Death Was Kind

A Story by UmYeahSo

an interpretation

As Death entered the room, he thought, not for the first time, that he would never get use to the smell of hospitals. The odor of antiseptic and pain was always heavy, and after eons of guiding the human spirit to his plane, the scent still did not sit well with him. It was where he did a lot of his business, but it was something he could not ignore.

The room he entered was dark, the curtains pulled tight to block out the light of the sun. They were speckled with flowers and, though he had no preference for fashion of any kind, he found himself recoiling at the hideousness of the drab drapery.

The sound of a beeping monitor played in the background, the soundtrack of Death’s nonexistent life. For a moment, he imagined that the beeping matched the beat of his heart, something altogether impossible because of his very existence, but enticing.

He glided across the tiled floor, noted the bright mint green walls and the cramped feeling of the room; everywhere he looked a teddy bear or a bouquet of flowers sat. The stupidity of humans always amazed Death. They gave each other flowers for everything. They even buried their dead with them and placed them over their graves. What was the point? To remind themselves, as the flowers wilted and decayed, that their loved one, buried in the ground beneath them, was also doing the same? It was absurd.

Despite this, Death was still surprised at the amount of flowers and other tokens that cluttered the room. He could remember every soul he had ever taken, a lot of which had been alone at the time of their passing. He took solace in the fact that this next soul would be surrounded by love in its final moments. He could be no comfort for the dying. Often times he was their damnation.
At the curtain that blocked the physical view of his next assenter, Death could see the soul on the other side burning dimly and, at the very center, the white hot light that would ascend or descend. With great care, Death moved through the curtain, ignoring the feeling of nonexistence that always passed through him when he moved through a solid object.

On the bed before him lay the small, fragile frame of a child. The absence of hair on the child’s head and the pale skin made Death pause at its ambiguous nature. He could not tell if it was a boy or a girl. The mass of needles and tubes and the oxygen mask covering its face did not help with physical identification. Death only saw the burning soul, and the deteriorating exterior that meant he would be collecting it soon.

“You’re here to take him from me, aren’t you?”

It took Death a moment to register the fact that someone had spoken. The atmosphere of the room was shattered. The monitor beeped. The figure in the corner of the room rose.

No one had ever, ever, surprised Death. He supposed that was the feeling he felt at the moment. Surprise. He did not know what to say. He never spoke. He was eternal silence.

“I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

The figure stepped forward from the shadows, a sight that would have stolen Death’s breath away if he had one. He had never seen a creature steal away from darkness as well as he himself did.

He supposed that the human woman was what they considered to be beautiful, once. In the depth of her brown eyes, he saw a slimmer of a shadow of the creature she used to be. Her black hair was wild and he could see the roots were touched with silver. Her face was wane. If he could not see the fire of her soul burning so brightly, he would think that he had come for her. The woman’s face was wet and it took Death a moment to realize that the she was crying. It was a sight he was familiar with, but he had never spent this much time collecting a soul. He never had to deal with the living.

“I didn’t think it would be so soon,” she said again. Her voice was surprisingly low for a human woman. Perhaps it was because she spoke so softly. As if the dying boy would awake and complain about the noise. “Are you sure you’re not early?”

This question surprised Death. What did this creature know about his errands?
“I think maybe you’re too early.” She moved closer. “My baby’s birthday is tomorrow. He’ll be eight. He’s supposed to be at his party. We can’t have his party without him there, now can we?” She smiled, seemingly with great effort; her smile looked on the verge of breaking in two.

Next to them, the boy’s soul dimmed greatly. The monitor beeped, but that was it. He would die soon, and there would be no warning to the outside world. He would simply be here, and then he would not. And the sun would still continue to shine.

“Come back tomorrow.” The woman’s smile was on the verge of breaking. A sound escaped her, and Death thought perhaps she was trying to laugh, but it sounded like something an animal makes when they’re in great physical pain. “I’ll be ready tomorrow.”

Death watched the woman move to the boy’s side. She gripped his hand gently. Her thumb rubbed across his knuckles. “Can you believe he was just six pounds when he was born?” Her voice was steady, but her eyes continued to pour. “Six pounds, nine ounces, fourteen inches.” Not letting go of her grip, she reached up and placed her hand on his brow. For a moment, the exterior of the boy’s soul burned brighter. The monitor beeped. The woman’s eyes filled with something like hope.

Death steeled himself. It simply would not due. He had spent too long in there. He had been thrown by the fact that a living person was seeing him, even more so by her words. You’re too early. He had been right on time. Now he was late.

Death moved forward so that he was across from the woman. He saw her grip on the boy’s hand tighten. “Please…” And she shattered.

It was strangely beautiful to see a human disintegrate. Not like they did once they were put in the earth, but to see them erupt and the light of their souls burn hotter than any sun in the universe in a grand catharsis.

“Please...” Sob. “You don’t understand…”

No. He did not understand. He could never understand. He only understood himself. His role in the universe. He was the catalyst in a cycle of creation. But as the woman, the mother, draped herself over the body of the boy and her soul pressed against her skin, reaching for her son, trying to feed him some of her own life, he paused.

It would be easy for him to turn and walk away from the dying boy and the weeping woman. To meld into the shadows and go retrieve the soul of the man that would be falling in his bath tub in a few moments just five miles away. What would be the harm? For the first time since the beginning of time, Death thought about quitting his job. But it was only for a moment.

He steeled himself once more. There would be no turning of his head. He did not know why this human woman could see him. He did not know how she knew about him at all. Sure, everyone knew Death sooner or later, but none had spoken to him. Had suggested he reschedule. No, he did not know why these things had occurred. What he did know was that he had a job to do. And he would not leave the room without fulfilling it.

Death watched the woman continue to weep. The passing of her son would destroy her. She would go on living her life in a fog of grief. He would meet her again soon.

On the wall next to the dark television, the clock ticked loudly. It was time for him to go. His gaze turned back to the woman. But he could not leave the boy. It would go against his very existence. As the line on the monitor flattened and a nurse rushed into the room, Death lifted the boy’s soul with a gentle hand and proceeded to retreat into the Beyond. The woman shouted.

Death paused and he could feel the little boy’s soul struggling to get back to his mother, but his grip remained firm. The woman was being restrained and pulled away from her dead child. She watched him with defeat in her eyes.

He could be no comfort to the dying.

In that moment, Time stopped to see what his brother would do. Before he could think twice, Death reached out his hand. Halfway around the world a man’s skull was being split by a bullet. Five miles away, a man slipped in his bath tub. Somewhere in Hawaii, a woman was succumbing to heart disease. In a hospital room a thousand miles away, a woman had just lost her child. And Death reached out to comfort them.

In the local paper, the article would read that after losing her child, a woman died from takotsubo cardiomyopathy. A broken heart. Death thought it was quite the understatement as the two souls ascended hand in hand. She did not die with a broken heart. She died with a full heart.

He could be no comfort to the dying. But he could comfort the living.