Grief Eater

The old man was grey and I was afraid I was too late, that he’d already passed laying there in his hospital style bed. The living room was dusky with the blinds halfway drawn in the late afternoon sun, making the shadows darker and longer. Dust flittered in the sunbeams that touched his face revealing deep wrinkles and sunken eyes. His lips I noticed as I grew closer were impossibly thick and dry. I saw that the IV, the single medicinal tool in sight besides the bed liners and boxes of tissues—if those counted—was run dry. The urge to fix the situation and relieve his suffering was strong, but I wasn’t about to seek anyone out and announce my presence. There would be questions I would need to answer about why I was here and it was always better to avoid those when possible. The room held the smell of death I had become accustomed to but it was also old, like it had been growing moldy for years, settled into the brown fabric of the sofa and drapes. They were the sort of heavy drapes with sashes popular in the middle of the last century. It would not be much longer now for this old man. I doubted he would fully wake again. I was not too late, but it was close.

Before the old man’s last breath, I had to collect the memory from him. 

At some point in the past few weeks, likely when he was far more lucid than he was now, he must have made the intention to wish the memory away. It wasn’t anything formal, he would have probably wished it away for years, decades even. But now was the time as he neared his own release when I could step in. Otherwise the pain would be gone from him, yes, but released into the world searching endlessly for its home. 

I approached closer to him and sat on the lone hard stool near his bedside. This was not the comfortable chair of someone sitting and keeping company. It was most likely pulled there by a nurse having a seat while they took vitals and wrote their notes. I saw no sign of that nurse now, no one else either. No flowers or cards or children’s drawings wishing pawpaw a get well. The home itself was rather bare, though at one time someone had put a few paintings of airplanes on the wall and against a far wall a bookshelf of knickknacks of varying quality collected dust. I saw a few faded framed photos. A small handprint of a child in plaster was delicately perched on a small display easel. I carefully picked it up and held it, the feeling of the persons who it belonged to transferring to me. It was smooth and shiny as if it had been rubbed many, many times.

Behind me the old man’s breathing intensified, grew more rapid. A gargle escaped as if he tried to speak. I knew he knew I was there. 

“I’m here now for it,” I said gently, but business-like. I sat down on the hard stool. I had practiced this tone many, many years ago when I was told that establishing parameters and boundaries would be wise. It was second nature to me now and had indeed, become my own persona. I went on like a doctor giving simple directions to a small child, “I am going to first lay my hand on yours and you will feel something, perhaps like a tingle or as some say, like a string is running through your hand. It shouldn't hurt, but it may be uncomfortable. As it passes to me, it will try to cling to you and that may be a bit upsetting. You may feel like you are betraying someone or being seen or are exposed. But rest assured only I will collect the memory and only I will know it.” 

This was my spiel I gave to all of my—clients—but something about this room was heavier than normal. 

I placed my hand over his cold one. Despite his frail body and cold skin, his life force within was surprisingly strong, so strong even that I almost pulled my hand away. There was no way this man was on the verge of death. But then I felt it like a wave through me. This was not life force, it was sadness. Sharp, spine-contorting sadness that writhes and wraps itself around its host, howling and moving in hideous waves. It was the sadness of an endless blackness, twisting and flailing as you fall through it forever. Despite myself I felt my heart react with tightness. I felt my own eyes sting. For as long as I had been in this role, I had rarely felt such hurt. 

I took the memory in a few moments and when I was done, I patted the old man’s hand, but he had quickly become more still than before and I recognized the look he wore now as peace. With one look back I quietly shut the door to the home and walked to my rented vehicle. The day had turned warm for October and I pulled at the Roman collar around my neck where sweat was beginning to pool. Sitting in the hot car, I allowed myself a few heavy breaths. Now I had two choices before me. I could keep this one, have this memory as my own and the grief would add to the grief and memory of thousands before, swirling smaller and smaller like a funnel until it fell calmly into its bed within me and there it would stay, tamed and cozy. Or, I could deliver it as I knew the old man wanted. I should honor that want, that wish. For this was not my memory or my grief to decide what to do with it. And yet, I told myself, I had also long ago decided that I could not and would not spread unwarranted pain in the world. I would not bring sadness and misery to an innocent soul. 

I sat there and allowed myself to view the memory. It was a hard one, the most painful type. Love with nowhere to go, grief with no end, anger that can never be quenched. 

For many years—okay, centuries, I admit it—I have done this, ah—duty. I have fulfilled this role. I have come to learn and appreciate that most people carry a certain amount of pain and a certain amount of joy and most people have a certain amount of memories and most people are like most people and for the most part when I go to them I expect a little anger and a little sadness and a little regret and sometimes the level of their emotion matches the circumstance that built it exactly, and sometimes it is ever so slightly off. And from this I can decipher the level of someone’s goodness, their purity of intention. But in my time doing this I have once in a while encountered a pain so barbed and so consuming I do not understand how the person who carried it could ever survive it. And so this was one of the latter. And so knowing what I knew of the memory, I started the vehicle. 

It is not my place to judge—that is for God. It is not my place to dispatch people—that is for Death. And it is not my place to forgive—that is for affected souls. 

I knew I would not sleep even if I tried, the new grief now in me was rampaging and I did everything I could to suppress it. I drove through the night, passing few cars along Highway 80, each with its own universe inside. Leaving Denver behind in the shadow of the Rockies as I climbed over them toward the setting sun. I made it to San Francisco by noon the next day and decided I needed to check myself into a hotel and freshen myself up. 

When you are centuries old, it takes a great deal of work to remain both relevant and anonymous. So the next steps were important. I did not want anyone in authority to question my intentions. I made the required phone calls and ironed a fresh shirt and cassock. I could feel the sadness within churning relentlessly, searching for an end, craving warmth like a small child. And so I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed and talking to it like a small child, like the small child who had long ago been the catalyst from which this sadness was grown. 

I must have slept, for when I awoke it was dark out but with the silence of very early morning. I dressed and getting into my vehicle, I headed for the place I needed to go. Within a few hours, I was in front of the person I needed to see, and I checked myself to keep my face neutral and stern. This was usually not a problem for me, but the evil manifested before me was revolting to my soul and I felt even the memories and griefs from others long past that I carried with me, stir from their peace from being in the presence of such malignancy. I would make this quick. 

I slid a piece of generic paper with some jargon and lines for signatures on it and handed him a pen. As I slid it over I placed my hand above his and held. His eyes met mine, first in confusion and then in anger… and then as I felt the connection made to this monster, I delivered what I had come to deliver for the old man and I saw the man before me, his eyes shrink and dry, his shoulder slump and under his skin the writhing and crawling of a thousand evil entities being fed their own poison. He twisted in pain, but he could not move, the first of hell began to course through him even as he lived, but he could not look away. And he never would, for his life was now one of feeling and seeing only the grief.

As soon as I was done, before the guards could even warn me to remove my hand from touching the inmate, I was at the door requesting the guard to open it.

“He will not be needing my pro bono services after all,” I said mumbled to the guard who was, confused, staring past me at the prisoner still sitting, mouth gaped, eyes tearing, and howling at the nothingness. 

I left San Quentin feeling well again. The memories in me settled and went back to their sleeps. I had never before done what I did next, but I got in my car and I drove through the night back to just east of Denver where the prairie grass was shining. I pulled up once again to the old man’s house. The door still wasn’t locked and I entered as I did before. A practical-looking nurse was standing by his bed this time, pulling up a syringe from a vial of what I assumed was morphine. She looked startled at first but smiled as she saw me, for my presence has that effect. 

“Hello,” I said winking, “Just an old friend.” 

“Oh wonderful,” she said. “He has so few visitors. None that I have seen come to think of it.” 

“Most of his family passed long ago,” I said, deciding to not elaborate. I took the old man’s hand fully this time, as a friend. I spoke low to him, “It is done. I came back in case you were too weak to feel it, but I think that you have. Now, the pain is where it needs to be. And after this life—well, I have it on good assurance that certain palaces are very real.”

I felt a squeeze of his hand and then I was sure I saw a tear.

I spent the rest of the day at the old man’s; the nurse and I kept company with small talk and chatter. I divulged some of what I knew of the man’s life. I was supposed to be, after all, a friend. She made us tea and sandwiches. 

And then, I felt him in the room with us, his presence that was like a wind rushing out from the caverns of time, neither cold nor warm, dry nor humid, but the breeze that rushes past the skin of the face like a hand brushing, the wailing sound of the wind. Death was here and so were others. I did not know them, but the old man may have once in life I did not look harder. It was private and personal, and I had already done what I came to do. He would not be alone now.

“I should be going before it’s dark,” I said, standing and thanking the nurse for her company.

As I closed the front door behind me, I heard a sharp slapping as of someone running up the street. Turning, I saw a bright blue bouncing ball coming up the road. Without a thought I ran and caught it in my hands, looking in the direction it came. The setting sun made it almost impossible to see, but a few houses down, laughing as he ran, I saw the outline of a small boy skipping up the road towards the house. The sun made a halo of his bouncing hair and I felt the sudden warmth of the sunset on my skin. I waved, and dropping the ball I kicked it gently but firmly in his direction. I turned, got in my car, and without looking back, I drove away.