This, this was how you ran a ride. None of that artificial gloopy sweetness that defined the Disney experience: instead, you got a personal, informal, human-scale experience. Chat people up, find out their hopes and dreams, make admiring noises at the artifacts they'd brought to add to the ride, kibbitz about where they might place them.... Around him, the bark of the vendors. One of them, an old lady in a blinding white sun-dress, came by to ask him if he wanted anything from the coffee-cart. There had been a time, those first days when they'd rebuilt Fantasyland, when he'd really felt like he was part of the magic. No, The Magic, with capital letters. Something about the shared experience of going to a place with people and having an experience with them, that was special. It must be why people went to church. Not that Disney had been a religion for him, exactly. But when he watched the park he'd grown up attending take on the trappings that adorned his favorite clubs, his favorite movies and games -- man, it had been a piece of magic. And to be a part of it. To be an altar boy, if not a priest, in that magical cathedral they'd all built together in Orlando! But it hadn't been real. He could see that now. At Disney, Death Waits had been a customer, and then an employee ("castmember" -- he corrected himself reflexively). What he wanted, though, was to be a *citizen*. A citizen of The Magic -- which wasn't a Magic Kingdom, since kingdoms didn't have citizens, they had subjects. He started to worry about whether he was going to get a lunch break by about two, and by three he was starving. Luckily that's when Lester came back. He thanked Death profusely, which was nice, but he didn't ask Death to come back the next day. "Um, when can I come back and do this some more?" "You *want* to do this?" "I told you that this morning -- I love it. I'm good at it, too." Lester appeared to think it over. "I don't know, man. I kind of put you in the hot-seat today, but I don't really have the authority to do it. I could get into trouble --" Death waved him off. "Don't sweat it, then," he said with as much chirp as he could muster, which was precious fucking little. He felt like his heart was breaking. It was worse than when he'd finally asked out a co-worker who'd worked the Pinocchio Village Haus and she had her looked so horrified that he'd made a joke out of it, worried about a sexual harassment complaint. Lester clearly caught some of that, for he thought some more and then waved his hands. "Screw her anyway. Meet me here at ten tomorrow. You're in." Death wasn't sure he'd heard him right. "You're kidding." "No man, you want it, you got it. You're good at it, like you said." "Holy -- thanks. Thank you so much. I mean it. Thank you!" He made himself stop blithering. "Nice to meet you," he said finally. "Have a great evening!" Yowch. He was speaking castmemberese. *Nice one, Darren*.