The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 8: Signs

      “Wait up!” The scuffing of sneakers catching up to me had me turn around to find Jonah jogging.  Jonah tripped a little, laughing in recovery. I couldn’t help but smile. Anyone who laughs at themselves has such an honest quality. 

“Do you live nearby?” A proper response to Jonah’s question matted in my thoughts as I tried to think of a lie I could stick with. My answer never came. Jonah smiled in confusion, “Are you okay?”

Recovering from my awkward pause, “Yeah! I’m fine. I just was trying… yah…” I stumbled, “I mean I live nearby but not really… just around the street.” My face was having a hard time hiding my stupidity, redirecting the attention I asked, “Do you live nearby?”

Jonah started walking as he pointed behind him, “Spektor Village. Around the corner.” I nodded in assurance as if I knew what he was talking about. With a skip in his step, “I just thought you might live nearby since most who walk to school do. Atlanta having the worst traffic makes most walk.”

I nodded as if I knew that, “Yah, of course, the traffic.” Across the street, and on almost every sidewalk I noticed students walking. Realizing most did have to walk to school.

“You have an early class or something?”

I looked at him, again, confused and unaware, “Early class?”

He smirked, “Yah, it’s like six thirty am. Extra curricular classes start at seven am…” He checked my gaze to see if I comprehended what he meant, “School doesn’t start till eight am.”

“Oh, right. No, I’m just getting a head start in the day. I haven’t applied for early or extra classes. Is that what you’re going to?”

“Yah, the advanced students get a head start on college credits. Philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and a few more. I’m taking religious studies this semester.” He pointed at the approaching church on the corner. “You wanna come with? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you sat in.”

I shrugged, “Sure, I don’t see why not.” It was a better solution rather than just wandering some more. Making me feel even less human with such isolation.

“I like your shirt.” Jonah played with my embroidered sleeve, “It suits you.”

I had spent the entire night roaming the darkest corners of the city after the movie. The rest of the weekend I spent flying and collecting change. I needed money for new clothes. I collected about seven dollars worth of dimes and quarters and went to the nearest thrift store. I could only afford three shirts and a pair of pants. It would do until I thought of a better solution. I buried the clothes I died in. 

Jonah was a head of me as he walked up the church stairs to the grand front door. I followed but my feet began to burn. An itchy, icy sting traveled up my legs as I got closer to the church. In a little, painful dance I went back down the stairs and kept walking until the pain finally stopped.

“Something wrong?” Jonah asked without trying to seem annoyed.

I was distracted by the discomfort that lingered, all I could say in return was an obvious lie, “Yah, sorry, I’m just a little light headed. Maybe another day.”

Jonah shrugged and pointed at a bus sign, “Well, if you’re not feeling well maybe take the marta to school.”

I nodded, thanked him, and we went our separate ways. The vacant bench at the stop called my name as I wanted nothing more than to just sit and think more about how damned I was. Constantly living in silence, the monsters in my conscience loved this silence. They loved making me feel more secluded from the living. 

And now I couldn’t even walk into a church? 

I became frustrated that I wasn’t allowed inside. I mean I was practically a servant of God. Why do I deserve to be harmed when entering such a place. Confused about my banishment I prayed as even-tempered as I could for God to send me Eliakim. 

Nothing. The only sign I could depend on was the one made of tin, bolted into the earth, that read MARTA STOP. I could depend on that sign. I didn’t have to worry about something that may or may not show up. That sign was a promise. But what sign promised me of being safe? 

A fluttering of feathers caught my attention; spooked I found the same purple-eyed crow perched next to me. I couldn’t understand why it kept following me. 

Upon discovering the crow, I caught Lilli standing at the edge of the curb. Where the church grass met the cement. She stood tense without a single movement. And then it hit me: she’s not breathing. At all. The way she stared at the church was full of contempt and focus that she literally was not blinking or breathing. I had never seen a person as still as she stood. It’s as if she were dead.

Something possessed me to get up and approach her.

Another vulture appeared and danced around the sidewalk of the church. It crowed and bounced in my direction but I didn’t think much of it.

When I started to approach her I think she caught me, without looking, and she reassembled herself. Re-hiding all that she was exposing. 

“Do you take any classes here?” I tried to use the most care-free tone I could stir out of me. 

She looked at me first with her eyes, not quite turning her head. She quickly readjusted them to focus on the church again. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a silver stick of gum, unwrapped it, stuck the chewed ball she had in her mouth in the wrapper, and put the new stick between her extraordinarily white teeth. 

It was another moment before she uttered anything to me, “Sure are a lot of crows around here. A lot more than usual.”

We exchange glances before I thought of a response, “Maybe it’s the season.” 

I played with the black pouch that I tied to my back pocket loop. 

She noticed, “Reason you carry a bag of stones?” sneered Lilli.

Glaring at her accusation I rebutted, “What makes you think it’s a bag of stones?”

Lilli smiled but still didn’t look back at me, her eyes were nailed to the sight. 

Lilli popped a bubble before starting, “Just a guess.” She finally looked at me, her body completely facing me, “And no, I do not take any classes here. Churches are a funny thing, Noa.” She popped another bubble, “They wouldn’t appreciate someone like me inside. If you know what I mean.”

I did know what she meant. I was more than sure of myself that the girl standing next to me was another reaper, or creature like me. But the warning the Gelof triplets cautioned to me have me hesitate any thought of revealing myself. 

The sound of steam caught my attention as the approaching bus came to a halt, “You catching the bus or,” I turned back around to find myself alone. Lilli was gone and my suspicions of her painted thick on my conscience. The vulture and crow had disappeared as well, leaving me again with nothing to distract me from my own self. 

Lilli stroked fear into my un-beating heart. There was something about her that was unsettling, as if she was a rattlesnake but I was the only person who could hear her warning.

“You gonna waste my time or get in?” 

The snarl came from the bus driver. I shuffled my way to the bus, trying my best not to make eye contact with the driver. 

“Pay up,” she jeered.

I reached into my pockets, knowing well I didn’t have money, but mostly just to show her I really didn’t, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money.”

She pointed out the door, “Then quit wasting my time!”

“I’ll pay for it.” A hand slipped by and dropped fifty cents.

“Lilli?” she was sitting in the front row of the bus next to Salvatore. Before I could even ask how she got here before me the bus driver howled at me to take a seat. 

The only other empty seat was in the back. Passing the rows, I noticed the Gelof triplets amongst the students. The triplets and I had a moment. Their judging eyes asked me to look at them a lot longer than I wish I had. 

    They sat with their shoulders high and tense, their heavy shrugs and drooping frown made them look ten years older. They again did not look like high school students. They sat in the same order that they were always seen in. Speaking to absolutely no one, and barely amongst each other. They were an awkward and off-putting group, I bet they would have been harshly bullied if they weren’t so brutally good looking.

The three girls, who barked at Camilla at the party, giggled and gossiped in an inappropriately shrill manner in the middle rows. Their conversation was such a cliché I tried to hold back a dumbfounded smirk. But another thought hit me, what else on this wide earth would they talk about besides the qualities of others? I hardly imagined them breaking out the philosophies of Socrates or reciting Chekov. Nonetheless, speaking about political matters or even charity. With such a perspective as theirs, this quality is nurtured from their environment. 

With this in mind, I had a smolder of sympathy for them. That their wisdom was as dimensional as their nail polish. But I was more than sure that, underneath it all, they were hurting and hiding too. We all wear our scars differently. Some are more obvious than others. 

As I took my seat in the back I couldn’t help but sigh from this metaphor being built around me. Secluded and pushed to the back of heavens concerns, I grew to just settle with living on the edge alone. 

Again, the crow with purple eyes was following me. Outside the bus it flew a couple feet from my window. I had a strange relation with it, but couldn’t entirely understand how it knew that as well. 

“You had a question for me?” I was startled to find Eliakim sitting next to me, looking like any other man on earth. Normal complexion, normal height, he was well disguised.

My question interrupted my thoughts, “Why couldn’t I enter the church?”

Eliakim sighed and folded his arms, “When you’re in a church you must be your honest self. You’d have to be in full reaper form.”

“But I’m sure most of the people inside aren’t their honest selves.”

“Yes, but their living soul isn’t walking the earth bare. If you want in that church you have to be as the grim reaper.”

We fell silent for a short while. I was still unhappy about why I couldn’t set foot inside but there was nothing more I could do but pout, and that would get me no where. I stared at the unaware heads of the youth that surrounded us. They had no idea death was staring at each of them, envious. 

Eliakim. I contemplated on what his name was when he was alive. And if he even remembered it… would I soon forget my real name? 

I didn’t notice till Eliakim pointed it out, “You look like you have a question? Your face is all scrunched and confused.”

I relaxed the muscles in my face, embarrassed that my thoughts read so easily, “Eli… how did you die? Or… I mean-“

“Why did I kill myself?”

I couldn’t detect if his tone was irritated or not. I shrunk and didn’t want to press further in fear of upsetting the one person who I could talk to. His face read almost as well as mine, I could tell he was either trying to remember or organize his response. But he didn’t look angry, just disappointed with himself.

“I took my life because my wife left me. I died of a broken heart. 1872, I was intoxicated and I hung myself. I blamed myself for her leaving. I blamed myself for letting her go.”

I avoided making eye contact for fear of my facial expression giving off the wrong message. I didn’t want him to think I pitied him because I knew he was above that.

He brightened his tone, “I was a composer at the time… but as you are aware, music is a part of the business. For many decades I lost all love for music. ”

My thoughts shifted, “Has an evil person ever been chosen to be the reaper?”

“Defining evil is more complex when you’re speaking of the human soul. Bad choices aren’t always evil ones and done only by bad or evil people. And good choices aren’t always will pure intentions. But have there been reapers whom have made choices out of hate, rage, and revenge? Yes. And they all suffer for it.”

“In Hell?”

“Don’t be so elementary. Suffering and peace cannot be defined by clouds in the sky and fire under the ground. Their suffering comes from the way they’ve treated themselves. Sin is not a cliff into eternal damnation, sin is a poison that keeps you from peace… thus keeping you from God.”

Shaking my head from the doubt that bundled in my heart, “Eli… I’m scared… I’m so scared and angry that it’s paralyzing.”

“You have nothing to worry about, Noa. I have faith in you.”

I questioned, “Murder. When a reaper murders why are they allowed to continue to reap? Even if they have to live it out in Hell?”

Eliakim patted my knee, “The Seven Original Reapers were the first murderers. They were the ones to choose how and if someone lived or died, and by their free will they were robbing everyone else of theirs. After so many centuries, Mankind was almost extinct, and the Original Reapers began to see the consequence of their actions. To stop them from taking life, a law was made millenniums ago, by the Creator. The Seven Originals were forced to create and lead in the seven ways human life can end thus making The Seven Endings: Suicide, Murder, War, Illness, Catastrophe, Accident, and Age. And only the living could act on The Seven Endings. Kafziel is the leader of your ending.”

“Get off the bus.” I looked up to see I was the only one left with the bus driver. Eliakim had disappeared. I was alone again. She growled, “Can you speak English? Get. Off.”

    I got to my feet and headed towards the folding doors. Without warning she grabbed my wrist and twisted it to force me to look back at her. 

    “I already paid the toll,” I yelled, stunned by her twisting me to look at her. 

    I tried retracting my arm but her grip didn’t budge. I looked back at the eyes that were connected to this body.

    I searched desperately for the soul beneath but it wasn’t human, it was darker and denser than something natural. It wasn’t like looking into Lilli’s eyes, Lilli’s were simply blank. 

    But in this woman an evil swelled and boiled with one intention: pain and hate. The windows into her soul were tainted and it shot a terror in me that I never thought I could recover from.

    This woman had no irises, just a solid black pupil and the whites of her eyes. Her eyes looked exactly like the painters. 

    She coughed intentionally in my face and forced the words, “Bestiam intra vos est.” 

    When I applied my strength to release her hand, her eyes squinted intensely as she rubbed them. I could see into her soul and this time it was human, tough and rigid, but human nonetheless. She sunk back into her normal hunch and growled at me with a forced laugh in her confusion.

Nearly tripping down the bus steps, I hightailed it out. Not wanting anymore to deal with the driver. I told myself I’d either fly or use the shadows to get to school. Seclusion was far more peaceful than that bus ride.

“You left this.” Lilli stood behind me. Surprised I twisted around with a flinch. She snickered and held her hand out farther to me, “You left this on the bus.” 

It was my bag of stones.

Cautiously, I reached for it. Baffled on how she was able to get the bag of stones considering chronologically and spatially where we both were on the bus, “Thanks, Lilli.”

She didn’t budge her grip from the pouch when I wrapped my fingers on it. She instead made it reason to pull it back, making me step just a little bit closer to her. 

I could smell the gum on her breath, as well as a faint sent of burning flesh. I cleared my throat to suggest I wanted her to back up and give me my pouch. But she just kept staring. A smile cracked to the left side of her face. Her snake eyes widened. I searched desperately for her soul. Any trace of human quality. I had all the time in the world to search for it but there was nothing.

I broke the silence, “What, Lilli?”

She dropped her smile and let go of my bag, her pupils shrunk, “Nothing. You’re just really pretty. I thought it was rude of me for forgetting to give a proper welcome. So, welcome to Mortimer Private. I’m sure you and I are going to be great friends.”