Before That Day

Pt.1

There was no hope for me now.

 

My only painkiller, the only thing that took away the agony that was my every day life…better than the morphine, more effective, easier to take in, and even more addictive…The love of my life…My perfect angel that was more than I should have always known better than to even hope for…

 

Gone, because of me. 

 

Here I lay in a stuffy hospital bed, cold blue lights boring into my now all but translucent skin, once a rich tan. A man born a mere thirty years ago, I was trapped inside a body that had been aged not by time, but by so many days of sickness and constant fatigue. The only thing that got me through the torturously monotonous days was her hand curled around mine, always there to ward of the monster that lived inside me; cancer. What had I ever done to deserve her? Nothing. Yet she had always stayed with me, holding onto the brittle fingers of hands, hands that could never do anything for her. Hands that were incapable of lifting the burdens of her life from her fragile shoulders. I was incapable of any strength. Besides, most of the poor girl’s burdens had been caused by me, I reminded myself. It was better for her that she had become tired of me and left me to die. 

 

I kept telling myself that in some obscure, indirect way, I had done Noor good. That was the only way I would ever forgive myself for causing her any amount of pain. In those words that I could not believe I had said, I had at least made her leave my bedside. Eventually, her heart would forget how to love me the way mine beat only for her. It would heal, and she would grow stronger as it learned to love another man. The healing of her heart was not possible while she was in love with me. She would grow as weak as me, her heart shriveling and dying as I knew I soon would. So soon, I would no longer be tormented by this internal battle. 

 

I imagined another battle, going on above and below me, the climactic point being where I lay. Heaven and Hell, trying to find the proper placement for the newest addition to the afterlife. I imagined neither would want someone like me. I knew the angels in Heaven would fight harder to keep me out. I wondered dryly if Hell could be any more painful or tedious than this world was for me. Assuming a guaranteed maybe, I pondered which of the two evils would be harder to endure. Most likely the tedium. I tried to imagine how much worse off I’d be when I was dead.

 

I laughed at that. I was surely going insane. Hell could not be worse than any of this. That made me smile, for it meant that there would be some small comfort in death.

 

As I did often, I reached for her hand beside me. It was colder than I remembered. Lightly I traced her skin with my thumb, even though it hurt to move it. I smiled at how real the obvious delusion was. I even turned in my bed so I could look at the empty space where she wasn’t so I could let my eyes paint her features in the air. I was sure it would be simple- how many days and nights had I spent memorizing her every feature?

 

I didn’t even have to try to see her, she was just there. I had mixed feelings about that. The initial comfort seeped through me like one sweet breath in tired lungs, revitalizing the entire body by letting the air flow into the blood and to everywhere inside me. I could still see her so clearly. Was it possible that she had come back, and her leaving me had been only a nightmare, induced by the drugs that supposedly dulled the pain? 

 

Then a deep sadness overshadowed me and I reeled away. The only drug-induced delusion I was having was that Noor was sitting beside me in the place she always did.   She never would again, I railed on myself. Never should have to, never should have had to in the first place. Things were as they should be in the world, I lied to myself. Before the other side of me could talk back, I turned away from my mind’s representation of Noor. Reflecting on all of the internal arguments I found myself engaged in, I wondered at the worrying probability of Schizophrenia. Maybe, I could go to both Heaven and Hell, if I could only split my two selves up perfectly. The good and the bad could divide, both going their separate ways. It would be very confusing to be in two very opposite places at the same time, I concluded, and that made me tired. 

 

As I decided it was time to end yet another day I’d managed to survive through, I settled deeper into my precious hallucination. It felt exactly the same as when she was actually beside me, I told myself. Just less, because it wasn’t real this time. That was all. 

 

But it wasn’t less, and I wasn’t sure why that distressed me. I thought about how real her skin felt under mine. Real, but somehow still very distressing. Something was wrong with how this felt. Something was different. 

 

That was it, different. This was too different to simply be a working of my mind. Surely my brain would be able to construct a more accurate portrait of Noor that this cold, hard hand I cradled in my own. 

 

My eyes opened, this time focusing intensely on what was actually there rather than trying to overlay an alternate reality. I was intent on finding abnormalities, differences from the norm. I hadn’t yet decided how real the girl beside me was. I determined that was not my goal at the moment, as I already knew that this was not my Noor. Like a hawk whose eye would be drawn to only the movement of a lone mouse in a vast field, I let the bigger picture fall away so I could be aware of only the thing for which I was searching. 

 

With this new, unclouded point of view, everything became clear as the angel revealed herself to me. Not my angel, not my Noor, but a cheap replica. She was not right. Her wings, glistening onyx like a nightingale, were wrong. Noor would have had the snow-white wings of a dove. Once, before any of this had happened, we had gone to a market together. There had been mourning doves all over, scavenging off of the ground, eating their fill of what the people had carelessly thrown away. Most had been speckled grey and black, some brown, resembling sparrows. One bird was pure white. Noor had stopped in the middle of the street to watch it fly away, captivated by its beauty, the same way I had always been captivated by hers. That was the best comparison I could ever have managed to give her if she had ever asked to know how beautiful she was to me. But she had never asked that question, and so I had never thought to tell her. God, I should have told her.   

 

There were other differences. Her hair fell in pin straight silver waterfalls around her face, while it should have been pulled back to expose Noor’s face. Because it was Noor’s face, but at the same time, so different. It was- as much as I cringed away from this fact- even more beautiful. I detested that. No one should be allowed to be more beautiful than Noor, not even an angel.

 

Her eyes burned into mine as I stared at her. Quietly she said my name.

 

“Santos.” Was it simply an acknowledgement, or did she expect me to respond?

 

The best I could do was a gurgling gagging noise. I was both disgusted and awestruck by her beauty. Even her voice was Noor’s, but again, more beautiful. Crystalline. I wished she would never speak again. 

 

Her face stayed clear, emotionless. She looked like a child. I tugged my eyes off of her, feeling like I was pulling against the force of a strong magnet. She didn’t speak. I began to wonder if she was even still there. I took a deep breath, searing my lungs. 

 

“So are you the angel of death?”

 

My eyes flickered to her for only a second, then back to the ceiling. It was enough of a glance to see her nod.

 

“My name is Bella Muerte. You are going to die tonight.”

 

The two separate thoughts, one a simple introduction, the other literally a death sentence, seemed to fit together so seamlessly. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. Perhaps it was the meaning of the name that caused the connection to bloom.

 

“Beautiful Death,” I translated. “How fitting. But I have to ask…how can death be a beautiful thing?”

 

“If you don’t know, then perhaps you are not ready to leave this earth?” It was a question, not a statement. Perhaps she was unsure if she would actually be taking me tonight after all. Yet she had already stated quiet confidently that I would not live another day. 

 

I could say nothing. All I could think about was the girl I had pushed away, the girl I would never see ever again. If I died right now, it would be definite. Was I ready for that?

 

No, no, no! Something inside me answered. I most certainly was not ready for that. I would never be ready for that. But wasn’t that what I wanted? To die alone and cause Noor no more pain? Certainly not what I wanted, but at least what was necessary? If I truly loved her, which I did, was it not selfish for me to stay and hold onto any hope of seeing her again? But I did truly love her, and I was truly selfish. One was just as true as the other, I told myself. So no, I was not ready to die, even though I knew that I should. 

 

Before I said a word aloud, before I could gather myself, the angel’s fingers twisted in my own, tightening. Strange warmth crept into my hand and down my arm, through my whole body, as though muted fire was being injected through my veins. It held emotion, it held life, and it held…death. I felt the happiness of childhood, then a changing sense of happiness as I grew. I felt it as my life got darker, but I felt the spark of hope inside me. I felt rather than saw the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. It was so bright, and so beautiful. It seemed to cast shadows through the rest of my body, and I was aware of every inch of myself, my limbs in the shadow of the bright light, which was in the very center of my being, at my heart, in my heart…

 

I realized that I could no longer move my body, but I felt that I could move within it. Tendrils of awareness that once were woven through muscle and bone were now free to roam the body. I no longer had a defined shape. It was as if I was a ghost trapped here in a human body whose weakness was no longer relevant or restraining to my motion. Not even trapped, but choosing to reside here.   For the moment. But there was so much light now, so much hope, so much to hope for. It was as if the light of the entire world was inside me, around me, part of me!

 

“What is this?” I asked weakly. “Is this what it feels like to die?” But my lips didn’t move. It was a thought, but she heard it. 

 

“No.” she answered. “This is the world. This is what the world really looks like. Unclouded by human eyes. Unclouded by the darkness of a human soul. Unmarked by your sins, your pain, your misery. You are only seeing what is truly there.”

 

I sat up, but my body stayed lying on the hospital bed, broken and derelict. I felt a slight splitting impact, but there was no pain. It was like breaking the surface of water when you are very tired, having to work to push your limbs up. I still felt as if I had limbs, like my soul or awareness or whatever I traveled within now was so used to being formed to the contours of a human body that it would not loosen and come undone.  

 

It was so beautiful. Even this hospital room, cast into shadows by stagnant pain and suffering, was bright and full of hope. I wondered at what I would feel upon leaving this atmosphere of death. I never wanted to close my eyes, and realized that I couldn’t anyway. I no longer had eyes to close, and I had no desire to shut off my awareness to this new, beautiful world. I would breathe it in forever. 

 

There was no denying that there was darkness here, though. There was my own pain, left here as my body had been left, but that was not what hurt me. Noor’s pain was still sticky in the air, hanging in dirty patches, hiding the light. Despite the lies I had told myself to hide the pain I had caused from view, I knew now that she was still hurting. The pain here was too alive, too real, for it to truly have ceased. So different from my lingering pain that was barely left in this room, Noor had left a part of herself here. A shadow of her mourning, a mourning that would never end. She would carry it with her for the rest of her life, and suddenly I realized that. But then, eventually she would see this too. This light, this new world, this purity. How long would she have to wait? And once she got here, how long would she have here?

 

This brought up a new question in my mind. How long did I have to reside and wander in this beautiful world before I had to move on? Before I truly died?

 

“That’s not determined,” Bella Muerte replied to my question that had been only subtly directed at her. I didn’t complain, for I wanted to understand her answer.

 

“You will stay here for as long as it is necessary for you to come. There is something left for you to do here. When you have served your purpose, you will leave. Move on.” 

 

I felt the equivalent of a frown ripple through my invisible features. I was unsatisfied. Did this mean that I had not served my purpose when I was alive? This hardly seemed fair. I hadn’t exactly been given a chance to live long enough to serve any purpose. All my life had caused anyone was hurt. 

 

The light was receding. Or maybe I was just becoming accustomed to the brightness. A shiver of regret ran through me. I didn’t want the light to disappear; it was so comforting. It revealed so much of what I had always wondered, about the world truly being a good place, about there being any hope in life at all. There was, and I couldn’t bear it drifting away.

 

“You just need to concentrate on it, and it’ll always be there,” the angel reassured me. And even now I knew it was true, as I concentrated on the light. Slowly, it seeped back into the room, into the world, until it was burning, burning all around me. I heaved a sigh of relief. I reveled in the light.

 

“Are you ready to go?” Bella asked me. I had resolved the shorter name for her, for there was beauty all around me, but no death. This beauty was the beauty of life, and I was not leaving here just yet. 

 

I didn’t understand her question. “Where would I be going?” Surely nowhere yet. Surely I could simply sit and marvel at the light all around me. I wanted so much to just wait here and be happy. Maybe not right here, in this room where I still felt Noor’s pain all too real around me, but somewhere close and familiar, where I could stand and be in awe of the world I had never seen so clearly and so beautifully.

 

“We’re going to find your purpose,” Bella turned to the window, her wings spreading out behind her like a giant bird of prey. “We’re going to find out why you’re still here.”

 

She seemed to fill the room, contrasting beautifully against all the radiance. She really was beautiful, and perfect. She seemed so impatient for me to leave, for her task to be over. I felt my awareness tightening. She seemed so bitter. Just like Noor had been in the end, the last time I had seen her. 

 

“I have to see Noor.” My thoughts choked out. 

  

Then the light encased us from all around, and Bella’s black silhouette shimmered and went out like a dark candle, being swallowed by a shower of stars. 

***

We were on a beach. Rather, we were over a beach, but not flying. Just watching an old scene play out, not being a part of it. I could not even bring myself to be emotional, to have any thoughts about what I was seeing whatsoever. My awareness was in a different place, in my body as I watched it down there on the beach.   How long ago had this taken place? When I had just been diagnosed, a couple of weeks after I had been admitted to the hospital, I figured. This was when my head was just beginning to abandon its hair and my body was growing soggy and dilapidated from the first rounds of chemo-therapy. Then I remembered how Noor had brought me out here for a break from the dingy hospital, how I had appreciated the world so much for the beautiful place that it was in just those few hours. The resemblance to the feeling I had just had in the hospital room with Bella was almost identical, and nearly as strong. 

 

I knew the day would be hot and humid later on. The air was already warm, shining golden as if lit from within by the sun, low in the sky. The early morning cool coming off the water lightened and chilled the heavy air. I thought I could still see dull stars in the clear sky.  

 

The air here made me lightheaded. Everything around me was transformed by it into something beautiful, something surreal. Something magical that did not exist in the real world, the world I came from, a world full of my pain and the pain of others, a world it was hard to believe existed on the same planet as this new one. The water shone bright sapphire, seashells glinting softly, like speckles of stardust in the sand. I wriggled my toes deep, searching for the moist mud underneath. I breathed in through my nose, smelling salt and sand and sweetness. My mouth watered, and I sighed in complete delight. There was no pain.

 

Behind me, Noor started whistling. It was a familiar tune, and I turned to her, my eyes leaving the slowly undulating sea and my spirit lifting to ride on the wave of her airy song.

 

She looked different, new. She crouched, relaxed, and slipped her hands into the sand. It surged around her like a living thing as she pushed deeper. I watched her, transfixed by the movement of her arms, the way she held her lips in a little ‘o’ as she whistled the simple tune, how she balanced on her toes as she pulled up darker, wet sand into the air and started molding it in her delicate hands. She looked young, soft, innocent. Her normally pale skin had picked up a golden tan, and I found that she looked healthier that way, her eyes brighter in her darkened face. She’d also gained some needed weight; her shoulders no longer jutted out, which had made her look oddly angular. Her back was a flat plane, her belly rising softly like that of a toddler. She had looked so sickly as she sat at my bedside day by day; getting out in the sun for a while was probably doing her just as much good as it was me.

 

A gentle wind blew her long hair around her eyes, and she cocked her head to the side so it would fall away, drawing my attention to her face. Absently I wondered if the skin of her cheek would feel soft and warm to the touch, like weathered wood left out in the sun, or cool and damp from the thick air and ocean spray.

 

Despite the subtle curves of her body under the light summer dress, she looked almost childlike as she resolutely worked the gritty clay, turning it this way and that, as if trying to determine what masterpiece lay inside it. Smiling, I turned back to the ocean as her song dwindled off in mid-verse, before the melancholy end could ruin the happy mood. I began to hum the song from its beginning. I heard a rustle from behind and imagined her standing, though I couldn’t see her. As the breeze blew over me, as if it was tracing my shape in the air, I felt acutely aware of everything around me. I could feel the sun sinking through my skin while the air’s moisture only touched it, my knotted hair at the back of my neck, the sandy grime caking my bare feet in soft scales. With each lazy lap of the ocean, my heart beat.   Whoooosh, thump-thump. Whoooosh, thump-thump, the steady pattern seemed to resonate. I reached my awareness out to the very tips of my being, my wet toes in the sand, my fingertips brushing the soft fabric of my clothing, my tingling scalp as the wind tugged at my hair, until I felt almost as if I could reach even farther beyond. I could leave my skin and feel the grains of sand that touched me, feel the droplets in the air as they melted against me, feel the sun pulsing out beams of golden light from high in the crystalline sky.

 

Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon and unfolding its wings for the first time, I slowly lifted my arms, stretching as they twisted forward. I was merely watching us down there now, for I was back in the sky with Bella, longing for that time again. I realized that now, I really could feel all those things as if I was within them. The sand, the water, the air, the sun. The beautiful sun, the source of the brightest light. In my life on Earth, that was the closest glimpse I had had to the stunning beauty of the brightness that I had always been surrounded by.

 

Although it saddened me, I now knew what I was meant to do here, and I knew that I would soon have to leave the illusion of this happy Noor behind. It was so clear now, as my very goal stood in the sunlight before me, what I was still doing here.

 

I needed to mend Noor’s heart.

 

“Where is she now?” I asked Bella without turning away from the beautiful memory down on the beach. “Take me to her.”

***

 

I watched from the other side of a jet-black mirror in a broken nightstand as Noor entered the unkempt motel room. It saddened me deeply to see her in a place like this, so dark and devoid of hope. She looked so out of place, like a swan stuck in a rusted cage. Her face was even more stunningly beautiful than it had been in my memories, even crumpled into a mask of misgivings as it was now. With a serene kind of composure that might have been exhaustion, denial, or a mixture of the two, Noor hoisted her small suitcase onto the bed and sat down beside it. The bed, which hadn’t even been made since the last occupant of this room had departed, slumped even under the light weight. Noor shrugged out of her raincoat and pulled a baggy sweater from her suitcase. It was dank and cold, and she shivered. She sat there for a while, her arms wrapped around her knees. I watched in silence, longing to comfort her. 

 

After a long time, she reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulling out her small cell phone and quickly dialing a number. She waited until a muffled voice greeted her. Noor’s voice sounded constricted and raw, as if she had been crying. In the dim, flickering light of the lamp, her eyes looked red and puffy. 

 

“Hello, Father John? It’s Noor.”

 

There was a spew of quick speech from the other end of the line. It ended in a question.

 

“No, I’ve left town already, I’m in a motel off the main highway. I needed to get away.”

 

Father John responded understandingly, then asked a soft question. Noor’s face clouded, and she didn’t answer for a moment.

 

“I don’t really know where I’m going yet.” She finally whispered. There was fear and sadness in her voice, and she blinked hard.

 

She flared up at his next response. “I can live without him. I’m not afraid to go on with my life. I have enough money to start over with. I can live without him.” She repeated, as if to make it true. She stood up and began to pace. “I’m not afraid to walk this world alone,” she mumbled, almost to herself. It was a line from an old, familiar song…a song we had hummed together a long time ago, at a beach lit in sunlight…

 

I started as I realized that she was talking about me.

 

At the next gentle response, she closer her eyes and put her free hand up to hide her face. “Please don’t try to tell me that I did the right thing. I feel horrible. I know he pushed me away, but I should have forgiven him. I should have stayed with him. I love him.” Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now. 

 

There was no response on the other end. Noor continued. “I’m going…I’ll find a place soon. Pray for me?”

 

He said something, and she thanked him. Then she clicked off her phone and threw it into her open suitcase.

 

Her head was in her hands again. I pushed my awareness farther towards her, wanting her to know I was here. I wanted her, needed her, to see me too, and know that she wasn’t alone in this world as she feared. I felt her pain as if it was my own. The shadows of the room were closing in on me behind the black glass, reawakening the hurtful memory of the day I made her leave and the darkness that had lurked in my heart ever since. 

 

Bella looked at the crumbling Noor with a neutral expression. She turned to me, her perfection a mocking contrast to everything around us. I wanted to scream at her. She looked like she was trying to read my face, but she was coming up blank. I looked back at Noor, and my anger at the angel evaporated, consumed by a sadness beyond human comprehension. 

 

“Is it hard understanding?” I asked Bella rhetorically. “I’m incomplete.” I realized that was why I was still here. I couldn’t leave Noor in pain. Her love was what had kept me alive for so long, and it had demanded such a large part of me that I had actually left a part of myself with Noor. I could feel everything she felt, know the very extent of her pain, because our love had not died with me. It was alive, and screaming for a happy ending. 

 

But I didn’t know how to make that happen.

 

“I can’t even speak,” I thought to Bella, but it was like talking to a stone. She did not understand human emotion. She was only capable of understanding death, the end of all things. I thought of what a miserable existence that would be. It was not hard to imagine at this point. 

 

Feeling alone as I looked on at Noor as she curled up on the bed, alone as well, I began to think about what she had said to Father John. I realized that most of her words, the ones she had spoken in denial and anger, held true for me in a much more honest sense. I was not afraid to keep on living, if only I could be given the chance. I felt alive as I stood here, even in this dark, hopeless place. I could feel the promise of what our lives could be if we were together, and it made me want to stay. 

 

I was not even afraid to go on alone, if that was what Noor wished. I would live my life to make her happy, because that was what she deserved. That was my purpose, to love and protect her, I would forgive her for leaving me without a second thought, although I knew there was nothing to forgive. I would do anything for her, no matter what. I only wished that she would choose to stay with me. 

 

But even if she didn’t, even if she never wanted to see me again, nothing she could say could remove her from my heart, for the only place I would ever truly be at home was in her arms.

 

These thoughts, especially the final epiphany, reverberated inside me, getting stronger, louder, until it was almost painful. The light around me brightened, sparkling across the dim-lighted room and illuminating it. The light caught a solitary tear dripping down Noor’s face, and it sparkled within it, creating a liquid diamond. I wished I had the ability to cry with her. The light was blinding me.

 

In life, I had always been blind to the light, only able to see in shadow. In death, I was blind to the darkness, and I could only see the world in this new illumination. All of the power I had found inside myself upon realizing the very strength of love, the love that had kept me on this Earth, surged forward in a great rush, and I cried out. 

 

The mirror shattered, and the light exploded out.

 

Through the white shroud, I saw Noor open her eyes. 

 

“It’s alright now,” I whispered. Her eyes widened. I realized that I could use my voice again. I looked down at my white, bony hands, and saw the blood pour back into them, bringing life back to my body. I looked up in a silent prayer, and my hair obscured my eyes. I had hair again. I was healed.

 

I walked toward Noor with shaking legs. I realized that I was still in my hospital gown. I must have looked like a ghost to her. 

 

“Santos” she breathed my name, getting up from her bed. Her eyes widened. “I’m dreaming.” Her face turned from amazed to cheerless. “Wake me up.”

 

I touched her cheek, and she shied away. “But why?” I wished I understood why she was not happy to see me. Was she still angry? I deserved that, but I was still surprised. 

 

She looked into my eyes, searching for something that would prove I was really here, that I was real.

 

“Wake me up, so it’s easier. If I stay here any longer, I won’t ever want to leave.”

 

At first I was relieved, but she still looked so sad. It broke my heart to see her this way.

 

I swept her up in a tight embrace, my body strong and full of life. “You’re not dreaming. I promise. It’s a miracle, Noor.”

 

She pulled away, searching my eyes again. “I don’t understand.”

 

“Neither do I,” I said, full of elation. I had been given a second chance, and I was not about to question it. 

 

Then she was in my arms again, sobbing heavily. We stayed like that for a long time, until she quieted. Gently I laid her down, and she pulled me down beside her, still gazing at me as if I were a mirage that she was afraid would disappear. As if she was afraid that she would wake up at any moment from her dream. 

 

“I love you, Noor,” I told her. “I love you and I will never, ever leave you. Even if you don’t want me, I will stay, and I will never let you go again.” Those words that I thought I would never speak came rushing out. They had always been true, and after living through a time when I feared I would never be able to speak to her again, words I always thought I would choke on declared themselves impossible to withhold. 

 

For a long time she lay silent, so long that I thought she had fallen asleep. Finally she whispered, “Forgive me?”

 

I held her close. “I will forgive you when there is something to forgive. Can you ever forgive me?”

 

She couldn’t stop crying long enough to speak, so she just nodded. I sighed.

 

“Everything is alright now. Really, it is. We’re together. Please stop crying.”

 

But she couldn’t, so I held her in my arms until she was almost asleep. Then I whispered in her ear, “I wish you could have seen it.”

 

She looked at me through half closed eyes. “Seen what?” She fought her sleepiness, propping herself up on her elbow.

 

“I suppose you could say,” I laughed to myself, “the light at the end of the tunnel. There really is one. But it’s not death. It’s what’s all around us, all the time. It’s all the light in the whole world, overpowering pain, sorrow, emptiness, and evil. It’s-”

 

It’s you, I had been about to say. Instead I put my arms around her as she closed her eyes again.

 

“It’s beautiful,” I finished. “I wish I could have brought it home with me. I can still see it, you know, just a little. I can still tell it’s there. It was so bright and brilliant.”

I remembered what Bella had told me in the beginning. ‘You just need to concentrate on the light, and it will always be there.’ It was true; I could still feel it surrounding me if I stopped thinking of everything else. It filtered through to me, and I knew I would never be able to not see it. 

 

“Show me,” she whispered into my chest.

 

“I truly wish I could.”

 

“You can. Show me by staying with me.”

 

I looked down at her, but she was already asleep. I lay her head gently against her pillow and closed my own eyes. 

 

***

 

Well into the night, Bella Muerte came to me. I watched as one by one, her raven’s feathers fell from her wings, each being replaced by the shimmering white feather of a dove. She smiled as she drifted away, her hair blowing back to show her perfect face. She looked almost dull compared to Noor.

 

“Where are you going?” I asked, my arms tightening around Noor. I was still half expecting the angel to take me away from my perfect conclusion, to tell me that this was impossible and that my time on this Earth had ended.

 

But she didn’t. Instead, she said to me, “We’ll meet again, Santos. But you have time to live in the light before that day.”

 

Once again, she was encased in a shining cocoon, glimmering as she disappeared. She would return to her realm of the dead while I reclaimed my place in the world of the living.

 

I wondered at this revelation. I was being given a second chance at life. At hope. At love. A miracle, surely. Or perhaps the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe I had just woken up from a nightmare of death, and there had never been any pain or sadness or heartbreak. Whether I had been asleep or dead, I was now wholly alive, awake and unafraid, and ready to live my life to the fullest extent. I knew I would have more than enough time to ponder all of this later. For now, I would rest easy, because for the first time in a long time, I was happy. The angel of death had given me the greatest gift; a happy ending.  

 

 

June 18^th/08 – July 30^th/08

Reviews

[Vonnie15]

you explain everything so vividly...I love it...you really are a talented writer. Keep it up. xx