In a Name

Pt. 2

This was the equivalent to torture.

 

To not be able to give my one true love the one thing she wanted most in the whole world… to have to wait and wonder if her dreams would ever come true…to know that there was something that I couldn’t give her…it made me feel flawed, broken. I was imperfect. I was not right.

 

Ever since my miraculous evasion of death so many months ago, I had been regarded as somewhat of a miracle. Now I just felt like a mistake. There was nothing I wanted more than to simply give Noor the gift she wanted most.

 

We were still so in love, but there was something missing; a next step, a destiny waiting to be fulfilled, an empty space. Every day that passed since the wedding, it became more defined. Every day, it weighed down our affection for each other, putting an invisible burden on our shoulders. I knew she did not love me less because of what I could not give her, but it hurt her, and what hurt her hurt me in turn. 

 

And of course, I wanted a child too. But that could never happen.

 

Although neither of us knew the exact cause of the inexplicable infertility, we both suspected that it was I who was the broken one. After all that my body had been through, it made sense that when it was finished, I would have at least one battle scar. If this was the only thing wrong with me, then we should both have been grateful. Yet no one is ever grateful for the right things in life, they only pine for what is absent. Regardless of what we had been through, nothing changed the fact that we were only human beings, mere slaves to our own yearning. 

 

I had felt different until now. I truly had felt grateful for every small thing for a very long time. I had fully expected to be lying in that accursed hospital bed for the rest of my life, waiting for each day to be my last, and simply wishing for the pain to eventually subside and my heart to stop beating. Now I sat here, months later, fully alive. I could not explain to anyone what had happened, except to tell them that the night I was healed, I had a very strange dream…a dream of a beautiful angel. The doctors had no idea what had happened to me in the hours that I was somehow transported from the hospital to a little motel off the main highway; a hotel where Noor had been staying. 

 

The strangest part was that in that same night, Noor had also had a dream. A dream where I had come to her in the night out of the shadows of a broken hotel mirror, fully healed. Now and then when we tried to piece our two stories together, we found that they always intersected at that point. She told me that I had spoken to her softly, telling her that it didn’t matter how it had happened. Our love had somehow brought us back together. That night, I had accepted that a miracle had taken place. Both of us had decided not to question something that we would never be able to understand. 

 

Now there were unspoken questions thick in the air, caught in the enclosed space that was the air between our bodies. If only we knew how this had happened. If only we could explain everything in a logical way, then we could determine how to fix this. We could discover the key to making everything work. What an intriguingly romantic idea that was, even in its impossibility. 

 

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I steered the car down another dark lane. It was late, and Noor and I had gone out for a night on the town, trying to dissipate some of the tension that lay between us. Whether it had worked or not, I wasn’t entirely sure. There was a strange feeling of anticipation about us tonight, and I wasn’t sure why. For the past several hours, Noor had been smiling down at her feet secretly, as if she had some great secret that gave her pleasure in the keeping. All through dinner I’d gently prodded her to give me clues, but she did not budge in her resolve. Now I was getting increasingly curious, and also, idiotically, increasingly worried. The many days of my life spent wondering whether I would live to face another had nurtured me to dread surprises of any kind. No matter the foolishness of the prospect, the culminating stress from Noor’s evasiveness had me shaken.

 

Looking down at the gas gauge, I mentally noted that I had less that a quarter of a tank full. For some reason this small anxiety made my head spin hysterically. 

 

“We need to find a gas station,” I mumbled to Noor as I stopped at a set of streetlights. My voice quavered oddly. Noor looked at me worriedly. 

 

“Are you alright?” Noor leaned to the side, analyzing me. “You look ill.”

 

I felt ill. It worried me that I was so upset. I pulled onto the shoulder and laid my head against the steering wheel, rolls of nausea suddenly rippling through my stomach. 

 

By now Noor had unclipped her seatbelt and was rubbing my back reassuringly. I could imagine the look on her face without taking my forehead off the console. Worried, her thin eyebrows pulling together and her lips clinched in a subtle frown. The way I felt. This was simply a panic attack. I took slow, deep breaths and leaned back, groaning quietly. 

 

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice returning to normal. “It’s just…” I was so tired all of a sudden. “It’s just everything.” Everything we couldn’t talk about, everything that was unsaid, everything that was just so wrong. I simply wanted to be able to talk normally about something, anything, anything that really mattered. But of course I didn’t say that. I was about to say something about just being tired from the night out, but Noor spoke first, bending across the stick shift to wrap her small arms around me.

 

“I know. I know what you mean.” She paused, thinking. She seemed to take a deep breath. Then she said, “But we don’t need to worry anymore.”

 

 

Her voice was so happy and hopeful behind her sympathy, I couldn’t help but wonder at the meaning behind her words. What was the source of her happiness tonight? I wanted to understand. I wanted to ask. Instead, I pulled away from her and started the car again, the seed of her excitement beginning to bud in my gut. She was finally telling me. I would finally know. 

 

I started the car and, smiling at Noor, pulled onto the road. I would just get us home, get us to a gas station and then home, so soon we would be in our own house. There was nothing the matter, everything was fine, and there was no reason to be so anxious. I was simply getting myself worked up over nothing. As I pushed out all thoughts of stress from my head, filling it instead with this optimistic self lecture, I heard Noor’s scream as if from far away. The bright headlights of a fast approaching car lit my vision a fraction of a second later. Then I felt the splintering impact of a vehicle careen into the passenger side of the car.

 

Flashes of light illuminated the blackness chaotically, contorting the world around me into a hellish painting torn straight from the book of Revelations. I saw red blur into black. Was that the light from the car that had hit us? Fire? Blood? I couldn’t tell. I felt something foreign and fearful coursing through my veins, keeping me from feeling pain. The stimulating affects of adrenaline buzzed in my brain like a dangerous drug. My every movement felt erratic, my heart threatening to explode with every demanding pound. Through all this, I somehow managed to tear off my seatbelt in a matter of seconds and find a grip on Noor’s wrist. 

Silhouette

For one moment, I felt frozen in time. My blood stopped coursing and I became heavy. I forgot to blink. I did not bother to breath. If I had been shot in the heart at this moment, I would not have thought to feel pain or thought to bleed. This single moment was the end of all things. 

 

The woman beside me lay unblinking and slumped, blood coursing from her torn flesh.

 

As if the ‘play’ button on a tape deck had been hit, the world began again. My head was a rushing environment of screaming voices and searing pain, incinerating all logical thought. I realized I was screaming out loud, but there was no one to hear me. We were in the darkness, all alone. I quieted and realized that the chaos was only inside the confines of my own body. The surrounding night was in a state of silent shock and mourning. Even the wind was still, as if in bereaving salute. 

 

Suddenly unable to make a sound, I cradled Noor’s limp, bloodstained body in my arms. I felt no physical pain other than the incessant, echoing reverb within my skull. Shadows clouded my vision, slinking around in my peripherals. The shadows made everything dark. The shadows were hopelessness. The shadows were death. The shadows were reality.

 

Then one of the shadows rose up, distinguished from the other misty forms by its definite shape. I tried to focus, but my pounding head protested. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to die. I wanted everything to be over. But as the figure forming in the darkness took on a more familiar appearance, my eyes could not help but be drawn to the specter of the person before me, what surely could only have been my own wraith.

 

As if a mirror had been hung before me, my reflection looked back at me with a calm, cruel certainty that I recognized only too well from another face, a face I had been hoping I wouldn’t see for many years. But why now? I felt dead, but I wasn’t. I was, however unmercifully, alive. Whereas Noor…

 

And then I understood. Bella Muerte wasn’t here for me. She was here as me. Rather, he, was here for Noor.

 

“I don’t understand,” I heard myself say, though I did understand all too well. 

 

“Death comes to you in whatever form you choose.” I watched my lips move, my emotionless, empty eyes looking to the car. So much came rushing back, the lack of feeling, the sense of death, the bleakness, everything that had made me hate Bella. And this time, Bella wasn’t beautiful. This time Bella wasn’t in Noor’s form, but in mine. All this made her…him…it, that much easier to despise. There was no beauty in the death of a loved one. There was only hopelessness. 

 

“You can’t take her.” I wondered faintly why I could see the angel. What it because I had already died? It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I only had one thing on my mind. Muerte, as I would call this new man, was my last hope. Noor had been the only reason that I had kept on living for endless months, and even in my final misadventure, she had kept me on this earth. It was about time to return the favor.

 

“You can’t take her.” I repeated, looking Muerte in his black, empty eyes. “I won’t let you.” 

 

He didn’t smile, he didn’t laugh at my feeble attempt. There was no emotion on his empty face. 

 

I lunged forward, aiming to strangle him, my hands flying before me to find grips on his pale throat. Effortlessly he rose to avoid my grasp, his face a mask. 

 

“You cannot stop me. Her time has come.”

 

Through all this, there had been a screaming disquiet in my head. There was something I knew that wasn’t coming through. Something important, something vital, a past I had experienced, the missing piece…

 

“You can’t take her.” I whispered, clutched both sides of my head like a mental patient. My voice took on a slightly crazed lilt, my eyes bulging wide and a burst of understanding lit my face. “You can’t take her until she’s ready to go, just like you couldn’t take me. That’s why you’re still here.”

 

I sounded more confident than I felt in that. She was here. She could see me and she was listening to this procession. She was probably scared. She was probably sad. Yet she saw the light now. She had no real reason to stay. Waves of fear and nausea rippled through me. Desperation returned. 

 

“There has to be a way.” I appealed to the angel. He looked at me serenely, and for a split second I felt doubt. What if Noor was ready to go? What if I was holding her back? There was no telling what was right and what was wrong. Right now, I would be selfish, and I would save her no matter what she wanted. She had done the same for me, when without her I would have surely surrendered to the peace death held. 

 

Muerte was still here, meaning Noor was as well. Perhaps they were talking, and I simply couldn’t hear. Blindly I called, “Don’t leave, Noor. I’m going to save you. I’m not going to let you go!” Tears thickened my voice. There was no way I would let death tear us apart again. I knew there was away, for love had already saved us once. 

 

That was a long time ago, when our love was new, a little voice in my head argued. New and fresh and true, and without the bitterness that had grown. You’ve known for a long time that you love her more than she loves you, the little voice jeered. 

 

No. Calmly as I could, I cleared away those thoughts. We had not been without problems back then. We had never been a couple that was able to simply breeze through life. We had been through a lot, but all that had made us stronger. Together was where we belonged, and where we would stay. I would make it happen. 

 

I looked to the angel. “Can I make a deal? Somehow?” I hesitated, trying to imagine this heartless creature with Noor’s face again. My voice turned softer as I pleadingly bartered.   “Will you help me again, Bella?”   

As much as I did not expect it, the lack of even a twinge of emotion discouraged me. I tried to remind myself that I was not dealing with a human being, but rather a heartless creature that much more resembled a demon of hell than an angel of heaven. Perhaps that was what had given me the idea of some sort of transaction. There were so many stories of desperate sinners making deals with Satan...I saw no reason why mine should not be just another sad story. 

 

“There is a way.” Muerte said. I kept imagining human characteristics for him, though they weren’t really there. A human would have paused before saying that sentence. His face would have shown possibility. Perhaps his eyes would have shone at the thought that he was about to help another. Even the very cruelest of people would have at least shown some vague sense of emotion, whether happy or bitter. Not Muerte. 

 

Then he disappeared.

 

I could not believe my eyes. The night air hung around me, silent and cold. There was no sign that anything had happened here tonight.   I froze before plunging headlong into despair. Noor had chosen. She had left. She had decided, and she was gone. 

 

I was all alone now in the silent night to assess the damage. I had gotten out of the car, though I didn’t remember doing so. It felt far from me. Everything felt unreal, even though I saw the car, I saw the passenger side crushed and the red splatter that I could not bring myself to focus on. I saw another vehicle lying in the ditch beyond the highway. Were the passengers alive? I thought not. How could they have been? They probably just passed on quickly, no need to go to the trouble of conversing with the spiteful angel of death that had not even let me say goodbye to my wife. 

 

Why had Noor left me so callously? I shied away. I did not want to think about that, but it was all I could think about. I had thought that she loved me! How could she leave me if she felt for me what I did for her? She couldn’t. On this blackest of black nights, it seemed that my darkest fears had been confirmed. 

 

At this a bitter wind blew, shattering the stillness. It was as if nature itself shook in defiance and retribution of my words. I didn’t really mean that…at least, I didn’t think I did. In my heart, I knew she loved me. I thought she had. Now I would never know, not until the angel of death returned to claim me. That was something I was looking forward to, if only I could figure out how to murder a heavenly being.

 

At least Noor would be happy now. She saw the light, the beauty of the world. I remembered being dead and wishing so much that she could see it. Now, surely I took back that wish. I would have given anything for her to be blind, as I was now in my all-consuming grief, to any spark of hope in this derelict world, just so she could stand with me in the darkness, and we could be together.

 

I thought there was a bridge nearby. I began to walk, wondering how hard it would be to walk into the river beneath and force my body, against its will, to breathe in the water until I was with Noor again. Not too hard. 

 

And then, without so much as a sound, Muerte was back, floating before me as if he had never left. He looked at me, and the bitter wind blew. A feminine cry filled my ears in response to my thoughts, and I knew Noor had never left. She had always stayed. Muerte had returned with a deal to offer me, and I had been too hasty in my assessment. I shook with rapture, terror, elation, anger, horrible sadness…how much more could my body physically handle? Mentally, I knew I was already beyond return.

 

“I have a deal for you. Are you listening?” Muerte sounded bored, though I knew he was incapable of even that. I pushed past my hatred for him and looked towards my goal. 

 

“What is it?” 

 

He was holding two items, which he came towards me to give. As he approached, I noticed how perfect he was. It was as if I had been taken and made faultless, improved upon until I was the most beautiful man that had ever walked the earth. It disgusted me. Is this what Noor saw? Did she find him beautiful? I was having trouble holding myself back from an attempt at violence, so I was relieved when Muerte deposited the dark objects into my hands and floated up to keep distance between himself and me. 

 

In both my hands I held smooth, sturdy objects. One felt like some kind of casket, shaped like a small egg and intricately carved. With only the faint light of the moon, it looked like a locket made of silver or white gold. Indeed, a chain hung from it, insuring in my mind that it was a piece of jewelry, and a very old one at that. I reeled from the presence of evil in this object. It coursed through my veins and through my entire body.

 

Equally sinister in its dark beauty was the other item. My hand clenched around the hilt of an ornate dagger. This too held a type darkness, but it was somewhat different. I felt a very strong presence of evil and cruelty emitting from it, just as I had the locket. Images flashed through my mind- murder, the wages of sin, bloodlust, torture, revenge, sorrow, screaming, loss… I shivered as I gripped it tighter, my human hand naturally thirsting for what it held, my mind reeling to escape it. Given the chance, what was held in this knife could consume a man.  

 

The pieces were very different though, in a very important way. I marveled at my body’s reaction as I tried to sort it out. The dagger was so strongly repulsive that the weilder could not help but imagine himself doing horrible things. It held the dirtiest imaginings and the most ghastly truths…but it was a more distant kind of wickedness than the locket. For the locket was almost human. It held you there, and it made you think of every hurt you had ever felt, and it made you cry for lost love. It was the difference between an angry dog and a child screaming in anguish…The dagger held rage and resentment, but the locket held the human element…a horrible, ancient fear, and sacrifice greater than I could imagine.

 

“What am I to do?” I asked Muerte, my voice a husky growl. My insides were churning. I felt power, I felt control, and it scared me. This was what evil was, if I had ever known it. 

 

“I offer you a fair trade. Her soul shall be set free if you give me another. I have no qualms if you make haste. You had best hurry.”

 

“And the locket?” I asked. Muerte simply nodded to the thin air, and I knew he was nodding to Noor. Did she understand what was happening?

 

I turned to the car and watched two lights depart from the crushed metal frame and snake themselves into the item I held. 

 

“You carry her soul with you. Take care- if you try to cheat me, I will know, and she will be trapped forever.”

 

Trapped surrounded by such an evil, horrid presence- the presence of so many other lost souls…I had to hurry.

 

I would have liked to think that it would have troubled me later that I was not distressed in the least at the idea of taking another human life. In fact, I was desperately searching. I felt no remorse or hesitation. I didn’t know whether it was love for my wife that clouded me so, or the evil I held in my hands, but it was intoxicating and unhealthy, a poisonous substance that had been introduced into my fragile system in such a volatile quantity that I could not even control my own thoughts. I had never felt like this before. With the knife in my hand and a burning, passionate desperation in my heart, I set off to kill. 

 

Where was I to find someone at this hour? Whose life would I be ending tonight? The second question was of remarkably less importance to me. It didn’t matter at this point. I felt a surge of something almost pure from the locket I still held, and knew that Noor was objecting to my thoughts. I lowered my lips to the filthy object and kissed it, wishing I could kiss my wife one more time. 

 

“It’ll be alright. I promise, sweetie, just hang on. Please, I’ll make it okay.” 

 

The whistling wind that was Noor blew through my hair, crying for what I had become. She did not understand that it was all for her. 

 

“Can’t you see how much I love you? Don’t you understand?” I shouted out loud to the empty sky, knowing she could hear me but could not respond in words. I felt so sick, as though all sanity was forfeit to this feeling of corruption inside me. I knew this was not right, I knew it, somewhere deep inside. I was being taken over. The worst part was that I didn’t even know how much of this was me and how much wasn’t. I knew that I loved her with everything I had; I knew I would give anything that belonged to me. Then, there was the evil thing, the thing that just wanted to commit horrible acts, that creeping monster that was trying to justify murder in the name of love. It never occurred to me to simply drop the knife. That part was me. That part was love, and evil, and selfishness. I was only human.

 

It felt like hours that I ran on, down that dark highway. Just when I was about to give up hope in this miserable endeavor, I saw a small light in the distance. It bobbed along, matching the jogging gait of the person that held it. A single light. Whoever this was, they were all alone.

 

I slowed, falling into a slow jog myself. I didn’t know how exactly I would carry this out. I could see now that the figure before me was a woman, but I didn’t know why she was out here at this time of night. She looked like she was searching for someone too. This made me laugh. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t like that I saw any comedy in this situation. What horrible luck that I was the one she would find.

 

I saw her waving and I slowed to a walk to approach her, holding the dagger close at my side. It must have appeared to her that I was simply putting my hands casually into my pockets, dispelling the evening chill.

 

“Are you alright, Miss?” I asked her amiably. My voice was shockingly cavalier. This was just like a horror movie, when the monster finds his victim. Isn’t the monster always just a normal gentleman? Perhaps the villains in stories were just misunderstood heroes. 

 

The woman’s face registered surprise, then relief. “My car broke down a couple miles down the road.” Her eyes were worried, and her face was sheen with sweat. She had been seeking assistance a long time.

 

“I’d be happy to help you,” I told her as I walked closer. This might be the moment. I tasted it in my mouth, how close I was too Noor. The wind howled, trying to dislodge the dagger from my hand. I almost lost my footing. The woman I had just met threw up her hands to protect her face. 

 

“The wind is oddly strong tonight,” I said, tilting my head back. The woman agreed with worry in her voice. Perhaps she had children to get home to, a husband whom she loved.  

 

I slid out of my jacket carefully, not showing my hands. I slipped the ancient necklace into the pocket of my jeans and held out my coat to her. “You look cold,” I said. I wasn’t sure what was coming over me. Maybe I just wanted to make her last moments comfortable, or maybe I was feeling some odd, distant kind of remorse. 

 

“Thank you,” she said, though I couldn’t help thinking she looked a little uncomfortable. Regardless, she donned the jacket and began to walk alongside me, leaving some space between us. She began to chatter about something, which I wasn’t really listening to. When I detected a question, I would answer vaguely. Eventually the woman stopped talking. I fingered the knife’s hilt, which I held in my right hand. The woman walked on my left and could not see the burgundy-stained blade glint in the light of the streetlamps. 

 

Farther and farther away we walked from the car wreck, as the final moments of her life continued to slip away. Noor walked with us, in the form of the wind, which blew around us wildly without stopping and made our journey difficult. The poor woman beside me looked so weary. I decided her time had come. 

 

With the way the wind was screaming, the woman didn’t notice when I moved closer to her. In the last second, she turned. Her scream was the only noise as I lowered my arm in one smooth movement. 

 

She lay there bleeding. I had missed my mark by far, stabbing her awkwardly across the side. The wide-eyed woman was still alive and probably already in shock. There was a man was by her side, emotionless as he surveyed the bloody scene. Muerte had come quickly, surely fully expecting what he would find here. His skin gleamed dark mahogany in the half light. He was a big man with what would have looked to me like a kind face, had it not only been a mask. I assumed this man was the girl’s lover.

 

“Henry?” I heard her whisper. I didn’t know how long it would be before she left this world, for I could still clearly see her, but she could also glimpse into the realm of the dead. “Is that you?” 

 

Muerte ignored her and looked at me. “You just barely left a mark on the poor girl. Don’t you think it would have been kinder to be quick?” 

 

I didn’t hear him.  My heart beat hard in disbelief and contrite horror as I thought of the unspeakable act I had committed so willingly.  I had almost killed her!  Without immediate medical attention, she would surely die.  I needed to call her an ambulance, now.  As I tried to loosen my hold on the dagger, I realized, horrified, that my fingers refused to unclench.  Could I still do it?  Was it possible for me now to finish this, to get my precious love back?  It would be so simple now, a quick blow to the throat or chest.  She was already in so much pain… 

I unfurled my fingers, the tendons in my hand straining to let go, but the hilt of the ghastly knife remained where it was, as if glued to my palm.   Only a second ago, I had been completely willing to kill this innocent girl, barely more than a child, in cold blood, all for my own personal gain.  I couldn’t believe what I had almost done. These were not my own thoughts; it was surely the evil of the devil himself speaking to me through this accursed entity.

The sound of the woman’s soft voice speaking her lover’s name repeated itself relentlessly in my head, making it hard to think about anything else.  It was very much like when I was young and had experienced night terrors, a single thought ringing out and torturing me to the point that it disabled me.  I couldn’t move, nor could I even speak.  Over and over I opened and closed my hands, but I could not let go of the knife.  It was as if it had become part of me, molding itself into the fabric of my skin. 

Henry, came the ringing call inside my mind.  I knew I could not deliver the final blow, no matter how this overpowering wickedness had woven itself into my soul.  For in that name, there was a story, a life, a love.  Suddenly I knew I could not deny this woman what I myself was fighting for.  I deserved no more than her in this world.  What was I but a worthless dog, willing to commit murder in exchange for a shot at happiness?  This innocent woman, who lay bleeding on the roadside at my hand, deserved much more.  She deserved what I wanted and could not have. 

But Noor…was it not truthful that she, if not I, deserved to be happy?  I was sure that this was correct.  She that I loved could not die a lonely death of suffering.  I would fight for her, and risk eternal damnation and guilt. 

My hand convulsed painfully, the emotional and the logical, integrity and love, fighting in my mind.  This had to end.  My pain for Noor’s death was no more important or valid that the agony that Henry would surely feel for the loss of this girl.  If nothing else, we were equal in a name.  Without passing judgment, without thinking about any of my wrongs, I knew that much.  We were equal in a name as two human beings.  I could not do this to an equal.  

 “I can’t,” the strangled words reached Muerte almost silently, but just as Bella had been so many months ago, the angel was aware of all that was happening inside my mind.

“Their names stop hurting so much when you bury them,” his unfeeling, silent speech rang out like the harsh blade of a razor in its disgusting cruelty.  I flinched inadvertently, taking a step back from the image of this beautiful man, leaning over a quickly dying girl.  My only regret was doing this to her.  I prayed vehemently, for the first time I could remember. I prayed for her to live.  I would have given my own soul for it. 

Then, finally, I understood.  I had found the loophole in the deal I had made with the angel of death. A soul for a soul…that had been the agreement.  

For so long, I had been fighting for Noor, and in turn, fighting for my life.  She had been my will to live.  I had only chosen to survive for her. That was when I realized that this was the end.  I had lived for her alone.  Now it was time that I died for her.  I was through with being selfish.

So, without so much as a doubt, I gripped the knife with a newfound purpose.  With a smile on my face, I plunged the dagger as hard and as deep as I could into my heart.

“I tried,” I whispered, to Noor, to Muerte, perhaps to God or even to my own confused heart.  The star-filled sky swallowed my words and the pain stung every inch of my body.  The moistness of my own blood felt like a cool river against my feverish skin.  The knife fell with a dull sound onto the tarmac, and I too crumpled onto the ground, joyful even in the agony of death.  I had known pain in my life, surely, but I had never known fulfillment like this.  However, there was also something else that obscured my happiness.  I could feel the pain lingering with me just as life lingered in my body, the pain of imperfect love.  We could never be together, and I wasn't even sure that was what Noor would have wanted anymore.  Sadness engulfed me as I considered that.  At least I had done what I could for her.   This would act as my final declaration of my love for her, and it was surely all I could do.  I was just so sorry that it had to end this way.

Life did not end in the beautiful flourish that I had been expecting.  I had been waiting for the light to take me and plunge me into its perfection and happiness, as it had done so many months ago.  This time was not so different, but it was slower.  It hurt.  It hurt so much.  I waited and waited for it to end, and I knew the girl I had stabbed was going through the same thing. The wicked and wild wind blew around me like a caress, a comforting embrace. I reached out, painfully, slowly, trying to grasp the dying girl’s hand.  I could not find it and eventually I gave up, tears falling down my cheeks and falling into the pools of blood my broken body exuded onto the pavement.  Finally, I thought my time had come, but I was mistaken.  Death was not so gracious as to take me quickly.  My punishment would be to wait. 

Blackness swallowed everything.  The pain was dulled, and I was grateful.  I knew I was in some kind of dream, for in this graceful sleep, Noor was with me.  I felt so happy.  I looked down at myself, my unharmed body, then at Noor.  She wore a beautiful white dress, and flowers were woven into her golden hair.  I knew at once that this must be our wedding day. 

Unable to speak, or perhaps simply unwilling to cloud the purity of the memory with words, I took my wife in my arms and we began to dance.  I remembered the elation, I felt the peace again that I thought at the time would stay with us forever.  I wondered distantly what had changed.  I wanted to think that something along the line had merely gone wrong, but my heart knew the truth.  Noor had just fallen out of love with me.  It happened all the time.  Surely it was a great misfortune that she could not understand how much I loved her, but all the same it was a great blessing to have ever felt that love.  I held her tighter to my chest, this time knowing that this would not last.  This would be our last dance, and I would cherish it in my heart for however much longer I had left. 

I was aware that I had left my state of sleep when the scene changed, and I was looking down on two crumpled bodies in the black night.  The light from the stars was intense, and it held me.  There was a beautiful, resigned sadness about this moment.  The divine light was like a blanket holding me, keeping me safe from sin, inviting me for only this instant into a place of safety and forgiveness.  I looked at the limp figures.  The girl was still alive.  Somehow she had risen into a sitting position and pulled out a phone.  I could all too clearly imagine the agony that her simple movements were bringing upon her, but I was only glad that she would survive. I had faith that she would.

Distantly, I reached into my pocket, aware of what was to come.  The locket opened at my touch.  I could no longer really see it through all the light.  It looked like a shadow in my dark palm, and as the light shone down, it disappeared from my view.  Two silver lights shone brighter than all the stars, diming them until all I could see was their shimmering, dancing forms. My heartbeat quickened in wild recognition of what was to come. This was to be the last time I would ever see my wife.  

The two lights formed into the beautiful form of Noor. She stood on the pavement and looked down at my lifeless body, stained red. As I floated to her, I knew she could see me, for she had visited the realm of the dead already. She could probably also see the angel, who floated by me in Noor’s own form. Bella had returned to take me away, but I was not leaving yet. 

I drifted to stand by my wife. She looked at me deeply, and I wondered what she saw there. It must have been strange to see me like this, a silvery form of death, more brilliant and glorious than anything human, but also more terrifyingly heartbreaking. She could not look into my eyes, for I had none.   My arms, which I would gladly have thrust around her, were now mere threads of my spirit only remembering the old form of their body. She was untouchable, impossible to hold, and more beautiful than ever. 

“Goodbye Noor. I love you,” I knew not what else to say. Should I tell her that I had lied when I told her I would do anything to keep us together? I had failed, but at least she was alive. I would not apologize, though tears ran down her face and her thin frame shook. I could do nothing more for her, and it broke my heart. Nothing I could ever do was enough. 

“I love you, Noor.” I repeated, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. How true that was. I had never meant anything so much. How fitting, I thought, that those should be my final words before I left this world to greet the unknown.

I turned to Bella and felt an odd sensation ripple through me, as though the fabric of my being were beginning to fray and tear. My shape was separating. I was disappearing, but it was okay. I knew it was time. 

Before my eyes, I saw the form of Bella morph once again into the mirror image of myself. I did not understand why this was happening, and it distressed me. The tendrils of my dying form began to writhe and wriggle into a mutated outline, confused and not knowing where to take me. I turned my gruesome convoluted body as I heard Noor’s single, dry sob. Instantly I knew what must have happened. 

No, I thought. Please, no. 

Crimson liquid streamed in fresh, untainted waves from her neck. The knife was still clasped in her hands. I could barely understand what was happening, my being so scattered that I could barely feel emotion of make logical conclusions. I was like a mist hanging in the air, a cloud struggling to pull itself into a raindrop. I tugged myself in, my form finally solidifying. I could see another form now, the ghost of the woman I had died for. Seeing her bleeding form, knowing this had all been for naught, was the greatest agony I had ever had to endure. I could not scream, I could not cry, for I was trapped in this state of horrible nothingness. Even the light seemed to dim as it sparkled off the red river that flowed indiscriminately, marking this night forever as the night my whole world ended. 

Then there was warmth, and happiness, and purity, engulfing me like a mother taking her child in her arms. Noor reached for me, and I could feel her radiance. I could feel her love, and a kind of ecstasy, a pleasure that could only be achieved by being with someone you loved more than anything in the world. Just as I had surrendered myself for her to live, she had ended her own life to spend eternity with me. Suddenly my pain was dulled, and I relaxed into her clear light, my will collapsing.

This in itself was like a dance, this simple act of being together, being part of each other. Dancing to the tune of our death was equal to the finest waltz, for we were together, by mutual choice and a single, final sacrifice. I understood now why there was no crying in death, nor was there laughter. There was love, and as we danced again, I knew that a greater catharsis could never be achieved.

After what could have been a millennium, or perhaps but a fraction of a second, a voice rang out through the crimson light that shone around us so brightly that our own shapes were like smudges of dark ash against the bloody intensity. 

“The night we died…is it truly that same night?” Noor’s silhouette shimmered, and I could somehow feel her smiling without having to see. “I had something to tell you that night.” 

There below the shining ruby sky, she told me of the impossible child that had somehow been formed in her womb. My wife was pregnant with a baby that would never be born, a baby that would never have to feel pain or enter a world of suffering. A perfect, pure baby boy. 

In my mind’s eye, I saw and understood the two lights that had shone like brilliant jewels, my true love, and my child. I could imagine Noor, as beautiful as she had been the first day that I met her. The dream that I had dreamt so forcefully coursed through me, fresh and new and more striking than it had ever been.   I saw the perfect image of a woman thought to be barren, holding her unborn child safely in her arms…guiding him up into heaven. 

November 3^rd/08-January 11^th/08