06 Devouring Death

I'm having a great day at the beach with my girlfriend. The day is amazing, absolutely perfect and I have the perfect one at my side to share it with. The blue sky, the golden wave-washed sands, a green hillside behind us and everywhere in all directions the cries of hungry seabirds and laughter of delighted children. Walking quietly beside me, wearing a towel for a skirt and nothing more, she fits right in for she is all those colors and all those sounds, in one petite package of sexual dynamite.

She took off all her clothes a moment ago, explaining nothing. I was thinking at the time, oh goody sex in public, but she showed no interest, just indicated we should walk. As I was being distracted by her naked body she pulled a towel off a railing where someone had draped it and wrapped it around her hips.

Nobody noticed any of it. Apart from myself, and as we'd walked I had become concerned at her changed nature. How she's usually not like that.

Usually, she's just death.

---

There is something wrong. I noticed it earlier and asked her about it, but either she could not explain with words or else she didn't care to. I'm okay with the latter, death can do whatever she has to do, I'm just along for some kind of ride.

And man, what a ride it's been.

I'm paying no particular attention when she stops us in the path. Death turns and faces the sea. The sea-scented wind blows her hair across her face in strands, which she ignores, her eyes locked on the distant horizon like a widow searching for signs of her husband's ship returning from a long-ago voyage.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.

"It is coming," she says. Then she turns to me and her mouth opens as if she would say something more, but then she stops and bites her lip.

Death, being indecisive on my behalf. I am charmed and terrified in equal parts.

"It's okay," I say taking her gently by the shoulders. "Do what you must. I love you."

I've told her many times how I love her, in the casual flirty way that new lovers do. I had a wonderful day today I love you. You are so smart and funny I really love you. The sex last night was great I love you.

Death I love you and I am not afraid.

She smiles, maybe a little sadly. "I like it when you say that."

"I mean it."

Me, being gallant. She is deeply disturbed by something and I want to support her but I don't know how except that I can tell her I love her, in the vain hope the love of a mortal means anything at all.

"I feel you do," she says. "I don't quite understand it, but I like it and I want you to know that it matters a lot to me that you do."

I am delighted. Everything will be fine.

Death turns out from under my hands and walks down the path alone, looking a little bit withdrawn and sad.

Something is badly wrong for certain.

"Run," she says without inflection.

What? Run why? Is she worried she will suddenly kill her lover? I'm not afraid of death, she can kill me at her whim. I'm about to clear the air on that very point when I hear a sound.

A hiss, or a wet roar. A sliding, churning, swirling of water. Under the cries of the seabirds and the happy shouting of children, some other sound intrudes.

It is a sound from the sea. I pull my attention away from death, still walking slowly away, and my eyes turn instead out onto the water.

The water is pulling back from the shore. Has it ever done that before? Why would it do that? I can see others on the shore looking out at the water, pointing and wondering aloud. Some children take off after it only to slip and fall into the slick mud, tripping over slimy sea creatures. The latter spurt water into the air in alarm, or in the case of fish are flopping around in the rivulets of sea water, seeming as surprised as the humans. It's all wonderous and amazing.

And then suddenly no, it's not.

"Tsunami!" I shout at the top of my lungs. "A wave is coming! Get away from the shore! Get away!"

Nobody moves. Probably nobody heard me but even if they did, they are too mesmerized by the strange behavior of the water. Some are standing up slowly and squinting against the sun, looking out to sea. A few nervous mothers call to their children to come in but the children ignore them. So they pick up their babies, pick up a towel. Some start to walk up the beach in a slow way as if the day had ended and they were going to the car in an orderly way, nothing wrong.

I'm running down to the water. I don't even know why I'm doing it, this is crazy.

"Get away from here! Get to high ground!"

The children nearby look my direction.

"There is a wave coming!" I call toward them. "Run up the beach! Run to high ground!"

Amazingly, they do. It's muddy and slippery, many fall down but they run just because I said so. An older boy runs past me as quick as a cat. Others struggle. I run and grab some by the hand to pull them along.

Further up the beach, panic sets in. Parents calling for their children, the children crying for fear just because the adults are afraid.

But it's no use, death has come for all of them.

I know it in the pit of my stomach. It's why we came here, it's why death was unsettled and remote. I thought it was me, I thought all kinds of stupid things, but all that was wrong. What was the truth was that we were here together because she needed to be here.

That's what she said. She said some things are so bad, some killings so horrible, she needs to witness them herself. The part of her that feels -- that knows, that understands -- that part needs to be present.

The part of her that is, I suddenly realize, still human.

Everyone is screaming, children are frozen in place in terror, lost toddlers crying, mothers are hysterical running for their babes just out of reach. A mass of people is moving slowly up the beach. So slowly, as if the sand were clutching at them holding them back. Way too slowly.

They are not going to make it.

They are going to die.

I look up and see her on the path at the top of the beach, exactly where I left her when I ran down onto the exposed mudflat. Death is standing naked, her arms reaching up and forward, fingers extended, her hair lifted over her head as if on a wind. Death is shouting into the gathering storm, into the coming wave, calling words I cannot understand. Loud and echoing, an incantation bringing ruin and murder or something even more terrible than murder.

Then I see it, in her hands, as if it appeared from the air. Held over her head, in both hands a large -- what did she call it -- scythe. A slim wood handle and a curved metal blade reflecting the sky and sun soon to be obliterated. She's holding it against the coming wave and shouting her spell into the wind. Bringing it to her, or sending it away, or filling it with even more murder than just water would have.

So much power, so much horror. And I realize there is no way she is just killing. This is not an accident on the beach. Death is rampant, and she bis summoning annihilation.

I tear my eyes away from her just in time to turn and see the wave mounting into the sky, towering darkly over the mud and the flopping fish and the people who are all going to die. The sound of the water is furious. The wind is roaring ashore ahead of it. It is also translucent against the sky and I can see, in the water itself, there are people. Hundreds of them, maybe a thousand. Not struggling on the surface of the mounting water, but deeply part of it. Below the green surface, backlit by the sun, looking like kelp fronds caught up in the tow.

Drowned people, people already dead. People long dead and by the hundreds coming for death or because of death, or coming even as she tries to send them away, I have no idea what is happening. But they are here in this wave to destroy the living, to add the newly dead to the inventory of the sea.

Everyone has stopped and turned like me to see this terrible sight, unable to divert their minds away from the thing that will in a split instant more devour them whole.

So this is death, raw and unvarnished. Her world. This is what she is when she is not otherwise being pretty and smart and wise and kind and sexy. When she's really killing -- killing with purpose and on an industrial scale -- this is what she is like.

I don't have time to think anything else about it. This is what she really is 100 times a minute on a slow day and it looks like even the already dead will come to the party.

And you know what, I don't think I'm going to survive this party.

The wave takes me along with the others and there is only chaos and fear when it does.

My last thought in this world. Everyone has a last thought, right? You dig up some regret about unfinished business or something. I don't have any business finished or otherwise, but as I'm being killed by her I realize I was just playing around with death, not really understanding her. I had said I loved her, many times said it, but I'd never really thought about what it was I was loving or why. I regret not having looked deeper than the exterior, that I didn't say more than words of love.

Seriously, what do I know about loving a goddess?

Nothing is what.

The obligatory self-flagellation completed I am dead almost instantly.

Damn it I should have been with her.

05 Everywhere Death

I’m walking with my girlfriend near the beach. We’re holding hands and talking, enjoying the sights and making plans for the evening. A sea of people parts around us without seeing us and we pass through them, invisible. It’s just as well they give us a wide berth; one touch from this girl will kill you.

Cute as a button, smart and funny. A bit morbid at times. Casually lethal.

She’s death.

----- 

I’ve been thinking.

Yeah yeah bad idea. Whatever.

“You kill one-hundred people a minute. Right?” I ask her.

“About that.”

“And there’s other animals that need to die.”

“Yes.”

“All over the world.”

“Yes and you are wondering how I manage it.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Weak sauce. She reaches up and pinches my cheek for it.

Note to self: Death is ruthless.

“I’m not here,” she says. “At least not all of me. It’s hard to explain in words. Most of me is away. I can’t even say at any moment what all is being done in my name.”

“But the part of you that is here now —” I begin, not quite forming a question.

“— Is the part that thinks,” she finishes for me. “There is just this one of me who actually knows even though all parts of me are the same. I wish I could explain it clearly.” She pauses a moment then continues. “Imagine that most killing is mindless work. It is not, but just say it is. Then imagine that some killings require acknowledgement — a witness of sorts— and then this part of me must be there for there is only the one who knows.”

I’m about to ask what kind of killings those would be when I decide not to go there.

We walk on a ways and she says, “In fact I must be somewhere else just now. I shouldn’t be long, but you never know. Will you wait for me?”

What kind of question is that?

“Sure.”

It’s a beautiful day. People are walking around in couples or alone, others are strewn across the sand on blankets. Children running.

I feel like I was just talking to someone. It was a girl but I didn’t get her name. She was really nice. Or maybe creepy. Though creepy can be nice too if packaged well.

This girl had the best packaging ever. I turn and look around wondering where she’s gone. Then I remember.

It was death.

My chin drops to my chest and I rub at my eyes with a hand. I’d nearly forgotten her. Death had been away five seconds and I’d forgotten.

I wonder if this is going to happen very often.

Looking around I notice a bench. There is an old woman sitting on one end feeding bread crumbs to a mob of pigeons that has collected around her feet. I walk over and sit down. She looks to be 90 and is very thin with wispy white hair pinned up under a small straw hat.

“Nice day,” I offer.

She doesn’t notice me. Maybe she’s deaf.

I people-watch, feeling invisible and wondering suddenly if in fact I am.

Death sits down next to me on the far end of the bench and gathers up my arm in hers.

“Miss me much?” she asks. She had been gone less than three minutes.

“I was heartbroken,” I lie artfully. “Don’t ever do that again.”

She beams up at me radiantly. What a beauty.

The lady down the bench is now looking over at us.

Death looks up at me quizzically, then leans over and peers around me at the woman and politely asks her, “Is it time?”

The old woman appears momentarily confused. But then she sits back and considers the question before smiling softly and saying in a tired but steady voice, “Yes child, I feel it is time.”

Death as a child. Sure, why not.

Death releases my arm and gets up from the bench. She walks around to kneel before the old woman, who looks on death with serene acceptance. Death then rises up slowly and without touching the woman in any other way, kisses her on the cheek.

The old body slumps into itself as the scaffolding of a long life leaves it behind. Death catches the dead woman’s body easily then turns in place and lays it down beside the bench among the pigeons and bread crumbs, cradling the wizened old head in one hand until it rests on the ground.

Death is beautiful. I had no idea.

Death straightens and steps around the corpse of the old woman, and then indicates that I should join her. We walk away and its as if a curtain rises behind us. People nearby suddenly notice the dead woman and rush to her side. They gently prod her and try to coax a response but by now she is far away.

We are away too, walking arm-in-arm down the sidewalk, splitting the crowd before us the way a ship parts the sea. Death does not look back.

“She could see you,” I observe.

“She needed me.”

“Is that why I can see you?”

“I’m still not sure why you can see me. You do not need me.”

I think I might need her, but not like that.

“Is that why we came on this walk?” I pursue.

“You want to go somewhere else?”

“That’s not what I meant. I like being with you wherever you need to take us. But it seems you handle some things personally and others you don’t. Did we have to be here for someone? For her?”

Death is silent a moment before she says, “Perhaps.”

There’s something death is not telling me.

“It was necessary, that’s all,” she continues suddenly. “I am summoned. I go. I kill and then I go somewhere else.”

“Your choosing seems random,” I say though I immediately regret it. I’ve just accused death of being arbitrary and capricious.

“I’ve already told you it is random,” death reminds me just as I’m about to launch into an apology. “And yet it isn’t. It is — necessary. I am summoned and I must answer the call.”

As simple as being summoned? Perhaps it is. But by whom? And if we were not here for that old woman, then for what reason? And why is it so hard to discuss all this?

She squeezes my hand in hers. “I am not accustomed to explaining these things. And your language does not contain the right words though other cultures can speak of it. I think it is something you have to long endure before you can understand it. Those few cultures that knew endurance before time understood the purpose of death.”

I’m not sure why she’s necessary, but death knows and she’s not telling me. Perhaps I’m not ready. Probably I’ll understand eventually, before I am gone, why death is necessary. It’s all somewhat confusing now but it’s also very exciting.

Learning a new language from living with death.

04 Fun with Death

I’m with my girlfriend. It’s late and we’re walking down a sidewalk. Not far up a young man is swiftly caroming towards us on a skateboard. It’s a little steep for that sort of thing and I pull her to one side to let him pass.

She’s watching him intently.

Suddenly he misses a cue and goes airborne, his board spinning into the street and himself hurtling wide-eyed directly towards us.

I can tell he sees her.

Sorry, pal.

He piles into my girl’s arms, and dies. I reach to catch her and keep her from toppling over but it’s just an instinct. She would be fine.

She’s embracing this corpse when she glances over at me and says, “We’re over. I found another.”

“He won’t be much use,” I observe, unthreatened.

“He’s male,” she says. “Limited his usefulness from the start.”

I have a laugh. She smiles up at me and then lays the corpse at the base of a lamp pole.

She’s really smart, drop-dead gorgeous and has kisses to die for.

She’s death. 

----- 

Death is funny. But it’s subtle humor and you have to be paying attention.

For example.

We’re in an expensive part of town window shopping. Stopping in front of a display window we watch a woman inside model a skimpy bikini.

Except it isn’t a woman, it’s a robotic manikin. The robot is flawlessly female. I’m privately wondering at the level of anatomical detail.

Death looks up at me side-long, then looks back at the display case.

“I’m going to have to start killing these things if they get any more real,” Death says, leaning forward to peer at it.

The manikin looks down at death and smiles emptily as if to say all your boyfriend are belong to us.

“How do you kill a robot?” I ask.

This should be interesting. Death favors me with another glance, then looks back at the robot. She crosses her arms and after a significant pause says:

“Hammer.”

“Wait. You’re going to beat them to death?”

“Not I. You are. That’s why I’m keeping you around.”

“But you’re death. Isn’t this supposed to be your thing?”

“Forget that business with the scythe,” she says, “Death doesn’t work with hand tools.”

Aaaand — thank you everyone for coming tonight, you’ve been a great audience.

Maybe you had to be there.

----- 

A lot of her humor is physical. It usually starts with a glance that says Hey watch this.

There was a time once we were at a county faire standing at the ring toss. Hit a peg and you win a scrawny goldfish in a tiny plastic tank.

Most of the fish were pretty sad looking. I can’t imagine they had a very good life either before or after they were won.

I noticed death looking at the fish and scowling. She glanced up at me and bumped me with her elbow.

Hey watch this. 

She leaned forward and blew out over the bowls, then straightened.

I looked away for some reason and she elbowed me again.

I looked back just in time to see the goldfish rolling over dead in their bowls in a moving wave as a gust of potent death washed over them.

The people went on tossing their rings, hoping for a win.

I cracked up.

Death turned toward me and leaned her forehead against my shoulder, and I could tell she was laughing softly to herself.

We went to ride the Ferris wheel.

Come on. You’ve got to admit, that was funny.

-----

I wonder sometimes if she’s funny for my benefit. As if to show that it’s not so bad.

Mind you, death doesn’t make fun of dead things, and she doesn’t make light of killing. This is important work and she approaches it with the honesty and gravity it deserves. Even the goldfish joke was not about the dead fish. Death had freed the fish from suffering and set up the people for disappointment. It was death, it was justice, and yet it was funny.

It was at that same county faire that death pulled one of her more spectacular stunts.

There were races scheduled at the speedway, and death took me to the pits to see the cars. Small-time racing is dangerous work but seldom fatal. The short oval tracks won’t allow much speed.

But there was going to be a fatality tonight.

As the track manager announced that the drivers should take their positions, I noticed that death was no longer at my side. I looked around and found her in a helmet and goggles jumping through a door into the passenger side of one of the stock cars.

And the race was on!

I went down to the track side to watch, laughing until my sides were fit to split.

The cars went around and around. Each time death’s car came around I cheered and she would give me a thumbs-up or a victory sign.

The lunatic.

Toward the end of the race came the fated accident. The car crossed up slightly, hit a guard rail made of old tires and then freakishly flew into the air. It did a flip and landed upside down, rocking slightly on its roof.

Like a complete idiot I flew out onto the track in a panic. But I hadn’t gone but a few paces when a pull at my arm spun me around.

It was death, of course.

I held her with relief and we laughed a moment together, and then turned and left the track while the emergency crews ran out to the accident.

His loved ones will wonder if he suffered at all. I know for a fact he did not. That’s why death was in the car, rather than in the pits. That was really thoughtful of her.

But it was also funny as hell.

Killing is not funny, and dying is no picnic. But death herself is light-hearted and intelligent.

Fun times — after a fashion — living with death.

03 My Goddess Death

My girlfriend and I are lazing around, back in bed after a refreshing hotel buffet breakfast. It’s raining outside and while snuggling under an umbrella has it’s pleasant moments, we seem to have agreed that we’ll sit this one out.

I grabbed a copy of the New York Times on the way up. From just the front page I learn that while we ate dinner the prior evening a gunman killed six at a mall in Los Angeles. Later while we slept someone else bombed the French embassy in Indonesia, killing 17 and mostly school children. Sickening.

Don’t people have anything else better to do than this? Where are the women in these men’s lives? For they are mostly men. Have they no families? Have they no pleasures? I sense they’ve thrown off the feminine in their lives and then they kill. Little do they know they summon nature’s most potent female to the scene of their desolate madness.

Explains why my girl was gone from bed for a while in the night.

What is the connection you ask?

She’s death.

----- 

“Did you know. There was once a Native American tribe in what is now western Canada who had 17 different words for death.”

Death has cataloged everything there is to know about dying, including the vast and dense anthropology of death cults and rituals. I get the feeling she has promoted a lot of it herself as a way to relieve the tedium of the ages. That, and she’s a little twisted.

“I did not know this,” I reply absently while reading the newspaper in bed. “They sound like your kind of people though.”

“Oh they were.”

I look up. “Wait, you said were. Past tense. What happened?”

“They are all dead now,” she replies. Our eyes meet and she smiles.

Note to self: Death abuses her groupies.

She has suggested in the past that them as yearn for power over death eventually summon her, but only to their sorrow. Fortunately I love death for her body. Well that and her mind and soul, of course. Never for her power. Though being able to skip on bar tabs is pretty sweet.

Since she’s brought up the subject on her own it’s fair game.

“So tell us death, how do you feel about being worshiped?”

Uncharacteristically death appears to consider the question seriously, lacing her hands behind her head on the pillow and staring up at the ceiling over the bed. I put my paper down and look over at her. She is completely naked. The sheets are tangled around her bare legs and her smooth, rich chocolate skin still shines faintly from the exertions of recent love-making.

Death is beautiful, I marvel for about the dozenth time today.

“I approve, generally,” she says suddenly, interrupting my lustful thoughts. “There was an interesting cult to Kalima in the south of India who considered death a potent aphrodisiac. They deployed all manner of death-defying rituals to turn themselves on. Only some of which involved any actual killing. I was amused, as I recall.”

Then she’s smiling over at me like a maniac, blue and green eyes glittering with consuming insanity. Though the green eye is looking more insane than the blue one.

“Oh no you don’t!” I warn her, rolling up a section of the newspaper. “None of your unholy sacrifices for me, witch!”

She flips over and pounces on me like a cat. I bat at her with the newspaper and she snarls and spits in mock ferocity, by degrees forcing me down onto the mattress.

After a short battle she wins. The wise do not struggle unnecessarily with death.

The sacrifices turn out to be kinda fun, actually. I wasn’t too worried. We’ve recently reached that well-worn, comfortable point in a relationship where death and I can be open and honest with each other, expressing our needs without fear of the other being judgmental. It’s a beautiful thing.

----- 

“Worship me!” death commands from where she lay again panting amid a tangle of sheets.

I feel like I'm already doing my best, so I ignore her.

“Not there!” she says hauling me up by the hair to lay next her.

I comb back my hair with my fingers. “Aren’t I allowed to worship the goddess as I feel compelled?”

“No you are not”, she says imperiously, then hitting me with a pillow. “Worship me properly.”

Okay, so this is sounding serious. I prop myself up on an elbow and look down at her. Her chestnut hair lays strewn over the knotted up pillows. Eyes blue and green blaze up at me hotly and just under the soft female exterior that I can barely manage to tear my attention from, the dark will of an immortal smolders.

I think about my situation only a moment. A part of me fears death of course, I’m not stupid. But the greater part of me trusts her. Death may take me, if that is her will. I accept her will because I have absolute faith that she will do exactly what she has to, neither more nor less. I can only hope she will respect what I was after she is done killing me. To ensure this, she will have to take me as a man and not as a fawning fear-slave.

“No,” I say down at her.

She swims up to her knees, her hair falling wildly neglected about her face. She looks suddenly insane and murderous.

“Worship me, mortal,” she commands dangerously. “Fear me or I will surely kill you.”

“You will kill me eventually anyway,” I retort calmly. “I’m not going to massage your ego on the way out the door.”

“— much,” I hastily add.

Her eyes are laughing. This could go either way.

Death crawls across the covers towards me, places her small hands on both sides of my head, and drags me slowly to her lips. She is really strong and her pull is as if she were bolted to the floor and not sitting sideways on the bed. I suddenly realize she’s been holding back all this time.

I have no idea what death is up to. Is this her at rough play? Or is she in a full raging psychotic episode? Or is she instead establishing another kind of limit between us? And if so, what does death know about relationship that a mortal woman cannot? Could be lots.

Or could be nothing at all. Maybe death wings it right along with the best of them.

Our mouths meet and she closes her eyes and kisses me softly, our lips just brushing. I’m busy wondering what the real kiss of death must feel like when she suddenly releases me and then falls away backwards like her tether had been cut, to lay on her back bouncing among the sheets, just a woman again.

And she’s laughing, convulsed with delight. I smile over at her, my heart pounding loudly in my head, wondering what the last 90 seconds were really about.

“You pass,” she says at last, breathless.

----- 

Behold death. Crazy at times, gentle and serene at others. Just a little insecure. Demanding, furious and destructive, and then summoning down all earthly pleasures with her ringing female laughter.

Strange that all I know of woman I would learn here. Laughing and playing and living with death.

02 Getting to know death

So my girlfriend and I are sharing an ice cream and coffee. One ice cream, one coffee. We share everything. Yes, it is totally pathetic. I love it.

We’re not sharing because she’s worried about calories and just wants a bite. Unlike a lot of women she never worries about her weight, figure, complexion, clothes or hair, or those in any combination.

Ever. I mean like the subject has never come up. Not once.

Now, I’m not slamming girls who worry about things like that. Women like to think they are doing the right thing for themselves and staying on top of their game, and when they do it with a passion it can become an art form. I do think that media and culture tend to make this harder than it needs to be but for the most part I’ll hazard that the girls manage to strike the right balance, and most seem to actually enjoy the challenge.

But my girl. No. She just does what she wants as much as she likes and this includes food, drink and sex. She wears what she can find on the discount rack or else nothing, as suits her. She’s really smart, funny in a dark sort of way, drop-dead gorgeous and can do it for five hours straight.

How does she manage it?

She’s death.

-----


I’m still getting to know death.

There were some rules she established right off. For example, she does not have a name she is willing to share and does not like pet names.

She is death. Lowercase. Period. As she explained it she is death as a force, not as a thing. I only get to see her and hang out with her because I somehow forced her into the wrapper of a girl, and because she accepted that. Otherwise, she's not anyone or anything.

She never talks about herself. Likewise she has never asked me anything about myself and as far as I am aware knows nothing about me as a person. She does not know my name and has never asked, and never refers to me in any personal way.

The few times I tried to introduce that kind of small talk she would silently reach over and place a finger lightly on my lips.

That was all. It was enough.

Her touch kills. Her normal way of killing someone is to walk up to them and touch them lightly with a finger, and down they go. She can also kiss — that legendary kiss of death that Judas made famous is backed by literal fact — but she almost never does.

She kisses me, all the time. Death is the world's greatest kisser. Her lips are like sweet, soft, delicious little sticks of dynamite; she kisses me and my head explodes. Of course, one of these days she'll kiss me and I'll die. I figure that's just an occupational hazard of being death's consort. Definitely worth it.

The thing with names is actually important. Death and I are completely alone. We’re in the world, but not part of it. It took me a while to get the hang of that. As such, we always know who we are talking to. She is always talking to me. I am always talking to her. You don’t actually call someone by their name when the two of you are the only ones in earshot. Bet you never even thought about that.

Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like for her to be alone before. I mean, really alone. Or maybe I’m not her first, nor even her only. I hope there were others because I don’t see how even death could cope in a universe where nobody knows you exist except the moment when you kill them. That might start to suck after a few thousand years.

Maybe I'm just projecting, and she prefers being alone. Though I'm pretty sure she's enjoying our sex.

There is something else about being invisible. We are in public constantly. She has to kill people, implies being around people where people are. Since her touch is always lethal all the time this might become a problem. For example on a crowded sidewalk or in a dim lit restaurant. Here’s where things get spooky.

She and I are invisible, but we are not gone. In fact invisible might not be the right word, although it explains a lot. It’s like we’re visible but perfectly ignored. The way a lamp pole on the sidewalk isn’t technically invisible, but nobody sees it. Nobody consciously goes down the sidewalk seeing lamp poles in the way and saying to themselves, there is a lamp pole, ignore that.

But they go around lamp poles.

Death is like that. When we are walking people go around us. They go way around, just in case. I’ve seen people step into moving traffic to go around us, and when they do the cars stop for them without any honking or shouting or anything. Nobody notices any part of this. It’s like the entire surface of the planet moves four feet to either side just to give us plenty of room. People don’t look at us, they don’t comment on us, and they don’t notice they are not noticing.

They just avoid us like — well like death.

There are a very few exceptions to this. They are noteworthy when they happen, and I am always taken by surprise though death never is. The only time she was surprised was the time when I saw her.

Lucky me.

-----

Back to ice cream and coffee.

“All those flavors, and you chose vanilla,” I say. “So what does that tell us about death?”

Quiet please. The great detective is at work.

Death looks up at me over the rim of the coffee cup. She takes a sip and says:

“Nothing whatsoever. I should hope.”

Not so fast, death.

“I think it means death does not take risks,” I reply with confidence.

Death is helpless in the grip of my mad inductive skillz.

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly and she puts the cup down. Taking the spoon from my hand she loads it up with vanilla ice cream, turns in her seat, looks around a moment and flipping the spoon launches the ice cream in an arc across the parlor. It lands with a splat square in the center of the table of a guy I would not want to cross swords with.

This is funny, until he closes the book he was reading and looks up directly at us.

Crap. What happened to invisible?

Too late now. I give him the don’t look at me pal helpless shrug. He angrily rips a bunch of towelettes out of the dispenser and cleans up the table and the front of his jacket.

Okay, we just learned two really important things here. The first is that invisibility is at best an imperfect defense, and the second is that death doesn’t flinch from making a point.

Whatever her point was. Because that was not death taking a risk, it was her tossing little me to the lions. Maybe the point was that she doesn’t like being shallowly evaluated by mortal punks.

Yes. That does sound just like death.

She puts more ice cream on the spoon and while eyeing me seductively lifts it to her lips and licks it with the tip of her tongue. Then she turns the spoon around and slips it into my mouth.

Note to self: Death is hot.

I will never be able to look at vanilla ice cream the same way.

Across the room the other guy has returned to reading his book as if nothing had happened.

There it is. That spooky.

I’m liking it so far but I’m not sure yet what it’s about, this living with death.

01 Hello Death

I’ve always loved days like today. Brilliant blue sky, gentle fragrant winds. People moving around. It’s a perfect day but I won’t survive it.

That’s because I’m with this perfect girl. She’s smart and funny and absolutely gorgeous.

Here’s the problem.

She’s death.

-----

I met her this morning while walking in the park. Death arrived as this really cute girl, a comfortable arm-full of chocolate-skinned female with one eye blue and the other green, and fine chestnut hair. As if every human female archetype had been rolled into one.

She was following me around just keeping her distance which is sort of cool; being openly stalked by a cute girl until I become interested, which I figured was her intent. Some girls are shy like that.

However this girl was just waiting for the proper moment to kill me.

I turned around finally and I’m standing there smiling at her as she walks up and she’s going to touch me and then she says Oh you can see me. What do I look like? And without knowing at the time that she’s death I tell her she’s drop-dead gorgeous and can I buy her a soda or something and she eyes me up and down before she smiles and says yes.

Death apparently has a highly refined sense of irony.

You are wondering how I know she is death. It’s like this. We had just made a date and we’re walking up the sidewalk out of the park — she about arm’s length distant because she’s already said she can’t touch me without killing me — and I’m saying yeah right you’re death then prove it when she blows lightly into a tree overhead and all these insects, spiders and birds literally fall dead to the sidewalk at our feet.

It was the most horrific thing I’d ever witnessed.

And then she looked at me and said that she really did need to kill me before too long but as long as she was visible she was good for a cup of coffee, if I was still interested.

So coffee it was.

-----

Now we’re seated at a small table under an umbrella at an outside cafe. Nobody is paying us any attention.

I can’t take my eyes off of death.

“I don’t get it,” she says, picking up her cup. “You shouldn’t be able to see me.”

I’m really nervous, being this close to death. But I manage to sound casual.

“Yeah? Then people have been seriously missing out because you are really beautiful.”

She smiles at me sweetly and takes a sip.

“I mean,” I continue. “Death is supposed to be a skeletal dude with a sword —”

“Scythe,” she corrects me.

“Scythe. How did they get that so wrong?”

She shrugs. “Those as can see me at all give me the shape they think I ought to have. The grim reaper was only one such projection. It just happened to make its way into the popular press.”

“So I made you gorgeous?”

She leans forward, eyes glittering. “So it seems. Very curious. You have an uncommon outlook on death, soon-to-be-dead-guy.”

I manage to ignore that last part. “So you don’t know my name? Aren’t I written into some book of souls or something?”

“I don’t, and you might be or not, I’ve no idea. I just kill things.”

She says it like it’s nothing.

“I see, so you go around randomly killing people?”

“Death is supposed to be a random thing,” she says with a faint smile. “Or would you rather I place personals ads?”

She leans back and thinks for a moment then says, “Death seeks M/F S/M for STR. Age not important. Must be alive.”

She giggles and looks over at me for a reaction.

It figures that death would have a warped sense of humor.

I keep reminding myself she’s going to kill me, too.

“Wait. Aren’t you supposed to be — out working or something?”

Maybe she’ll forget I was on her list.

“You mean I should be killing things.”

“I don’t want to mess up your schedule or anything.”

“Not to worry,” she says while looking closely at a dessert menu. “Death is everywhere. How else can I kill 100 people a minute? And that’s just the people. If you will excuse me a moment —”

She gets up suddenly and walks out onto the sidewalk.

My heart skips a beat. Is she really leaving?

And if so then why am I disappointed?

She waits there a moment and then touches a guy as he walks past. He walks another few yards, clutches at his chest and falls down dead.

She returns to our table and sits down across from me.

I’m happy and terrified at the same time. Beautiful women can do that to a guy.

“Where were we?” she says.

“A tiramisu, perhaps?” I offer, hoping to distract her.

She laces her hands together under her chin and regards me a moment before smiling thinly and saying:

“I should be going.”

And so, my time is up.

Out of habit I pull out my wallet to settle the bill, but she shakes her head and says, “We were never here.”

-----

We walk until we come to a secluded place in the park.

“It’s time,” she says, and reaches to touch me.

“Wait!” I cry. “Um — can I make a last request?”

“Depends.”

“Could you — maybe kiss me?”

Death smiles. “I was hoping you would ask that.”

I lay down on the grass and she kneels and without preamble lightly kisses me.

The kiss of death. It is the most amazing kiss. Ever. Seriously electric.

We part and I open my eyes. She’s looking down at me and says, “That’s odd. Let me try that again.”

She sits on top of me, takes my face in her hands, and kisses me hard. For a long time.

We separate breathlessly and I’m looking up at her still.

She smiles and with her eyes shining says, “Let’s walk some more.”

-----

It’s long after dark. Death and I are holding hands, walking and talking. She’s been telling me what she knows about dying. Which is a lot. And oddly, we’ve spent a lot of time making out.

At this point I am completely intoxicate by her.

What a day.

“How about we get a room?” she offers, and squeezes my hand.

What a woman.

-----

She’s keeping me alive for some reason. Maybe death needs someone to talk to. Maybe she likes that I made her attractive. Probably I’ll never know.

What matters is I get to be with her.

I know the score; one of these days she’ll grow tired of me and then the next kiss will be the last.

Until then I’ll be happy.

Each day as they come, living with death.

About the Author

We have come a long way in understanding the physical world. But we have a long way yet to go understanding life, living, and death.

I live in California, in the Bay Area, with my wife and our two children.

I have another work of fiction titled "Darkatana: A Black Tale" that is still in preparation. A massive undertaking that explores predation, murder, love, angels, duty, family and what it means to be human. Death is woven into nearly every part of it. Perhaps that was part of the reason I wrote "Living with Death". DABT does not exist in any published form. Perhaps someday it will.