DEATH stood patiently, a silhouette against the hazy summer sun. In his skeletal hand, the scythe was nowhere to be found, replaced instead by a tall, frosty glass. He held it with an unsettling delicacy. Inside, a liquid the color of a vibrant sunset swirled, topped with a frothy, bone-white head.

His gaze, two tiny blue pinpricks of light in the vast darkness of his hood, fell upon the small, sticky-fingered soul before him. The child, barely a wisp of a soul really, clutched a half-eaten popsicle stick. The soul of the creamsickle was already long gone, its citrusy, creamy essence having departed for the great freezer in the sky.

“THEY’RE A MESS, AREN’T THEY?” DEATH rumbled, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates.

The child sniffled.

“I SPEAK OF THE POPSICLES, OF COURSE,” DEATH clarified. “THEY ALWAYS MELT BEFORE THEIR TIME. A TRAGIC END.”

He tapped a bony finger on his glass. “BUT I HAVE GOOD NEWS. A NEW MORTAL CONCOCTION HAS APPEARED. A CREAMSICKLE THAT DOES NOT MELT.”

A ghostly vision of a tall beer glass shimmered in the air, filled with the same liquid DEATH held. Its label read Creamsickle - An Orange Vanilla Ice Cream IPA.

“IT IS A MORTAL BREW CALLED WYRD SISTERS’ CREAMSICKLE,” DEATH explained, his voice softening slightly. “IT IS SAID TO BE MADE WITH ORANGES AND A SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM THAT IS, APPARENTLY, FREE OF DAIRY. AN INTERESTING CHOICE.”

The vision of the brew swirled, a tantalizing mix of orange and vanilla. DEATH seemed to consider it, a flicker of something like longing in his eyes.

“THEY SAY IT IS HOPPED WITH EXOTIC LOTUS HOPS,” he continued. “THEY SAY IT IS SWEET AS SIN. AND, WELL…” He gestured with the glass. “THEY SAY IT IS TO DIE FOR.”

A small, spectral grin spread across DEATH’s face. “AND, AS I AM DEATH, I TEND TO AGREE. IT IS A POPSICLE’S END THAT IS WORTHY OF REMEMBERING.”