The Man Who Died

A man is sitting alone in a huge concert hall, and an Asian beauty is playing a beautiful violin, especially for him! She’s playing a classic overture on the violin in the middle of a dark stage, and she’s wearing an elegant dress in her supermodel-like body.

He tries to see her face, but suddenly… snow starts to fall from above! From the concert hall ceiling?!

“Am I dreaming?” he asks himself.

He is now standing in the middle of nowhere in darkness, and snow is falling around him. Yet, he still hears the melodious violin playing. He smiles, raises his arms, and closes his eyes; he feels peaceful and joyful.

He opens his eyes, and it is now a cold mid-winter night, and everywhere is covered by snow. He’s on a street corner and begins to roll something in his hand. Then, he puts it between his lips, lights it up, and takes a deep draw from it; it’s a thick joint cigarette.

The man takes another deep and long draw of the joint.

He walks slowly and numbly toward the end of an alley and stops in front of a parked yellow cab covered in snow. He takes another draw of the weed and coughs badly and harshly while smoke oozes out of his nose and covers him slowly. He then quickly takes deep breaths.

He takes another look at the cab and walks into the house next to it, his house.

The man kisses his daughter’s sleeping face and walks back into the hallway.

He’s on the balcony now, finishing his joint.

He takes another deep draw and coughs again and again; his body is clearly unable to take that much weed, but he doesn’t care.

He takes another deep draw and coughs again. “Fuck it,” he blurts out and continues, “fuck the whole world.”

He feels cold, so he finishes the joint and throws the filter away; then, he walks back into the house.

The man crawls into his bed and hugs his wife tightly. “What the… you smell like shit,” she says and continues, “How much did you smoke this time?!”

He doesn’t say a word and hugs her.  She shouts, “Don’t tell me that you want pussy when you are high!”

“No, I didn’t even think about your filthy hole,” he continues. “Go to sleep, you little whore.”

Tears well up in his eyes for a while. He ignores them and closes his eyes. But sleep is the last thing he needs tonight, the last thing he thinks about.

Life is a total losing game for him; every aspect of his life is deep in the gutters. In his mid-fifties, he had two unsuccessful marriages with four children, but he could not buy a simple birthday gift for them.

Heck, he cannot even provide daily sustenance for them since he lost his favorite job last year! He has been working as a part-time taxi driver since then, earning only a poor percentage of his daily earnings. And that money goes for his needs, especially his daily joint usage and his family has to depend on relatives' and friends' help.

He’s now stuck with no money due to the heavy snow. On top of that, the old cab has some mechanical issues.

He’s a sad man with no hope to go on with his miserable life. He has no way out but to kill himself. He has no way out of this misery.

He has thought about it many times before, about killing himself, and even tried it once before, but no one can stop him this time.

This time, he has accumulated the weeds he bought and has made a pack of the chubbiest joints and intends to finish them in this one evening. So, he is here, in his bed, in the middle of his fight between life and death, between reality and hallucination.

Now, he feels endless happiness in his mind. He smiles, although he knows it’s the effect of the joints he has smoked this evening.

So, he closes his eyes, relaxes, and surrenders himself to the hands of the drugs in his nervous system.

An hour later, it is just him inside his bed in the middle of a dark limbo-ish nowhere. “What endless joy!” he thinks in his mind.

Then, the man is in a vast darkness, in a long beat of total silence.

A fear starts to grow in him; he feels a presence around him.

He turns toward his wife, but she is not there! He begins to wonder if he turned and where he is?!

A dark figure appears next to his bed. It’s not his wife nor his daughter.

“Who the hell are you?!” suddenly, a voice echoes in his mind. Again, “Who the hell are you?!”

“Who the hell are you?!” The figure responds, but it’s his voice!

He’s confused. He didn’t talk but heard his voice; he’s sure about it.

He looks around again. It’s all darkness! Nobody is there, not next to him in the bed and not even in the bedroom.

Now the bedroom vanishes; it’s all darkness! Total darkness.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asks, and then he continues. “What do you want from me?!”

The dark figure says nothing. It’s just there looking at him, and it smiles when the man peers to see it better.

The dark figure appears again. “Are you a man or a woman?!” the man asks.

The dark figure has the same smile on its face. “It’s not a human at all!” The man's inner voice tells him.

The man laughs again and says, “I kind of like it, my inner voice.”

“Who the hell are you, asshole?!” the man asks and feels his mouth move this time, slowly but moving.

“Well, it’s even better that you are mute,” he continues. “I don’t have the stomach to listen to any more bullshit in my last moments.”

“My last moments.” He repeats and laughs at the figure.

He laughs. “I’m so high and so happy,” he continues. “It’s good to die in this stage of mind.”

“Actually!” he asks. “Did I say that?! Actually?”

“Actually,” he repeats. “Actually.”

The sound of the word tickles his mind, and he laughs again. This time louder.

Then, the figure laughs as well. It laughs completely like the man and in his voice!

“You’re mocking me?!” the man asks.

“You’re mocking me?!” the figure repeats.

“Who the hell are you? Tell me your name,” the man shouts.

“I don’t have a name for now,” the figure utters in the man’s inner voice all of a sudden. Then, it continues. “I’m sure you know that you’re dying.”

“Of course,” the man bursts out. “I smoked a good amount of joint before you appeared. It’s about the same amount I usually use for a month.”

“So, I’m here for you now in your last moments,” the dark figure replies.

“You mean you’re my death angel?!” the man replies.

The figure laughs. “There’s no such thing,” the figure continues, “I’m here to make sure that you die and do not get the last privilege for a human being.”

“The last privilege of … what the fuck is that?” the man retorts.

The dark figure smiles again, “I’m here to collect you as one of my trophies.”

“I don’t care,” the man replies. “You can do whatever you want with my body after I die.”

“It’s not your body I’m waiting for,” it laughs loudly. “You remember the most beautiful sound you heard this evening?”

“I don’t care, and what is it to you?” the man replies.

“Let me show you something.” Then, the dark figure turns itself into a silver screen projection, and the beautiful Asian violinist appears again on the dark stage.

The dying man sees himself in that concert hall again. The Asian beauty is playing the climax of the song.

The dying man leans up in bed and tries to focus on the violinist’s face.

He finally manages to see her face. She’s one of his beautiful daughters!

“She’s my…” he is unable to finish his sentence.

“Hush! It’s a very nice overture,” the dark figure replies and smiles. “Let’s listen to it to the end.”

The dying man is taking his last breath, but something within him is growing like a fire.

“It is a strong feeling that you feel within you,” the figure continues. “If I were not here, that feeling would grow and make you strong enough to return to your life again.”

“Yes, I can feel it! I haven’t felt it for a long time nor this powerful,” the man whispers.

Suddenly, the dark figure reaches out with something like a wing and touches the man’s chest quickly. The man’s whole body starts to shake, and he feels the feeling draining out of him quickly!

The man tries to grab the wing of the figure while saying, “What was that?! What did you do to me?”

“I told you,” the dark figure smiles and continues. “I’m here to take that privilege from you! You do not deserve it anymore. I’m here not to let you have hope in your last moments and collect your soul!”

“Hope is that privilege that can give life and makes humans unique from other creatures.”

“You lost hope, and you are mine now!”

The man’s body is lifeless now, and the dark figure disappears slowly.