire had expected to do today. She was always on time, and contrary to popular belief, the dead could never wait. The young Creole woman in her early twenties wore a dark purple suit with a top hat to match. Her hair was cropped short in a pixie cut with her tight curls forming an undercut afro. While the elevator slowly made its descent to the first floor, Marceau absentmindedly flipped the large golden coin that rested on her palm. On one side of the coin, a balanced scale, representing Justice, was engraved into the gold. Marceau always flipped the coin so quickly, no one ever knew what was on the other side. If you were to ask her, she would take a sip of her glass of red wine (where she found such a glass, no one knows), chuckle darkly, and say,

“Ma chérie, only les morts know, and the dead keep secrets.”

Marceau would not forget to wink after such a statement. Especially if a young lady were to inquire after her. La exécutrice, the Enforcer, they called her. The Coin-Tosser. She had many names. To put it simply, Marceau judged the dead and soon-to-be dead. But she would never stop judging the living either, if only for sport. Regardless, she enforced her judgements well. The dark-skinned purple-suited woman was often rumored to be the grim reaper. Marceau had seen every great death there was to see. She had witnessed the deaths of Langston Hughes, Grace Lee Boggs, Martin Luther King Jr., Sappho, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Eleanor Roosevelt and Loren Hicock, Patroclus and Achilles, Romeo and Juliet, M. and R. Loving, Alexander the Great and Hephaistion, Sylvia Rivera, Audre Lorde, Spiderman, Empress Dowager Cixi, Sally Ride, Billie Holiday, Pirate Lady Zheng Shi, the Trung Sisters, William Shakespeare, Marsha P. Johnson, Suleiman the Magnificent and the list goes on. For the Creole lady, every Great deserved attention, especially as they uttered last words.

Finally, the elevator doors opened with a polite, neat ding, apologizing for the wait. Marceau entered alone. A voice rang out.

“Hold the elevator!”

Marceau turned around and faced the person running to catch the doors.

She smirked as the elevator closed shut.

The runner, flabbergasted and out of breath, would have to catch another ride.