Beneath a big white two story house overlooking the ocean. The creaking of a front porch swing masked by the roaring sea. Staring over a cliff at the waves. Each one violently crashed against the rocks below giving them an inviting shine. That's the best place to start my story. Because that's when I first heard his voice come from behind me.“You don't want to do that”.
I turned to face a well dressed man in his late twenties. He was clean shaven with dark slicked back hair. He wore a black suit with an impeccable white shirt that shined underneath a black tie. “Jumping, I mean”, he said. “Really don't want to do that”.
“Why's that?”, I asked. He frowned and replied, “Well, it's more than likely gonna hurt like hell. If you're lucky, and I mean really lucky; your head will split open on a rock. Your brain will pour out, looking a lot more like ground beef than most would like to imagine. It would suck and forget about an open casket but at least it would be fast. That's if you're lucky though. More than likely you're going to break something on those rocks. An arm or leg or maybe a few ribs. That's nasty. You have this searing pain that makes you scream and inhale a whole lot of water. That's not fast, believe it or not. You do this kind of choking thing where you keep trying to cough out the water but keep bringing more in. Trust me. It may only last a few minutes, but it will be the most excruciating time of your life”. The man started to walk towards me and I stepped closer to the cliff. “Don't come any closer!”. He held up his hands and replied, “Fine”.
I edged closer and the man continued, “That's if you're kind of lucky. Unlucky, which is a safe bet given your current circumstances. That one involves you landing between the rocks. You're going to get pulled under and then slammed against them. Then pulled under and then slammed against them. Your drowning will take much longer. I've seen them go on for hours. Worst part is you will probably regret your current decision a few minutes later but at that point it's too late. You know. Rip tides and whatnot”.
I looked back over at the rocks and then back to the man. “You've seen a lot of people jump off of cliffs?”. The man shrugged and replied, “A time or two”. There was a long silence before the man started to scratch his head and look out at the ocean. “Look pal. I'm gong to level with you. I've been having a really shitty day. I don't know about you but right now I could really use a beer”. I laughed at him. “YOU'RE, having a shitty day?”. He shrugged his shoulders. “You'd be surprised”. He turned to the white house and then back to me. “I can't stop you. This is your choice. But, if you do decide to go through with it...”. He motioned to the house with his thumb. “How about one for the road?”.
I stepped away from the cliff and the man motioned for me to follow him. I can't tell you for certain why; but I did. We went up the white steps, past a homey living room that had big bay windows pointed out towards the ocean, and into the modernly decorated kitchen. He pulled two beers from the stainless steel refrigerator and walked to the marble top kitchen island. I walked over and sat down across from him at one of the surrounding stools. He twisted the tops off and handed me one. I took a long sip and the man said, “Tell me when it tastes sweet”. I put the beer down and looked at him. “This your house?”. He shook his head and replied, “No. Just meeting the owner”.
“Where is he? The owner”. The man motioned to a hallway and answered, “Back room”. I looked down the hall towards an open door and asked, “Does he care that we're here?”. The man shook his head and replied, “Probably not. She blew her head off a few minutes ago”.
I stared at the man waiting for him to burst out laughing or give me a lopsided grin. Anything to let me know he was joking. He didn't. I slowly rose from my seat and the man continued to stare at me. There was something about the way he looked, or maybe it was the way he said it, that let me know it was not a joke. “Do you want to see?”, he plainly asked. I shook my head and started to back away from what I now thought to be a deranged killer. He huffed and sipped his beer. “Kind of hard to judge. You do realize you were moments away from the same decision. You know, people love to glamorize suicide. Beautiful pale bodies in bathtubs. Often times they forget what it actually looks like. An empty plastic shell, a lower jaw, and above that...not much else”. He laughed and went back to the bottle. I stammered, “Who... Who are you”. He put the bottle back on the counter top and his face twisted as if he was pondering what would be the best response. In the end he simply stretched his arms out and said, “I'm Death”.
I stopped in the middle of the dead woman's living room. The man before me leaned forward and looked at me. No. He was observing me. He was gauging my reaction. My reaction, was to burst out laughing.
“Death?”. He nodded. “Yep. I'm the Grim Reaper and you're Jacob Tanner. You grew up outside Silicon Valley. All of your classmates wanted to work for Apple but you wanted to do something different. So you became a game developer. Unfortunately, your idea sucked. No offense. It just sucked. You lose thousands of dollars, your girlfriend of six years and a whole bunch of your friends in the process. So, you decided to hop in your car, drive out to the place you planned to propose to said girlfriend, and jump off a cliff”. I stood stunned as he continued, “If it makes you feel any better, people have jumped for much less”. I was between a rock and a hard place. The rock meant I was dealing with some psycho stalker. The hard place.....
“Who are you?”. The man smiled and replied, “I'm Death.... Hi”.
The man motioned for me to retake my seat. “Please don't make me regret showing up. I rarely do this”. I walked over and sat back down on the stool. I looked down at my abandoned beer and finished it in one gulp. The man thought this was hilarious and laughed as hard as I had a few moments ago. My voice quaked, “You do realize this is hard to believe right?”. The man shrugged. “Not really. I mean that's the point of jumping isn't it? Meeting me? Hell, maybe this is a hallucination. You could have already jumped. Maybe you're drowning right now and this is your brain's idea of comfort”. I tried to hide my shaking hand but I'm sure he saw it. Either by sight or omnipotence. If he did, he didn't seem to pay it much attention. “Is it? Is this just a hallucination?”, I asked. He shook his head. “No. This is me, coming to you, to stop you from doing something stupid”.
“Why? I mean if you are who you say you are; why me? I'm not particularly good. I'm not going to cure cancer or whatever. I don't even go to church”. The man... Death, looked down at his beer and ran his fingers over the glass. “Look pal. It's not my job to judge you. I just bring you to the other side. Explain things. Try to be comforting.... and frankly... As I said. I'm having a rough day”. He looked up at me and I couldn't believe it. Deep within Death's eyes, was sadness.
“As I said earlier, people have jumped for less. Today there was another man. He showed up to work very drunk and drove himself, along with the 17 school kids on his bus, off a bridge and into a river. Three people survived. One of them was the driver”. Death looked back down towards the bottle and bit his lower lip. “Have you ever.... have you ever tried to talk an eight year old into anything? You know tell him to stop doing something? Imagine 14 of them. All of them crying for their mommys and daddys. None of them know whats going on. They're just...scared... I brought each and every one of them to the other side. One by one. Holding their hands. Trying...to be comforting. Then I came here. Old lady in the back lost a grandson in Iraq a few years ago. Just couldn't take the heartache anymore. Then there's you. The man whose fate is yet to be decided”.
“Why not save those kids?”. He looked out the window towards the sea. “Would you believe me if I said there are rules?”. I followed his gaze. Off in the distance, passed those glass panes, a seagull circled the crashing waves. “So the rules say you can't save a bus full of kids but you can save someone insignificant like me?”. I could feel Death's gaze as he turned back to me. I looked at him to see the sadness give way to something else. Something words can't describe. “Yes and no. Yes, the rules stopped me from saving those kids. No on... I've walked before the sun first rose on this planet. I've seen the dinosaurs rise and fall. I've met Christians who've murdered and Atheists who loved. Every type of person you could imagine. Do you know what I've learned Jacob? No life is insignificant. Not as long as we have this”. I stared at him confused, “Have what?”. He grinned and replied, “Possibilities”.
We sat in silence for a while. Death finished his beer and looked past me towards the cliff. “It's time”. I frantically looked out at the cliff and then back at him. “Time for what?”. He stood and picked up the two bottles. “For you to make a choice”. The two bottles slowly turned into a brown dust which swirled towards the floor before dissolving to nothingness. I stood from my chair and walked back towards the door. Death followed.
We stood on that house's porch for a moment. I turned to Death and asked, “Will you stop me?”. He shook his head. “It's your choice to make. All I can tell are the results. If you go over that cliff, it ends. We walk together to the other side. If you turn and go back to your car, well, it continues”. I looked back out into the ocean and then back to Death. “What is 'it'? Hating myself everyday? Pain. Fear. Hate? All the reasons I came here in the first place?”. He replied, “You're forgetting about something”. I stared at him and asked, “What?”. He smiled and said, “Everything else”.
I took one more look at the ocean. “I'm going to go home”. I heard him say, “Thank you. It's good to win every now and again”. When I turned back there was no one there. I stood alone on a porch next to a swing that had it's creak drowned out by the roaring sea.
I walked back to my car and drove away from where I met Death.
Submitted August 18, 2016 at 12:03AM by Victor_King http://ift.tt/2byLn2I nosleep
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