The doot's mistake [2]

The doot wanted the mistake to never repeat. He went to the bookkeeper, a man whose grey beard almost touched the floor yet stood tall straight as a bamboo, who liked wearing long overflowing  colorful robes.

Could we find, he said after initial pleasantries and giving him the context, what the living souls were in that garden at the planned time of death. He provided the time and location of that royal botanical garden which had gotten him into hot water.

The bookkeeper flipped through the pages of a book whose leather covers looked old enough to have been harvested right off a living dinosaur. The pages in the book didn't move themselves, the text merely acted as if the pages were, until they reached the region of their interest.

Let me see, let me see, ahhh here, and here, and here, I see I see. Hmmm. It's easy enough to have made that mistake. I do not foresee anyone here who would not have made the mistake except perhaps Yamadev himself and even him...evenn hiiim, I have my doubts, the bookkeeper said peering through his half-moon glasses, interrogating the text with his eyes.

So let me summarize for you what happened to get a clear understanding, the bookkeeper continued, you went to this royal garden to pick up a soul whose time had come. Instead an ascetic whose presence you did not anticipate, got you confused and you picked up the wrong soul. It may or may not have been related to the astral projection demonstration that the ascetic was giving, I see, aahh here I see it's not clear at all. We need a better way to keep our books, I keep telling people. The Yamadoot picked ordered the nearby scribe to record his ideas and present to him later. He narrated a series of technical tasks to do to improve the bookkeeping. After several minutes of what to the doot seemed like indecipherable foreign language, the bookkeeper nodded his head to the scribe. Apologies my dear doot, but these things will only assist other doots in the future. For it was partly our failure in proper bookkeeping that would doubtlessly confuse doots under such circumstances. I will rectify this and I will contact you when our bookkeeping has been mended to allow for deaths to astrally projected bodies and when other transmigragtion of the soul is happening around.

The doot nodded. Is there anything I can do to assist you with this task, and do you have any words of guidance so I, or any other doot, may not make similar mistakes in the future, he said to the bookkeeper.

You have been terribly valuable already. When the system is complete, I will have you over again to check records related to similar occasions and we can identify if such circumstances are less confusing after our changes. As for right now, I would go to the dispatcher's office and talk to them about potential amelioration of the issue. They are generally pretty tight in there, often catching our mistakes or poor recordkeeping all the time. They will for sure be able to help you, the bookkeeper said.

The doot nodded. He thanked the bookkeeper and his scribe, and after finishing his tea and making some small conversation about how the clouds had been acting strangely as of left, he left for the dispatcher's office.