Fantastical Ramblings (4 page)

He returned to the bar, drawn there as if by a magnet. His
staff glowed brighter as he approached. The appointment book suddenly felt
heavy. He checked, but no new appointments had been added past the cryptic one
in the last second of the old year.

The bartender took Death’s order for another drink. Automatically
Death assessed the man’s condition: arthritis, right shoulder and knee, weak
and clogged arteries, and swollen feet. Six months tops.

A newcomer opened the door of the bar. The noise of the New
Year celebration in Times Square filled the shabby drinking establishment with
a moment of lively joy. The potential suicide wavered a moment in her decision.
The door closed and the noise died. As the old year was dying.

Death hefted his little black book once more. “I need time
to look in on the Pope. I have to keep tabs on all the assassination attempts
and a few great musicians and artists. There isn’t enough time. Something I
have to do....”

Death sipped at the drink that was supposed to taste good or
make him feel good but did neither. He watched himself in the mirror behind the
bar. He looked like any other generic, middle-aged male, not too prosperous,
nor too downtrodden, his staff of office hiding as a black umbrella propped
against his stool. The persona fit this neighborhood. He was used to the
instant changes in his appearance. He didn’t like terrorizing people—except
some of the truly evil personalities. When Mother Theresa finally passed on,
Death had chosen to be another elderly nun so as not to frighten the woman. But
that determined lady hadn’t been frightened by life. Why should Death in any
guise scare her?

11:43:05. A sense of desperate need tickled his senses. The
potential suicide in the corner passed her crisis and decided to give Life one
more year.

Death followed her onto the street. He had too much to do in
the last seventeen minutes of the year.

His long staff appeared in his hand, keeping its proper
shape and size—Nine feet of shining ebony, slender top curved into a full
circle. Thousands of facets from the crystal reflected tiny pin-pricks of
light. His black-hooded cloak folded around him. He became one with the
shadows, seeking the source of that last appointment. Only when the candidate,
location and circumstances were chosen would his guise take shape.

His hands tingled with the power encased in his trappings. His
staff glowed in the reflection of street lamps. Aware, not fully active. Yet.

Out on the street, Death turned the staff right and left,
seeking. A faint glow emanated from the crystal when it faced right. A very
dark alley. Street lights shot out, garbage piled high. A haven for vagrants,
criminals and violence.

The appointment book burned with impatience.

“Just another mugging,” Death sighed. “I’d hoped for
something spectacular to close out the year.”

The crystal glowed brighter, taking on red tones. “Odd. Red
indicates a death of great importance, someone who will stop time if his, or
her, destiny goes unfulfilled.” That had happened with Princess Diana as she
clung to life for agonizing moments, but others had stepped in to continue her
work. One instance when the victim became more powerful dead than alive.

While the world mourned her passing, people continued to
make choices and grow through change.

Death followed the crystal with increasing urgency. For the
sake of all lost souls, time had to continue.

The woman who had chosen life over death walked ahead of
him, head high, shoulders back. She had chosen life and her posture reflected
reawakened joy and confidence. Her high heels tapped a rhythm onto the sidewalk
akin to the song of life.

Grunts. Cries for help. Scuffling feet and thumping bodies.

Death hurried.

He rounded the corner into the alley. Three Lives standing. One
desperate Life sprawled amid piles of junk and empty boxes, right leg twisted
unnaturally beneath her. The skirt of her red power suit hiked up immodestly
and torn at the side seam. Blood spilled on the pavement.

11:58:47. In the distance the shouts from Times Square
increased. Close up, one of the standing Lives lifted a gun and took aim at the
Life who waited. A feral smile grew around broken and rotted teeth. All four
Lives were fully conscious. All four knew that Death awaited one of them.

“Should have given us the diamond ring along with the purse
right off, yuppie bitch. We’d have let you off with a sore head,” the youth
with the gun sneered at his victim.

The diamond on the woman’s left hand winked in the weak
light, almost as brightly as Death’s black crystal. A cherished wedding ring. A
promise of love. The muggers had broken her leg while she struggled to protect
the ring.

There was still time for Death to offer choices.

All four Lives froze in a tableau that screeched of man’s
violation of his covenant with Life. The black crystal in the staff passed from
red to blinding white. The appointment book grew heavier and hotter yet.

11:59:45. Time stopped.

Death looked anxiously from the crystal to the Life who
awaited his touch. Time awaited the next candidate. Who? The book didn’t tell
him.

“Don’t kill me!” the woman who had left the bar filled with
renewed purpose yelled at the three muggers. “You’ve got my purse and my
jewelry. I can’t run away. My leg is broken. Leave me alone.”

No one moved. Nothing moved, not even the freezing wind.

Death waited. A curious sensation of warmth engulfed him. He’d
been cold so long he’d forgotten what warmth was. Not exactly warmth, an
absence of heart-chilling cold. But with the warmth came pain too. Sharp pains
filled his leg in empathic sharing with the woman. Curiosity and dread warred
with fear for mastery within him. His heart raced and then seemed to stop. This
was the last appointment in his book and he would be an active participant
instead of an escort after all the choices were made.

Fate had caught up with him at last.

“Help me, please. I don’t want to die,” the woman called to
Death. Her hand reached out in entreaty.

Death heard himself issuing the same plea a year ago. He
remembered fear and its copper taste on his tongue.

He shook off the memory and the residual tremors. He had a
duty to perform.

“I have an appointment with someone in this alley. One of
you must go with me.” Death’s voice echoed around the alley, like a bronze
bell. The three muggers remained frozen in time. Not so much as an eyelash
twitched among them.

“Take one of them.” The woman pointed to the tableau of
criminals frozen in the act of theft and murder. Her hand wavered and almost
pointed directly at Death.

Death tried to retreat within the folds of his hood. “They
are outside this decision, Ma’am. Only you and I are here.” Her name eluded
him. Why? This had never happened to him before... before he became Death.

A year ago he had wanted so desperately to live that he had
chosen to become Death rather than accept his fate. And now he was faced with
another Life in the same dilemma. One of them must die.

He planted his staff in front of him. The glowing black wood
gave him authority and confidence. Someone in the alley had to die. Time would
not resume unless Death escorted a candidate to the other side. He still had a
choice.

“I’m not volunteering to die,” the woman screamed. “I’m not
ready to die! I just decided to live. Please let me live!”

“I can’t give you that choice,” Death lied.

“Do something.” The woman grabbed the staff and shook it in
desperation.

Death jerked back on the length of wood in panic. “The staff
is my badge of office. Only I may touch it.” His hood fell back. This time he
knew his appearance was the classic personification of Death, a skeletally thin
face, pasty white. Deep-set eyes that looked into eternity.

The woman held tight to the staff, shaking it again.

“You. Must. Let. Go.” Death grabbed the black staff with
both hands, trying to wrest his tool away from her. “You. May. Not. Touch. It.”

“If you won’t help me, then let me have it to save myself.” She
clung to the staff as if it were Life itself; a Life she desperately wanted. Now.
A few moments ago she’d almost thrown it away. “I can use this as a weapon to save
myself!”

Power raced up and down the wood binding her to the staff
and to Death. He almost let go. Desperation kept him glued to the wood.

If he let her live, what would happen to him? Someone had to
die or time would not resume.

Who would it be?

What choices were left?

The only way to cheat
fate and Death is to become Death
, another voice had told him a year ago.

Death stumbled. The woman twisted the staff and tripped him
with it. Death dropped to his knees. His cloak fell away revealing a red woolen
suit, the same cut as woman’s. Same blouse. Same scarf around the neck. His
skeleton took on flesh but remained pasty white.

“Who are you?” The woman rolled to her left, away from the
collapsing body of Death. She stood up in one fluid motion with the staff in
hand, as if her leg hadn’t been broken a moment ago. Her shoulders hunched and
she aged a thousand years in a moment.

“There is something I have to do before midnight.” Death’s
voice remained deep and solemn, echoing and reverberating around the alley. Which
one would die? His right leg twisted unnaturally beneath him.

The muggers came back to life.

A mighty roar rose from Times Square. “
10
.”

Three shots rang out in rapid succession.

“9.”

The muggers turned and bolted from the alley.

“What do you have to do? There isn’t much time.” Shock made
the standing woman’s words weak and squeaky. She bent low to catch Death’s
words, feeling for a pulse, trying to stop the flow of blood from his chest. She
didn’t have enough hands, or medical knowledge to save him/her.

“
8
.”

Death grabbed her lapel and pulled her closer yet. His
claw-like hands seemed incredibly strong for someone who’d just been shot in
the belly, the heart, and the lung.

“
7
.”

“Tell me what you have to do. I can help,” she cried.

“There is a way for you to survive this encounter.”

“6.”

“I have survived, you’re the one who is dying.”

“One of us must die at the stroke of midnight. You have
taken the choice away from me. The only way to cheat death is to become Death.”
He repeated the words spoken to him a year ago. A lifetime ago.

Everyone was fated to die. The choice of when fell to only a
few.

“5.”

“Become Death? You mean I’ll die too. Who are you?”

“4.”

“I am your destiny, your fate. Life or Death. You must
choose. As I chose a year ago. I loved life too much to give it up. I still do.
But I no longer have the right to make that choice.” Choice and change belonged
to the living. Everyone had to die. Fate determined when and where. No choice.

Except for the last death of the year.

“3.”

“If it means living, I’ll become Death, I’ll become Santa
Claus or whoever it takes. Just so I can live. I decided not to kill myself
over my husband’s infidelity and a mangled career because I realized that life
is too beautiful to waste.”

“I thought the same thing last year at this time.” A fiery
car crash, pain beyond enduring, and still he had clung to life rather than let
Death take him. “And now I know that all Life is beautiful. If one of us does
not die then time will cease, taking all Life with it. Life must be preserved.”

“2.”

“Then why must I become Death? I’d rather be alive.”

“Death, like change, is a part of life. If Death does not
walk the streets then all Life will cease. The choice is yours.”

“What is that supposed to mean.”

“You’ll find out.”

“One! Yeah! Whoopee. Yahoo!”

The body of a young man, who had refused to die in a car
crash the year before, took on the last vestiges of the woman wearing a red
suit. He/she collapsed in the alley. The last page of the old appointment book
dissolved.

A skeletally thin, old hag, dressed in tattered red and
black draperies, with eyes that burned clear through to eternity stood up and
retrieved Death’s cloak, without dropping the staff. All memory of her life,
her decision to live, her wrestling match with Death, faded. She was Death now,
with duties to perform.

From the folds of black cloth fell an enormous book bound in
black leather. The gold calligraphy on the front was fresh and new, spelling
out one word.

“Appointments.”

“Let’s see. Victims of an automobile accident. Mercy
hospital,” the old hag cackled. “Five passengers. Three drivers. Four of the
eight need an escort in two minutes. A musician is shooting a bad batch of
drugs in central park in six minutes. The pope can wait a little longer.”

She morphed into a young nurse wearing bright turquoise
scrub pants and a white tunic with tumbling pink teddy bears. The staff of
office coiled around her neck like a stethoscope, the black crystal blocked the
metal bell at one end.

Death popped into the emergency room of mercy hospital,
ready to escort those who needed her.

A diamond on her left hand winked in the bright hospital
lights as she escorted the first death of the new year into the swirl of light.

~THE END~

This is one of my all time favorite stories that took
forever to find a home. It started as a class exercise where I needed to write
a character with a humorous voice. I first published it on the Book View Café
as a free story and it is now in the
Beyond
Grimm
anthology edited by Deborah J. Ross and Phyllis Irene Radford.