A Business of Misery

Tip #6 | Some Humans just Want Someone to Talk To

This story is part of a new compilation I like to call 'Stories that go well with lofi hip-hop,' so if you're interested, here is the stream I listened to while writing this. (youtube) /watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A

Allow me to tell you the story about a specific time I guided a young human to the afterlife. I can remember the whole scene as though it just happened; the cold, the dry skin, the chapped lips, the gently falling snow, and the gentle quiet of a road rarely traversed by man. A beautiful scene for death, though probably not a comfortable one.

The story goes that a father and his daughter, aged fourteen human years, were making their way through the icy landscapes of where the humans call northern Russia. It was night time and thick snow covered the sides of the road the family drove down. Snow continued to fall and showed no signs of stopping, even when the car did. The girl awoke after the crash with lacerations and bruises all over her body. The scene was silent. The girl was dazed and her vision blurry, but soon enough she found herself in space again and turned to see her father dead at the wheel.

I wasn't there for him, though; another reaper would guide the man away. I wouldn't show up for another couple of hours after the girl started to walk ahead down the road in search of a cell phone signal—no luck. When I arrived, she lied on her side in the snow. Hard snow pelted her coat and created noise in the silent tundra. Even with no visible moon, the snow made the night seem much brighter than normal, but the girl still couldn't see very far. She wrapped her head in her arms; it must have ached horribly.

She was balled up in the fetal position to attempt to keep warm, but her stillness didn't help her in creating warmth within her bulky attire. I stood for a few minutes behind her waiting to see if she'd move again. I knew she wouldn't much. The girl was officially on her deathbed. I thought for a moment of how I should comfort her soul: should I appear as her father? Her mother whom she was trying to visit? A vague spirit perhaps? None of these felt right.

As I thought, a warm glow in the night caught her attention and mine. She moved her arms from her head and tried to raise it in order to see what the light was: a passing car. Her movements were sluggish, but she looked to be trying to signal the car. She couldn't even raise her arms, though, so her best attempt was the squirm on the ground and maybe, just maybe, catch the attention of the driver. Sadly, the snow that then covered her and the darkness of the night camouflaged the girl. The car past without so much as a tap of the breaks.

Likely, the passing car would notice the crash roughly six miles up the road—I don't know if they did—but even so, they wouldn't investigate and find the girl's tracks, if any tracks remained near the crash, in time to drive slowly back to where her motionless body lied to save her. After the car passed, and after a few seconds of waiting for it to turn around, she fell totally limp once again. I watched on, neutral to the happenings around me in the human world, and I thought for a moment longer. Then, it came to me. As the girl lied in the snow, motionless, hardly breathing, not even shivering, she suddenly felt the soft touch of someone she'd once loved.

Her hand, almost completely numb but still retaining the slightest bit of feeling, twitched at the fluffy fur of the form I'd chosen. I made my way up to her chest and looked her in the eyes which she slowly opened. She looked at me and I looked at her. After a minute, I curled myself in a sort-of-ball shape and nuzzled up near her face.

"F—Feodor," she whimpered with shaky breaths. She raised an arm very slowly and wrapped it around me. She lowered her face into my fur and felt the warmth of the animal she was once so attached to. My nocturnal eyes made out her face so clearly in the darkness, but she only saw my silhouette and felt my furry coat, but she knew. "You came back," she said. She only spoke in whispers when she did make words. Her hair was stiff like icicles and her nose was a deep shade of red. She closed her eyes after snuggling up to me. "I'm glad you're here," she said.

"I don't think papa made it, but we'll be okay." Her breathing was shallow and every inhale formed frost in her lungs. "I thought I would be alone." Her lips were a deep blue and her fingers the color of bone. "You're so warm." She tried to swallow but couldn't; Most of her body was covered in snow, but she didn't seem to notice that I remained pristine. "Do you think mama's made dinner already?" The snow kept falling as it had been for several hours by that point and the clouds still hid the moon from view.

The girl remained silent for a few moments, but to her it probably felt like minutes, or maybe hours. She may have even fallen asleep for a minute, but she spoke again not long after her last sentence. "The snow is pretty at least. I don't even feel that cold, do you?" She released a few short breaths which I assumed to be laughter, but it was hard to hear. "Hey, did you..." she whimpered, but then fell silent for another minute. Then, she suddenly continued where she left off saying, "see that car that drove by? I wonder who was in it..." Another silent minute. "I wonder where they were going..."

Another failed swallow. Another silent minute. "I hope my...schoolmates finish their projects...I did mine before vacation..." The girl sniffled, but it didn't help keep the frozen mucus from clogging her already fragile breathing. "Where did you go...Feodor...? You were gone...for so long..." I didn't answer, of course. I just held my same position and let her feel my warmth. "You know Chacha misses you... It was hard to...get her to eat for a while..."

I couldn't help but wonder if the car that had passed by would end up coming back and rescuing the girl. I knew the answer already, but her death was so slow that I thought maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that fate was wrong. But, no...

"Feodor...are you still here...?" she whimpered. "I...can't feel you... It's...so cold..." Her voice was barely audible in the quiet night. "I...can't open my eyes..." I could feel the slightest sensation of pressure as she attempted to pull me closer, but all of her strength had left her. There was no part of her body that she could move on her own, not even her lungs. Only a minute-or-so-later, her breathing stopped completely and did not start again. I never did see the car that passed by come back for her. I guided the girl's soul to the afterlife as I had countless of other times with an uncountable number of humans before her.

I don't know who guided her father or when, nor do I know what happened to her mother or when she'd heard the news. Nobody else's life mattered to me except for that young human who spent her final moments on a bed of white purity. She had lived a happy life. Whether it ended too soon or not is not for me to say; in fact, I would say that it ended right when it needed to. Fate has an interesting way of balancing things in the universe whether it be life and death, right and wrong, good and evil.

Every creature and being gets their just desserts, as the humans say. Grim reapers are not judges, nor juries, nor executioners; we are what comes after: the keepers of the graveyard or the keys to Kingdom Come. That's not what many humans believe, but their feelings matter not to a grim reaper. After all, what are the opinions of the dead to beings that do not even know life?