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My Moment With
Death
Short
Fiction/ Writers Digest Writing Contest
Word Count 3,181
I
sat in a little coffee shop called the Glass Café with my
computer and a large caramel macchiato. My office is in the same
parking lot and the walk over usually gives me a few minutes to just
take a breath and clear my head. The one measly hour I get away from the
insurance company- which I really don’t want to be working for, does
wonders for the rest of the day. The Glass Café is a great place
to unwind, get a sandwich and coffee, do some people-watching, and
write.
In the
hectic fight with stress and unappeasable bosses; my hour at the Glass
Café is a Godsend.
On this
particular day I drove over because it was storming outside. Since the
café was creatively crafted with glass walls and roof, you could see the
rain falling all around you, and above; like sitting out in the middle
of the downpour. The noise of the rain beating against the windows and
roof sounded like Native American drums and feet dancing on the ceiling.
In my mind I saw myself sitting with a group of Indians as they played
and danced around a massive bonfire- calling the heavens to burst open
and send down April showers.
As I was
looked out the windows watching the rain fall in massive drowning
sheets, imagining myself participating in the rain dance… she
caught my eye.
She was
sitting in a booth across the café looking at me. I thought she was
attractive but I didn’t spend a minute flirting with her. I’m fully
devoted to my wife. Playing with fire and taking a chance of ruining my
marriage is not the kind of odds that I’m willing to even consider.
She was beautiful though. She
had long- semi curly, dark red hair, tanned olive face, and light blue
eyes. She wore a black t-shirt that cut off just above her navel, and a
short black skirt- showing off her long tan legs.
Realizing
how attracted to her I was I tried to focus my eyes on a tiny spot on
the window next to me, but the urge to look back at her was hard to
fight. Suddenly I felt her presence. It was like her eyes were on me,
touching me; walking up and down my body, like tourists.
I turned slightly to the right
and looked over my shoulder at her. She was gone. The booth was empty.
Taking a big deep breath and
a sigh of relief I put my head down in a moment of thanks. Just then a
hand lay on my back. Long slender fingers ran across my shoulders from
right to left.
I looked up to my left and there she was
standing by my side, at the table. She made a gesture with her hands for
me to scoot over so she could sit next to me.
She spoke
and I shivered. “Hello Paul.” Her deep, deep light blue eyes nearly had
me in a trace.
“H..Hi.” I
should have wondered how it was that this woman knew my name but in that
moment all I could see was her face, and all I could think about, or
hear, was her voice.
“I’ve been
watching you from the other side of the room.”
“Yeah, I
noticed.” I said nervously as I fidgeted with my fingers. I rubbed my
wedding band. “I really shouldn’t be talking to you. I’m married, and my
wife and I have a few safety nets…”
“To shun the
appearance of evil; I know Paul, I know.” She said almost mockingly.
“You don’t eat alone with women and your wife doesn’t eat alone with
men. You don’t have the opposite sex over at the house when you’re
alone. Yea, Yea.” Then she brought her hand up to my head and ran her
long cold fingers through my hair, curling a lock of my hair with her
thumb and index finger.
I couldn’t move. I felt like I
was wondrously and yet fearfully paralyzed. There was just something
about her. I didn’t have any sexual thoughts running through my head, I
was not turned on, but I couldn’t seem to move. Although lust was not an
issue – I didn’t desire her- some sort of seduction was keeping my body
paralyzed.
She looked
deep into my eyes and smiled, showing her beautiful white teeth. I
caught my mouth smiling back.
“What are we
doing?” I said, shaking my head free from this mind game. “Who are you,
and how do you know my name?”
“I like you
Paul. I do. But I am not here to ruin your marriage or tempt you.” She
removed her hand from my head and brought both of her hands to the
table, fingers interlocked. She laughed, “A relationship just won’t work
between us, anyways. I’m a really needy girl, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” I said.
“I’m sorry that I’ve sat here and possibly, in some way led you on a
little; I wasn’t trying to.” I stood up from the table and started
putting my laptop into its case.
“Paul, don’t
be like that.” She said and then she reached over and grabbed my hand.
“I just wanted to talk to you. In my crazy life I very seldom get a
break, and I have no friends at all. I’m completely alone; cursed.”
“I am sorry
to hear that…I really am. But I can’t be that person who’s going to take
away all your pain and listen to your woes. You need a friend, everyone
does, but I can’t be that friend.” My heart did go out to her. As I
looked into her beautiful deep blue eyes I could very clearly see an
ocean of tears that longed to break out; wanting for release.
“Do you
remember this?” She opened up her hand and there was a little piece of
white college ruled paper folded up. I took it and opened it up. It
looked like it was a note that I had written. As I examined it more, I
recognized it. I had written it.
“How did you
get this?”
She smiled and I could see that
ocean welling up within her crystal blue eyes.
Suddenly I realized that this was a letter
I had written to God when I was younger. I wrote it and then set it on
fire in my bathroom sink. It was from a time in my life when I was
desperate for a friend. I felt alone and was so heavy-hearted that I
even longed for death. I read the small portion of it that was
highlighted in shaded pencil:
’…even
death. How could death
be my enemy? For death
will
come someday to me and
kiss
Me with a deep, sweet,
and
bitter kiss, ushering me
into the realm of God.
How then can death be my
enemy? No I would
happily
call death my friend.’
“That is the most beautiful thing that
anyone has even written about me.” She said, “I have followed you ever
since I was given this.”
“What? How
did you get this? I burned this up; I watched it go up in flames with my
own eyes.”
“Yes you
did, and that’s when I saw it with mine.” She said. “I am Death. Paul,
I’m the one who reaps souls. And this is the most incredibly lonely
life. Everyone is afraid of me. I can’t love anyone or be intimate with
anyone… but, Paul, I feel passion like you do. You have your wife; you
can love, and be intimate. If I try to be intimate with someone they
come close to dying. If I kiss anyone on their lips they die. That’s how
I’ve been cursed to reap.”
“Come on,
you mean to tell me that you’re Death? You expect me to believe that,
really?” I said, starting to feel sorry for this strange woman.
“You’re a
diabetic aren’t you?”
“Sure,
anyone who has seen me eat in public would know that. The insulin shot
tends gives it away every time.”
“Yeah but
you found out that you were diabetic November 12, two years ago.” She
said as she put her head into her hands.
“Yeah, ok,
who put you up to this? Is this some kind of silly faithfulness test?
Did my wife...”
“November 8th,
your birthday, you were driving up I-35 north to meet your family for a
birthday dinner. All the sudden you got double vision and had to pull
over because you were afraid of getting into a wreck.”
“How do you
know that?” I asked, now more concerned with who she claimed to be.
“I am right,
aren’t I?”
“Yeah… but…”
“Paul, I
hated myself for that.”
“For what?”
I sat back down in the booth with her.
“I have
carried this letter close to me now for nearly 5 years. I’ve read this a
thousand times, at least.” She took the letter and placed it on her
chest. “Sometimes, Paul, I’m almost sure that I can feel my heart
pounding and then, passion –real human passion. It only lasts a moment
but that moment allows me to feel all the joy and pain of life again.” A
tear escapes and runs down the side of her face to her chin. As I reach
over to wipe it away it dropped from her chin and turned into a small
dark pebble, making a quiet tap as it hit the table top. I picked it up
– it was little rock, her tear turned into a tiny black rock. Then she
looked down at her chest and slowly removed the letter, to look at it.
“But that can’t be, Paul, because I’m Death: I don’t have a real heart.
I’m not supposed to feel anything, but I do.”
“Why would
you hate yourself?” I asked, looking at the little tear drop pebble I
was rolling around in the palm of my hand.
“On that
ride home, Paul, I was sitting with you in the car. You weren’t happy. I
remember you thinking about how you wished that you had had a
relationship with your parents. You felt pain, Paul, and because your
heart was breaking, mine broke too. I wanted to tell you that I
understood your loneliness. I wanted to touch you and wipe away your
tears. I wanted to take you away from all your pain.
“As I sat
there feeling your pain and wanting to love you; in that moment I made a
huge mistake that I can’t take back. I put my hand on your heart,
because I just wanted to feel it beat. Then I rubbed my face on the side
of your face and gave you a small kiss on the cheek.”
“I don’t get
it, what did you do that was so bad?”
“When I kissed you – because of
who I am – I unintentionally gave you diabetes. You are a diabetic
because of me. I’m Death, and I shared death with you.”
I don’t know why I believed
her, but I did, and I was moved. I could hardly speak. This was all
weird, and strange, and wrong, and I was angry, but flattered and
speechless. I wanted to cry, and yell, but I was also afraid. I really
didn’t know what to say to her.
I took both of her hands and
looked at her in the eyes. We both sat there silent for probably only a
few seconds, but it felt like minutes. She had once cared for me in a
moment of real pain, and now I could see that her pain was much more
than I could ever possibly imagine, or understand.
“If you have
felt like this about me, and at any time you could kill...”
“Reap...”
“Reap me.
Why haven’t you?”
“I would rather watch you grow,
live, and have a family, and be in love with your wife, and then, take
you when it’s the right time, than take you now. Besides, when that
special moment comes, I’ll only get to have you for a few seconds,
before you’re ushered onto the other side. I won’t see you again.”
“This is
really kind of screwed up for you…Death.”
“There’s a
reason that I’m Death. I deserve my sentence.”
“What could
you have possibly done…”?
“We can’t talk about that. The
important thing is that we are here, sitting in a coffee shop, talking.”
“Ok, Ok, Death” I said, “Why
now? Why have you waited all this time to finally talk to me? Why now?
Why couldn’t you have come and shared this with me years ago? Why wait
two years to apologize? I asked.
“Paul I should never have shown
myself to you. We shouldn’t be here talking now. It’s against the rules.
It’s wrong. And I’m sure I’ll pay for it.” She looked at me with tender
eyes and smiled, “But I had to talk to someone. I had to find a moment
of relief. You could never understand my sentence. I’m not bad, and I am
not good, I’m Death. I am forced into this occupation. And I hate it.”
“You’re Death, but you’re not
an evil spirit or demon?”
“Right, you see, Paul, there
are good spirits and evil spirits. And silly as it sounds there is a war
taking place on earth; a war for the souls of men. Both sides fight to
influence the hearts of men towards good or evil. My job is simply to
transport the souls of men from their physical bodies to the entrance of
either the door to Eternal Life or the door to Eternal Death. But there
comes a moment, Paul…”
“What?”
“There comes a moment when I
can’t handle taking another hungry child; a moment when I can’t handle
taking another baby away from loving parents in the labor and delivery
room. There’s a moment when I would rather die than to steal away a
teenager from his mother’s arms after being accidentally shot in a drive
by, when a freak serial killer murders a woman- with children and a
loving husband waiting at home.” Her breathing started to speed up.
“Paul, there’s a moment that comes, after a war, or an earth quake, or a
cults mass suicide, that I stand in the midst of hundreds, at times,
thousands of innocent souls to reap, and I want to escape. But I can’t.
There’s no place to escape to; no daily lunch break, for me.”
Death put her hand on the right
side of my face and looked closely into my eyes. She looked at me with
sympathy. I felt emotion deep inside. I could feel my eyes glossing
over. Something hit me on the inside. I felt the pain, misery, and
loneliness; it seemed that the fault line separating my very soul from
my humanity shifted. I put my hand on hers.
“I see it.” I said. “I see the
desperation. I see the hurt, the pain. I feel the brokenness of your
heart, and see the emptiness of the bottomless pit separating you from
freedom. I hear the snapping and moaning of your lonely heart as every
fiber of your being shifts like plates. I see the earthquake.”
I pulled her close to me and
embraced her, “I am truly sorry.”
She took the letter out again
and laid it on the table. She whispered, “Why did I choose today,
because I can’t handle it, because I’m in one of those moments and it is
not going to get better. Because I read this letter and chose to break
the rules.
She put her head on my chest and quoted the
lines:
“Even
death. How could Death
be my enemy? For Death
will
come someday to me and
kiss
Me with a deep, sweet,
and
bitter kiss, ushering me
into the realm of God.
How then can Death be my
enemy? No I would
happily
call Death my friend.”
I lifted her chin and looked into her eyes, “Death, how can
you ever be my enemy? No, I do happily call you, my friend.”
She smiled
We spent the next few minutes talking about my family, my
job, and my future plans. I felt like I had been reunited with a high
school girlfriend. It was so strange. My moment with Death had not only
given her a moment of relief that would have to last her forever, but my
own life felt renewed. My stress was gone, because, as we laughed
together, I could see a much bigger picture in life.
My mind was
racing in a million different directions. I smiled at her, and liked her
company. She knew me like no one else. She knew who I was and what I
have been through, and she wanted to be with me.
“I have to
go.” She suddenly said. “I have an appointment a block away in a couple
of minutes.”
“So,” I said with a smile,
“can you tell me when my big
day is going to be?”
“Nope, I can say that I
have almost reaped you a few times. But I showed restraint.” She smiled
a big smile. I laughed, completely weirded out by the thought.
“So once you
leave me today…will I ever see you again?”
“Probably
not…except, of course, for our big date.” She said with a wink.
“Oh, that’s creepy.”
“We’ll have
seven beautiful seconds with each other.” She glanced at her wrist,
where a watch just appeared out of nowhere and she stood up. “Time to
go, Paul.”
“What, I
thought you said…”
“Not time
for you to go- time for me to go back to work.”
“Right” I
stood up from the booth and put my hand out. She hugged me. I hugged her
too.
“It was
nice, and really creepy, meeting you, Death. Thanks for sharing with
me.” I said.
“I enjoyed
it. You’re a great guy. You have a great family and I hope that you make
the most of what you have while you’re still here.”
“I’m
trying.”
She put her
long white index finger on the tip of my nose and smiled, then turned
around and started towards the front door. Looking back she said, “See
you around Paul.”
“Hopefully later than sooner,
huh” I replied sarcastically. She just smiled… which kind of made me a
little uncomfortable.
As I finished putting my
computer away I took a moment to think about what had just happened
here. I looked around the room and wondered if all these people had seen
her, or if they all think that I’m a really strange man who likes to
talk intensely with himself. I looked at the tiny pebble still in my
hand for a few moments and then put it in my jacket pocket. I picked up
my satchel and walked out the door. It was no longer raining.
An Ambulance
rushed down the street and stopped…about a block away.
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