It’s the middle of the night; it’s pouring and the town is drenched. It’s very cold, but as I lay in the alley cold as ice, I don’t move under an overhanging roof or curl up for warmth, I just lay there bleeding. A lot of my blood is gone, I can’t be sure how much, I just watch it mix with rain and flow into the sewer.


I see a figure appear from the shadows offering a hand. I reach upward, but my hand doesn’t move, instead a white ghostly hand does. The figure pulls me to my feet. It’s Death, but I’m not surprised, nothing seems to surprise me, not the black robed skeleton, the fact that I am transparent, or behind me my body is still laying on the cobblestone alley, with the rain washing my life down the drain. I look at my body, it’s lifeless, an empty snake skin. Everything is muffled; the rain now sounds distant, I’m not cold, I feel nothing. I turn back to the skeleton.


It doesn’t need to introduce itself I know what it is, and it doesn’t bother telling me. It has no eyes, only dark empty cavities, needless feel his stare even though I can’t feel the rain as it falls through me. It speaks, its voice is raspy but what can be expected from something without a voice box, “You have died.” It says simply and although the rain is muffled his voice is clear, I find myself wondering how I’m capable of speaking as I tell the Death that I know. It seems to stare at me blankly before saying, “Lets find out where you belong.” Its voice is the only thing I can hear, nothing else is real not the rain, the chill, or the unbearable pain of one’s life quickly fading. I realize nothing ever was real it was always this.


Death kneels down next to my body and pulls a long wicked blade from his robes and cuts my chest open. It is odd to see yourself cut open but mostly I’m curious to understand why the skeleton does it. I never studied anatomy, but it’s obvious that he wants my heart. I watch in awe he severs the arteries that are attached to it and pulls it dripping from my chest. It’s hard to read a skeleton’s emotions but I imagine that he is looking at it curiously. He seems to sniff it, pause, and bite.


He chews, and seems to be giving it a lot of thought, like a wine taster swirling wine. I never see him swallow but when he looks up at me and speaks his mouth is empty, “Heaven or Hell?” It asks me, it appears to be giving me a choice. If you were alive it would be easy everyone would choose Heaven, but when you’re dead nothing seems to matter, nothing at all. “What’s the difference?” I ask stupidly. Death peers up at me “Eternal damnation, or eternal bliss?” Then I want to ask him if I can taste the heart the heart, but instead I tell him that I don’t want to leave, he nods and stands and I guess because he doesn’t want to take it with him he hands me the heart. I look at it red and bleeding in my hands, and when I look back up he’s gone.


I sit Indian-style in the rain, and raise the heart to my face and sniff, there are two scents one is a disgusting rot, and the other is sweeter than roses. I take a bite, it’s juicy, no not juicy, bloody, and blood runs down my face, dripping from my chin. The heart also has two tastes; one is the most repulsive taste ever. I want to gag, I want to spit it out, but then, then there is a delightful sweet taste that’s beautiful. It tastes like heaven and they’re perfectly balanced neither overpowering the other. I feel the blood on my face and it runs down my face unlike the rain that goes though me, and I can taste the heart because it’s something in my world, the dead world.


The rain stops and the clouds dissipate revealing a beautiful silver moon. Day comes but his companion; the Sun is feeling shy and hiding behind a freshly formed sky full of storm clouds, but what day does bring is flies. They land on my body scuttle around and take off trapped in an endless cycle. Color starts to fade around noon, everything becomes shades of grey. It appears to me that I am in an old black and white, soundless movie; I am slowly losing contact to this world.


One might think that my situation would be scary or at the least boring, however I find it peaceful. I watch as homeless man finds body horrorstruck he flees, fearing he will be blamed for my death. But later two boys find me, the stench is what I believe drew them, because their noses were curled in disgust. Soon my area is swarming with police; they put up caution tape and take pictures marking everything and writing on small pads. They are oblivious to the bloody crater in my chest where my heart was. They load my body into an ambulance, and leave me alone.


I read a discarded newspaper brought to me by the wind, I learn about my death and funeral. It is to be public and the date is listed. I attend. It’s raining again, and the people there weep over my death, they are more emotional than me. I chuckle, it’s funny. Death isn’t a bad thing, they’ll learn. I smile; death is relaxing, like a retirement, or a deep sleep you never knew you needed.


With every day color fades a bit more. The shades of grey get lighter every day. Soon everything’s gone and all I am is a lost thought floating though an empty void, all I am is this story, these words.