Elizabeth's Death

While hovering behind her with its long stick arms resting with supreme annoyance on the back of her antique chair, Death felt, in a way Death hadn’t felt before; the drowning feeling of grief and pain. Death shouldn’t be feeling the thick and slick feeling that drowning in grief and pain brought, but Death was. But the ghost-like figure still clinging to the realm Death never knew was sitting in her antique chair, blankly starring at a photo of a perfect child.

A perfect child, long since gone from the memory of the old lady, the hand of age picking the perfect child from her brain with pointed nails, until nothing about the perfect child remained. Only the gold frame reminded the old lady of the importance of this photo compared to the wooden frames of others.

Death, the old lady, and the hand of old age slowly picking at the flesh of the old ladies' mind; all starred at the golden photo, two knowing who she was but the one who should have known, had glassy eyes and an empty longing no person could fix. Because even if someone came and told this old lady who the golden child was, the hand of old age would rip the tiny piece from her brain with her pointed nails.

Its Lizzy, mum. Remember? She was your daughter.

But she wasn’t anymore because as quickly as that memory sparked the healing process of flesh in her old brain, the old hand of age shanked its long-slanted nail into the bleeding spot and pulled the strands of memory; ripping it like cotton candy.

I don’t have a daughter.

But you did, is what Death thought, all the while the thick sludge of grief and pain pooled in its stomach and dripped to its feet with fat drops. Cementing it in place behind the old lady’s antique chair.

Out of the three there, two could remember what happened to that golden child.

Death remembered reading the list, the list given to it only moments after, it had been birthed from the screaming fires of the cosmos. Death remembered the name Elizabeth Machjoba, a strange name but not that that mattered because Death was a shade and didn’t think much about the strangeness of things.

Elizabeth Machjoba, or Lizzy, was only 5, but Death had blessed her. Because the laws of death dictated that Lizzy should die the painful death of roadkill. The air had smelled of melting rubber, not that Death would know. The small bag of flesh known as Lizzy had flung from the impact to the ground with a sound so imprinting on the mind, because it sounded like someone throwing a sack of potatoes into a car boot; not that Death could know. And the sun, while shining amazing that day, after days of rain, looked bland and subdued all that lived under it; except for the vibrant royal velvet spewing from the neon pink flesh, of the 5-year old that laid stretched, pulled and broken on the black void of the road. The melting rubber had a new smell tangoing with it in the air, the smell of rich metal, fresh meat, the blood of a mistaken 5-year-old.

But not that Death could know any of this.

Because while the mother, Elizabeth Machjoba senior, thundered over, screaming a bloody scream. All that Death could know was that it made a mistake, a mistake that could not be fixed because that is what the laws of death dictated. And all Death could feel was a sinking feeling inside its stomach, forming a thick sludge that dripped fat drips down its legs, cementing it to the ground.

It was supposed to be Elizabeth, not Lizzy, to be struck that day. Name, Time, Date, all printed perfectly on that list, and Death had lured the wrong Elizabeth.

The laws of death now dictated that Elizabeth Machjoba Senior could live for as long as her body would allow. Until the Death of Nature came to visit her frail form, a pathetic apology, compared to the lifelong pain Elizbeth Machjoba Senior would feel forever.

To Death, it seemed ironic in a way. An apology for death is life, a life filled with never-ending numbing pain, that thickens in someone’s stomach and drips down their legs cementing them to the ground.

And Elizabeth’s Death, the one who stood as a shadow behind the antique chair, starring longingly at the golden child, had tried everything to fix this mistake. Death gifted her cancer, poisoned blood, accident after accident, frail bone-breaking after frail bone-breaking; hell, death even coaxed the hand of old age, to pluck flesh from her mind so that the family that walked delicately around sweet old Elizabeth, might assist with giving her those sweet pills.

But nothing Elizabeth’s death could do could fix that mistake so long ago because the laws of death, created by the council of death, written down on a scroll made from the skin of the dead, done so long before the birth of Elizabeth’s death; dictated that Elizabeth was free from all death except the Death of Nature.

The Death of Nature was nowhere to be seen and all the effort to fix this mistake only made the suffering of Elizabeth worse and the death of Lizzy pointless.

Not that Elizabeth’s Death cared.

The only thing Elizabeth’s Death could feel was the slick thick liquid that it was drowning in, that pooled in its stomach and dripped fat drips down its legs cementing it to the ground. To the ground behind the antique chair, the antique chair that a frail old lady sat in, starring at a long-gone golden child.

The only other thing that could feel in that room was the hand of old age and even then, it could only feel the stuffy full feeling something would feel after gorging on a rich meal. It could understand the feeling of guilt and pain that cemented Death to this old lady but didn’t understand death trying to fix its mistake. They were both creatures created from some screaming fire of the cosmos, both consuming on the neon pink flesh. They were beings above the concept of mistake, yet, as the hand of old age stood there, picking at the flesh of Elizabeth, it couldn’t help but feel a little strange. Strange being the best word to describe this feeling, because the hand of old age doesn’t feel things, unless it was pinching or stony, taking place in the core of its stomach.

The hand of old age felt strange for the Death cemented to the ground stuck behind the antique chair staring at the golden child. It was strange that this Death was living in a false sense of hope. Hope in fixing its simple mistake of coaxing the wrong name in front of that truck. So yes, the hand felt strange, some people would say the hand felt empathy and sadness for the Death cemented to the ground trying in vain to fix its mistake. But this strange feeling, strange to the hand of old age, only lasted a fleeting butterfly fluttering amount of time before it continued its cotton candy ripping technique.

So, the three sat there, one trying to fix its hopeless mistake, another feasting like a child, and the last blankly staring at a golden child. All waiting for when the old lady’s blood had run out and her heart slowed down to barely a butterfly’s flutter would the Death of Nature open the door to that room that all three resided in.

But until then Elizabeth’s Death only felt the small hope it held slip between its fingers, crawling with slinky spidery paws into Death’s stomach where it transformed into a slick thick liquid that pooled and dripped fat drips down its legs.

Cementing it to the ground.

Forever a shadow to sweet old Elizabeth.