Penance

Is it possible to stop death from claiming a life?

Penance

by

John G. Townsend

I’m telling you this more as a warning than as an account of what got me to where I am now. A way to help you avoid the same fate that I have cursed myself with.

I was twenty when it happened. Twenty years old when I first met him. My cousin was moving to another town; my fiancé and I offered to help.

         The trip was long and arduous as we were moving her, along with her possessions, across the state. It was the middle of summer and that meant we had to contend with the heat and dust the road brings. By the time we arrived at our destination we were exhausted, all we had the strength to do was unload the wagon that carried her meager possessions. Everything else, arranging the furniture, waiting for her to decide what went where, then changing her mind and telling us to put it over there, would have to wait till the next day. For now, it was unload everything and settle in for the night.

My cousin was renting a room from an acquaintance who owned a large, old house that had been converted into a boarding house. The renter was kind enough to provide my fiancé and me with a room of our own at no additional charge. It was in the basement--which is probably the reason it came so cheap. It had no windows and was only accessible by a flight of skinny, wooden, non-to-safe stairs. Its location ensured that it was separated from the rest of the boarding house and the tenets staying there. Simply put, it was the least inviting room in the residence, but the cost was right, so we gratefully accepted.

The room was small, bordering on cozy, with a desk, chair, and bed large enough for two. The lack of windows meant two things: one, there was no cool air circulating through it and two, when the light was out it was pitch black. If you close your eyes, you get an idea of how dark it was.

Once we were settled, we wasted no time putting out the lamp and going to sleep.

It was about midnight when my fiancé woke me. She was talking in her sleep, something she had never done before, or at least something I had never noticed, and even though I was exhausted, my curiosity won out, and I began listening.

She was speaking in a child’s voice. I could tell it was hers, but it was her at an early age. She was happy. She said it was her birthday, and she had just gotten a doll as a present. She had given it a name and was singing a lullaby to it. She said that it was her favorite gift over all the others. It was a happy time for her; I could hear it in her voice.

Without warning her voice changed. She was older, playing with a puppy named Tippy.

Once again, she aged. This time she was climbing a tree against her parents’ wishes. She was high up, higher than she planned to go and was scared, though she would not let anyone know it, especially her older brothers who egged her on. She reached for a branch; it gave out under her weight dropping her to the ground and injuring her arm, cutting it up pretty badly--she had shown me the scar shortly after we met and told me the story about how she got it. It was the same story I was listening to now.

A thought entered my mind, something I heard years earlier, that when a person dies their life passes before their eyes. Everything they did, all that they experienced, from birth to the moment of their death was there for them to see. The thought terrified me. What if it was true? What if you did see your life pass before your eyes at the moment of death? The good times as well as the bad? The smiles and the hard aches? What if that is what was happening to her now?

She was growing up before my ears. Getting older and older as I listened. At this pace she would soon be to the point where we first met, then finally… I didn’t want to think where that might lead, but still I listened.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and she was out riding her horse. She was talking about the new boy she had seen the previous week and how she might be able to instigate an accidental meeting the next time she saw him. I immediately knew who she was talking about, it was me--it was the day we met. I was horseback riding when I came upon her at a stream. She had stopped to let her animal rest to get a drink from the stream and cool down. When she turned her attention to see who was approaching, her horse broke free and left her stranded. I knew it wasn’t my fault--she hadn’t secured the reigns properly, but I still felt somewhat guilty, or maybe I just saw it as an opportunity to get to know her better. Either way’ we shared my mount back to her home where we found her mare patiently waiting to be fed, brushed, and penned up. As she recounted the meeting, she confessed to deliberately leaving the reigns loose so that her horse might escape, leaving me to play the hero. Her confession made me smile.

A feeling came over me. One that reinforced my thought of earlier. If the dream were to end, if she were to catch up to where we were now, if she were to verbalize this moment in time she would die. I had no doubt about it.

I immediately woke her, shaking her until she angrily assured me, she was awake.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, both frightened and annoyed. “What is it?”

“You were talking in your sleep,” I explained, trying to mask my concern. “I…, I couldn’t sleep. You were keeping me awake.”

I wasn’t lying--not really--her stories were keeping me up, but not for the reason I had implied.

“That’s it?” she answered, glaring at me in the dark. I could feel her eyes scolding me and thanked the windowless room for my blindness. In a moment I could hear her voice soften.

“Sorry,” she apologized, snuggling next to me. “Guess that’s something you’ll just have to get used to.” I could hear her smile. “I promise to try and be quieter.”

“Did you ever have a dog growing up?” I innocently asked.

“What?” she replied, surprised at my question.

“Did you ever have a dog growing up?”

“Yes. When I was eight. Her name was Tippy. She was a hound.”

She paused then asked, “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I lied for the second time that night. “Just curious.”

I quizzed her more about the dream, all her answers were identical to what I had just heard. When her curiosity for my sudden inquisitiveness was turning to irritation, I reluctantly let the conversation end. It did not take long before she was back asleep.

I, on the other hand, could not sleep, there was too much on my mind. I lay there thinking about what I had heard. What I believed would have happened if I had not awakened her. That’s when I felt it, a sort of presence, something was in the room with us.

The bed we shared was in the corner which meant it had walls on two sides. I woke her again, this time making an excuse that I was having a tough time sleeping. If we could change places maybe that would help. What I really wanted to do was to put her between me and the wall. Separate her from whatever was out there.

         It was the safest place of which I could think. The safest place for me to protect her without her knowing it. Without having to answer any questions. Answers that would have either terrified her or convinced her that I was insane. She grumbled a bit but gave in knowing that I would not let her sleep unless she relented.

I was not so fortunate, whatever it was that I felt earlier was still in the room. I couldn’t swear there was anything there. I neither saw nor heard anything, but there was a presence, I could sense it, and because of that I had no plans to sleep.

I repositioned myself on the bed, pressing my body tightly against hers. A breeze blew across my arm, forcing all the hair to stand on end and raise the skin beneath them. The room became cold--if there had been any light present, I would swear that I would have been able to see my breath every time I breathed. Whatever was in the room with us had come for Catherine. I knew that, just as I knew it was not pleased with my blocking its path, preventing it from getting to her.

I pressed myself closer, ignoring her grumbled objection about being too crowded, and waited. For what? I had no idea, just as I had no clue what to do if it decided to show itself. All I knew, all I felt, all I cared about, was that if whatever were in the room with us got to her, just like if she had finished her dream, she would be dead.

         I didn’t sleep at all that night, keeping watch in that dark room, listening for the slightest hint of what was there. Waiting for whatever it was to brush against me on its way to my Catherine. But it never happened. It never showed itself.

We stayed a few more days, helping my cousin unbox and arrange everything before

heading home. At first, I was hesitant about staying, but Catherine showed no ill effects from that night and having to explain my reason for wanting to leave so soon to both her and my cousin was not something I was eager to do. The remaining nights were uneventful, so I felt confident with my decision. Whatever it was that had visited us on the first night never returned.

Catherine and I were married later that year and remained so for almost fifty wonderful anniversaries. In those fifty years our visitor from the half century before returned only once. I hope he returns again. And soon.

He came back on the day Catherine died.

It was a car wreck, a wreck that should have taken my life too. I’m not saying that out of guilt, but out of fact. I was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, no possibility of revival. The doctors turned their attention to Catherine and tried desperately to save her. That’s when I felt the presence again, in the emergency room, it had returned. It was the same thing who had visited us all those years earlier. I knew it, just as I now know why it was there. This time I did not stop it from completing its mission.

I didn’t die like the doctors originally thought I had; I survived. They were amazed, not only that I had not died, but also at how quickly I recovered.

Catherine and I never had children, we were not meant to, just like we were never meant to marry or live a long, happy life together. You see I realized that day, the day that she finally died, just who our visitor was. It was death. Death had come that night to claim Catherine and I had stopped it. I had cheated it out of its appointed mission.

That was over one hundred years ago. Over one hundred years since my Catherine died. One hundred years of watching family and friends, acquaintances, and enemies, all die too. Over one hundred years of having to remain alive.

I have seen marvelous things, the invention of the automobile, light in every room that turns on with but the touch of a button and not the strike of a match, people traveling through the air, even walking on the moon. I’ve seen science find cures for diseases that were once incurable. But I have also seen unspeakable horrors. Death and destruction. Two world wars. The discovery of new diseases more incurable and deadlier than the ones that ravaged my day. And through it all, I have gotten older in age and appearance. For you see I cannot die. Death refuses to claim me.

I’ve tried. Poison. Hanging. Slashing my wrists. None of it works. I continue to live even if my body ever so slowly continues to die. Eventually my bones will become too brittle to support my weight, what little weight I have left. You see I stopped eating quite a while ago, there is no longer any reason to.

I live alone now, far from everyone else. At over one hundred and seventy years old I’m not pleasant to look at, and certainly not pleasant to smell. I’m Dorian Gray without his portrait. Gilgamesh without his kingdom. Methuselah without God’s grace. I’m a living example of death's pettiness, death's sense of humor, death's penchant for irony. For preventing death from claiming my Catherine’s life, he gifted me with immortality, but immortality in age alone and nothing else. He promised me life eternal, then cursed me with the body of every man, one that breaks down in time and all because I was a protective lover.

So that’s my story, that’s my curse, my penance for disrupting Death’s visit all those centuries ago. For playing God and keeping my Catherine alive. Death has promised to never visit me again.