The Collector

Some people collect CDs or crowd their living rooms with antique furniture. Some have coins from all 50 states or a stamp from every country. Others have stacks of classical books, a rock from every beach they’ve ever visited perched on a windowsill. My collection is a little more unorthodox. I collect souls.

I make my way through the airport terminal, debris crunching under my heels as the vague humanoid forms shimmer, like wisps of smoke, beyond the fog that separates this world from the living one. The other side seems frozen in time, but in front of me, distinguishable figures begin to stir on the ground.

The first soul I come across is that of a young man. His suitcase—what remains of it from the explosion, anyway—is open at his feet. This man collects ties and paperwork and souvenirs from all over the world.

He gets to his feet, loosening the knot at his throat. He takes in the strangeness of the scene around him with confusion knitted into his forehead. Finally, his eyes come to rest on me. “What happened?” he demands, his voice panicked, perhaps thinking I am just another traveler that was waiting for the plane. “I heard someone yelling—there was a man with a bomb—” He approaches one of the living and stares hard into her blurry face. “What’s wrong with them? Why aren’t they moving? Are they dead? Why—” He stops suddenly, turning to stare at me as realization dawns on his face. “Am—am I dead?” he finishes in a hush.

“Yes,” I say. Over time, I’ve learned that being honest with people helps them cope with their change in situation. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself to make it easier to say.

“This was the first flight I was able to book. I was going home to see my wife,” the man says, shocked. “She just gave birth to our daughter.”

A death for a life. That’s how it goes.

A cry behind me grabs my attention, and I turn to see a little girl searching frantically among the shadowy figures. She is calling for her mother, her voice wracked with the fear and anguish I know all too well. If I had a heart, it would surely break at the sound.

I spot a well-loved stuffed bunny on the ground and approach her. “I believe this belongs to you,” I say kindly, holding it out.

She accepts the gift with wide eyes. “Do you know where my mummy is?”

“Your mother wants me to collect you,” I say. “There’s been an accident, but everything is going to be okay. You’ll see your mother soon enough.” It’s true. Eternity passes within seconds. It feels like just yesterday I was at the Battle of Megiddo, 1457 BC. More than 12,000 souls collected that day.

I shake my head to clear the thoughts of the past and hold out my hand. The little girl takes it, her small fingers wrapped around my own.

“What’s your rabbit’s name?” I ask.

“Floppy Bunny,” she says, chewing on one of his ears. “His sister is at home. Mummy said we didn’t have enough room for both.”

“Do you collect stuffed animals?” I ask.

She nods. “Buttons the cat is my favorite. I can show you, when we get back to the house.”

“That would be wonderful,” I say.

Other figures begin to drift through the fog as they finally succumb to their injuries. I take them, one by one, admiring the collection of words and pictures on one man’s body, listening to another lament about his collection of girlfriends and how he never had the chance to tell his wife he was sorry.

At last, only one soul remains in the terminal.

His dark eyes regard me coldly as I approach. His soul is whole, although his body has been reduced to ashes by the bomb he had strapped to his chest. This man collects weapons and hate. These are the people that I have never understood, the ones that purposely send innocent lives into my hands.

“Why did you do it?” I ask him.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he growls.

Perhaps he is right. Even after millennia I am still shocked by the things human beings are capable of doing to one another.

I leave the airport weighed down with 37 souls. It should feel like nothing compared to the thousands at Megiddo, but it doesn’t. Even one is too many.

***

Bodies collapse in the sand as gunshots ring through the air all around me. I pick up the soul of a man who collects symbols on his uniform.

“I never wanted to kill,” he pleads with me, as if I am a god intending to pass judgement onto him. “I only did what I had to do to survive.”

“No more killing,” I assure him. “You will be at peace now.”

A handful of his comrades join us as I trek across the country, as well as a generous amount of men on the other side of the crossfire. They are collectors of pride in their nations. In life they said they would be honored to die for their respective countries, but in death their souls claim otherwise.

“Where is the honor in bringing suffering to others?” one asks me. I have no answer for him.

The gunshots die down as the sun begins her descent behind the dusty landscape. The fighting has stopped for now, but I know my work is far from over. The wars never end.

No one longs for peace more than me.

***

It’s dark out when I am called to a small house in the suburbs. A young woman sits up from the floor in a locked bedroom, brushing the hair away from her face. The moonlight coming in through the window makes her pale face glow. She looks around and spots me. “Am I dead?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Good,” she says, but her voice trembles and I can see the fear in her eyes. No one copes with the fact that they are dead easily. Not even if they think they wanted it.

This woman collects a lot of things. Bad memories. Pain that has manifested itself into the scars on her wrists. Pill bottles. I nearly trip on one as I make my way across the room to her.

I help her to her feet. Her eyes rake my face curiously.

“I expected you to look different.”

“I look different to everyone. You could conjure me up a scythe if you so desired. Or perhaps a face of bone.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, this is the face I always imagined you wearing. But I guess I didn’t expect you to look so…alive.”

She reaches up a hand and lightly touches my face. She is silent for a moment. Then, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I reply.

“Do you ever get tired of it? The pain, the suffering? The death?”

I pause, caught off guard. No one has ever asked me that before. They usually ask about themselves, their loved ones, whether heaven and hell actually exist. They are always so concerned about death. None offer me the chance to think about life.

“Of course I do,” I say. “What I wouldn’t give to live on the other side, even just for a day.”

She laughs. “It’s strange. Some of us have the chance to live and choose death, and Death wants to choose life but can’t.” A somber silence falls between us. After a minute, she takes a deep breath and looks at me with a false expression of determination. “Okay. I’m ready.”

But I am not.

“Maybe I cannot choose life,” I say. “But you can.”

Surprise spreads across her face as her edges begin to blur. It is rare that I let people go back, and risky. Sometimes their souls get lost in the fog, and they are condemned to a fate that is neither living nor dead, trapped in between the two worlds for eternity. But this young woman has a strength about her, even if she is unaware of it. I trust that her call to life is strong enough to pull her back.

A second later, the hazy shape of the young woman sits up from the floor. I can feel the pull of other souls waiting to be collected, but I stand there and watch as the bedroom door flies open and a figure collapses next to her, her cries muffled by the fog, and they hold each other.

I leave the bedroom, my burden feeling significantly lighter than it was when I arrived.

***

The hospital is full of shapes shifting in and out of focus, hanging onto life by a fragile thread. Their time will come, but for now, I head to room 304.

It feels like it’s been only seconds, but the calendar on the wall of the bedroom tells me it’s been 79 years. The old woman is sitting up in bed, waiting for me.

“Hello, old friend,” she says with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

On her bedside table is a collection of Get-Well-Soon cards and pictures of her family. She collects pills again, but these ones are intended to keep her alive.

I cross the room and take her hand as I did when she was young. The skin is wrinkled now and holds so many more memories. “I am glad you chose life,” I say.

“I was not the one that chose,” she says. “You think you deal only in death, but you gifted me with life. And now, this is not death, but another life.”

Her smiles grows as she sees my expression change. She gets to her feet, looking at me this time with genuine determination. “Come,” she says. “I am ready now.”

And she is. I add her soul to my collection.