Walking with Death

I looked at my watch, then at the cadaver reclining motionlessly on the old-fashioned flower printed sofa, his colours fading away from his spotted skin. His jaw was hanging wide open, his wrinkly old man muscles hanging loosely on his skeleton. The newspaper was slipping off his lap, his coffee half-drank and turning cold: 59 killed in plane crash near Roswell Daville. 

Perhaps I was too early. 

The soul had already gone. To where? I didn’t know, that was a question for a Life. 

I pointed at the body with my scythe and with a swing he dissipated. This type of misconduct had happened once a hundred years ago, but for someone who had been on this job since the birth of life, it was still an embarrassing occasion. Adam Williams, the man who had outran Death many times, in the end still returned to the embrace of mine earlier than what I had anticipated. He was a special soul. 

We were good friends. 

We made a deal in his dream: I would delay his death and take him away after he was ready, and in turn, he would accept his fate and stop running. “After I put Timothy to sleep,” he emphasised, “I just need him to be taken care of, only then I will go with you.” He was keeping a straight face when he said it, yet I could see his tears congealing at the corner of his eyes precariously, threatening to fall. I doubt he would remember it, but a deal was a deal and I had broken it.

There was still a way I could make it up to him, I am not that cruel.

I snapped my fingers, masking my skeletal frame in his image. 

It was 3:15 P.M, 15 minutes left until his grandchild walked out the school gate. I found his keys, revved up the engine, and decided to walk since I did not know how to drive. (The air-conditioning was nice.)

To myself, I was still Death, but in the eyes of others, I was Adam Williams. It felt uncomfortable to walk along the walkway, under the glare of the sun and the fleeting gaze of the others. I was never meant to be seen. Oddly, as an existence billions of years old, this experience stirrs a childish elation in my ribs. How it felt to be alive, how it felt to be human, this sensation was purely exotic, drawing out the fading memories in my mind that had been forced into a dusty corner where light couldn’t touch. 

“Adam! Mornin’” a passerby tipped his hat, I nodded awkwardly. 

“Adam.” “It’s a surprise to see you here.” “G’day, Williams.” 

“Greetings.” I said, they threw me a short-lived expression of confusion but did not bother to think much of it. Adam Williams was a popular man, I supposed. During his coma from an accident his visitors flooded the room with presents.

A popular man is a pain in the arse to pretend. My body didn’t feel like mine anymore.

“Adam?” A woman from a cafeteria exclaimed, her reddish curls glistening under the sun. She made me jump, every bone of mine trembling under the amplitude of her voice, I reminded myself to react to his name the same way I reacted to mine.

“Good day-”

 “Why are you still here? The school was letting them out at 3.30, have you forgotten? Where is your car? My goodness you're 20 minutes late already! Timothy would be worried sick!” 

“....Walking is healthy.” I coughed, after all the questions that were spilled over my face relentlessly. 

She blinked at me, confused, “But you hated walking!”

“I-I’ve changed my mind. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep walking. Good day.” I hurried off. She was still calling out his name, so desperately I was afraid she would jump over the fence just to catch up to me, tossing the serving plate on the ground and stepping over the customers’ shoulders. 

She didn’t, thankfully. 

........................................................................................

I reached the school at 3:45 PM. The children had dispersed, his grandson was sitting on the bench of a bus stop, grumpy and unimpressed when he winced his eyes to get a good look at me.

“You’re late.” he said, pouting.

“I am late.”

“You were never late before.”

“We all make mistakes.” I told him, and it’s true.

He took my bony hands. Of course, he would still feel the coarse, callused hands of Adam Williams and not Death. I sensed the uneasiness in him, the child maintaining a distance from me as we ambled side by side down the road. I couldn’t tell if he found out my identity or that he was silently protesting about my unpunctual arrival. I hoped for the latter. 

“Why didn’t you drive here?”

“Walking is healthy.” I lied.

He stared at me in skepticism. Swallowing, I locked my eyes on the signs in front of us.

“Sam and I found a bird in the field today, it looks like this,” he crooked his neck and gaped his mouth, attempting to imitate the look of the dead bird. “I didn’t know birds sleep like that. Isn’t it weird, grandpa?”

“It wasn’t asleep, Timothy. It was dead.”

Timothy ogled at me, beads of sweat forming on his frons from the sun, "Ms Smith taught me that word before, she said being dead means you're asleep forever."

I didn't know what Adam Williams would say, or what he would do. And so I looked at the sky, contemplating. "There is still a difference," I started, telling him what I knew truthfully, "when you are asleep, you dream. When you are dead, well, you don't dream anymore, you can't feel anything either, and your hull will cease to exist."

"That's creepy," he shuddered and complained. "I don't want to die."

"Everyone dies, Timothy."

"Even you, grandpa?" 

I coughed again, "Yes, even...me."

"Adam!" We passed by the woman, a tote bag swinging around her elbow when she wan skipping down the steps. The cafe was closed and I tugged Timothy's arm so we could skirt around her, but she grabbed onto Timothy faster than I imagined. 

"Aunt Gilda!" Timothy chirped, throwing his arms around the woman's waist as she planted several kisses on his face. I felt myself freeze up in this woman's presence. 

“Aunt” gave me an unpleasant feeling. 

"What has gotten into you lately, Williams?" She asked, "Not taking my muffins and running away like that."

"Muffins?"

"Muffins!" Timothy screeched.

She fished out a box and handed it to me, "You asked for this yesterday, don't you remember? Timothy was dying for it but it was always sold out by the time the both of you got here so I managed to save a one or two for you. My god, Adam Williams, is your memory getting worse? Was it because of the knock in the head last week when you crawled up that tree to get down somebody’s balloon?"

"Yes it is." I coughed, breaking cold sweat, accepting the box with an unnatural thank you and paced back home with his grandson. She was calling out once again, a stream of words pouring from her mouth. She wasn’t done talking. Marvelous, yes, this little trip as Adam Williams is, but in the end I just wanted to get things done. 

……………………………………………………...

"What's for dinner?"

I didn't know how to cook, "Instant noodles?"

It came out surprisingly good, the child was licking his plate even after all was engulfed and had the woman’s muffins as desserts. The stars had emerged from the horizon with a shade of violet. I wondered how long I had missed this kind of peaceful leisure.

The small human bathed, dressed himself, and sat on the rug in the living room playing some video games. I knew what those little cubical machines with little bone-shaped consoles did, it had crossed my mind once that I would play it when nobody was around, but as Death there was no time to frolic on the button when lives were constantly dying.

"Wanna play?" Timothy passed a console to me. With pure and undulating curiosity I found myself reaching for it and sitting down. It was a shooting game, after he had taught me the functions of the keys I managed to disappoint him. Still, I was quite fascinated with this level of technology humans were able to achieve. The buttons felt dusty under my fingers.  

Another shot rang, my avatar collapsed, his fours sprawling on the ground. He reminded me of all the bodies I've collected: the cats on the street, the prisoner in the execution room, the little girl who failed to fight against her disease, the victims kneeling before the barrels of guns, the deer which got its head hung up on a wall as a trophy

 and Adam Williams.

.......................................................................................

It’s almost bedtime. Timothy couldn’t stop yawning, so I took him upstairs, waited for him to brush his teeth and gargle with peppermint-flavoured liquid. My mission was almost complete. I closed my eyes, there was a tickle of sadness inside me when I imagined how he would react that I had left- no, when Adam Williams had left. 

Emotions, such deadly things. I never thought that I would have to experience it again one hundred years later. Deaths had walked the Earth for so long we were numb with all the inevitable partings living things had to encounter at the end of their time. We’re immortal, yet our time was never enough from all the lives we had to reap. 

“I’m done.” Timothy climbed down the stool he used to reach the sink and ambled into his bedroom. I gawked at the decorations of this little cubicle of his, there were glowing stickers of planets plastered on the ceiling and posters of movies I’d never watched hanging on his walls. His toys were scattered everywhere, I had to tiptoe past them to get to his bed. 

I tucked him under his blanket, closed the light and switched on the night light, his small face and his staring eyes illuminated by the lamp glimmering. 

“I know you aren’t grandpa.” he blurted, and I froze.

For a second I had forgotten I was not Adam Williams.

“Why?” I coughed, carefully removing the shivers from my voice, “I am your grandpa.”

“I’ve noticed it since this afternoon. Grandpa hated walking, he was never late, he wouldn’t forget our favourite muffins, and he didn’t like shooting games either because he got startled easily by the gunshots.”

“...”

“But I still think you’re a good person,” Timothy sat up. “Can you please give my grandpa back to me now?”

“Your grandpa is asleep,” I told him, “he can’t wake up.”

“Then wake him up.”

“That’s something for Life.” 

Tears formed in his eyes. It reminded me of Adam William and the deal we made in his dream, the deal I had broken out of haste. I felt a knife stab and twist into my chest. However, there was nothing I could do. I could only take away, not create. 

“You're Death." 

"How did you know?" My eyes widened. 

"Grandpa told me that you keep coming for him every night, '' he sobbed. I inched closer, sat by him and hugged him gently. “Why did you want to pretend to be my grandpa? Did you kill him?”

Apologies, Adam Williams. I believe this was not what you wanted to turn out. 

“I did not. It was simply his time to go,” I told him, “we made a little deal, and I admit it was my fault that I had broken it. Therefore I am just here to fix it, to fulfill what he wanted to do before he went. He wanted to take care of you one last time.”

The child sniffed, his tears soaking my dark robes, or should I say, the cotton striped blouse of Adam Williams. I sensed a fear inside, burning, growing. “I don’t want him to die. Will I die too?”

"Yes,” I nodded, “But not now.”

“But I feel like there’s a hole in my chest.”

“That is grief, Timothy. You are grieving,” I said, “I’m sorry to let you feel it at such a young age.”

There was a short silence, the air stagnant and dead, filled with only the whimpers of the child. Death. We had a crummy reputation among mortals. Things were alive and they wanted to stay alive forever, death hurts, and they wanted us gone. 

“Is grandpa gone forever?”

“Death, Life...Nothing is really gone, Timothy. They’ve just returned to the start, the beginning of another journey. It is beautiful, if you see it in another way, to die is to be born again,” I told him, “Perhaps you may not understand it at your age, but one day you will grow to see it, to understand it, to embrace it, to walk with Death instead of running away.”

Timothy’s eyes were swollen red from crying. I could tell that he was drowsy, struggling to not drift away. I laid him down on his pillow, pulling his blanket up to his chest. What happened tonight he would remember it as a dream.

“Sleep now, Timothy. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Death.” I heard him whisper.