Metamorphosis
Gifted from birth, the reaper held the scythe in its bony hands. Twirling it to see the etched surname it was given long ago, sometime between cuneiform writing was invented and the present-day where those with a pulse feared it. The symbols only it could read were taught to it long ago by a father as a mother held it in her arms, radiating love through her flesh. No one would think that Death had a family, except the last one who looked up at him with bruised hazel eyes and asked softly what it was like to have a family that loved them. The reaper had not answered, for the utterance of a voice would have scared the little soul, but tried to show him by taking the little hand and gently helping it out of the body that had never known a day without pain.
How the reaper had wished this was not its job. There had been thousands just like this little one in its century and a half since assuming the robe and family scythe, but if it had ever had a heart, the hazel-eyed victim would have been the one that stuck to this reaper's. The reaper had taken the long way to try to show him love. They passed parks where dogs played with their owners and cats slinked, watching the reaper with fearful eyes. They went past schools where mothers and fathers embraced their children after a long day and held their warm hands as they took them home. The reaper watched the boy clutching his phalanges, and wondered if it made a difference. It never occurred to it before that day that reaping could make a difference for someone.
Upon the pearly gates, the child was welcomed home. The pain was erased and the child was gone, but the reaper remained, perplexed by the encounter. Images of the child being embraced by others, kissed and loved for the very first time flashed through the reaper's cranium. The child smiling without forcing it, waving back at the reaper, his first and only friend.
Boston
There was a time in Boston, or rather a moment. I was leaving a bar with a man who would never text me first, who didn't think about me when I wasn't around. Suddenly, a telephone pole fell onto the sidewalk. But there had been a person in that spot, and just like that, in a single, horrible instant, that person was face-down on the sidewalk, leaking fluids from their brain, fluids that quickly were forming a puddle that grew like a silence.
The fact that in less than a second, someone had been reduced to brain fluids, their face withheld from me - just a body, just someone with people screaming beside them. And I looked at this man, the man I was leaving the bar with, and he said, "Oh."
He said: "It's okay."
In that instant, in less than a second, Boston became to me just that: something less than a second, a quick blunt force trauma, a bloody mess. A perfect storm of horrible timing. A tragedy.
As we walked away - we had to, it was impolite to stare - I thought about how horrible this man was, the man who was leading me away from this horrible mess. I thought about how we had just been in that very spot, on the sidewalk, walking out of the bar. I thought about how timing is everything. I thought about how lucky it was that we hadn't been standing there at the exact second the telephone pole came down.
It had been a matter of seconds.
I thought about thinking, about how the brain eventually shuts itself down: in sleep, in dissociation, in death.
I thought today: that moment should have tied me to that horrible man, the one who didn't text me first, forever.
Or: it could have. But it didn't.
And that is a miracle. In tragedy: life keeps moving, blood keeps flowing, but inside us, where we keep thinking.
Not So Favourite Job
The death opened the last letter left in the table. "Ugh, not another junkies to collect" he said unmotivated. He snapped his finger and immediately transported him to the next victim room.
He saw a young guy lied down on the floor with a syringe in his arm, the young guy is already dead. He scanned the room and saw another guy that looked exactly like the dead one. They guy cruled up on the floor, in the corner of the room. His arm warped his leg and his body trembeled.
"Dude, what are you doing?" asked the death nonchalantly. The young guy looked up. His face looked scared and his eyes teared up.
"H..he..help me" he said with a shaky voice. The death didn't responed. He looked at him in disbelieve and let out a big sigh. Seeing the response from the death, the young guy getting more nervouse and begin to cry.
The death grow impatient, "dude, you already dead!" said the death stating the fact to the young guy. The young guy felt deeply in shock and fainted. The death covered his face with one of his hand. "I should quit sooner" he said to himself. The death took the young man's arm and snapped his finger.
Credit: Photo by Valentine Angel Fernandez from Pexels
