Mors tua, vita mea

It’s hard to remember there was ever a time before Mors. I shudder to think now of the folly of my youth, presuming that I was wholly complete and quite self-satisfied. How little I knew then, like a painter that believes she has just created her magnum opus only to discover there are more colors than black and white. The problem with seeing in color is that when the splendid hues leech away, the gray never regains its splendor.

In the beginning, I was entirely alone. There was nothing beyond this blank expanse teeming with possibility. I laid my land on the ground and energy thrummed beneath my fingers. I closed my eyes and imagined verdant lands swathed by trees that stretched to the skies above, laced together like fingertips. Splashes of every imaginable color stippled the greenery and with a misting spray, water flowed and filled the empty valleys. It twisted its way in narrow streams weaving through the forest and trickling cloyingly below rocky outcrops. When I opened my eyes, all that had danced behind my eyelids transmitted onto my canvas. This was good. Even then, though, I never enjoyed the silence. The only flaw in my own design was that I was entirely deaf in one ear. The bubbling brook that now wound around my ankles was the only sound, muted as always on one side. That wouldn’t do. I sat beside the streambed and scooped handfuls of silt from the depths and formed the red-brown clay into a long narrow body with a flat tail and slits in its throat to filter water. Fish, I’ll call it. But when I let him go in the stream, he made no noise whatsoever and I was alone again. I caught falling leaves as they fell from the canopy and wove them together to form a lithe body with feathers light as air. A bird! It fluttered its delicate wings and twittered happily among the branches. The birdsong invigorated my spirits and I worked frantically day and night, shaping. Turtles, squirrels, badgers, raccoons, beavers. Then larger: wolves, deer, and mountain lions. As you can tell, I had no concept of excess back then. Every opportunity to create seized me in a frenzy and imbuing life was levied with so much wantonness that I never saw it as anything except a gift. All the world was my workspace and all living things my string of dolls.

Time passed and though happiness enveloped me, I still suffered the life of a tortured artist. All these beautiful creatures, yet they scurried about indifferent to the beauty of my making. They worshipped only detached functionality. So again I sat near the streambed and gathered mounds of clay, working day and night on my newest conception. This is where I admit, much to my chagrin, that my vanity reared its great horned head. With care and devotion, I crafted robust bodies and dexterous limbs, stealing inspiration from my own reflection in the water. I gave them each different eyes, expressions, and hair but spent extra care in the mouth. I pinched my eyes tightly and concentrated on the sound of their voices, the timber and inflection but above all, their ardor for living. Into the mouths I breathed and watched with wonder as they flared into being like arcing thunder bolts across the darkness. They conversed heartily in a language which I could understand. Finally, I was not alone.

For a while, my world felt full. I expounded, designing new iterations of beings to decorate my land. The air resonated with the knitted songs of my proliferation, finally strong enough that even I could hear their music. But as years wore on, my people suffered. Their once strong forms began to curl under the weight of time and they complained loudly of the ache that settled in their bones. I didn’t listen. Instead, I doubled my efforts and began creating younger models to supplement the aging ones. I wanted to hear them sing again, praising my benevolence. After a time, I decided to delegate the task to the women and men, and imbued them with a fraction of my gift. You would not believe the success! Brand new lives spun from my creations, endless derivatives of my own design. But all was not well as the population bloated, groaning loudly of their staling ailments and the scarcity of my once-bountiful lands.

Days dragged with the weight of hopelessness hanging like an anchor around my throat. There would never be another artist, a kindred spirit to share my love of creation. One day, I sat beside a stream with my knees curled to rest my chin, absently stirring the water with a stick. Black thoughts hung overcast in my mind when I heard a meek voice behind me.

I whirled around to see a young man, sitting back on his heels and watching me with a serene smile. This wasn’t one of my creations. I could tell because of his eyes, whose irises shone palely in the light filtering through the trees. They fixed on a spot beyond my ear and I realized he couldn’t see.

“Where did you come from?” I tried to smooth the ruffle from my question.

He indicated vaguely beyond the treeline.

“From elsewhere.” His voice struck me like a headfirst plunge into cold water.

“Why are you here?”

A pained look momentarily crumpled his face and the colorless eyes rippled with thought.

“I’m not sure.”

A moment passed as each of us beheld the other in quiet consideration. We were two like creatures connected by a spider silk thread.

He regarded me thoughtfully, “What’s your name?”

I considered this. The people had many names for me.

“I’m called Vita.” This was my favorite from among the names I was given. Its crispness sparked like a struck flint, which felt apt.

“Vita,” he repeated and the sensation of frigid water washed over me again, “I’m Mors.”

“Mors,” I wanted to know more about this strange new creature, “Tell me about your world.”

His gentle eyes pierced me quite suddenly and their unseeing accuracy fascinated me. As Mors unraveled his story, I came to realize that he wasn’t entirely blind after all. His peripheral vision remained so that he saw all the world through thin ribbons of color. The world he left behind was much like mine, with day and night chasing one another through their cycles.

“The difference is my world doesn’t have any of this,” and he indicated vastly to take in the nearby animals and the tendrils of birdsong that sifted through the canopy.

“You have no creations of your own?” The thought pulled at my heart.

“None at all. Perhaps that’s why I find it so beautiful, why I find you so beautiful.” Mors said this with none of the flattering vanity that the men use to entice a mate. He offered it directly and almost plaintively, like a drowned man surrendering his tether. Still, I blushed at his words. No one had ever called me beautiful, they only seemed to endure me now.

“Come,” I closed the gap between us with firm resolve, “I’ll show you how to create.”

Mors squatted attentively at my side as I gathered materials and wove them carefully and his wide eyes locked onto the dove now cooing docilely in my hand. His wonder transformed to glee as the bird took flight.

“See? Easy. Now your turn,” but the moment I placed my hand on his, I had the distinct sensation of walking through cobwebs. A little, feathery sensation like eyelashes against one’s cheek and then it was gone.

Mors concentrated on his weaving, and I could feel my energy infusing his design. Yet when I opened my eyes, I was startled by the large winged creature in front of me. Its feathers were blue black in the sunlight and reflected greasily. The huge hooked beak split and emitted a harsh cawing sound.

I recoiled from the thing but Mors only clasped his hands in joy as it alighted into the trees above.

“I’ll call it a crow,” he declared with triumph, “and a group of them will be called a murder!”

What lurid words. Crow. Murder? Still, I was determined not to discourage my zealous pupil.

We began again and this time I conjured a magnificent eagle whose natural majesty would be impossible to bungle. Imagine my horror, then, when Mors produced a creature so foul that I almost preferred his first creation. The bird, if that’s what one could call it, retained the broad oily feathers of the first but its head was completely devoid of plumage. Instead, the bald scaly crown protruded obscenely from the feathered ruff at the base of its gullet. I could only gawk while Mors waited patiently for my reaction.

For many moons, I tried to shape Mors’ gift to match mine. Our days consisted of constant exercises which devolved into even stranger iterations of my own creatures. I shaped beautiful red-bellied fish for the streams but, when Mors reached out to touch one, it grew needle-like teeth and devoured my minnows. By and by, the animals began to behave strangely around him. The wolves, which subsisted peacefully on plants before, began to hunt my birds which in turn began to hunt mice. The forest-dwelling population waxed and waned with the cycles.

One day, I decided that it was time that Mors met the people. It had been far too long since I’d last visited and, for selfish reasons, I wanted to observe their reaction to him. The young chirped and smiled at our approach while the old continued with their day. The closer we got, the more clearly I felt the tension in the air. The elderly huddled together, grumbling of stiff limbs and bygone youth. Mors joined them as I played with the children or tended to the mothers whose swollen bellies teemed with creation. As the sun turned into a flat dish dipping below the trees, I searched for Mors. The group of elders had grown, with scattered youth craning to see beyond the crowd. A young woman whose stomach bulged with late expectancy leaned against a nearby post, captivated by the voice drifting from the center. To my surprise, there sat Mors telling stories of another world.

“...and in these lands, there is no pain or suffering. When you arrive, your kinsmen all the way back from the dawn of creation will be there to greet you, and generations are made whole again. Your body sheds its burden at the treeline and there is a resting place for a life well-lived…”

The aged sitting around him, hung onto his words, breathing in this promise of release. They huddled so closely that they could almost touch the fabric of his clothes. I had heard enough and barged through the crowd to drag Mors from his perch. The spell was broken and the listeners sputtered to life, like minnows scattered by a ripple. The elderly balked at his exit and hurried to grasp at Mors’ sleeves, begging for more information of this other world where misery is discarded.

“I don’t understand why you would fabricate such a cruel story,” I hissed at him between gritted teeth.

Mors halted just shy of the forest and grabbed my wrist.

“Vita, please let me take them,” his eyes beseeched me with a feverish glow, “I know this doesn’t make sense but I know I can help them. I will care for them and give them a home where their pain is left behind. My world, I finally understand its purpose.”

The thought of Mors leaving and taking my creations sunk into me like venomous fangs.

“No, Mors. That’s the end of it.” With that, I stalked into the woods.

Mors sat quietly that night and his pale eyes glinted in the moonlight.

“What are you thinking?” Mors usually brightened at my interest, cracking open his thoughts for us to examine like a geode.

This was not such a night.

Mors turned to me and his wan smile didn’t reach his eyes. It reminded me so much of the day we met when I asked why he was here. The same hopeless expression furrowed his brow now. I don’t know, he had said.

“Vita,” he said softly, “This is not good.”

Riled by my disappointment, I opened my mouth to argue but he only held up a pleading hand.

“Please, Vita, please listen to me. The people are in pain and not just the old, but the young too who have to watch their kinsmen wither and fade before them.”

His voice trembled with emotion, which only made guilt rise like bile in my throat before turning to venom.

“You can’t possibly know that. You don’t see them as I do.”

“Please. Please let me take them with me,” he begged as tears rose, “You’ve given them a beautiful gift, but they’re - .”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I created them, they’re mine. And I know better than anyone what my creations need.” Fury thrummed in hot waves over my entire body.

We were marching towards a precipice, both of us could sense it, yet on we strode.

“You gave them your gift, yes, but you wield it over them like a sword! You rend every last ounce of usefulness from their weary bones until they only endure you, nothing more.”

What an odd thing it is to hear your innermost fears repeated back to you. I searched frantically for a retort that would double the carnage.

I spoke slowly so each word dropped like a stone in still water.

“How would you know, Mors? You’ve never created anything of value. All you do is take.”

A tremor passed along the spider silk thread that connected us.

Mors’ chin jerked upwards like I had shot him between the eyes. Without a word, he turned his back on me and curled up to sleep.

My rage smoldered throughout the night and from its embers, I made a plan. At daybreak, I grabbed his wrist and marched him out of sleep into the waking village. I found the young woman from yesterday’s crowd warming her swollen belly in the dawn light.

“Come,” I muttered breathlessly to Mors, “You need to see the very best of what I can do. Then you’ll finally understand.”

The woman saw us coming and doubled over with the pains. It wouldn’t be long now that I was here. Mors stopped suddenly and dug his heels into the earth. I tugged urgently on his arm but he shook his head.

“I can’t get any closer. Something is wrong.”

I waved the foreboding clouds of his words away in my frenzy. The contractions were coming quickly now, it wouldn’t be long. I plied Mors with honeyed words until we both knelt next to the laboring woman. Moist ringlets of hair clung to her temples and her cheeks flamed with the effort. Mors listened to the woman’s groans with wide, anxious eyes but I was watching him. Any minute now and my triumph would be cheered by the first cries of a new life!

One final shudder from the woman announced its arrival. I grinned at Mors, waiting for the familiar sense of fervent wonder to grace his face again. Instead, silence perched between us all like that hideous bird. Mors’ finger lay curled in the baby’s lifeless fist. A horrible moaning began deep in the mother’s belly and rattled through her chest. Haunting wails racked her entire body and she curled herself around the tiny mottled form. The baby’s splotchy face peered out from beneath the heaving mother, its eyes closed peacefully like it was still sleeping. I will never forget the sound. It pierced me with an agony I have never known.

Mors knelt beside the woman, whispering to her. Gradually, she sat up so that Mors took the baby gently in his arms, cradling its still head in the crook of his arm. As I watched, he whispered tenderly to the child and breathed onto it. Many moments passed and as light crept into the sky, the elderly began to appear in their doorways and gravitate towards the scene. Finally, a new wail broke the stillness as the baby stirred in his arms, waving a curled fist as proof of life. The air shattered in joyful cries from the spectators but I could only watch Mors, who smiled adoringly at the squalling face mere inches from his own. He kissed the child’s head.

We locked eyes then and though no words were spoken, we both understood. The spider silk thread that bound us together thrummed painfully as I made my way to him. Pain welled deeply and I felt an ache like a bad chill inching along my bones.

His eyes latched meaningfully onto mine as I collapsed beside him.

“I promise I will love and care for them forever…as I have loved you.”

Tears wove themselves in rivulets down my cheeks as Mors stood to leave. The child cooed gently in his arms now and the elderly detangled themselves from the crowd to follow. They grasped for a hold on his sleeve, trailing along like lost children that have found their home. On they walked, strangely tethered to one another, until they disappeared beyond my sight into a better world.

As the seasons change, I catch myself watching the young grow old and wonder about the other world just beyond the treeline. In those moments, I wish I could join them and be greeted by Mors’ steady smile one last time. Yet I know that our burden is not one to be shed and we exist, like night and day, to tend to our own domains.

So it was that Death yearned for Life and Life, for Death. Yet neither met again, in this world or the next.