Death's Deadline

You should write it down for her.

Karrigan storms the castle, the ancient sword of his forefathers in hand and the lost armies of Barthanum at his side. It is their final stand.

Max types furiously in the attic. The screen’s blue glow casts shadows in the circles sunk below his eyes and in the haggard crevices carved between his brows. The lifeless grey of pre-dawn slips down the windowsill and crawls across the floor toward his desk.

The murmurs drifting up from below are calm, unchanged.

There's still time, but not much. He pushes on relentlessly.

–

It started at bedtime one night over the last Christmas break.

Maddy’s mountain of tired books lay discarded on the floor beside her bed. She wanted another story; he couldn't bear to read Green Eggs and Ham or the Paper Bag Princess ever again.

So, in a moment of desperation, he wove a whole new world.

With her tiny head nestled into his shoulder, curls still damp from the bath, he carried them away on the wings of his voice to a kingdom of infinite possibilities.

She giggled and gasped and interrupted often to exclaim things like: “What about the emperor’s boat!?” and “Isn’t the stew magic!?”

When Karrigan saved the day and Max proclaimed “The End,” Maddy demanded “Again! Again!”

“Tomorrow,” Max promised.

And from there, the story burst to life, growing and changing, twisting and turning.

Together, Max and Maddy assembled and disassembled and reassembled Karrigan’s path through the Kingdom of Barthanum.

Every night, they travelled with Karrigan across dark mountains and through wild woods.

They were his companions through unlikely betrayals and even more unlikely friendships.

They helped him endure trials that broke him and challenges that remade him.

They saved him from spells that bound and illusions that misled.

Max lent the characters the weight of adulthood while Maddy dusted the world with the magic of childhood.

Louise took to listening at the door each evening, both in awe and amusement, a mug of steaming cinnamon tea cupped between her hands.

“You should write it down for her,” she said to Max one night after an entire witch coven was born to help Karrigan rescue a lost prince from the immortal tree trolls.

Max laughed. “Maybe one day.”

A week later, the doctor called.

–

You should write it down for her.

Even with defeat weighing on his shoulders, the mighty Karrigan raises his sword and snarls in defiance of the usurper. His father.

The attic grows lighter.

Max types faster.

–

“Hey, honey? Hon? Max. Max.” Louise’s hand landed on his shoulder. “You promised you’d come down.”

“I did?”

Her claws bit sharp enough to draw blood, but she was silent. They'd been through it too many times.

She was furious.

He was focused.

There was nothing left to say.

“I did. Of course I did. I’m coming.”

Max grudgingly extracted himself out of the black mountain mines in which Karrigan was lost without light.

He clomped stiffly down the stairs, resurfacing to reality as if waking from a dream.

There was the bed in the living room, a plush nest under the guard of a stern IV hook.

There was the kitchen, lost under a layer of crinkled white pharmacy bags and unpaid bills.

There were the patio doors, flung open to the blue sky and the heady perfume of lilacs that always marked each of Maddy’s trips around the sun.

“Daddy!” Maddy shrieked from her perch at the rainbow-splattered picnic table.

“Maxim,” his mother-in-law acknowledged him dryly, passing by with a platter of watermelon. “Good of you to join us.”

“Daddyyy! Sit by me!” Maddy reached for him with thin, frail arms.

Lightning ripped the sky in two, and, for a split moment, Max wasn’t standing on the sun-warmed deck at one last birthday party, but he was kneeling on a barren hilltop with Karrigan screaming at the bleeding heavens.

He stumbled, disoriented, into Louise. The pink-frosted cake in her hands landed face down on their feet.

“Sorry…I’m sorry…” Max mumbled and fled the scene.

-

You should write it down for her.

Their duel is unforgiving. Karrigan holds nothing back as he and his father trade blows. The din of battle disappears as the armies pause to watch.

The house grows quieter.

One more word; one less breath.

Death’s deadline approaches.

–

“Daddy?”

Max squeezed his eyes shut. His fingers curled into fists above the keyboard. She waited, peering in through the hesitant crack in the doorway–so patient, so kind–as he dragged himself out of battle with the Siren of the Vanished Sea.

He was surprised to see her all the way up here.

“Yes Maddy?” It croaked out of him, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“Do you think you could tell me the story?”

“It’s not ready yet.”

“It’s okay daddy, maybe I can help like I used to, before–”

“No!” Max barked and felt it in his bones as she jumped back, little fingers disappearing from the door frame.

He turned back to his computer and dropped his ragged voice to an ashamed whisper. “No, it’s almost done, you just have to wait. You have to wait a little longer. Please.”

–

You should write it down for her.

Karrigan glides through the gilded halls awash in the blood of his victory. Barthanum is saved. The cost is high.

Max breaks out in a cold sweat as sunlight rolls across his desk and unconscious regrets stir in the shadows at his back.

A soft click of the door and fading footsteps.

The true queen ascends to the throne, beaming and ageless.

A tilted plastic tiara winking in the sun above a slipping smile.

Karrigan places the emerald-encrusted crown atop Madeline’s windswept hair.

A whisper: “It’s okay, Daddy.”

A scream rips up the stairs. The one that only a parent losing a child can muster.

Max's fingers stab the final six letters into existence.

The End.

He fumbles his way to the printer. An eternity passes while it tosses out the pages.

“I wrote it down!” Max sobs, tripping down the stairs to Maddy’s bedside, paper still warm in his hands. “I wrote it down for you.”

But she is already gone.