Symbolic Suffering

The guide of the life after

Beneath the black cloak and scythe strapped on my back is a skeleton that once housed a soul.

They say, "She's on her way." as if I'm the one killing them. I'm only here to guide the dead.

"Be vary of his knife. He strikes at you if he catches up to you." I'm not chasing after you. I'm only waiting for the ticking to stop. That's when my job starts.

I hear an old man whisper as he drifts away into deep sleep. "When I succumb to my own mortality, let it guide me as if I'm being embraced by my mother again or listening to my father sing. I hope to see my brother playing in the garden and that my sister gets to finish reading her library. I wish to hold my baby forever more in a different world without time or mortality."

What he didn't know is that he was already gone. I was standing right there waiting to take him home to his garden where his baby grew sunflowers, and his sister planted a tree for him as they waited for him to depart back to them. His mother cooked his favorite meal, and his father prepared a melody. His brother was already there holding his hand. I wasn't needed. I knew he was already in the safest of hands, but I wanted to get to see the light just before he left.

I took on a job. To assess the dying and decayed. I take my work seriously even if I wished I could be the one leaving. Then I'm reminded of the souls that wander lost without a map or voice to show them the way into the life in the light.

I made the decision to be their escort the year I died. The year I went through living hell. A time I left to be in the light but found it was better if I helped then leave so soon.