The Reaper and the Moon

“Bringer of Death,” they call me. Wrapped in a cape of black that drags through the mud, darkness shadowing my sullen eyes and grim face. I wield a long scythe that measures time and by night I silence those weary souls and tie the loose ends of eternal judgment. 

Or at least that’s what I hear. 

My back aches once again from my unmoved position on my favorite rock. Every night, I ascend this cliff that just overlooks the ocean and crane my head upward to behold the greatest light I've ever seen. The moon sits in a warm glow, hung probably by God's own fingertips, I’ve theorized. It's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen with my own dead eyes. Night by night I am fully transfixed, mesmerized by this heavenly piece. I guess I'm not very good at my job because when the moon rises, breathtaking as it is, I am chained to this position. I don't remember how I've come to sit upon this rock, but I know once the moon hits the end of the sky my moon-gazing has ended and I must descend to the lower world. I always loathe our parting at the end of the night. If I am not allowed to dream, then my only wish would be to gaze at her forever.

I can't pinpoint why I've become so fond of her. Maybe, I wish to become more like her or maybe she has become my only comfort. I've been in this form so long, unchanging, a walking corpse followed by only the black of night. From time to time, I will admit, this path has been a lonely one. However, she has always been at my back, lighting my way through this eternal darkness. The mortal realm is constantly changing, but she stays the same. She's whole and alive. I only follow her light and when she leaves, I go also. 

Many years ago, I once heard a story from the angel Michael, who swore the moon was actually dead, unliving, simply a piece of dried rock and dust. I couldn't believe it. That beautiful white moon, alive with light during the darkest nights, dead? It made me incredulous. 

Now, Michael I couldn't say was really a friend. I saw him from time to time in purgatory visiting the mortals and carrying off those lucky souls to heaven. Once in a while he'd stop by before I descended to the lower world and we'd have a quick chat. He’d tell me a few new stories, sometimes recounting old ones, never leaving out his great heroic endeavors if the story involved him (which 90% of the time it did). Michael had been telling stories to me for years, all seemingly grand but all fabrications, I assumed. He was always a dramatizer and sometimes these stories just sounded plain ridiculous. 

One story he told one year, full of said ridiculousness, involved the mortals living on the moon and bouncing around in what he could only describe as white fat suits. Though, pompous as he might be and despite the absurdness of his tales, I will admit he always had the best stories. Although, ever since his mortals-on-the-moon story, from then on his credibility quickly declined in my eyes. Nevertheless, there was no way I could ever know whether his stories were true or not. Despite visiting the mortal realm everyday, my knowledge was very limited. I spent most of my time watching the moon, 10% actually carrying souls off and the other time in the lower world attending to duties I rather not bore anyone with describing. 

But, the idea of that glorious moon being dead inside? Was it an illusion? No, not in all the seven hells. It couldn't be. Could she possibly be more like me than I thought? A corpse. This revelation in a way made me excited. Before she was unattainable, a light by my side, she was alive and I was dead. However, according to Michael, she in fact was just as lifeless as I. Maybe we were actually internally the same. This theory would make my strong attachment to her more understandable. But, why did she look as though she teemed with life and light. If she was truly dead, as I was, wouldn't she be a hanging corpse as well?

You could say I was triggered. I confronted Michael one day as I waited for him in purgatory, a seemingly unusual action on my part. My demeanor most of the time looked level-headed and calm. I honestly rarely spoke. However, when I saw Michael descend and I put my scythe around his neck, (a force of habit), you could say he was more than alarmed. When I demanded to know whether his story was accurate or not, he only looked confused. 

“What you told me about the moon being dead, is it true?” I asked urgently.

“Oh that story?” he calmed. “Of course, all my stories are true, Reap.”

I pushed my scythe further up his throat, “How?” 

It was the sun. After I finally lowered my scythe, Michael revealed how the light the moon gave was not its own, but it was actually reflecting the sun's light. He also went on to explain why the moon was not always lit or was only partially lit at times. It all made sense. It had to be the truth. Especially because if not, then Michael was just really good at fabricating a well reasonable story on the spot.

“Is that all? I didn't realize you wouldn’t know this,” Michael looked at me warily. 

“I don't get out much,” I flatly stated. 

I left that day, ascended my cliff as always and collapsed on my rock. The moon was only partially lit that night. As I gazed up at her I thought about this newfound knowledge. 

I had never even seen the sun. I was amazed. Could it be so bright and strong as to find its way to light the moon. I was a creature of night, I was not created to see the sun. I would ascend to the mortal world once night had fallen and would leave before dawn broke. I was told long ago that the sun would be my only downfall if I was touched by its light. I would burn in its light. Fitting for a damned corpse like me. Other than that, I could live eternally by night. This curse was embedded in my bones, I could feel it. The only light that would touch me was by that of the moon, yet, I didn't know it was given its source of life from the sun.

It was from that day that I began to slowly be consumed by a wish that began to burn inside me. The years went by, the same everyday, but I couldn't put it past me. The idea had my head spinning for years. So much so that I begin to envy the moon. She was like me and yet she was alive by the sun. She was nothing but dust on rock. Why didn't the moon become dust in the sky upon the slightest touch of the sun's rays? But, what I really wanted to know was, why couldn't I also come alive by the touch of the sun?

I thought I was satisfied, to a degree; made peace with death, come to terms with this stagnant carcass of a body and this remnant that is a hollow shell. This lifelessness. Content with my moon, satisfied with only entertaining small dreams of maybe becoming light like her one day if I waited long enough. Whatever the case, I found I could no longer sit upon this rock without delving into such absurdities.

What futile dreams of the deceased. Reaper, you are but death, my head rings. You are not even close to half.

-

One day, years later, on my usual visitation and climb to my rock, I found a mortal clothed in rags sitting upon my very rock and staring at the moon. He sat with a wooden staff in his hand, and a sheep cornered his side, eating at the green grass. I stood in silence below the hill, watching silently for a few minutes, angry at this mortal's chosen time and place, yet bewildered by his presence and his peaceful air. 

“Reaper.”

Surely this mortal was not addressing me. The man calmly turned his face toward me. 

“Reaper, what's stopping you, have you come to take my life?” he almost laughs. My scythe rings in approval. “Or have you come to watch the moon with me one last time?” he says. 

Very few mortals have intrigued me, so I lower my scythe as I slowly ascend the cliff. When I reach the man, he asks for me to sit. I lay my death wielder at my feet. The sheep jumps a bit in my presence, it knows death when it sees it. Never have I sat this close to a living mortal, nonetheless had a conversation with one. Michael won't believe this when I tell him.

The mortal resumes staring at my moon and I decide also to look upon her as we sit in silence, his lamb’s chewing the only sound heard. 

“My name is Endo.” He pauses before asking, “Do you have a name?”

I look at his face. The man seems young and his face beams with a youthful light.

“Bringer of Death.”

“Is that what you call yourself?”

I momentarily question this and truthfully state, “I can't remember what my name is.” He nods in understanding, his brunette ringlets swaying in unison.

After a moment, he says, “I've seen you here every night.” I'm taken back by these words and break my gaze from the moon to look at him. “Yea, I've lived at the bottom of this hill for years,” Endo gestures to the small house a little ways down a rocky path behind the cliff, “and every evening I bring in my sheep from the field. But, sometimes before bed when the moon’s just come out, I see you almost every night without fail, climbing this cliff and staring up at the moon. I wanted to finally ask you . . . Why? Are you stuck here?” The mortal looks almost concerned. 

“By no means, mortal. I roam where I please.”

“Then why do you look towards the moon every night?” 

I pause, unfamiliar with baring my secrets to a frail mortal or simply speaking to anyone at all. But, I guess no one has ever asked me. So I answer, “I wish to be like her.”

The man looks as if he’s pondering this and looks back towards the moon. “It is quite beautiful. As many years and days that I’ve lived, I have still never grown tired of looking at her. But, you say you want to be her?” 

A mortal wouldn’t understand, I think. “Touched by the light of the sun,” I reply. 

Endo looks as though he's weighing my words, their meaning. He finally asks, looking me straight in my hollow face, “Do you tire of living in the darkness, Reaper?” I stay silent, because I didn't think he'd get it right. He continues and genuinely asks, “How long have you wanted this life?” 

Life. There's no such fate for me. My curse is my curse. I admit hopelessly, “Forever, mortal.” 

Endo’s face distorts into pity. Why pity a reaper? I think. A bringer of death, one who measures your time. A slave to death. 

“Reaper, you take life, but envy it all the same.”

-

   That night, under the moon, Endo speaks to me for hours. Never does it seem to occur to him that he's talking to a reaper. I don't say much, unless asked. However, Endo tells me all about his small existence, his family, and his sheep-herding work. And I listen because I don't have to wonder if his stories are real, I know they are. 

I continue to listen because when I finally ask him my first question, “Are you afraid of me, mortal?” 

He surprises me and says, “I'm not afraid of death. Life has been enough.” 

When I feel dawn is about to break, I stand to leave grabbing my scythe. 

“Why leave now, reaper, you're just about to see the sun rise. Isn't that what you wanted?” Endo asks.

“Very often desires are aligned with consequences. I cannot see the sun, mortal, I am death.”

“But, what if you could be like the moon? Have you ever seen the sun once?” he asks innocently. I stay silent, once again. Endo looks at me straight on, serious as can be when he softly says, “Reaper, how are you scared of death, when death already binds you.”

I look at the human before me, alive at night, alive in day, and death now standing here beside him. I have lived for centuries and many more I shall go on to live. But I am not living. I am just a reaper. So when I hear Endo say these words I want to prove him wrong; to defy my curse and have my wish come true. 

I look at the moon one last time and wait for dawn to break. I've never seen the sun, but supposedly, Endo says, it's warm. I look at the sheep that has been by its master's side and see its fallen asleep beside him. Suddenly, I see the sky's horizon slowly color orange. Watching this new view I can't help but believe it's the greatest moment of my existence. I don't want to look away and miss any second of this glorious light. So when Endo puts his staff in my bony hands and says quietly to me, “you have the light of the moon.” I don't hear him because the moon has gone and the deep orange sun has just surfaced and I'm here to see it. 

A spark hits my eyes and I smile and turn to Endo to ask if the sun burns his eyes also. However, Endo is gone and only his sheep is left. I realize only then I'm holding something in my hand and raise it up to this newfound light. Endo’s staff is gripped in my flesh-covered hand and slowly something wet stains my face. The sun glows with light and warmth touches my green cliff and rock, and the new being sitting on it. I look at Endo’s sheep and all I can say is, “I have the light of the moon.”