A Dance With Death

|| Chapter 4 - Reaper ||

                     

I have wondered many times before what it feels like to die. I've always felt that death was infinite. Once you die, you continue to be dead. No matter what happens in the entire world, you remain dead till generations to come. Your life just ends. You no longer can feel happy, sad, angry...nothing. It's completely constant. And what if there is no afterlife? What if reapers are just supposed to make our souls vanish, never to be found again? I've found death to be intimidating. Who hasn't?

But to a few, death is attractive. If they don't like the living world, if their responsibilities have built up on them, if everyone has turned their back on them, death is the only option. In other words, it means peace. Death seems to lure them in and make them end their lives, turning their souls into absolute nothingness.

And now that I'm staring right at the face of death, I am thinking of what it means to different people. Should I take death the good way, or the bad way? Would it make a difference if I die? Of course it would. But I don't think much difference would be made even if I lived. So should I just accept this; join this infinite realm?

As I look at my body, I wonder what had happened back there in the accident. Was it a mistake done by the driver? Who drove that truck? Why were they in such a hurry? What caused them to hit me so bad that they managed to end my life? Was their emergency more important than the life of a man?

"C-can you tell me what happened?" I ask the reaper, who is standing on the other side of my bed, gazing intently at the body before her. "In the accident, I mean."

"I can't really say," she replies, my question snapping her away from her thoughts. "I wasn't there to see it."

"Will I ever find out?"

She remains silent. Of course I know the answer. It was stupid of me to ask.

To break the silence, I say, "So a reaper? As in-"

"An angel of Death," she completes the sentence for me. "And I can assure you that reapers aren't a myth."

She seems to be patient. Not that I've met a reaper before, but she's allowed me to have some time with myself. She's not in a hurry to end my life.

"I really am about to die?" I ask, hoping for a favourable answer.

She nods. "As painful as it sounds, it's true."

I shake my head. "I don't want to die..." I say in a low voice. I hear her sigh at my words. I step away from my body and look at the screen next to me showing the steady beating of my heart. "People come out from comas, don't they?" I ask, staring at the lines depicting my heartbeat. "Some people stay in coma for months, sometimes even years, and wake up. Can't I? Don't I get a few months?" I look back at her.

She looks down again. "I'm sorry, but you can't," she says. "Those people stay in a coma for a long while because their bodies can be healed, even if it takes some time to heal. Your case is really critical. You might not feel it, but your body is fighting really hard. It's very difficult to heal you. And from what I can tell, it's also very difficult to heal your soul. Your soul is injured, somehow. I just can't point it out."

I feel my throat become heavy as disappointment fills me yet again. There's no getting out of this mess. I look up and close my eyes, trying to prevent my tears. But it doesn't work.

"However," she continues, "You can stay. If you don't want to go to the other life, you can stay here. You'll stay around as long as the doctors can support you with their machines. If they let you go, you have no option but to live within these walls for the rest of your life as a ghost, as you humans like to call it."