Transit

[WP] Finally dead, you wait quietly at the train station of the afterlife. As you watch everyone leave off to face their judgement, you eventually sit alone… waiting. You watch as a scythe-wielding hooded figure starts approaching, and he… sighs? “Aw man… why’d it have to be you?”

*****

"'Because I could not stop for Death'..." I said, failing to smile behind the memory of a cigarette. "Not like I asked to stick around, is it?"

Death sighed again, like a thousand miles of dusty catacombs gasping in the darkness. The scythe was stowed... elsewhere, and the face of a woman appeared as death pulled back the hood of its cloak. The transformation was instant and seamless. One moment, a theatrical presentation of one Mr. G. Reaper, Esq.; the next, a petite pale woman in a tanktop. Death, as presented by one N. Gaiman.

"What's with the, whatsit, the copyright infringement? Trying to vibe with the times? Modernize?"

I looked down at my cigarette. Half of it was gone, half left. It had been halfway burnt for, by my guess, about a month. Being dead sucked, but at least I didn't have to bum smokes. Death, unlike life, was forever; a long time to accrue debts.

"I just thought you'd appreciate it. Given, you know, the situation," it said.

Death. The anthropomorphic character representing a human fear. Not a person, not a thing; a state change, a moment of transition, a transformational instantiation of the inevitability of entropy. And it paused, and stared at me. Me, a soul, dead, having been evicted from the mortal coil, a memory of a random, gibbering, self-replicating bag of meat with delusions of grandeur. I was finding it difficult to maintain my stoic atheism, in the face of current events.

"What shape would you prefer Death to take?"

I coughed, turned it into a chuckle. Turns out Death was nearly as polite as old Emily had feared. Made it hard to hate or fear it. It occurred to me that this was a kindness.

"Currently I'm partial to Mara, if I get to choose. Old Ukrainian goddess of death and rebirth. You know, given the situation." I took a drag off the memory of a cigarette, with the memory of lungs.

Now, Death was a kindly old woman in a straw hat, with large flowing skirts. It glided gracefully, on old and practiced bare feet, and sat on the bench beside me. Death had the grace of a ballerina, the poise of a schoolmaster, and the gentle face of a grandmother.

And, stored somewhere out of view, the scythe of a reaper.

With gentle, wrinkled hands, Death caressed my head, guided it into its lap. Death's skirts smelled of new soap and old chores; sheep's wool, leather dyes, spilled spices, boiled potatoes. I took the cigarette from my lips and offered it up to Death, who placed it elsewhere for safekeeping.

"You weren't supposed to die yet," Death said, in a voice like a warm blanket on a cold morning.

"I didn't realize we had an itinerary," I huffed.

Death stroked my hair, gentle. I tried so hard to hate it, but I couldn't. Back when I was alive, I didn't much like to be touched, not by strangers.

"You were such a fan of that comic book, you surely remember what my namesake character always said?" Death asked.

"Yeah... 'You got what everyone gets: a lifetime.' Pretty idea," I answered, frowning.

"But you couldn't accept that, could you?" Death asked, more gently.

Ah. So that's what this was about.

"I... didn't realize we got special treatment," I admitted.

"Every single one," Death admitted, sadly.

Its hand was surprisingly warm. I could feel Death's fingers against the memory of my scalp. I had never had anyone pet my hair before. It was disturbingly human, perhaps more human than any contact I had had for years, when I was still alive. A grim irony

We sat for a moment. A shallow memory in the shape of an old man, laying with his head in the lap of a force of nature in the shape of an old woman.

"So what happens now?"

"You choose," said Death. "Choose who gets your remaining time. But know that your time is not a gift. It is borrowed time; whoever you burden with it, theirs is to suffer. When their natural life ends, their borrowed time begins, and from that moment they live in a dead man's lifespan."

Death sniffed, and I looked up to see it wiping grandmotherly tears away with a grandmotherly sleeve, before it continued.

"Lung cancer. AIDS. Disfiguration. Leukemia. Multiple sclerosis. Lou Gehrig's disease. It could be anything, but it's always borrowed time; suffering, lent at interest. Some souls think, 'It's still better than dead,' and inflict it on their children, or other family. Some inflict it on their enemies, or on strangers, or celebrities. But you have to choose someone."

Death sighed again. With a wave, we were surrounded by... not ghosts, but ghostly images. I sat up, and Death handed me back my cigarette. My memory of a cigarette. I took a drag as I looked at images of my nieces, my coworkers. My sister, the drug addict. My neighbors. The images seemed to parade past, but as I turned, I realized I was scrolling through unseen catalogs of people. All the people. Everyone.

"And... what, I just say who gets it?" I pointed at a random person, and knew with absolute certainty that he was Charles Hughes, aged 51, lived in Phoenix, still in love with his wife, angry at his eldest daughter who had recently come out as gay. Voted Republican, like almonds, had a heart condition he didn't know about. Was secretly terrified that COVID was the cause of his sudden mouth-watering interest their new neighbor, a young man with incredible abs.

"Yes. Whoever you like."

Death rose, gracefully. It looked like the very definition of a kind little old ukrainian lady, but a deadly frost--frost that crackled like starving children and empty hearths, frost that smelled like dying cattle and hollow cheeks--clung to every footprint. Mara was also a winter goddess, I remembered.

I thought, a moment. I sought. Found. Pointed. Sentenced.

"Her," I said.

Death looked where I pointed, then nodded sadly.

"Was she why you killed yourself?"

There it was. The truth I had been afraid to say.

"Yeah," I whispered, eyes closed, fists clenched.

"Then it is done. The time you snipped from your own skein, is lent and threaded into hers."

The woman's face, laughing as she danced with an invisible partner, disappeared.

"Now, our business is done. You may go," Death offered.

Death laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. I puffed nervously, pulling hard on the memory, filling myself with smoke.

"It's ok to be jittery, dear. While you work up the nerve, can I ask: why her?"

"You know why," I whispered. "She said she never saw my son in the road. After he was gone, I had nothing. She kept her everything. She deserves to feel what I felt, to know why I... why I had time to lend."

I wiped at the memory of tears. The memory of smoke stung my eyes, and I was glad to finally be done.

I turned, but Death was gone.

I was alone, on the platform, when my train finally arrived.

*****

THE END.