I am Death

Her body heaves a heavy sigh, breath warm and sweet. Her hair a crown around her head. Another night like any other. Blissfully unaware of the day ahead, dreaming sweetly of her past- or her future that I regret will never be. 

I sit silently beside her and wait for her to awaken- wait for her to sense me, to feel the heavy knot of foreboding in her chest. I am sorry for this- for the ones who do not know their hourglass has run out. I feel for those who are unaware that their time has been chosen so abruptly.

If attuned to the things of other realms, the living can sense my presence almost immediately. Their ancestors were wise in their senses, I was no stranger to them. They danced at alters to keep dark beings away. Men sacrificed animals and harvests (even the less fruitful) to make sure the winter wouldn’t take their loved ones- that they would be spared another trip around the sun. 

Now a simple switch of a light calms nerves, and tylenol eases the fevers that would bring many souls to me. They’ve forgotten the old ways and live unaware of the balance that must exist. 

The living, now comfortably numb to realms around them, blame the cold that settles their bones on a draft beneath the door. They blame the flicker of candlelight on tired eyes. They have lost any intuition, gone the way of superstitions. Worst of all they blame the sudden, inexplicable sadness that creeps into their hearts on the weather- and then turn up their televisions to drown the silence.

She blamed it on the weather before turning into bed. Sometimes I regret not being louder- perhaps if they knew the hours were more precious than all their worldly belongings they would be able to use their time more wisely- hug longer, linger in the presence of those they loved, savour the last bite of cake.

I turn my attention to the window. Rain trickles down the glass in crooked veins, distorting the world beyond it. The trees bend beneath the wind. Lightning illuminates momentarily the room I haunt. Walls quiver to thunderous blows. She sleeps as though there is all the time in the world. 

"I’m sorry," I tell her, though she cannot hear me. "Time is waning." I watch the chill run through her body, but she doesn’t awaken.

She is thirty-two years old. Her name is Eleanor, and she has a small scar beneath her left eyebrow from falling off a bicycle when she was nine. She drinks tea over coffee, and loves the smell of old books. She has spent the last six years believing that if she works hard enough, saves enough money, and keeps the people she loves close enough, she will stay living forever.

I know these things because it is my job to know them. I am Death- and it is as poignant and necessary as life itself.

I know the sorrows and pain they have blocked out of their memories, and what they will remember at the very end. I can see vividly their moments of regret, what they wish they would have said before they hung up the phone. I feel for the should haves, would haves, and could haves. The wishes, the wants, and the apologies they will wish they had offered. With sorrow I see the faces they will search for when the darkness comes. It never feels easier when I feel that longing, however distant, for someone from long ago.

I know, too, that Eleanor has been dreaming of her mother for the last eleven nights. An omen perhaps of reuniting soon.

Her mother died when Eleanor was seventeen. The doctors called it Cancer, what took her, she found out too late they said. A cruel word for a cruel thing, though I have never understood why humans insist on giving their suffering names. Speaking the words seem to give them power. As my name is softly whispered, not said so loud. The monster must not be spoken of. They lack understanding.  

Eleanor had held her mother's hand when I came for her. Cried out to heaven. Sweet child- I am an angel, just not the kind one wants to visit.

I remember that night. The rain was colder than now. 

Humans forget how often I arrive in the rain.

Groggy, she stirs, reaching for a cup of water on the bedside. It knocks on the floor and shatters.

She stares at the broken pieces, stretches, and groggily shifts to a sitting position.

Though it feels I have done this as many times as there are stars in the skies, I am nervous for this moment- I am not sure if she’ll see me. Most don’t- but there’s a sensitivity in her. A calmness around her.

She looks up from the broken glass.

Her eyes settle on the chair beside her bed.

On me.

She whispers, “Who are you?”

I have been asked this question in a thousand languages, beneath a thousand different skies. Some scream it. Some sob it. Some whisper it as though the answer might be a secret they are not yet ready to hear.

Eleanor simply rubs her eyes. The question is a nicety- an ice breaker.

"I think," I say, "you already know."

"No," she says.

It is a simple word, and yet I feel the weight of every human refusal that has ever been spoken. As you have not chosen the time, I have not either. Life, a loose term, is not fair for either of us. 

"No," she repeats, shaking her head. "No, I don't think so."

She looks at the door, then back at me. Her eyes are bright now, her breathing shallow.

"Am I dreaming?"

"I wish you were, but I am as real as this room.”

"Am I going to die?"

“You’ve simply run out of time here.”

She closes her eyes. I bow my head.

I have seen kings beg for more time. I have seen soldiers curse me on battlefields, mothers claw at my robes, and men prepare to sell their souls for another day. 

Eleanor does none of these things.

She sits very still. 

“How long?” 

"Dawn my dear.”

Her head shakes rapidly. The regrets and the longings and the waiting she has done flash before both of us. 

"That's not fair."

"No," I agree. "It isn't."

She looks at me sharply, perhaps surprised that I have not offered some empty reassurance about fate or the order of things.

“It’s all just about time, I suppose.” I know this won’t stop the burning in her chest. I know she will still feel slighted. I offer a summary, “Death is simply the end of a thing. It’s not a reward or a punishment. Just a part of life. Life perhaps is far more cruel than death.”

And tonight, I have come to the end of Eleanor.

She draws the quilt around her shoulders.

"Will it hurt?"

"Not for long."

"Will I be alone?"

The question catches me somewhere I had not expected.

I have no heart, of course. I have no lungs, no blood, no flesh that might tighten with sorrow. Yet I have been shaped by human emotion. A warmness within me that is getting harder to ignore. Perhaps I’m learning life is more than time. I have begun to feel more than I should, but without death, I have no life. A paradox.

"No," I tell her. "You won't be alone."

She studies my face, shadowed by my hood.

"Do you say that to everyone?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Some people are. Some people don’t even sense my presence. Some people wait for me on bony knees with nothing left, waiting to finally not be alone."

For a while, we listen to the rain. 

Then Eleanor begins to cry. Tears simply slip down her cheeks, silently. I remember the tears at her mothers bedside. She has learned to cry silently over the years, and this pains me. Those who can weep in silence have spent too long practicing.

"I haven't finished anything," she says, "I haven't seen the ocean. I've never been to Italy. I've got a book on my shelf I've been meaning to read for three years, and I haven't even opened it." She laughs shakily. "I was supposed to call my brother tomorrow. We had a stupid argument last Christmas, and I thought I'd have more time to fix it."

There it is. The great tragedy of being human.

The living live as though time is a room with endless doors, and every day is another chance to walk through one. They postpone the difficult conversations, save the good china, and promise that one day they will become the person they've always meant to be. 

No one ever considers that the room might have only one door left.

Eleanor presses both hands over her face.

"I don't want to go."

I have heard those words since the first living creature learned to fear the dark. 

I have never grown accustomed to them.

"I know."

"Do you?"

I look at her, and for the first time in centuries, I consider if I should tell the truth. Not the truth about death. Not the truth about the dark that waits beyond it.

The truth about me. About the personification of the hushed word. About the Death sitting in front of her, personified.

“I have been with you since your first breath," I say. "I watched you learn to walk. I watched you lose your first tooth. I stood outside the hospital room when you fell in love for the first time, and I watched you cry when it ended. I was there when you kissed your mother goodbye. I have watched you through every birthday you thought no one remembered, every lonely evening, every moment you believed yourself unseen. I have witnessed so much sorrow, pain, and suffering. I have also seen so much joy, so much splendour."

Her tears have stopped.

"Why?"

"Because it is my nature to witness. It’s a purpose, I suppose"

"That sounds terribly lonely."

I turn my face toward the window.

Outside, the rain has softened to a whisper.

"Yes," I say. "It is."

For the first time, Eleanor looks at me not as a monster, not as an omen, but as something that might be capable of suffering. The warmth in me grows in my chest. I fear if I continue to feel, I will become obsolete.

I do not know what to do with her kindness.

"Is there anyone you'd like to see?"

She hesitates.

Then she asks, "Can I see my mother?"

The question is so quiet I almost wish I had not heard it.

I have always had rules. I have never reversed what has been done, I do not change the appointed hour, and I do not bring the dead back to comfort the living. 

Something in me makes me waver. A weakness in the feeling I have found.

Perhaps an allowance- a small mercy, if you like.

I rise from the chair and extend my hand.

"Close your eyes."

The candle flickers. The shadows shift. And for one brief moment, the room fills with the scent of lavender soap and freshly baked bread.

Eleanor jumps a little, reaches forward as if the one who has come to take her has become her only comfort.

When she opens her eyes, a woman stands beside the bed.

She is young again, her hair dark, unmarked from the illness that took her.

Her mother.

Eleanor reaches for the woman, and the woman gathers her into her arms.

They hold each other for a long time.

I turn away.

When Eleanor finally pulls back, she is smiling through her tears.

"Will I see you again?" she asks her mother.

Her mother kisses her forehead.

"Always."

The word hangs in the room like a prayer.

Eleanor lies back against her pillows, exhausted. Her eyes are heavy, and the fear has softened into something almost like peace. 

"Thank you," she whispers.

I return to my chair.

"You should rest."

She looks at me for a long moment.

"Will you stay?"

"Until the end."

"Good."

She closes her eyes.

For the next hour, I tell her stories.

I tell her about the first sunrise, when the world was young and the stars had not yet learned to fade. I tell her about oceans that swallowed kingdoms, forests that grew over forgotten cities, and children who were born beneath strange constellations and changed the course of history.

I tell her about the small things, too.

The old man who planted an orchard that would not bear fruit until after his death. The woman who spent forty years writing letters to a sister who could no longer read them. The little boy who left a biscuit on a windowsill every night because he believed the moon might be hungry.

Eleanor listens with her eyes closed.

Sometimes she smiles.

Sometimes she asks questions.

Once, she laughs so suddenly that she startles herself.

It is the most beautiful sound I have heard in a very long time.

A thin line of silver appears along the horizon, and the room begins to fill with the pale, uncertain light of morning.

Eleanor opens her eyes.

"Is it time?"

I look at the window.

"Almost."

She nods.

Then she reaches for my hand.

I hesitate.

No one has ever asked to hold my hand before.

My fingers are cold, and beneath the dark folds of my robes, there is nothing but bone. Yet she curls her fingers around mine as though I am an old friend who has come to sit with her in a difficult hour.

"Will you tell me something?" she asks.

"Anything."

"When people die, do you remember them?"

I look down at her.

For centuries, I have carried the names of the dead inside me. Kings and beggars. Saints and murderers. Children whose lives lasted only minutes and elders who outlived everyone they had ever loved.

I remember every face.Every voice. Every final breath.

"Yes," I tell her.

"Even me?"

I tighten my fingers around hers.

"Especially you."

The first light of morning touches the windowsill.

Eleanor takes a slow, shuddering breath.

Then another.

She looks toward the window, where a small bird has landed on the wet sill. It shakes the rain from its wings and begins to sing.

"Oh," she whispers. "Listen."

I listen.

The bird sings to the morning as though nothing in the world has ever ended.

Eleanor smiles.

And then, very gently, she lets go.

I feel the moment her soul leaves her body. It is a familiar sensation, like a candle being extinguished in a room that has grown too warm. A beautiful stillness fills the room. The last breath slips between her lips, and the woman who was Eleanor becomes a memory.

For a moment, I do not move. But I must carry on.

I have work to do. There are others waiting, as there always are. A man in a hospital bed. A child beneath a collapsing roof. An old woman who has been asking for her husband since midnight.

The world does not stop for the dead.

It barely stops for the living.

Still, I remain beside Eleanor's bed until the sun rises fully over the rooftops.

I straighten the quilt. I close her eyes. I brush a strand of hair from her forehead.

Then I bend close and whisper the words I have never spoken to anyone before.

"You were here."

It is a small thing, perhaps. A poor offering from the creature who takes everything.

But it is the only gift I have to give.

I rise, gather my robes, and turn toward the door.

Eleanor will never see the ocean. She will never visit Italy or finish the book on her shelf. She will never call her brother tomorrow.

But she will be remembered.

She was frightened, and she was brave. She laughed in the dark. She reached for a hand when she could have turned away.

And for a few hours, when the world had grown quiet and the end had come close, she was not alone.

I have carried billions of souls into the dark.

I have never once been able to save a single one.

Yet as I step into the morning, I find myself thinking of her smile, of her mother's embrace, of the little bird singing at the window.

Perhaps this is why I am so misunderstood.

The living imagine that I am the opposite of life.

They think I come to erase everything they have been.

But I do not take the love that was given. I do not undo the kindness that was shown, or silence the laughter that once filled a room. I cannot make a life longer, but neither can I make it meaningless.

I am Death.

I am the last page, the final breath, the hand that closes the door.

And sometimes, in the hours before dawn, I am simply the one who stays.

Because the living deserve that much. Because the dying deserve that much.

Even I, who have watched the last light leave a thousand billion eyes, have learned that the most terrible thing about an ending is not the darkness that follows.

It is the thought that no one will remember there was light.

So I remember.

I remember Eleanor. I smile to myself. Perhaps there’s room to bend a bit. Perhaps I’ve warmed a part of me that will give others the last image. There cannot be life without me, there cannot be death without the living.

And then I go to meet the next soul who is waiting for me, carrying her name with all the others, into the endless dark.