Death's Guide to Life ✔ ︳One Shot

Death's Guide to Life

I look at your cerulean eyes brimming with tears, your soft pale hands gripping the sink, knuckles—bone white. You try to take a deep breath, instead; you heave a cough, blood pouring out, splatters of red drops on the white tiled sink. Your knees buckle, you shake your head, your once soft honey brown face, pale and crumbling as tears stream down.

Are those tears out of pain or fear?

"I don't want to die," you whisper, your voice mangled. "I don't want to die... I don't want to die!" You croak, shaking your head as another cough rakes your body.

And no matter how much I want to understand you, human... I can't. Why don't you want to die? Why would you prefer to live with that wretched body of yours? Why would you want to live in this miserable place called earth? Why? What's so good about living with these humans? Don't they cause enough problems? They betray you; they twist you from inside, they kill, they hate...
and yet, you want to live.

I shout all my questions, drifting from one corner to the next, shaking your shoulders, trying to make you understand that I, Death, am not a beast. No, I don't go around hauling a bloody scythe on my back, I'm not clad in a back robe and I don't have a gruesome face with a rictus grin.

I am Death, without a body, without a face, just mingling with the air as it takes me from one corner of the earth to the next. I'm Death and I merely collect your souls- your soft and delicate souls. I'm Death, and I am gentle. And I'm here to ease your pain.

And, yet you don't understand that. Yet you are dead set on living... why?

Wiping your blood and tears, you limp away, your eyes fixed on a crumpled sheet of paper. It's a bucket list, scrawled with every place you want to visit, every movie you want to see, every concert you want to attend.

Then your eyes fall on a big, black diary, your nimble, pale fingers flipping the pages, skimming the words... My eyes fall on a page where you have scrawled out your whole future!
Which college you will attend in which year, which job you would take in a certain year when you will visit a certain place... all of them scribbled in a paper. I look around your room to notice that every inch of the walls is covered with lists. To-do list, homework list, future job list, future college list, goals list... lists, lists, and lists.

It's funny yet sad to see how you planned out your whole life only to be thwarted by me.

Tears threaten to spill out, but you hold them, your shaking hands lifting a sharpy. You open a fresh page in your diary and begin to scribble with that messy handwriting of yours.

Dear diary,

No matter how much I want to deny it, I'm going to die. Doc said I'm sick... and it's not the kind of sickness that gives you time. This one is unpredictable. He said that I can drop dead at any moment, it can be now, a few months from now, a few years from now, the next second...
Why did I waste so much time making these bloody lists? What's the point?!

You chuckle, shaking your head, murmuring how stupid and naive you are.

I've already wasted too much time and I can't bear to just sit here and cry until I die. I mean, I could have died a second ago... but I didn't, right? Do I have time? Maybe... maybe not. But I have to try to make up for all the times I have lost. I have to try.

I'll talk to you soon... hopefully.

And if I don't, I just want to say that I love you Mom and Dad, and I love you, Sam.
And I'm sorry.
-Violet.

With that, you shut the midnight-hued diary, your shaky legs carrying you towards the massive window. With practised precision, your nimble fingers open the glass pane and you slip past your room, landing on the busy street. With a sharpy twirling on your long, thin fingers, you take out a clean sheet of paper and begin scribbling-

To-do list-
-Live.

And when you look up, your cerulean eyes smile, fear and sadness still etched in them, but there's a spark, a glow in your eyes that says you are going to do just that. Today, you are going to live. I feel that challenge in those orbs... as if you are testing me. As if you want to tell me that you won't let me shake you, as if you won't let me wreck you. So, I follow your feeble yet strong pace, your stone-cold, yet warm eyes feeding my curiosity, and amusement as the wind sways me towards you.

"I'm going to live... I'm going to live," you murmur the same words, again and again, your heart thundering, and I would have called you foolish for denying the reality, for rejecting the inevitability of the situation, but deep down I can understand that you simply want to cherish the present. You simply want to live and not survive.

And, again I want to shake you and ask you why? But, maybe I'll get my answers today.

The gentle breeze caresses your short, violet hair, the light seeping from the lilac sky as I stop behind you. You rap your knuckles on the mahogany door, your movements tense and fidgety while the door bangs open, a girl, Sam, with red flowing curls and big red-rimmed eyes runs towards you and gives you the tightest hug I have ever seen. You are both frozen, crying, smiling, hissing, whispering, and blushing.

Just the sight of you, holding each other with such endearment spikes up an inexplicable gust of... feeling. You take her hand in yours, your heart thudding against your chest, a huge smile lighting up your face as you walk around, explaining to her your to-do list. And Sam nods along, her big, sad yet kind eyes lighting up with mischief.

So, as the clock ticks by, you and Sam go from one corner of the city to the next, listening to your favorite music, gobbling up ice cream, screaming, and soiling yourself on the roller coaster ride, painting on random walls. Your laughter, raucous and genuine, something filled with so many emotions feels like an unexplainable melody. And, for the first time, you focus on now, not the future, not the past, but now.

"Hey, Sam?" you ask, your once pale lips coated with chocolate cream, and when she looks at you, her eyes wide, a soft smile tugging on her lips, I can feel your heart melt. I can feel both of your hearts melting at the sight of each other. Without a second thought, you cradle her face, your sweet lips burning and melting against her smiling ones.
And, here I'm struck, dumbfounded at how reckless, stupid, and brave that is, wondering how good it would feel to love someone, hold them, and know that they will love you back, they will hold you back.

Smiling and laughing, you clasp her hand in yours as you saunter back to your house, unsaid words bubbling inside you. And, I can only admire you when you reach home to your wrecked parents and scream on top of your voice that you love them. That you love them with all your heart, that you are sorry you never told them that. And, just like that, you spend every bit of time you have and hold on to Sam, hold on to your Mom and Dad, hold on to the people who love you so fiercely that it hurts to know that this won't last forever. It's funny how you wish for more time when you wasted year after year, seconds after seconds worrying about what you wanted to do, instead of just doing them.

And, when the sky turns into an inky black night, the light of the stars illuminating your face, you close your eyes, letting the sleep beckon you, letting me beckon you, knowing that this is the last time you may draw a breath. I reach for you, staring at your hands clasped in Sam's, your head on your mother's lap, a sleepy smile on your lips. And, when I let my cool fluid fingers touch your soul, breaking the delicate tether binding you and your life, I finally understand why you wanted to live.

And, I envy you, human. I envy every inch of you. I envy this cruel, broken yet beautiful world, I envy your smile and laugh, cry and howl. I envy this madness of love and hate. I envy humanity and I envy life.

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