The little girl didn't like having porridge for breakfast. "Mother, may I please be excused?" she asked. "Finish your food, then you can go, heart", Mother answered, like always. Mother did not even look up from the sock she was darning. "You never told me how you found the pair of socks", she reminded her daughter who thought back:
The kid had barely been six. His older siblings walked away from the lake. The kid tried to follow them but it was no good; he had been left behind. The girl had watched as he made his way, slipped on the slick lake mud, and went right in. She stood still with her face expressionless as he started to thrash. Her eyes played peek-a-boo with the kid's polka dotted socks revealing themselves, one moment and hiding under the water, the next. The thrashing eventually stopped and the water's surface was calm again. Life had left the confines of the kid's body. She let out a long suffering sigh as she left her perch and jumped down from a tree branch. Her feet left feathery kisses on the ground as she landed. She stepped over the water and reached the child in a few strides. The girl bent down and touched her forehead to his tiny one. The thinnest strand of gold unwound itself from the boy's head and attached itself to the girl's golden tresses. A heartbeat later and it was just another strand on her head. The only time her face became animated was when her eyes fell on the socks.
"Somebody forgot them by the lake", she told her mother now, as she walked outside. A cloak covered her now, the hood pulled up, and the Scythe in her hand. Death was late for work.
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