Creeping stealthily through the darkness of noon,
He dodged the spears of light.
Blast this brightness!
But what must be done must be done.
He knew that his appearance and reputation
Held no tolerance for light,
It was inevitable that darkness alone was
His.
For he ruled all of them,
Even when they forgot.
Even when they were so conceited
That they cast all thoughts of him away.
Happiness replaced him quite easily, he hated to admit.
They sobbed before him, weak in the knees.
It was not admiration, as he hoped, but fear.
And so it was that when they were happy,
He was no more.
He thrived on the people's mourning, their discomfort.
And this was why he visited her today.
He slipped gracefully through the door,
He had that sort of grace about him.
The kind that only appears in some people.
He glided across the floor, feet barely touching it.
Soundlessly, he crept.
Then, he saw her.
She was quite beautiful.
Perhaps. Perhaps he could....no. No.
He shook his head clear of the impulse
And moved ever closer to the woman at the table.
She drummed her slender fingers on the smooth tabletop.
The fingernails were painted red. Like blood,
He couldn't help but notice.
Her dark hair fell prettily over her shoulder,
Framing her flawless, tanned face.
Now...how to do it?
He didn't want to touch her, for fear that
She would smash into a million pieces
Under the weight of his fingertips.
No, it would be best to do it the other way.
His eyes narrowed as he focused.
He stepped closer still, and couldn't resist the impulse
To brush her hair out of her deep, dark eyes
She shivered as in one, quick, gentle movement
He stroked her forehead.
"It's so cold!" She whispered to herself, chuckling.
She wrapped her arms around herself,
And he cringed to watch her suffer.
But he had to do it.
His eyes narrowed again,
Taking in her facial expression
And watching carefully, guiltily,
As she clutched her heart and breathed in one sharp breath.
One final breath.
She crumpled into a heap on the floor, and he bent down towards her.
He stroked her gentle face, lost in a peaceful expression.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, genuine concern sweeping over his face.
"I am so sorry." He meant it too.
A tear streaked down his pale face,
And he brushed it away angrily.
This hadn't happened...hadn't happened since...since the boy.
He shook his head once more.
"Why do I think about this all the time? Why? Why must I remember?"
His voice shook, breaking beneath the sobs that were to come.
He fell to his knees,
Hands planted firmly on the wooden floor,
His entire body shaking with the tears.
He curled up, pressing his knees to his chin.
"Such a melancholy day..." He whispered it softly, no longer to her.
"Oh, of all the days."
He ran his fingers through his long, dark hair,
The color of raven's wings
And just as soft.
It was a gesture of distress.
He didn't like the job, didn't like it at all.
His black shoes tore mercilessly through the pools of water
As he ran.
It was a terribly busy street,
A beautiful New York image.
The rain fell upon him, but he stayed dry.
He admired the rain, the darkness that it brought upon the world.
He liked it all,
The fact that no one else liked it made it all the better.
He sprinted now, weaving through the crowds.
He shivered, wrapping his black trenchcoat tighter around himself
Slender white fingers shaking with the cold.
He was quite a comical sight, but no one could see him.
He was death.
I was the only one that could see him,
The only one to see the beauty in his face,
Admire his cold dark eyes
That held the world within them,
Deep and beautiful, contemplating life in general.
His dark hair was my second favorite part of his person,
Second only to the mysterious eyes.
I had stared into them often enough,
But strangely, he had never taken me.
He could have.
I would have let him.
And yet...he only stood there,
Staring at me. Perhaps he knew that I could see him.
Perhaps not.
He carried with him a strange bit of mystery,
And it loomed about him.
No one knew him, yet everyone knew of him.
He was the strangest being on the face of the earth.
Was he indeed alive?
Or had there been someone before him, someone that had taken HIS life?
Was he a person at all?
Suppose he was a monster, a terrible monster.
Or an angel.
No, not an angel.
He was too dark and sad of a person to be an angel.
He dressed only in black, the same as his raven-colored hair.
He looked dark, but beneath that, there was skin so pale it was white.
Under different circumstances, he may have been albino.
But he was not.
Of that I was certain.
His name, of course, was Death.
But did he have a different name as well?
A name that made him human, a name that tied him into the world
That he was to destroy?
I thought about it late at night, going through books of names,
My eyes burning with the miniscule words.
There were so many names that it could be,
But not one suited him.
Night after night,
I turned the pages of the books,
Searching for the name. Why, I did not know,
But I felt that I needed that bit of information,
Felt like it would somehow change my outlook on life
Or the way I lived
Or thought.
By the time I was thirteen, I had narrowed it to three names.
Seth. Gabriel. Shane.
I had no idea which it was, if it was even one of the three.
But I knew that I had to find out.
And so I knew that I had to ask him.
Ask Death himself. But how?
I awoke to see him sitting there,
And out of habit I looked at the clock.
Two in the morning.
The sky was black as pitch. His favorite sky, and mine too.
Other than, perhaps, the rain sky, dark with clouds.
He stared at me with curiousity, his head cocked to one side,
Eyes locked into mine, perched at the foot of my bed.
My eyes dragged down until they were almost closed.
I forced them open. I had to know his name.
I sat up a little, my eyes still focused in on his
So that I would know if he were leaving.
He could not leave. Not yet.
I reached out to touch him, and found him unbelievably cold.
I shivered.
He reached out to take my hand,
And this time, it was warm.
I think he did it on purpose.
"Are you...Are you cold?" He asked me hesitantly.
"A little." I spoke quietly, barely at all, my voice shaking in fear.
He nodded sharply and came closer.
He sat beside me, wrapping his now-warm arms around me.
"Better?"
I nodded. I was glad that he had done this.
Now I could observe his every characteristic perfectly,
Noticing every detail with the deepest of care.
I noticed for the first time that his eyes were black,
But they had green swirled in.
His dark hair shimmered in the moonlight, and he took on
An entirely different appearance altogether.
"What is your name?" I asked in the same careful whisper as before.
"I don't know...." His eyes turned away from me,
And now they did not look at anything.
They were distant,
Far away, somewhere that I had never seen or heard of.
"Death, for one," I prompted him, but he said nothing.
"Yes. Yes, of course," he said after a few minutes,
In a frightening monotone.
"Can you...can you see me?" He asked quietly.
"Of course I can see you." I was tired now, and din't want to talk.
"How peculiar..." He murmered, his voice drifting into silence.
"Why?"
"Well because...because...I can't kill you. And I was wondering...
I was only wondering..."
He must have said something else after this, but I could not hear.
I was asleep now, warm and at peace in his arms,
Thinking about how odd it all was, Death being in my room, holding me,
As I slept.
And the strangest thing of all was that he was not a man.
He was only a boy.
Death was only a boy, about fourteen,
Out to play pitiful games in the minds of all.
It explained so much.
Death was only a boy.
When at last six came around, he was gone.
It was Saturday, and still dark outside. But the darkness was fading.
I pulled on a dark sweatshirt,
The sky influencing my choice.
I hurried outside, wanting to be there alone
Without anyone else
Hidden and comforted by the darkness of a morning sky.
As I pulled the door behind me, I thought of the boy.
He was the same age as me,
Perhaps a little older.
He had spoken to me at last. His voice, deep but not yet a man's
Ruled out the name Seth.
His black and green eyes exiled the name Shane.
Gabriel it was.
I walked alone down the sidewalk, lost in thought,
Not noticing as he walked up beside me.
"Hello."
I jumped at the sound of his voice,
But relieved that he was there.
"Hello Gabriel."
He looked confused, at first,
But then his eyes lit up
As he understood.
"How did you come to decide that?"
He spoke in such a dignified manner,
As if he was much older than fourteen.
"Your eyes."
He nodded, as if that settled all of it.
"Gabriel, how long have you been fourteen?"
His eyes left, gone again to the distant place.
His gentle smile softly faded into a vacant expression,
And he answered simply "since the beginning of time".
"Did you have parents?"
"Yes. A mother, a beautiful mother, and a father. And a brother."
As he said the word brother, his eyes flashed back to reality.
He looked at me and smiled.
"But that is insignificant. Would you walk with me?"
I nodded slightly, but of course he noticed it.
He took my hand and pulled back as I winced.
"Sorry. Cold. My fault."
He slipped it back into mine a moment later,
And I recognized the warmth from the night before.
We walked for a while in silence,
But I could still hear his voice ringing in my ears.
It was the most beautiful sound in all the world,
And I loved it.
"Tell me about your brother."
He shook his head sharply.
"Anything but that."
As I contemplated what to say next,
He hummed an intricate song,alive with grace notes and scale passages.
My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden stream of laughter.
"What?" I hated how he never expressed any kind of emotion thoroughly.
"Nothing, nothing. It's just that...you called me Gabriel.
The name of the angel, the one in the story.
You know who I am, don't you?"
I nodded again, realizing the reason for his laughter
And almost laughing myself.
"I am not an angel, not at all.
I am the opposite. The complete opposite."
I nodded knowingly and his eyes glowed with laughter.
"You're quite the deep person, aren't you?"
I nodded again. I didn't feel like talking,
Wanting to hear only his voice.
"You're the first person to ever really understand me,
Did you know that? That is why I tried to kill you,
So I could be with you.
Alas, I could not."
His words shocked me,
And I stopped walking. Seeing as he was still holding my hand,
He stopped with me.
"What?" He looked at me, concerned.
"Did I...Did I frighten you?"
"No, no, it's not that...it's just that I...you tried to kill me?"
He burst into laughter again and nodded.
He had a beautiful laugh, one that harmonized with the world,
Carrying the beauty of nature within it.
"It wasn't my fault..." he whispered, stopping.
He pulled me close to him and lifted my chin up so i could see him
He was taller than me.
"I don't choose....not my fault...."
He was mumbling, but I understood.
"But the truth is, I couldn't kill you. I don't know why.
I just...couldn't."
I nodded.
"I realize now that there is a second reason why I am powerless
When it comes to killing you."
I looked at him quizically, attempting to understand.
"I love you." His whisper was so small
And so afraid
That at first I could not comprehend it.
But when he pulled me closer still,
I understood.
He bent down and pressed his cold lips gently to mine
And smiled down at me.
"Isn't it funny....Death is in love with you?
But I can't help it....I would resist if I could."
He kissed me once more, stared into my eyes for a long second,
And was gone.
I stood, stunned, speechless.
I was in love with someone who tried to kill me.
It was like a book I read, once upon a time,
About a girl who loved a boy who tried to kill her.
But Death was not a boy.
Death was someone who was determined to kill the entire world,
Someone who was quite possibly not a person at all.
It was impossible.
He wasn't real. He didn't exsist.
He came to a girl who was alone in the world
And was broken.
He was just imagination. Just a dream.
But then...he had kissed me.
It had felt so real, so cold and yet so warm.
Safe, even, which was ridiculous in itself.
Safe kissing Death.
Was I crazy?
Probably.
I walked carefully up the stairs.
I had a thing for falling...
Accident prone.
The school was nearly empty,
It was still early.
But I had had to leave the house.
It didn't feel safe anymore.
I knew that Death, real or imagination
Would come again.
If he was real, it frightened me a little.
But then....what if?
What if I loved him back?
The more I thought about it...the more I did.
I loved him.
And that was even more frightening than him,
Death, coming to visit.
Now, suppose he was just my imagination,
Something created from the mind
Of a terrified, lonely girl.
That might just be even more problematic.
I shuddered in the cold.
Or maybe it wasn't the cold, I realize now.
And then, in an instant
He was there.
Behind me.
Breathing gently down my neck.
It was warm. So warm.
I was about to wonder why when he grabbed my shoulder
And turned me around to face him.
As I looked at him,
He looking back at me,
I realized that I did not know him.
He was just...there.
An empty figure, just as I was.
Taking up space as we stood, forlorn
Beneath a dark, rainy sky.
Did I know his name?
The first thing about him?
Anything more than the color of his eyes,
Those mysterious eyes?
No. I knew nothing.
I turned away.
I didn't want to know him.
I would never want to love him,
Though I already did. I needed to stop this.
"What?"
He stared at me, confused and a little hurt.
"Who are you, really?" my voice shook
As I whispered to him.
We were the only ones outside.
I felt so alone, so...so....empty.
He made me feel empty.
As he took my hand, his actually warm this time,
I felt my soul rise up out of me
Leaving my body with him.
Not the way you would think.
He hadn't killed me.
I had died within myself.
"Do you....do you want to walk?"
His voice was uncertain,
And I realized that he had been leaving something out.
"I have school."
It was a vain attempt.
That was no obstacle to him.
"So?"
I knew it.
We walked down the damp sidewalk,
Hand in hand.
I wondered if, when people looked,
They would see my hand floating midair.
"What is it? What is it that you wanted to tell me?"
I didn't necessarily want to know,
But if he didn't tell me
He might hunt me down to tell me.
I would have to see him again,
See those eyes and that pale, pale face beneath
The dark hair...
Suppose I wouldn't be able to restrain myself then,
As I was trying so hard to do now.
Suppose I would accidentally tell him
That I loved him too.
That I wanted nothing more than to be with him
To love him.
"Nothing. It was....it was nothing."
I studied his face.
It was full of guilt, remorse.
"Tell me." I couldn't take not knowing.
Whatever it was, it was important.
It was about him.
What was about him was now also about me.
I needed to know.
"I am....I am death. You know that."
I nodded.
He reminded me of this fact often enough.
"I was the first one to die.
That is why I, of all of the people,
Was chosen for this impossible task.
To destroy the world,
One by one.
Alone.
Apart.
Afraid."
He looked as though he might cry.
"I don't even remember who I am.
I only remember my brother...my brother....
I don't even know why I remember him!"
His face twisted around in memory
And deep, lost thought.
I tried to think. I knew who he was...
I had to!
Didn't everyone know who the first person to die was?
Well...the first person, anyway?
And then...it clicked.
My thoughts connected.
The first person was Adam.
The first person to die was Abel.
The one to kill him was his brother, Cain.
"I know who you are," I whispered, so soft
It was barely audible.
He turned to face me.
"Really?"
His eyes lit up, if that is possible.
For they were so dark
That light in them seemed impossible.
"Yes. You are...you are Abel. Son of Adam.
Son of man."
He looked at me, puzzled,
And then relieved as somehow, the entire story,
HIS story,
Flooded back.
"And my brother..." His voice stopped abruptly.
"My brother Cain." He finished softly.
He stared off into space,
And when he at last turned back to me,
I saw that he was crying.
Soft, gentle sobs
That fell to the ground.
He took my hands in his.
"Don't you see?" He said, gently.
"I have found myself."
The Comfort of Sound
Complete and total
Silence
Absolute calm
Not one note or rhythm in the air
To interrupt your thoughts
We want it
We crave it
We long for it
But we need
A sound
A whisper
A breath
A heartbeat
Something to remind us that
We're still alive
This is for the audio anthology, so any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
