The Last Good One

Death, long enamored of his mortal charges, watched them ceaselessly. He loved them, in his own way; the way an immortal, ageless being unconstrained by time and space can love the tender existence of a finite and flawed creature. He loved them like the fragile things they were. He was buoyed by their triumphs and burdened by their losses. Their quirks and strange habits brought to him a sense of wonder and amusement. Though, of course at times, he could be heard clucking to himself not unlike a broody mother hen, as his charges were up to something one could assuredly describe as 'no good.'

But...all things considered, they were largely good. Their love could be unconditional, unending even in the presence of Death. It was often he would come to call, beckoned close by the waning cadence of their heartbeats and Death would feel once more the gravity of their devotion to one another. These souls were tiny, luminous vessels who burned with a radiance that far exceeded the little lives they were allotted, and he often thought that they somehow contained every bit of incandescence once attributed solely to the sun. Death marveled at the tides their bonds created, perplexed that they were not swept away by them and dashed madly against the edges of the universe. The currents they drifted in tugged even at his own existence and it made Death cherish them all the more.

And certainly, they would have been drowned were it not for the near invisible filaments strung out between them, a shining spiderweb spun from soul to soul. Each who is loved is tethered to those who love them by a thread, a diaphanous silk line anchoring them together like flickering constellations. Death must sever the living from life, yes, but he must also part the living from love. He would tug gently on the string and each time, his touch would pluck from it a single word, an imploring and tremulous, “Stay.” If one were very lucky and very loved, their passage from Life to Death was accompanied by a symphonic harmony of that single word. There would be a rising supplication born of all those strings at once cleft apart and the crescendo was only the silence left behind when the glow of that tiny soul winked out into darkness.

“Stay.” And often Death allowed it, for just a while longer, because he loved them.

When Death would arrive, punctual to no fault and precise to the second, it meant we must close the book, shutting for good its well-thumbed pages and worrying ourselves no more as to how the story might end. For here our end stood and not at all as we pictured. Perhaps it was just the finality of our own conclusion, of our brightly burning final chapter now extinguished, of all that we were now returned to the ashes and dust whence we had come, that made the thought of Death so dreadful. To gaze upon his pale countenance meant we had arrived at the terminus. This was the end of the line and departures to the left, please. It meant that all we had dreamed about, hoped for, wished of…all of the things that could possibly ‘be’ had already been and there were no more things that would be….Perhaps it was simply this cessation of possibility that made Death so maligned to us, made us dread his attendance and resist his affections.

And it was not because Death was frightening or malevolent that we fought him because, really, Death was neither of those things. Dying could be, of course, but she was unavailable at the moment, what with having her incorporeal hands full of our moribund universe, but Death...was like slipping away to another room from an overcrowded party, one where the good cheer is choking and the revelry a miasma and the small talk almost metastatic. It is the studious defection away from the noise, a flight from the clammer of those busy with the brilliance of living, escaping through the door that allows you, finally, out into that brisk night. Death is the first inhalation where your chest burns with the cold of it, your face stings with the chill of it, and beneath a sky tossed heavy with stars, you are free. You are at last unbound, undone from the mortal coil and unleashed into the endless.

Death had always been fond of an Irish goodbye.

Here in this moment, the heart of Death hung heavy, as he understood he must now take The Last. He knew without hesitating where he would find her, as sometime before Death had claimed that which was most dear to her, the Last One's most Beloved.

When Death had come for her Beloved, he had felt the familiar ache of the coming loss, the pull of the silk, the hum of the string. But it was all sharpened, almost too painful to be near, and when Death leaned closed to listen, he had understood. The Beloved had known that with his departure, the Last would be truly alone. He understood that they were the only two who remained, that no other souls had weathered the winding down of our world as it had dimmed and grown colder. Death had heard the hushed prayers that occupied the waking hours, and often the dreams, still left to her Beloved. He heard the plea that she not be forsaken in this place, that she was good and undeserving of such a torment, that Death grant them mercy and take her first…but even Death did not decide these things and so he had come for the Beloved first.

Death had taken the string in one hand, lamenting in his own silence that he must mar the gossamer sheen of it, that he would quell forever the sweet, familiar song of it. The Beloved had kissed the Last one more time and, taking her face into his hands, pressed his forehead to hers, desperate to memorize the face he had loved in life and would carry with him now into Death. He looked once more into her eyes, finding them empty of guile or malice and full only of love, and here Death had quieted the aching in his heart. Death gifted him with stillness, allowing the Beloved a moment of memories in place of the terrible knowledge that she would be alone in a way that no mortal soul had ever been. It was just a moment of kindness, but it was enough.

The Beloved was taken back to the day when he and The Last were first brought together, and the memories that should have faded with time like well-loved toys were still vivid, kept vibrant through the unexplainable sorcery held by all the things we cherish.

It was when the Beloved had wrapped himself in these moments, saw himself with his hands cupping the sweet face of The Last, that Death had taken him by the arm, severed the ties that held him to life, and love, and The Last, and they had simply stepped away. Here in this hushed lacuna, after the last lingering echo of a single word had withered away into nothing, was where she had become The Last.

Now, Death must come for her. Settling next to the small soul who had been left behind, he wondered at how such devotion had endured in a thing so slight. Death was forever enthralled of them, these good ones, and he marveled at the strength that nestled in such frail beings. And they were frail, weren’t they?

The eyes of The Last had once been dark and shining, lined with bristly lashes and quick to chase the form of her Beloved to whatever far reaches he might venture. Now they were dull, milky orbs that could make out only shapes, the vaguest of forms that were all some variety or another of gray shadows. A dying world emits little noise, and this was perhaps a blessing, as her hearing had almost entirely deserted her as well. It might have been less cruel if it had gone completely, as sometimes The Last was certain she heard someone calling for her, very faintly and from very far away. She would rise, stiff joints shivering to hold her thin body upright, and she would twist her face towards the sound, hoping to catch it on some rising wind. But it would fade away, always, as if it never were, and likely, it hadn't been and she would lay herself down gently, once more sheltered in the place where he had left her, and she waited. It was here that Death had found the Last, still waiting for whatever it was that would bring her Beloved back to her.

Death reached out to trace the graying fur that speckled the dog’s muzzle. He followed the path it took from her nose across her cheeks to where it finally spread out like the wings of some snowy moth to encircle her eyes. As he did so, The Last lifted her head, an enormous task with what little life her body still held. She laid it across his knee with a sigh. Death placed his hand lightly between her ears, feeling the angles of her bones and the lightness that remained to her being. At his touch, he heard the labored drumming of her tail against the ground. Once...twice... and then The Last could do it no more. She only gazed up at Death patiently. Her heart, with its light so near to being extinguished, was comforted to no longer be alone. Death stroked her head and The Last closed her eyes.

They sat this way awhile longer, Death and the dog, in the backyard of the house on a planet in a world where nobody lived anymore but this little soul, tattered and tired and so terribly alone.

Death knew it was her time.

He listened intently, prepared to offer her the stillness he granted these good souls, but instead found himself surprised. For the first time in... all time, there existed for him no need to quiet a restless mind. There was no need to bequeath the mercy of comfort as The Last did not cling here. She did not desire to stay. She would not fight. She only waited.

Uncertain, Death reached for the string as he had always done but this time, it was not the word ‘stay’ that sang out across the universe when he plucked the strand. There was no mournful beseeching, no doleful imploring. It was one word, yes, but it was decidedly unexpected.

It was her name.

Her name shone clear and brilliant as it rolled across the void. It was at once cataclysm and miracle, wild and unhindered and she heard it without question. Like the thunderous crashing of waves roiling upon the shoreline, her name broke over her and she heard it. She was awash in it.

Her Beloved was calling her home.

For one brief moment, unfathomable to we who can be ushered away by Death, the entirety of the universe existed only as her name.

As the final notes of that word began to dissolve away, Death sensed it. The Last was gone. She had departed without him and she was no longer the last.

And so our world was emptied of its last good and mortal soul, and it was only the lingering ripples left from our dying that prove we ever lived at all. All was still and quiet as Death thought of the dog, missing quite suddenly the weight of her head laid upon his knees. Death felt very empty and he sighed, but there was no one to hear it.