The Lovely Death of Nicole V.

BLUR

Death was the name.

It was so, because that's how Nicole wanted it to be.

It was so for him and also for everyone else like him. Some would say it was just like that for everyone and everything in the world. Things and objects and feelings and actions only were what they were because that's what people wanted them to be. He didn't think much about this kinds of things nowadays. 

His greatest thought for the past couple years has been Nicole.

Death watched Nicole V. for quite a long time before preparing to leave. She had been asleep for at least one hour, which meant she tried to sleep for at least fifteen minutes and pretended to try for another ten. A lot of time to be standing on the very same spot, and he cared far too much for his time to overlook that fact. Time was, as he knew, an incomplete circle chasing it's own tail. 

Time could not be touched and it could not be harmed, but it can bring peace just as it can bring dispair. Just like a long ride somewhere, until you get to wherever you have to get, you might feel exaustion from the road or you can enjoy the view, you may fear for accidents and you may rush with the thrill of the speed, you can surrender control and feel free or you can feel robbed of control and be trapped. Life is just another ride, and time is the cautionary road.

Of course, Death was already old enough to look at young and frightened Nicole and understand that. All that Nicole saw while looking at herself however, was the strangeness that comes with the beginning of any trip. Fifteen years is not enough to settle in your seat, buckle the seatbelts, watch the view and live. Fifteen years are just a bump. A meaningless bump and nothing else. 

Nicole was never meant to be so afraid. She was never meant to feel so alone. And above all matters, she was never meant to see him. 

But she was. She felt. She did. So now it was Death's job to make sure she would get to the end of her ride with a smile. This was his only mission. 

Death took a breath. A single empty breath, because oxygen meant nothing to him. He lifted his right foot and lingered it in the air for a second. Perhaps Nicole would need him. Perhaps he should stay a little more. Yes, perhaps. But perhaps never saved the world and it wouldn't start now. With heavy conscience, he hit the tip of his foot twice on the ground. And simple like that his ride began. 

He saw and heard the thoughts of everyone around. Everybody in the house and everybody on the streets, each one in the state, and everyone overseas, all across the skies to the bottom of the deepest rock, every dream ever dreamt and every memory that was to be forgot. It was a powerful and relentless road, one of the oldest of them all. This journey of two seconds was pure wonder and nothing else at all.

Death arrived to what he learned to call home. But this place wasn't that in any particular way. 

The place just was what it was. There was an eternal mess of others just like him. They all wore the same clothing, just like he did. Black pants, black shoes, white shirt, grey coat. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a bunch of bodies, moving and moving, always going somewhere, always doing something. 

Without attention, you could barely see any face. All you could see was a Blur. The Blur. Their Blur.

The Blur didn't have ups or downs, highs or lows. Every street was even with every sidewalk, and with a little effort, from the first of the streets, you could see somebody on the last of them. Buildings, high houses, second stories, attics, stairs and elevators were impossible words here, because there was no reason for any of them. If you couldn't see something, then it wasn't at the Blur, and the place was built like this with a purpose.