Paradise Lost

CW: Light profanity, descriptions of a car crash, and themes of death (very literally) 

Contrary to popular belief, being Death isn’t rocket science; a mortal reaches their time, you collect their soul, figure out where they’re supposed to go, and move on. They cry, scream, curse you out, but it dissolves into white noise over the millennia. You’re not all too special when you’re dead; you’re just another corpse in an overpriced box.

“Cristelle Tren, 26, dead via a car wreck on the Garden State Parkway.” I mutter the name off my endless list— another car wreck. Can’t these mortals drive?

The parkway is a carnival, as is common with crashes. The blinding blue and red lights paint the parkway and all surrounding vehicles. The police have already ceased their deafening sirens and are filling the void with indistinct mumbling and the crackling of old radios. Though their vehicles are attempting to create a barrier between bystanders and the crash, I slip past without incident. Ahead of me sits the ruined remains of a black SUV. In the warped fencing lining the parkway, shards of material are caught like flies in a spider’s web. Glass glitters around the street, likely having sprayed out in the crash. Soft tendrils of smoke lift and dissipate in and around the car— the remains of a fire —and a few, small, mangled, multicolored toys color the dark, bloody road. My boot crunches down on one of them as I step toward the sharp, grating zipping of a body bag.

I glide past the cops and EMTs to stand by the unmistakable black bag. Shiny blood surrounds the bag and douses an old white cloth laying nearby. As I crouch down to open the bag, the void of old radios and indistinct mumbling is broken up by muffled shouting. The bag shakes lightly, the zipper jingling like a keychain, yet nobody turns their curious gaze to it. They don’t hear it. They never have. They never will.

With a flicker of magic, the zipper slides open to the center to reveal the body and spirit of Cristelle Tren, whose death will only make headlines because it was a car wreck on the parkway.

Cristelle tumbles out of the bag’s opening. In summer clothes, her arms and legs are exposed; her lavender skirt is in shreds at the ends and her cropped, once-white tank top is shades of red and brown. Unlike her double in the bag, her injuries don’t bleed and will not cause any real pain. Her strawberry blonde hair is a wreck with chunks torn out from the top and the ends charred black. Her misshapen nails claw at the pavement as she coughs and sputters and chokes on the humid July air. 

“Hey! Over here!” She cries and I sigh; every mortal needs it explained to them.

“They can’t hear you,” I call out of habit.

Cristelle whips her head around to face me. What remains of her hair frames the dark, almost black eyes set into her small, light face. Her eyes scan from the tips of my hair to the ends of my suit, tracing back up to my face before stopping.

“Who are you?” She demands.

“Death,” I reply coolly. “You were killed in a car wreck. The car in front of you used to belong to you. I bet you it’ll be totaled,” I add with a half-hearted hand gesture to the destroyed car. 

Cristelle studies me for a moment longer before turning her attention to the cops’ controlled chaos. She surveys the wrecked car for some moments, as if trying to remind herself if it was, indeed, her car. Her gaze drops to the brightly colored shards ground into the pavement and splattered with blood. She reaches a shaking hand to them, making to scoop them up. They pass through her bloodied palm. It takes her a few more tries for it to finally click, albeit quicker than most souls.

“Oh,” she breathes and her dark eyes well with tears. She’s silent. I bet she’ll be screaming soon.

“Look, be mad at me all you want, but I wasn’t the one who—” 

“You’re just like I imagined you.”

“…what?”

Cristelle’s voice cuts off my usual spiel and seems to drown out the surrounding chaos.

“I always saw you in a suit,” she explains, “though just about everyone else I knew saw you in the hooded cloak.”

For the first time in millennia, I am at a complete loss for words. She doesn’t scream, curse, or even demand answers from me, and to say she imagined me differently than the modern theories…

“Never heard that one before,” I mutter in an odd voice. 

“You hear the opposite, right?” Cristelle asks, her dark, void-like eyes fixing on mine. 

“Usually,” I nod. 

A sharp pulsation of magic draws my attention to my back pocket and to that Gods-forsaken list. Fifteen new souls join the lineup. I breathe a heavy sigh and offer my hand to Cristelle.

“Let’s get you where you belong.” My voice regains its steady, authoritative tone.

Cristelle picks herself up from the ground and takes my hand— hers is warm. The temperature of one’s hand after their death alludes to what they were like when they were alive and what they will be like in the afterlife.

——

She won’t escape my mind. 

Every new soul brings a disappointment I haven’t felt for millennia. Each curse and insult, all of which I’ve heard before, sparks a strange sort of anger.

“I thought you had a black cloak!”

“I thought you had some curvy knife!”

It’s a scythe, first of all, and second, of course you fucking think so. 

Between every interaction, I long for Cristelle, for the warmth of her hands and the simple knowledge that she understands the concept of dying. I need her eyes. 

Need? I don’t need jackshit! Why do I need something now?!

The image of her is exhilarating yet a source of relentless torment.

I had paradise in loneliness, a paradise now in shambles.

——

“Is that a scythe on your lapel?” Cristelle taps the silver piece on my suit with her finger. There’s amusement in her voice.

“Yes,” I sigh, flicking its side, “but it’s just for shits and giggles.” 

The old, fire-hazard of a street light flickers above us, its glow forming a gold dome around us and casting shadows from the close, quiet trees. The light passes through Cristelle as if she’s stained glass and brings new vibrancy to her already bright, whimsical features. Her eyes, once nearly black, are an abstract painting of colorful flecks in more colors than I can name. 

“How has the afterlife been treating you?” I force myself to ask— the conversation is the only thing keeping me from getting completely lost in her gaze.

“It’s been nice,” Cristelle shrugs, “albeit a little boring. I mean, it’s not like I was expecting a carnival or anything, but a little excitement would be nice from time to time, you know?” 

Her smile is intoxicating. The corners of my mouth pull upwards on their own and, for once, the muscles aren’t painful.

“Oh yes, I know. The many Gods above, as fantastic as they are, see death as the end of everything, but it’s just the end of mortal life! There’s no reason for it to be completely asinine,” I say.

Cristelle nods, but her smile falters and the brightness fades from her eyes. 

“The end of mortal life,” she echoes. “Isn’t it supposed to be painless?”

“Usually.”

“Then why does it hurt so much?”

The leaves on the trees shiver with a breeze as a quiet settles between us— another new question, one for which I have no response. My lips are let go from their smile and fall silently back down. 

“I was off to a party, you know,” Cristelle begins in a voice devoid of her prior amusement. “A good friend of mine had just been accepted to her dream job and she was throwing a huge party to celebrate. I left a few minutes later than I wanted to even though I knew I would hit traffic— I didn’t want to be late. It’s not your fault I wasn’t being careful,” she adds earnestly. “Ever heard the saying ‘don’t shoot the messenger?’”

I nod my head. “Several times,” I answer. 

Cristelle’s eyes glitter with brewing tears and it’s as if a knife is tearing through my chest. Souls cry all the time. Why is this different?

“I wish I made a better choice,” she laments in a soft, shaky voice. “Maybe I could have been there with her.” 

Where would I be without you? I choke back the question. It’s selfish. When have I ever cared about a mortal soul?

“I’ll see what I can do.” The words escape my mouth before I can reel them back. 

For a moment, the ghost of a smile returns to Cristelle’s face. “That’s very kind of you, but don’t kill yourself. No pun intended,” she adds. “By no fault of your own, it is what it is.” 

I get as far as opening my mouth to reply when my back pocket vibrates. There’s no need for me to even spare a glance at it.

“Go ahead back,” I instruct Cristelle. “I have another matter to attend to.”

——

“What the fuck is going on with you this week?” Life greets me as I walk up to our meeting place just outside the Gods’ watch. “You’re practically neglecting your duties as Death! You’re late to collect souls, if you collect them at all, and you’re never anywhere I need you to be. You will throw this world into utter chaos if you don’t do your job properly, you know!”

“I’m aware,” I mutter, pulling my head back to properly see Life’s stern face.

“Then why are you acting like you don’t care?” She demands. 

“I do care,” I reply defensively, “Things are just…different.”

“Different how?”

I breathe a heavy sigh. 

“There’s a soul I collected recently, Cristelle Tren— she died in a car wreck—and usually I don’t get close to souls, but she’s different. She understands the concept of death. She doesn’t pin all of the blame on me for her death and she’s incredibly sweet. She has these eyes that look colorless yet are brighter than the stars and her voice! It’s like honey! Her hands are warm—do you know how many souls’ hands are warm?!— and she genuinely cares about her life and the afterlife and—!”

I falter at Life’s perplexed face. 

“…and?” She prompts. 

“She cares about me,” I whisper, my heart fluttering with the thought alone. “That’s the difference.”

Life is silent. I can’t bring myself to say anything more.

“You’ve never cared about anyone,” she finally mutters. 

“I thought I would never have to. Life?”

“What now?”

“She doesn’t deserve to be here. Can you…return her to her life?”

“You want me to do what?” Life exclaims. “Death, you should know better than anyone that for you to take a soul, you need to offer a sacrifice of the same magnitude.”

“Will surrendering my position and immortality be enough?”

Life falls to silence yet again. 

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” She questions, fixing her hard gaze on me. 

Are you sure this is what you want? I ask myself the same question. You don’t know a life outside of being Death, away from insults and constantly being ignored. But for her?

“Anything for her.”

——

A fortnight later, under the same golden streetlight, we cast shadows onto the pavement. The breeze rustling the trees is cool and dry, breaking up the night’s sticky warmth. Cristelle’s eyes are overflowing with tears again, but her smile is brighter than ever and her arms are tight about my shoulders.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her voice a tad wobbly. 

“I told you I would see what I could do, did I not?” I reply. My face hurts from smiling for so long. 

After some time, Cristelle breaks the hug, tears staining her face and transforming her beautiful eyes into a wondrous kaleidoscope. 

“Why would you do this?” She questions, “Why give up the only life you’ve ever known for one soul?”

For millennia, my semblance of paradise was loneliness. It was fulfilling my duties and blocking out a world that detested all it did not care to understand. Paradise was in not getting close and not getting hurt, yet a car wreck on the parkway sent it shattering like glass. In losing that false paradise, I was gifted something better: a real one, one full of light and love far away from several millennia of torment and anguish, 

Taking Cristelle’s warm hands in mine, I give a simple answer: “You’re my paradise.”