Leaves

The summer leaves were a barrage of green armour shielding the earth from the rising sun. They danced freely along the tree top as wind and foliage caressed one another in silent comfort. For as Death neared, one by one, the leaves broke formation and shrivelled as they joined their fallen brothers on the forest floor. 

Twigs snapped and leaves crunched beneath his feet with every step he took towards the old, unstable balcony where Life and Death met. It was a bridge between worlds. It was the birth of conversation between two neighbouring rivals - a song of past, present and future battles, of domination and rule. Lowering himself down onto an old, rusted chair, Death waited, overlooking the yard with the now leafless tree. 

A woman draped in a long black gown embellished with silver-laced floral appeared on the adjacent balcony as new leaves were birthed where the dead ones had once resided. Her pitch black hair was of stark contrast to the pure white of her neighbour's. It blew gently in the cool breeze as she stood by the railing, her fists clenched and her knuckles white as she met his gaze. Death offered her a small smile of which she did not return. For enemies did not smile at one another, after all. 

“It’s quiet,” Death spoke up in a voice so soft it was almost drowned out by the wind. 

“Yes,” Life responded coldly. Not another word was needed to indicate her displeasure with his observation - the tight press of her lips was enough. 

Death’s mouth quirked up at the side, a cutting smile spreading across his handsome, pale features. “May I ask why you called this meeting, Vita?” He shifted in his seat and casually crossed one leg over the other with his hands moulded together on his lap. “I assume you intend to discuss something of importance rather than to simply enjoy my company on this beautiful day.”

Her silver-lined eyes darkened. “You murdered thousands of innocent people yesterday,” she told him quietly. There was a dangerous edge to her voice, like a blade gliding across metal. “We have an agreement. Such a large number...it’s incomprehensible. I had only just breathed life into those infants when you-”

“It was not I who killed them,” Death interrupted calmly, “it was you, my dear Vita. I did not breathe life into those men and women who designed guns, who built bombs, who barricaded the entrances and performed an act that not even I could orchestrate. It was you.”

“My world-”

“Will fail,” Death finished for her. “No matter how hard you try, what changes you make, what laws you enforce - your creations will always find their way back to me.” He slowly climbed to his feet and approached the railing of his own balcony, his green orbs scanning the new leaves spreading along the branches. “And you know what I find ironic in all of this, Vita?” he decided to go on. “Your creations fear me. They fear me their whole lives. From the minute they take their first breath, right up until the moment they meet me. I am the one there for them in their final moments, wiping away their tears and holding their hands. You...you only give them pain, destruction and loss. All you have done is build up their hope only to crush it right before their end. I, at least, have always been upfront about my role.”

“What is your point?” Life demanded.

“My point,” the male sighed, his gaze softening, “is that without me, your world will fail, my love. Everything you breathe life into will eventually come to me no matter how hard you try to cage them in this world.” His head tilted to the side. “Why fight me in this endless battle? We can both contribute to life.” He reached for a fallen, blackened leaf and raised it in between their faces. “You and I both know that if this leaf had not died, the young ones that you created could not prosper. Without the deaths of those innocents, society will never change. We can work together to make this world better, doesn’t that sound pleasant?”

Life averted her gaze, lips pursed together as she stared at the quiet, abandoned streets below, remembering how it was only yesterday when the streets were filled with lively faces excusing themselves through the crowd. “No,” was her only response.

Death’s gaze darkened. “You would sacrifice this world and a potential paradise just...just to remain my enemy?” he asked her. “Are you really that stubborn?”

“You will not make the world a better place!” Life snapped, turning her back to him. “You will only continue to take and take and never give. You are a monster. A heartless, vengeful monster! You may fool your victims at the very end of their lives but you do not, and never will, fool me!”

A low, humourless chuckle escaped the man’s throat at those words. “You and I...we’re the same.”

The words that rolled off of his tongue sent cold shivers down the female’s spine, wrenching her feet and forcing her to face him. 

“The day you were born,” Death explained in a gentle whisper, his voice carrying towards her through the wind, “I opened my eyes for the first time. I watched you breathe life into your creations and I, more than anything, wanted to do the same. But everything I touched or so much as looked at - it ceased to exist. So I locked myself away and hid. For thousands of years. I stayed away. And do you remember what happened, Vita?”

Life met his gaze and nodded. She remembered. “My world failed.”

“Until I returned,” Death went on. “And we created the world that exists today. You and I. Together. Without you, I cannot prosper and without me, you cannot sustain life. So please, Vita, embrace me in your arms again. We don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Silence hung between the two neighbours who stood on their respective balconies, their eyes on one another as their hearts beat as one. It was true, they realised, neither one of them could truly exist without the other. There was a reason for their coexistence. A reason, they knew, which was much greater than themselves. They were more than just two neighbours, standing on their balconies discussing the fate of their world. They were one.

The fallen, discoloured leaves rustled in the wind and slowly began to rise up off the ground. Their quiet, steady rustle broke the silence; a steady rhythm beating like a heart. Death watched the scattered foliage unite like brothers in arms, circling the two ancient beings as the chilled breeze caressed their skin, inviting goosebumps to form on their pale flesh. The gathered leaves lifted them up from their balconies and into the air above the yard. Their eyes locked - silver on green - as Life and Death intertwined with the lamented foliage. 

Their bodies merged together into one single form - a form so powerful no one, not even each other, could comprehend the enormity of what was happening to them. Their physical bodies, the ones they’d worn for thousands of years, no longer existed. They were nothing and everything all at once.

What are we? Life asked Death.

“We are God,” Death replied.