Loving Death

Loving Death

by Rune Xavier


The evening autumn breeze swirled colorful leaves around in its wake. Once within my younger years I would have found such a sight thrilling and mesmerizing. Now it was so much more. It’s funny how our lives never turn out like we imagine. We notice the little things we had overlooked in the past. When we’re small we dream of someday becoming astronauts, lifeguards and firemen. Our parents will us to become doctors, lawyers or run the family business. Many of us are also taught religious ways and our beliefs form gradually as we get older. Tales of the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are sometimes implanted in our minds at an early age. With so much information…how are we to know the truth?

I stood on a hillside overlooking the small town that I grew up in. The visit to my mother today had to be quick and to the point. My world was upside-down. The coming events in my life would unfortunately prove to be the most memorable of my entire existence in the small town. I hadn’t exactly lived to the fullest yet. I had never been allowed to do so. I once begged for ballet lessons. My father said that such activities were trivial and useless. The life of Ally Jensen, that’s me, was boring and unimportant.

Today I would tell my mother that I loved her and would leave without telling her that I was going away. My mother had been sick for months. She wouldn’t live much longer. My father had been dead for nearly eleven years. After his death I met an amazing man that promised me the world. I married Keith within months and had been so for ten years to the date. It was our tenth anniversary and our last as well. Keith wasn’t the best husband. I hardly saw him actually. He left before daylight and returned home sometimes well after I had prepared diner. He had only allowed me to work part-time and the subject of children wasn’t open for discussion. I had discovered months ago that he had been seeing someone else for over six months.

I didn’t tell him that I knew he had been with Marie, his assistant. I wanted to walk away quietly and hide to lick my wounds. I had saved enough money to get me by with a modest apartment until I could find a decent job. Tonight would be the last time I would ever speak to my husband. We had made a dinner date to celebrate. He offered to come home early and cook for me. My car was packed and ready to go afterwards. I planned to slip out of house and leave once he was asleep. Once I was settled into the beginning of my new life I would file for a divorce. Divorce, such a final word and also something my father would have detested.

My father was controlling and demanding. At a young age I was forced to attend a school for the gifted. I wasn’t special. Father was determined to mold me into something I wasn’t. I struggled through academics, but came out smelling like a rose somehow. Stress consumed me on a daily basis in order to keep my grades within a level my father would be proud of. He claimed to only want the best for me. My mother tried to help me keep my sanity by letting me sneak away in the evenings before father came home. I would go to the small local park and watch the other children play. I never participated and never made friends with any of them. I was afraid.

Mother was the typical housewife. She had never worked a day in her life and did whatever my father wished her to do. I was their only child. Father made sure of that. I remember him always saying that structure and balance was a necessity to being happy. I’m more than certain that if it would’ve been totally up to him…it would have been a childless marriage. His own father had demanded a grandchild to carry on his name. When I was born, the man was sorely disappointed. After my grandfather died, my father said there would be no more children.

**********

I watched the traffic go in different directions as I stood across the street from our modest suburban home. Through the window of the dining room I watched my husband check his watch in intervals…waiting for me. He had offered to make me dinner which was rare. He would be so pissed that he created a meal and I was late. I reached for my cell phone and called him. I told him that I was down the street and my car had broken down. He offered to come and help and I told him to stay put. I had called someone to tow the car to the local garage and that I would simply walk home. The reason for the lie? I planned to leave the second my husband was asleep. I parked my car in a church parking lot only two blocks away. With the car already packed…all I had to do was leave.

I arrived home an hour late and dinner was already cold. He made the effort to warm our food in the microwave and I sat quietly at the dining table and waited. The table was adorned with jasmine scented candles and beautiful white roses that he said he had picked up for the occasion. My husband returned from the kitchen and sat the food on the table. We shared small talk throughout the meal and I helped him clear the table afterwards. He then informed me that it was much later than he realized and mentioned that he needed sleep if he was to get up on time in the morning. I thanked him for dinner and kissed him on the cheek.

I glanced around the house to see if I wanted to take anything else with me. I couldn’t see a single thing that I wanted to be involved with my new life. I walked into the dining room and took one of the long stem white roses from the vase and took in its scent. I felt dizzy and nearly stumbled back. I reached for one of the dining chairs and eased myself into it. My chest was tight and I was struggling to breath. I tried to inhale deeply and slowly but it wasn’t working. I thought I might be having some sort of anxiety attack. The past few months had been stressful trying to figure out what to do.

I decided that maybe fresh air would help. I rose from my chair and tried to walk to the back door. Much to my surprise, it was impossible to walk. I sunk to my knees in the kitchen and fell forward on my hands to brace myself from hitting the floor. On all fours I crawled to the door and reached up to open it. I hit our partially covered back deck with a loud thud and rolled onto my stomach. I lifted my head and grabbed for a heavily padded lounger to try and pull myself up. Finally managing to pull up and drape myself over the lounger face first, I waited and tried the best I could to breathe.

**********

I felt a cold hand wrap around my left shoulder and I raised my head up to see a large dark figure crouching in front of me. I tried to focus to see their face but realized that their face was hidden by some sort of hood. I nearly panicked. I knew who he was and knew why he was there. Some myths do exist no matter what you’re taught growing up. I could feel his stare on me as I opened my mouth to speak.

“I don’t understand why you’re here.”

“You’re dying Ally.” His soft, deep, velvet voice wrapped around me in waves of surprising comfort.

“Dying? Because I can’t breathe?”

“No. Your husband poisoned you.”

I lowered my head and buried my face into the cushiony pillow on the lounger. How could I have been so foolish? There wasn’t going to be a “new” life. Instead there would be only death. There were so many things I had wanted to do. So many experiences I had yet to discover. There it was. I was dying. I rolled my face to one side and tears rolled out of my eyes uncontrollably.

“Would you rather me take you peacefully Ally? There would be no more suffering.”

His voice came as a whisper and I realized he was lurking over me. Such a powerful presence, yet I wasn’t afraid of him. Although the coldness appeared to surround me, it wasn’t distressing. I looked up into the darkness of his cowl searching for his eyes, his face…anything that would prove to me that he wasn’t what he seemed. I saw nothing. He lifted his large hand and gently stroked my cheek wiping tears away. He brushed his thumb along my bottom lip and I nearly gasp in spite of my breathing difficulties. My body started to tremble. I couldn’t be certain if it was from fear or surprise at that moment.

“Yes. Take me now. I don’t want to be reminded of my failures.”

“You had so much ahead of you. Such a shame.” He reached out with both hands and lifted my face further up to meet him and paused just short of inches from him. I could actually feel his breath on my skin, but I still couldn’t see him in the depths of his darkened hood.

“Only I can save you. Do you wish to live Ally?” I didn’t even hesitate to answer his question.

“Yes. I wanted to bathe in sunlight and have babies and take a pottery class and to do all the things I’ve never done, but always wanted to do. A life I wasn’t living to satisfy anyone else but me.” The words came out choppy and raspy. If he didn’t save me soon there would be no turning back.

“It comes with a price Ally. What do have to offer me?” My mouth fell open. I sadly had nothing. I had nothing to offer up for my life in return. I began to cry again. The only thing I could offer was…

“Me. You can have me.”

“You? Why do you offer yourself Ally?”

“I would be at your beckon call when you needed me. For as long as you would have me. I have nothing else to offer.”

He sat in silence touching my face and no doubt studying my face for signs of truth in my words. He started then paused then proceeded to wrap his arms around my limp lifeless body and held me anchored against him. Face to face, he leaned forward and I closed my eyes. If he was the hideous skeleton I had seen in pictures…I didn’t want to see. I felt his lips glide over mine and his body warmed well beyond the coldness I once had felt.

“Ally. If you do this there is no way out. You would belong to me. I will allow you to live as you wish, but you will lay with no other. Only me. Do you understand?” The words were stern and truthful. I believed that he would take my life if I disobeyed his wishes.

“I understand. Will you have me?”

“I’ve never received an offer such as this. You must sense my surprise.”

I simply nodded and his lips enveloped mine with a forceful bruising kiss. His lips were as soft as silk as they pressed to mine harder and then parted to slide his tongue lightly across my bottom lip. I felt as if he would consume me, devour me. My heart raced and my body tensed. My head swam in a sort of disillusion for mere seconds. Our lips separated as he leaned back.

“Now you’re mine.”

**********

I sat quietly looking at him and then noticed my breathing was back to normal, my chest no longer hurt and I could actually hold myself up. The reaper lifted his hands to the hood of his cowl and slowly pulled it toward the back of his head. Inch by slow inch he revealed himself to me. The man’s long jet black straight hair appeared to cast the reflection of the moonlight. His skin was pale and taught across his exotically featured face. His youth wasn’t so far from my own, or so he looked. I was astonished by his beauty. My breath caught as I tried to speak but no words came out. His dark nearly black eyes gazed at me in fascination as his expression changed at my reaction. Those delicate lips slightly curved into a smile as he leaned back in close to my face, but not an uncomfortable distance. I didn’t dare move away from him though, at that moment…I didn’t want to. This man, if he could be called that, was Death itself. What had I done? I might as well have been striking a contract with the devil. I didn’t care. He had let me live and I would repay him by doing whatever he ask of me whenever he wanted.

“You need not fear me Ally. I will never harm you. I know humans fear me, but I am only doing what I was put here to do. My duty. Collect the dead and usher them to their next destination. I am merely a psychopomp. You were a surprise. When I felt you fading, I wasn’t positive I would reach you in time. Now I’m glad I did.”

“I never really believed you existed. I heard simple tales and stories during my life about the Grim Reaper…I just didn’t give it much thought. Death hadn’t crossed my mind. If you’re not human, what are you?

“I was once thought of as a god. Some believed my worked to be ominous and dreadful. Others began to fear me as if I would come for them at any time. I have been known by many titles over many thousands of years. So many…believed that I was…evil.” His voice faded simultaneously with his smile.

“How can someone so forgiving be evil? You just spared my life. That is not evil.”

“I did force you to bargain for your life Ally.” His mouth twisted in concern as he waited for my reply.

“Small price to pay. Somewhere between the thoughts of not existing and spending my life in some other way than the torture I had already endured…I chose to live.” I lowered my head hoping that my words hadn’t failed me and that he would be angry with my response.

“You do realize, however, that you are now bound to me for eternity. You will never die Ally. I’ve waited since before the birth of Christ to find someone willing to share the space by my side.” I gasp with astoundment jerking in my head up to meet his gaze.

“I’m…immortal?”

“You are. Perhaps destined to stand along-side me Ally. You are my wife…so to speak.”

“I failed at that task the first time around.” My head dropped and I felt tears sting my eyes as I recalled the painful last six months of my life.

“I’ll say it again. I will never harm you. You needn’t worry of such things anymore.”

I felt his hands softly move up both sides of my face and his breath again on my lips. His gentleness caressed me as I moved forward to initiate the kiss this time. He held my face, my life in his hands. I was his. For eternity. I slowly pulled my lips away from him leaning my forehead against his.

“What do I call you?” I whispered into his mouth as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself closer against him.

“Thanatos. My name is Thanatos.” He whispered in return as he slid his hands away from my face slowly trailing his long slender fingers down my sides and wrapping them around my waist.

The night unfolded into passion by nothing more than the light of the moon on what use to be my back deck…my favorite lounger. This dark beautiful man had twisted my perceptions and enlightened me with a simple touch. A wanted touch. I was now in the arms of the man I would spend eternity with and I wasn’t disappointed about that. Love can be found anywhere. After feeling Thanatos’ touch I knew for certain that I had never felt love so complete. Keith could never compare.

**********

Morning approached and my entire night had slipped away. Thanatos whispered his affections and promised to see me soon. He disappeared right before my eyes. He had wrapped me in his cowl in attempt to protect me from the morning that chill that I couldn’t feel. I humored him by accepting the shroud with a genuine smile for his care. I took a deep breath and rose to my feet. The world looked different now, so much wonder around me on a lovely fall morn. I opened the back door and walked into the house. Keith rushed down the stairs at the sound of my entering. He stood in disbelief and asked me where I had been. I offered my most deceitful smile.

“I’ve been with another man Keith. I know what you tried to do. I am leaving just as you wanted me to, but I am leaving alive.” I let the cowl drop and caught it with my left hand, completely nude underneath, and lifted it back up to pull it over my head. “Have a nice life with Marie. You’re her problem now.” I lifted my hood and exited through the back door.

I walked two blocks to my car with a delightful smile on my face. I knew I would drive till I wanted and then stop to find a place to stay. I didn’t care where or how long it took. I only knew that I was elated to be alive. I could finally do what I wanted and I would be loved. Truly loved.