REAP

All around me the air is howling and my hair is lashing. The cold bites at my skin and stings my lips, but I stand motionless. Not far away, a dark silhouette is lifting a leg over the flimsy railing of a local bridge that suspends over a craggy river.

I blink, and I’m right behind him. As usual,

I feel it.

The

pain.

I breathe it in, his suffering, his longing. His hope that is sinking out of him faster than air in a whoopee cushion.

He’s almost gone.

But,

not yet.

This is my job. But,

this?

It is not my job.

It’s another reaper’s. In fact, not just any other reaper’s. It’s a council member’s.

His fingers dance behind him on the frigid metal like a pianist’s does when nervous. He licks his bloodied lips and presses his eyes shut, silently sending a tear down his hollow cheeks.

There’s nothing left here for me.

His eyes snap open with determination and he let’s go of not only the railing but the world.

And that’s when I reach.

11:52