There are times when everyone becomes jaded. When life becomes stagnant; you spin your wheels and see it going by without paying the slightest bit of attention. When this happens, it's both terrifying and numbing. There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who reject stagnation and shake the world so sharply that they're likely to fracture, break, and tumble back to Earth, and those who accept the stagnation and what it means. Comfort in place of adventure and stability in place of a fear of not knowing what tomorrow would bring. Those who ignore the stagnation often ignore a lot of things. They marry, they have children, they do what they feel they should, but do not step outside of that little square box they call a life.
Those who reject stagnation...
They either make history or die trying.
The third type, the kind of person who isn't really a person at all, does neither. The stagnation comes and goes with time, and for people like me, I have nothing but time. I have seen empires built and destroyed for the ficklest of emotions and dreams. I have seen injustices, and triumphs of those injustices, and I have seen many men live, breathe, and die by their morals.
My triumph is bringing them to their final resting place. But that, in and of itself, is stagnation at its finest. Though there are those who fight, and will always fight, and there are those who submit, and will only submit, there is a monotony to taking a life. It is the same as it always is: Their heart stops, either slowly or suddenly, and they wake again in Limbo, in my domain, in a daze. And then they either fight, or they submit, and they go their way.
In my years of taking lives, it's hard not to become jaded.
But just when you think you've seen it all, there's something that, common as it may be, jars you out of stagnation. And I thrive in those times, and I ache in those times, and I am thankful for those times.
Hospitals are all the same. White walls on white floors and white ceilings, nurses sitting behind their station or doing rounds. They carry a solemnity with them as I glide past, unseen. Some are haunted, still, by the first Death they've encountered. Others, jaded as I am, simply making the rounds and hoping not to call in an alert on another outgoing patient. The cancer ward is especially depressed.
The children's cancer ward is practically sickening, covered in bright colors and smiling faces that the patients are too young to realize are full of pity and sorrow. I pass a nurse sitting at her station, looking over charts with tears welling behind her eyes, tears she is desperate to hide when another nurse comes around. I glide past them, too, and down the hall. It's like a magnet, pulling deep inside my stomach and guiding me to my next visitor.
I stop at the door, gliding through it, and watch for a moment. There, lying on the bed, a girl who I know was blond, once upon a time ago. The TV is on but muted; she seems to be asleep, but I know better. I can feel the pain wafting off of her. The cancer has already claimed part of her brain, like a black leech sucking on the girl's health. It's spread, I can see it.
It's moments like this that I wish I had taken up Her offer for a halo. Then I could help. Instead, I can only watch. The monitor attached to her chest begins to falter. As the monitor flat-lines, I step aside, watching as a number of nurses fly into the room to aid the girl.
The doctor follows quickly after, and I watch still, arms folded behind me. The doctor injects the girl with something, and briefly, there's an upshot on the monitor. I watch, quirking an eyebrow evenly. But it flat-lined again, and after frantic pumping, CPR, and everything the doctor knows how to do, he declares the time of death.
One by one, some crying, some just veteran nurses seeing another slab on the table, they filter out. The doctor is last, tears in his eyes, gripping her hand tightly. It's hard to lose a patient, and harder still to lose a daughter. Vaguely, I recall my own, but shake the memory. He lets go, finally, when a nurse comes to get him. For a long while, I watch as another nurse comes in, and covers her, then leaves.
Finally, a soft voice speaks from beside me.
“It hurt,” she says quietly, sliding her hand into my waiting palm. She glances up at me, and I don't look down, feeling a swell of fear in my chest that she might find me terrifying. Instead, she clarifies, in a tiny voice. “Dying. They told me it wouldn't hurt. It'd be like sleeping.”
“They've never died.” I intone evenly.
“Will I see them again?”
I do look down, at that. She's neither submitting nor fighting. She's not begging to go back, or for me to fix her. She speaks with a quiet, curious tone in her voice. She's curious about dying. “Maybe. That's not my call.”
“You died.” She points out, squeezing my hand. I almost smile.
“That was a long time ago.” What I had done wasn't really dying, but there's no need to complicate this. “It's time to go.”
“Am I going to hurt more?” She asks, looking away from me and at the sudden burst of light near her window. It's her way into Heaven, or Hell, or wherever She has chosen for the child.
“Not physically.” I walk with her to the light, but stop just in front of it. From this distance, it burns and aches and gnaws at what's left of my soul. I'm not meant for Heaven.
The girl looks up at me again, and smiles. This girl is different from the body on the bed. Her golden hair is curly and wild, and she doesn't look sick.
I return the smile, though I'm sure it looks more like a grimace. “I am Death.”
“Abby.” The girl smiles again, wider, and squeezes my hand before letting go. I watch as she disappears into the light, watch it flicker before going away as if it were never there, and look at the body on the slab.
Moments like this, unfair injustices and impossible deaths, shake my jaded stagnation. Not forever, but for a little while. Briefly, I think about praying for Abby, for her to not go to Hell for some inconceivable Sin. I've heard it happen, before. Whatever people might think of children being wholly innocent...
I stop myself before the prayer can get out.
Praying didn't save Abby then. It wouldn't now. I look around the room again, fixing my gaze just above her bed, then disappear.
The next one will fight, I hope.
