Death’s Name

Death.

The word mankind fears most. A shadow that can not be outrun, as inescapable as nightfall, and as unpredictable as the weather. He wears many skins, ranging from the head of a jackal, to feathery bones, from a dark helm, to copper eyes. In some cultures, he even takes the form of a woman—but fickle as he may be, I fear it doesn’t suit him. On the day I died, the guise I expected was that of the Reaper: dark hood and menacing scythe. Instead, I meant an angel.

I was born when children were not worthy of celebration. A baby was another mouth to feed, another pair of hands to put to work—especially in my family. I was born to serfs, peasants so deeply in debt that we were practically slaves, working the land of a lord, the name of whom is lost in the dusty libraries of my memory.

It was a tiresome life, with little to eat, but we were rich in happiness. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but we found purpose in our work, taking care of the crops with a tenderness that we didn’t reserve for our children. Without the harvest, there would be nothing to eat, but without the children, there would be more to eat. That isn’t to say that we lost many children. Weeds can flourish in the dark. Death came on rare occasions; glimpsed from a distance when a baby was born still, or the crops were too few.

Everything changed when the plague struck. The world flipped upside down. Death was everywhere, like a terrible storm, leaving no land dry and no life unscathed. In the field, in the markets, and even in the manors, people were dropping like flies. Death claimed rich and poor alike. We are all equal in the eyes of God, that’s what the priests said, and if they were right, then we were getting a taste of Judgement Day.

For a short while, the isolation of the crops was our safe haven. The world had gone mad, but we were the same. I watched from afar as the world fell apart, curious. That is until my mother got sick. She complained of feeling tired one day, and the next, she was bedridden. Everyone was forbidden from attending her. The quarantine—an idea brought to us by the Venicians—was too little, too late. One of my brothers followed the next day. Then another. I prayed to the priest’s God that it would end, but nothing could quench Death’s greedy appetite. Suddenly, my whole family was sick.
Those who still had their health were faced with a problem: who would care for the sick? The doctors were too few and far in between. Besides, doctors cost money. The task would have to fall on one of us.

I volunteered. In the end, it was curiosity that killed me. I wanted to know how the plague worked. Would touching the sick make me sick? Were the symptoms always the same? Was there a way to treat it? Being a peasant and a woman, education was never an option, but I had seen a doctor once. Every autumn, my father took a trip to the nearest village, and sold our crops at the marketplace. On rare occasions, he allowed his nuisance children to join him. At the center of the square, a man in a mask like the beak of a bird set up a booth, allowing the sick and injured to come to him for treatment. He charged a copper per service. Even now, I remember the awe I felt watching him treat an ill child, draining the bad blood. Had that worked? Did the mask protect the doctor? Could I make a mask of my own? What other treatments were there? Now, centuries later, I look back at my determination and laugh. I thought I would find a cure but only got myself killed.

I didn’t last a week. It started with a headache, and it only got worse from there. For all my questions, I only learned how painful the plague was. Chills were followed by vomiting, yet I continued to tend to my family. They were all in worse condition than I, so I made myself useful, wetting cloth for their foreheads and washing their wounds as they moaned.
Then, the weakness came. I struggled to lift my own limbs to care for my ailing family. Worse still was the lumps of puss. Watching my family’s conditions, three steps of my own, only increased my dread. I knew what was coming.
Eventually, I was forced to give up, but only because the agony hindered my efforts. I felt as if my heart were exploding. And then the black spots appeared, the boils for which the plague earned its name, covering me like the skin of a cow. Though, cows attract less flies.

My mother died. I couldn’t move to help them carry her off. More victims joined the room. I was pushed from my cot onto the straw-covered floor, helpless to stop my replacement. My little brother died. I watched them take his body too. The pain had grown so great that I couldn’t utter a word.

I longed for Death. Had I been able to form syllables, I would have begged to be put out of my misery. The stench grew unbearable. Those still healthy—if anyone was—had ceased to look after the infected. The quarantine smelled like Death. All I knew was pain. I prayed for mercy, but feared none would come. Through squinted eyes, I watched the door, my black and white hands reaching, as if I could will a savior into existence.

When I saw him, the world seemed to blur. Dressed in white, like the angels painted in the chapel, he walked into the quarantine, a pitiful shack undeserving of his presence. I tried to tell him as much, to warn him to leave while he still could, or else Death would snatch him too. My voice came out in a moan. As he approached, I felt suddenly underdressed, still in my rags, still smudged with dirt. There was straw in my hair. There was puss on my hands. He knelt by my side. Bile rose in my throat as shame ravaged my thoughts. What was it the priests said? Angels were too holy for our eyes. I bowed my head with what little strength I had, closing my eyes.

He touched me. Delicate fingers against my chin, not cold and clammy, but warm and welcoming. He slowly lifted my head to stare into his eyes, dark, yet warm as the sun. He was smiling, not something cruel, but comforting, as if he knew what I was going through.

How dare I let him touch me? He was going to die now. In my desperation for human contact, I had selfishly killed him. Yet he appeared unharmed, and with his touch…with his touch, something changed within me. In an instant, the pain was gone, melting away as if it had never been there to begin with. On the heels of one miracle, another took place: my strength returned. I frantically looked down, and sure enough, the bumps and boils were gone too. I returned my gaze to my angel, tears in my eyes.

He held out his hand, and I took it, standing up on shaky—but no longer weak—legs. “Thank you…” How does one address a celestial being? “…m’lord.”

He led me to the door, and then down the road. I followed, blindly. Where we were going, I did not know, nor did I care. At that moment, I would have followed him to the end of the earth with joy. I felt healthier than I had been my whole life. If only those moments of glee could have lasted longer.

We passed the field on which my family worked, and from a distance, I saw my father. I was sure he would share in my joy at being healed. At the very least, I wanted to say goodbye to him, and the crops which had been my life’s work.
I did not think to ask my angel, but quickly let go of his hand and took off towards my father. I didn’t make it three steps.
As soon as my fingers let go, I was forced into a violent stop. Pain, tenfold of what it had been, crashed into me like a wave. I crumpled to the ground in agony, curling into a ball, as if I could protect myself from the disease I had come to know all too well. I cried out, only to find myself mute again. I know now that it was my flesh returning to me, body reuniting with spirit in a sudden, terrible collision. Then, all I knew was horror.

For the second time, my angel came to me. He scooped me into his arms—I was nothing more than a sack of grain to him—and started down the path, as if nothing had happened. And just as before, with his touch, the pain vanished. My relief was more than I can find the words to express. I clung to him, only vaguely aware that my filth was soiling his robes.

When I was sure that he would not let me go, I inched my head up, peeking over his shoulder. That field was my whole life. Ever since I could walk, I had been tending to those crops. My family lived there long before I was born—long before my grandfather was born. I had to say one last goodbye. This time, I would ask permission. Surely my angel would allow it.

All plans of goodbye vanished when my eyes fell on a crumpled bundle of dirty rags. Disbelief, astonishment, and horror, are the closest words I can find to express the thoughts that swarmed my subconscious as I recognized the body hidden in the rags. My uneducated mind couldn’t fathom the truth. If that pitiful display of human weakness was me, then how was I able to see my body? How was I moving further and further away?

I looked at my angel. He still held me, and I could feel the gentle meat of his body through the robe, but that was all. There was no heat, no blood-flow, no life. I met his gaze, the only warmth in his body was that of his dark eyes, watching me. With a new perspective, his comforting smile was a charade.

Superstition was just as prevalent in my life as religion. My family left bread crumbs in the field after every meal, we didn’t touch tools made of holly, and my mother hung a horseshoe over the door. Staring at my angel, it dawned on me that appearances could be deceitful. Maybe he was a changing, a vampire, or faerie. Terror replaced reverence at a rapid pace. His touch felt frightening, but I was too afraid of returning to my dying body to let go. Instead, I resolved to learn the truth. At least then, I would know what fate to expect. “Thou art no angel?” It was less of a question, and more of an accusation.

“In a way, I am,” he replied calmly.

I was silent for a moment, analyzing his face. He was beautiful. “A faerie?”

He chuckled and the sound was sweeter than strawberries, softer than a summer breeze, and prettier than sunlight on water. It was a sound sweeter than life.

In an instant, I knew who he was. It was unnecessary to fill my lungs, given that I was already dead, but I nonetheless found the air stuck in my throat, as if the wind had been knocked out of me. My lips moved on their own accord, “Death.”

Death nodded.

Looking over his shoulder, I could still see the field—my life—slowly growing smaller behind us. Hot tears gushed down my cheeks in streams as I whimpered, wishing to say goodbye, but knowing the request was forlorn.

“Forgive me,” Death whispered, sincere.

I shrunk back against his chest, unable to watch my life disappear before my eyes. “Where are we…”

“Where doth thou expect?”

I bit my lip, unsure. I knew what the priests said. “Heaven?”

Death didn’t respond, walking in silence.

The alternative was undesirable. Fear, my old friend, was taking hold of my chest again. I wanted to pull myself free and run away, but instead, clung to Death like a lifeline. I had prayed for this, and now I had to face my reckoning. I found some comfort in the memory of what I had endured. I had already been through Hell. Anything was better than that pain.

Now that I knew his true identity, there was something different about my angel. His robe was white, but not bright, and his eyes were warm, but old, as if they had seen many years that contradicted his smooth skin. He had dark hair, yet the color seemed to shift continually, as if he really was a changing or faerie. That being said, the most outlandish of his strange characteristics was his comforting smile. Death, the unsurpassable shadow that he is, has witnessed man’s darkest valleys. Even now, Death knows sorrow and pain greater than I could ever fathom, and yet, he still smiles.
When I first became aware of the depth of his smile, I was immediately desperate to know its source. “M’lord, may…may I be allowed a final request?” I asked, rash and daring, hopeful that he might oblige me.

Death sighed, but his smile remained, fortifying my courage. “I cannot allow you to bid farewell. Wellaway child, your life is finished.”

I shivered, remembering the pain. I had no intention of returning to my body, even if that meant I never said goodbye. “I only wish to know-“

“Nor can I tell thee where thou art going. That is for oneself to learn at the gates.”

I scrunched up my face. “If thou would but listen, I believe mine request doth break no law.” Death ceased speaking, his expression doubtful. “I wish to know…that is I would ask…what doth thou remember?” As soon as I had asked the question, I saw how vague and insignificant I sounded, suddenly conscious of my own minuscule state. My face grew hot, not from sorrow, but embarrassment. A peasant girl of no importance, I was one of many, a mere ant in the presence of a giant.

Death froze, his shock apparent. I held my breath, afraid to say more, afraid to insult him further. Waiting only doubled my anticipation. Abruptly, and without replying, Death turned around, walking in the opposite direction. Panic flooded my senses. We were going back, back to the field, back to my body, back to pain. “No!” In my arrogance, I had asked too much, and he was going to punish me with a life worse than death. “Please, oh, please! I beg of thee! Do not take me back! I recant my request! Please, oh, please allow me to die!” As terrified as I was, I only clung to him harder, pulling on his robe, unable to struggle, for fear of his dropping me.

“Be not afraid!” Death demanded, his voice as calm as still water. My cries ceased, but my anxiety doubled. His smile was gone.

The field on which I had lived my whole life returned to my line of vision. As sad as I was to leave, returning was far more terrible. I could see my father, his balding head poking out from above the crops. I saw my body too. Try as I might to avert my eyes, a perverse desire to know continually drew my gaze back to the unsettling crumple of rags and flesh. It wasn’t me, it was a corpse, a morbid tapestry of black and white, with eyes still open, glazed and blank.

My spirit’s fingernails dug into Death’s flawless skin, but he didn’t so much as flinch as he knelt down beside the pile of filth that had once been me. The corpse smelled like Death—though, that isn’t entirely accurate. Death has no smell—and flies had already begun to swarm around it. I buried my head in Death’s robes, afraid of whatever he intended to do, missing the safety of his smile.

As gentle as my family cared for our crops, Death pulled me away from him. I tried to hold on, but his strength outmatched mine tenfold. He set me down, and I knew my spirit was returning to my body.

As soon as he set me down, both of my hands wrapped around his left wrist, like shackles. Whether or not he intended to let me go, I had no intention of returning to agony without a struggle. Disregarding my desperate hold on his left hand, Death used his free hand to reach into the folds of his robe, pulling out a fruit more foreign to me than he was: blood-red seeds, the size of kernels, surrounded by white meat, sitting in a black husk. It was incomparable to any of the grain, peas, and barley that my family grew. “Eat.”

As much as I feared him, I wished to obey. In a shaky hand I took hold of one seed, drawing it to my mouth, and slowly placing it on my tongue. It tasted bittersweet, popping in my mouth, a burst of juice. The closest comparison I had was a wild strawberry that I once found and ate unripe for fear of being discovered. As I swallowed the tasty seed, licking the remainder of the juice from my lips, it occurred to me that I had not eaten in days, and I hungrily grabbed another one. And another.

Twelve seeds later, Death held an empty husk. I looked up at my angel with a smile, feeling more content than ever before. Twelve seeds contained more nourishment than any meal I had known. That being said, my gratitude evaporated when Death moved to let go, pulling back his hand. I tightened my grip, clasping both of my hands around his forearm. “Please don’t,” I pleaded.

Death looked down at me, his comforting smile making a long-awaited reappearance. “Trust me.”

Every fiber of my being told me not to listen to him. This was Death, the skin changer, the Reaper, inescapable and unpredictable. Yet, no matter what I knew Death to be, I saw no Reaper in front of me. This was no cold skeleton with black robes and a scythe. This was an angel—my angel. I could not resist trusting those warm eyes and that comforting smile. Slowly, I let go, my hands trembling and my eyes clamped shut, as I waited for pain to return.

I waited. And waited. Nothing.

My eyes flew open and I looked up at Death, who returned my gaze, still smiling. “I understand not.”

“Doth thou still desire to know what I remember?”

Of course. Even more now than before.

When the priests spoke, they always described Death as a criminal, stealing all you love like a thief in the night. I had always believed that the priests were right: Death was evil. But in that moment, as I stared into Death’s warm eyes, I realized that while Life is valuable, so is Death. Like water and fire, they are completely different, but neither one is good or evil. Life plants the crops, and Death reaps the harvest. Both are necessary.

I nodded.

“We would not be permitted to talk if thou were delivered to the gates, nor would we be permitted if thou were alive, for the living cannot see Death.”

“Then how are we to talk, m’lord?”

“Thou needed to become like me.”

“Like you?”

Death sat down next to me, unbothered by the dirt. “If thou truly desire knowledge, I must start at the beginning.” I inched closer to him, wrapping my hands—flesh but free of boils—around my legs, ready to listen to his honey-filled voice forever. “I was once human…”

Since that day, I have met many like me, but those are stories for another time. For now it is important that you know what I learned that day, centuries ago. Death is in no way cruel. He is kind and gentle, loyal and honest. He is a farmer taking care of his crops with nurturing and tender care.

That day I learned Death’s true name: Mercy.