The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 19.1: Constants and Changes

I came to yet another realization of how the rest of my time as the reaper would go… repetition. Repetition is what I’m sure would slowly kill me in this life, over and over… I would know the ending to every life’s story.

So many things in life were easy to avoid, because I could have just shrugged them off and told myself I had the rest of my life. I could miss a day of school and everything would turn out fine in the end. But now… if I decided not to participate, if I decide not to repeat, in this reapers ritual… I condemn myself.

The yearning to be alive again struck me in my side. To just be able to procrastinate and over complicate the consequences in my conscience. I can’t procrastinate now. And I can’t overcomplicate the consequences because they were already overwhelmingly complicated.

I inflated my shriveled lungs to try to imitate life but nothing. The puff of stale air I let out of me didn’t even make a sound or even heat. 

Death is stagnant, still, permanent. Life is change and thus… it is fragile. And the stable mind to keep it safe on that delicate pedestal stands on a three-legged chair.

Without inhibition, I sprung my coal wings from my back to prepare for the portal to summon me. Waiting while I watch the tree’s crumble and crack under the fire and fearing this beast that now was connected to me.

As if by my command, the sun shrunk behind a threatening cloud. Strange, the idea that such a powerful figure, like the sun, can be helpless behind such an inadequate piece of nature. And soon… I’d have to visit another soul who forgot the sun because a storm told them it didn’t exist. 

How could I ever forgive myself? How? When this purgatory was a constant memento of my decisions. I began to reminisce on what I’d be doing at this moment if I were alive. The day was a Tuesday, 4:30 pm, in October. Any weekday my mother would be home to greet me at the door. And I would have the ungrateful thoughts of how pathetic she was for being so excited when I’d come home. Mostly because I didn’t feel she wanted to hear the truth of my day. 

No. No. No. Think about the good. 

She always prepared a grilled cheese with it cut diagonally… I liked the triangles because it made me feel like I was one of the happy children in the cheese commercials. And she always remembered. But once I devoured the meal and thanked my mom, the reality was I’d be in my room. I’d be talking with… talking with someone on the phone… my memory glitches and a recollection derailed my train of thought.

During the first year of my dad leaving my mom, I spent the third weekend of every month at his apartment. His apartment had paper-thin walls, so I could hear the symphony of troubled lives ring in every hall and corner of the studio.

My dad was very serious around me. Although, when in mixed company, he was the life of the party. He had friends from his business hold a New Years party in his flat and I eventually was shooed into my fifteen by ten room.

Vaguely, I remember I was upset about something as I stuffed my clothes into my drawers and slammed them shut. On the first slam of my dresser drawer I heard a tap on the wall. I slammed it again and heard the same tap. Ignoring the rebound of noises. 

I started rehearsing my solo in chorus:

 

Come home, stubborn child

Find peace from the wild

Fire you’ve set in your thoughts.

Be still and be grateful

 

Through the burgundy wall I heard a boy finish the second verse.

 

Though you’ve fought

My choices and you’ll

Betray my son

 

I finished.

    

I have not lost hope

In your return home

    

“HI!” came through the wall.

I laughed under my breath. I echoed back to him. It grew still and I sighed that the moment had ended. The silence crowded my thoughts and left no room for the hope that whoever was singing would come back.

“Edith, I think someone’s at the door for you.” Shouted my father as he continued telling his joke to his colleagues. I rolled out of my bed with interest beaming from my eyes.

My dad continued, “Do you want me to make him leave?”

Twisting the doorknob in a frenzy my hand slipped and the sound of the brass rattling quieted everyone in the apartment. I controlled myself and opened the door in a calm, cool, and collected manner. Though everyone looked at me like I was covered in peanut butter.

Through the slight tilt of the wooden front door, I saw a boy my age standing and messing with his slightly buzzed hair. My dad didn’t look too concerned though. Trying to be young, cool dad but I knew he secretly wanted me to leave. His guilty conscience was the only thing that brought me there every third weekend of the month.

The kid waved at me and held up a harmonica. I grabbed my backpack for no absolute reason. I just think I was really nervous that someone wanted to hang out with me. I instinctively skipped to the door and didn’t say a word as I closed it behind me, mostly happy that I had an excuse to leave the party.

There was a pause of uncertainty as we interrupted each other to introduce ourselves.

“I’m Edith.”

The boy offered me a strand of liquorish when he spoke, “I’m Vincent.”

I accepted the sweet and his gesture to follow him. His voice was innocent and young, his breath was sweet, and his tongue was bright red from all the candy. He was awfully calm for a child with that much sugar in him though.

We loved the sound of our sneakers squeaking on the lobby tile that we would shuffle our feet on purpose. We ran passed the doorman and stopped in front of the bike racks. The complex had a bike rental station. We had to swipe our room keys to open the gates to take a bike.

We didn’t talk much as we did this. It’s like Vincent just made me his friend by offering me the liquorish. Vincent reached into his pocket and handed me an unopened wrapper of liquorish.

“Happy New Year!” He said with chewed candy stuck in his teeth.

I took my gift and held my hand up to ask for a moment. I opened my backpack and presented him with the only sweets in the bag. They were Sour Wads, the most popular things in school at the time. My dad gave them to me when he picked me up from my moms. They were the most entertaining things about the car ride as I watched my father pucker from the intense tartness.

“Happy New Year!” I said as I handed him the friendly notion.  

He gratefully accepted them and stuffed them into his vacant pocket. Vincent wasn’t much for talking. He mostly just did what he wanted and I followed. He hopped on his white bike and I impulsively charted with him in my purple one. 

We rode our bikes through Piedmont Park and searched for a vacant patch of grass for us to rest and watch the inevitable fireworks. We eventually stole a spot from a scatterbrained family and rested the bikes on the tree behind us. Neither of us minded the bare grass on our skin so we happily stretched ourselves across it. 

Vincent dug around in his artificially flavored pockets, pulling out the sugarcoated harmonica. Dusting off the food from the instrument, he leaned back and played familiar songs with some improvisation here and there. No one seemed to mind it. I caught an elderly couple tapping their canes to the tunes. We spent every New Year together after that.

Vincent. He was my only real friend. Most of our friendship didn’t involve much talking though. It’s not that he was shy, he just honestly didn’t have much to say. I could tell he really enjoyed listening and watching other people. He was too weird to be shy. He loved dancing and would often break into a harmonica dance break when we’d walk to school. 

He didn’t care who saw him and would always take my hand to make me sway along. He always told me his philosophy was, “Life is all an act and therefore art,” at this point he’d wiggle around and play a hyper tidbit on his harmonica, “is a confession.”

A dark cloud was cast over my pleasant thoughts when I reminded myself of the last memory of him. He never tried to stop all the lies said about me and didn’t try to mend the way those lies affected me. But I can’t hate him for it… I can’t judge him for it. All I yearned for was that I wish things were handled differently, that he and I both just had a little backbone. Survival, clean and simple, that’s all it was and it turned people into emotional cannibals. I missed Vincent very much.

BARK! 

The vulture snapped me out of my reminiscing to warn me that the portal had arrived.

Folding my wings around me to make the cloak, I scuffled my feet along the cement to the black quicksand spiraled, the sound of the hushing sand was haunting. I watched the vulture take off to the words and then proceeded to sink into the depths of the sand. 

Oddly, instead of being taken to the House of Oblivion I found myself immediately in a hustle of  public transportation station.

People everywhere, it was hard to tell what my job was here, people migrated to and from their shuttles and not a soul could see me. I was confused though, if there was a suicide here then this place would be crawling with officers and ambulances. I cautiously crept through the station in search for why I was assigned here but in my heart of hearts I was praying for a mistake.

A cawing bird had my eyes wander to the ceiling. The vulture, perched on the hanging signs, kept cawing and pointing its beak downward. My gaze tracked its signal and I understood what it was indicating at.

Dressed in an oversized denim button up and black shorts, a tired girl stood rigidly. Staring at the shuttle tracks with twitching fingers twirling the loose stitching on her shirt. She hadn’t committed suicide… yet.

Anxiety shot through my whole being, I could save her. I could save her! Her thought process was more than clear and at any moment she could act on them. I smelt her intentions, I had the ability to make sure she would return to someone who loved her.

With my bundling thoughts provoking me to stop her, my markings began to sting and a ringing began to crescendo in my ears. This was a reminder of what I can and cannot do as a reaper. But was saving my own soul worth not saving hers?

Avoiding eye contact with anyone and biting her chapped lips, she began to shuffle her feet closer to the tracks. I couldn’t comprehend why no one could see the exhausted desperation in her body. Her body was a screaming confession. She didn’t look healthy.

It was that they didn’t want to see it. They didn’t want to bother their conscience with the issues already rotating in their life. We are brothers and sisters but we prefer to see each other as burdens and strangers. We’re so ready to purchase banners of peace and love but with no plan to hang them in our yards. It’s because we all have a different view of peace and love and who’s to say which is the truth. Trying to come up with that conclusion is what creates war. 

Time was not my friend and the girl was inching closer to the edge. I felt so selfish that the fear of damnation consumed my desire to save her. As much as I told myself otherwise, I wasn’t going to protect her. I was going to play the role of the Grim Reaper and heartlessly do what I was brought there to do. I would stand here, dressed in a cloak of black feathers, carrying a bag of stones. I would play the Grim Reaper. 

A shuttle loaded the majority of the people that were in the station and the commotion calmed to a few load phone calls. The girl’s hesitations were such a blessing to me. Obviously, there was at least one thing that made her happy. 

An older gentleman, older than Julius, stood a couple feet south left of the girl. He had an ancient looking phone held up to his right ear, but his attention seemed uninterested in the conversation muffling over the speaker. Forgetting his brief case, he slyly slid closer to the fragile ghost of a girl. She didn’t notice him. Her eyes kept dangling from side to side. It was clear she hadn’t slept in a couple days.

Lights from the incoming shuttle bounced off the wall and the girl was bringing her thoughts to action. The man on the phone kept checking his watch, appearing oblivious. I wanted to scream. I wanted to be human. I hated that I traded my wings for a way out, thinking that’s what would free me.

No longer shuffling slowly, the girl picked up her feet to make her move. She had one thing left on her mind and that was escape. Her desperation in that moment heightened all my senses, making me relive my suicide. The memory overflowed me and I wanted to throw up. 

The shuttle was shooting in. Her bare feet pressed forward and picked up the pace. And then in perfect harmony the girl’s foot hung over the edge as the shuttle cried in. I covered my feather hood over my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to watch her. The shuttle boomed by me. A scream of sorrow rattled the station. I covered my hands over my face and forced heavy, stale breaths to calm myself down.

“Somebody call 911!”

I pushed my feathered hood from my eyes and saw the older gentlemen bear hugging the girl. Cradling her he lost his balance and stumbled to his knees. Resting on his tired joints he embraced her as she sobbed.

Her tangled brown hair hung over her face and breathed from her heavy cries. His grip on her was strong but she wasn’t struggling. She wept into the arm of his jacket and clenched his collar. I covered my face again and gave a large huff of relief. 

There was no job for me to complete… so then why on earth was I sent? I was just so confused as to why I had to torture myself with this. The vulture cawed and skimmed passed me in flight. I turned around to watch its leave.

And low and behold, I turn to find Eliakim standing before me, “Despite that my visits to you are limited, I felt this was a time you would need me.”

My emotions were rioting in my every muscle and I had no intention of calming it. I was upset that this test only proved that I would idly stand by and watch someone throw their life away. That I honestly wouldn’t do anything. I judged the living but I truly was no better.

I bit my lip before speaking, “Why did you put me through this?”

“You’ve been questioning if there were ever a plan for you… a plan that didn’t involve you dying… and becoming the reaper.”

“And?”

“There’s no knowing.”

I rolled my eyes, “This is so uplifting.”

He chuckled, which angered me more, “Noa, there is no knowing because that’s not the choice you made. And no one is punishing you for the choice you ended with. There very well was a path ready for you in your past life but through a series of acts of free will… you chose your path.” He tilted his head to look at the crying girl, “Based off that girl’s free will, there was a path for her if she successfully committed suicide… but another’s free will interrupted… thus creating fate.”

“Doesn’t what your saying go against the idea of God’s… ultimate plan?”

“You haven’t been dead long, so you still think much like the living do, you take everything much too literally. Eventually you will learn the difference between truth and fact.”

“What is that suppose to mean?” Eliakim didn’t look like he was going to respond, so and sighed and carried on with hope in my thoughts but defeat in my tone, “Do I have any choices left?”

The clamoring of boots sped passed me. My eyes, distracted by the men in uniform, spun back around almost positive we were to continue our conversation. But all that was left was the musty air and no warm feeling at my hand. I was alone again.

The girl was safe and I no longer had a purpose to be there. But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to wait for the loved one that would eventually be called in. I wanted to see the frantic expressions of relief that she was still alive. I wanted to thank that man, to just tell him that it mattered more than he could ever understand.

The shushing of sand whispered in the station, the volume of it made me feel like it was becoming impatient. I turned around to make my exit as I watched paramedics assist the girl to her feet. 

She still had choices left to make. Warmed by the thoughts that she’d be around to make more of them. She’ll have the blessing to cry over a broken heart someday and be found by someone who will help her pick up the pieces. I wasn’t naïve, life possibly wasn’t going to get any easier for her, but she was so young. Anything to come her way will be a mere chapter, and no one should ever need to stop a story before it even really begins.