Roger had tried in vain to understand the record low turnover among the company's "associates." This was because by policy the company did not recognize and therefore did not record the frequent deaths from heat, exhaustion, PTSD, layered long COVID, and the rest of what some nicknamed Really Late Capitalism Syndrome.
His death at his desk, alone in his office well past the usual 9pm end of the day, would not have been recorded either had it stuck. To his credit Roger made the connection between the human capital dynamics and his own resurrection before the angel told him.
(He wasn't sure it was an angel, then or later. What he saw when he opened his eyes for a secon first time looked like a woman putting a strange-looking syringe back in a small plain black box.)
"You know what happened?" said the angel.
Roger nodded. "I died." It was a strange thing, he thought later, to be so certain of such a thing. "And you brought me back to life." He wanted to ask "how" but he found he couldn't.
The angel didn't need to look at him. "Some things you won't be able to ask anymore: that's one. There are many more things you won't be able to tell anybody." There was a half-humorous, half-irritated little shrug. "Secrecy does not depend on your cooperation."
"Have you been resurrecting other people in the company?"
"Not just me. But yes."
Roger wasn't the sort of person who would ask "why us?" He was the person who would think and ask "what for?"
The angel looked at him and said nothing.
Roger frowned. "You can't say it?"
Another little shrug. Then the angel did something Roger would never be able to attempt to remember and he was alone in his office again. Left with nothing he could ask or say and not knowing what else to do he went back to the spreadsheet he had been working on.
(Originally posted on my blog.)