Play With Me

Little Games and Big Deaths

   The streets are full of so many people. The sidewalks are packed with happy and loquacious adults, relaxed elders on their walkers and canes, and hyper children that are chasing each other up and down the sidewalks.

   The sky is clear and blue. Everyone here is in such a jovial mood. Everyone here is so unexpecting of all of their upcoming fates.

   Everyone here will be dead within the current month.

   And it is my job to make sure that thet all die accordingly. It is my job to make sure all of the deaths in the world happen perfectly and appropriately, and to make sure no one tries to cheat (or at least attempt to push off) death when it is their turn.

   Because I am Death.

   And i do not fancy being cheated or postponed. When it is their time, it is their time. No exceptions. No mercy. No deals. No bargains. No extra time. Just death.

   There are hundreds of people here in these busy and bustling streets of the colorful and entertaining New Orleans. And it is about time for me to take another life.

   I look around all of the people surrounding me as they walk around and by and through me, smiling faces and bright eyes in every one of them. Small groups of old men are playing trumpets and trombones in an upbeat and jazzy melody all across the streets. People are gathering around these several groups of music performers, dancing energetically to the pace of the tunes.

   Every open space that is able to make its way into these buzzing sidewalks is either immediately filled up voracious tourists trying to find a spot for the perfect picture to take, or filled up by a desparate salesman trying to get rid of some fake voodoo toys or spicy cajun snacks thay most of the people here can't stand to eat.

   I see everyone and everything that goes on; no one ever sees me though. No one is meant to see me as I see them, not until they are dead. That is when they get to meet me. But until then, none of these people know of my existence. I know their pasts, their futures, everything. And yet they don't even know I am real...

   Fourteen seconds until the next life to take.

   A small child sprints past me, screaming with glee. And her worried mother is trailing right behind her. But the little girl is too far ahead and moving too fast for the mother to catch up.

   "Anna, slow down! You'll get hurt!" the mother yells. I shake my head and follow leisurely behind them.

   Anna Pacinston, five years old. She is to die by a cracked skull due to a vehicle accident in about... nine seconds. And her mother, Donna Pacinston, twenty-seven years old, is to die by bleeding out due to being shot in the neck during an armed robbery in four months, six days, and thirteen hours from now.

   Anna is on her way into a busy road, and into the path an eighteen wheeler that has a driver that has their attention drawn away from the road, due to a curvy woman in a thin tank top and short shorts dancing on the sidewalk catching the driver's attention for only a short moment.

   But a short moment is all it takes for something bad to happen.

   "Anna!" the mother yells again. But too bad it's too late for little Anna. She's in the street now. And she's right on time. Her death is in three... two... one.

   "ANNA!" the mother screeches in terror as the truck collides with her frail daughter with a spine-tingling crunch.

   The daughter's body slips under the truck as the large vehicle slows down and the trucker jumps out with a petrified look on his face. The mother sprints to the truck and collapses to her knees as she drags her daughter's corpse from under the vehicle. She craddles her limp child's body in her arms as she gasps her daughter's name in between her sobs. Blood is dripping from the wide split in the back the child's skull, the split cutting from ear to ear. A large pool of blood surrounds the mother and her dead daughter.