Chapter Five
book one: ethereal icarus
It was one of those placid nights that the young man in black enigma got used to. He was standing atop a building, looking at the moon. An aura of sulkiness dressed his eyes; his eyes were lonely but sharp. He was an angel. Right. An angel. A messenger known to man as death. He had been existing for quite a long while now, since Adam and Eve were tempted to devour the so-called fruits of life. It was when he was conceived. But, he blamed no one. He was just a silent witness to the sufferings of other.
Peace was in the air only for the mortals, but he was hearing the howl of wind as a death agony. He pushed himself and let the force man calls gravity pull him downward. He seemed weightless. His descend was like a dead maple leaf leaving its branch, only though he fell in a straight line. Then, darkness covered him. First, the arms, then the body, the face until it devoured last his gem of an eye.
No noise accompanied a young lady after she's shed tears. The hospital room where she was was covered with silence. There was no sound, only her breathing he could hear. She accepted her fate. She's dying. She would become part of the past.
The ashen lips of hers once virtually crimson, started to mumble something. A song was being woven. The eyes that used to glisten as though it were a diamond struck by light grew somber. Breathing was she but not alive.
A year ago, on an autumn afternoon, she received the most devastating news of all. The slow process of dying started then. It was leukaemia, the havoc that wreaked her. A slow quietus. All she could do was to wait for any death deity to end her afflictions.
The silence cladding the confinement was broken by a series of footsteps coming from the corridor. The door of her room stood ajar, permitting the noise to enter into where she was. The corridor was covered with partial darkness; the only source of light was coming from a flickering fluorescent bulb.
"Who's there?" she asked. Her voice was cold; the sickness inside made it a deal colder.
"You can hear me?!" a man spoke. The coldness of his voice, though inquisitive, equated that of a dying lady.
A smile writhed upon her once lovely face. "Why not? Except if you're a ghost or a death angel."
Weird. He was perplexed by the way the woman smiled. Despite her condition, she still managed to wear a smile on her face.
"Are you here to take me?" she joked.
"Strange", he remarked.
Curiosity was painted upon her face."Why?"
"Because no one has seen me yet and." something he was curious about the most,".and yet you still manage to smile despite everything?"
The smile returned, "Because I've accepted it already. I'm dying. Perhaps, I've already died. What difference does it make?"
"Alone"
The smile grew bitter; it seemed that she's just trying to hide she really felt but failing to do it. "Yes, alone but wait! Who are you anyway?"
"Do you really wanna know who I am?"
"If permitted"
"It might surprise you." He warned
"If you're death or some kind of spectre evil or otherwise, it doesn't matter anymore. Besides, all truth will be put in futile after death befalls."
He'd fulfil the lady's wish, he decided. Besides, she already knew he was there; not supposed to feel his existence there. No one should know he was coming.
The flickering of the light already died away, depriving the sober confinement of illumination. Silence reigned for a while. After a few moments, the light returned.
The man with his sullen but sharp eyes stood by the hospital bed. His eyes were on the girl's.
They traded glances
Amazement was written all over his face.
The man! He had a pair of beautiful ember wings, much like the colour of a still night, a pair of pulchritudinous wings that symbolized who he was: the end.
"What are you?"
"The only thing that you mortals do not understand and scared of: I am death".
Silence. The young lady smiled.
Again, the winged young man was startled.
"So, it only means that my time had come. I've waited for you for so long".
"I've been living a long while now but only now that someone smiled at me, someone who has just seen death."
"Does it matter?"
Little he could do to understand his own feelings. It seemed to him that to himself he became a stranger.
"Before you take me to where I am destined to end up, would you be so kind to answer my question?"
Because admiration was set aglow in his eyes, he's decided to entertain the young woman's inquiry. "What is it?"
"Do you have death?"
The asking startled him.
"Ah!" it seemed that realization had washed over her. "I know it may sound foolish, however-"
"Yes", he cut her midsentence. "When the time comes that God would collect all the iniquitous souls and throw them to hell, I'd be there, too, burning."
Loneliness filled her eyes. "Isn't it brutal? To live with a terrible certainty? But, you can always assert yourself, save yourself."
"To go up the against the most high? Inconceivable? I am a born of a cure, destined to die."
"But, it's the only lapse that you perpetrated. To be born after the first mortals transgressed the first law of God".
Again, he was startled. No one had ever thought of him that way. "It's predestined. I'll die."
"Is there still something we can do?" she felt sympathy for the young man and virtually forget her own anguish.
"Have you ever realized how lucky you mortals are?"
"Huh?"
"You lead a relatively short life. However, despite that, you felt a million emotions and experienced a great many ordeals. To be happy, to be sad, to feel angry. To be human. But me, I count my days just doing what I ought to do. Yes, it's true that you knew you will one day die, but you still managed to smile".
"It's a part of us that we could no longer explain."
He sighed heavily. "I can't believe you diverted your pity from yourself towards me," he said, virtually amused.
"I don't know maybe because I still have a choice; You , you don't have any." She held her head low and focused her eyes upon her hands." We were given enough freedom to choose whom to ally, to choose how we'll live our lives. Because our lives are short, we make plans on how to live it. Today I'll have a walk in the park, tomorrow, gotta see my friends, the next day perhaps, I'm gonna be somewhere else-"
"And that makes mine repeatitive."
She grew wary, feeling that her words offended the man even though it was not evident in his voice. She looked at him in the eyes." No I'm sorry. I mean-"
"In my lifetime," he interrupted. His eyes were locked upon the girl's. "I've seen a great many tragedies that I know to myself I am responsible of. You know life, but, death to you is something obscure. People thinks it's an ultimate release from your life, a tragic coup de Grăce of truth. However, there is one thing you overlooked."
The girl looked at him quizzically. There was something in the man that she found fascinating, entrancing to say the least she wasn't aware of it yet, but she unconsciously renounced her listless self that she considered herself being one a few minutes ago, just by looking at the man's lovely eyes.
"You mortals do not think that you are worthy to accept it. Death is a gift. You considered it surrender. It's a pylon in to the afterlife, a beginning. There is no real end. Only one chapter of the whole story leads to another. The story itself doesn't really conclude."
"So, you're against the idea of temporariness?" she ventured to inquire.
"Everything else here is an energy; energy as you may know it is neither created nor destroyed. Things are only altered. You, humans, do not grasps all the things here in the material world, you get used to all things mundane, as a result, you felt you lost something when it is only changed into something you will never be able to take hold of again." He paused momentarily." You have your sense of time. Minutes hold your emotions, hours your disposition, days aspiration and years anticipation whereas I am not under any law the hourglass indoctrinates. I may stand here to my heart's content until the time comes to burn me in that infernal furnace. You plan. I wait. You fulfil. I still wait."
She retrieved a smile and wore it on her face." You understand mortality more than we humans do. But it's quite ironic for you t try to proselytize a flesh to believe in life when she's facing death."
"I don't know. Maybe this conversation stirred me. You stirred me."
"Apparently, yes. You've given me a new insight about life. But just as I said earlier, it's kind of ironic to talk about life when you're facing death."
"Do you want to liv longer? To be rid of that disease?"
The lady grew silent. It seemed as if the man who looked so young was offering her something. Life? Continuation? Perhaps. "If I tell you yes, may I ask why are you asking? Since we're talking about living."
"I only told you the hows of living, not why."
"Then, maybe because. from the looks of it, I wanted to be worth, if bestowed a second chance, worthy to face you again. I'll tell you I am ready to earn what I deserve. I am ready to embrace you with arms wide open. To be honest, I am not ready yet. I'm scared. There are still clouds of uncertainty hanging overhead and I fear of what I'll find beyond. I want to be worthy of death." Yes, she henceforth treasured that moment whenthe end faced her again.
He did not understand why God gave mortals some perishable shells. But he wanted to find out. He'd related his worth as death ; but will liferelate hers? One cannot exist without the other. He cannot exist - nor assert his existence- without life. The young man knew why he was living: to make man feel he's there! A being. But life hadn't explained her side yet. He made up his mind." Then it is settled."
The scythe he was holding that ceased the existence of one without blood having been shed was raised.
The woman knew that it was time.
