special man,” Andrea said. “But I know you know that.”
“I do,” said Jane. “And he still is.”
Jane kissed her mother’s head as Scott did and left.
She must presume it’s just old friends talking, thought Ian. And why wouldn’t she, because we are, in a way.
“Do you think he saw Death or the Knight at the end?” Andrea asked. “I mean, did they explain some great secret of the universe to Nathan?”
Ian reached for a cookie and regarded the garden for a long while.
“I would like to think so,” said Ian tentatively.
“Do you mean you hope so?”
“I mean, I honestly don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I’m not dwelling on it too much because I have no doubt I’ll at least see Death – I mean the Grim Reaper as you would call him – at the end of my life. I mean, I’ll still be dead, but I’ll actually see him first.”
“But there will be no great revelation for you?”
“That’s not his gig,” said Ian. “I think he would have given us his wisdom back then. But he was our servant, like I say, not our teacher.”
Andrea took up Ian’s hand and held it, saying:
“He invited you to his house and then waited on you.”
“That’s it, and we’ve wondered why for some fifty years,” said Ian. “But as I come closer to seeing him again -.”
“You’re old friends, you see,” said Andrea, and the tears that she had suppressed that long afternoon came forth.
“He told me that, and I thought it strange. Thank you for making it not so now.”
Ian kissed her hand, then stood to leave.
“I don’t fear him,” He said. “I don’t imagine that Nathan did either. I don’t say that to comfort you, just a statement of fact. If that was his message, to inure us against his presence, it worked well.”
“You say it not to comfort me, yet it does,” said Andrea. “To know he wasn’t afraid, that his laughter was one of defiance or joy.”
Ian smiled, released her hand, and left.
Yet Ian would never see Death, at least not in the manner of his imagining. Another twenty years passed, and he simply slipped from life mid-breath as he napped one afternoon.
Jeremy did not attend Ian’s funeral. The release from fear experienced by his friends was not his to share. By this time, dementia was almost unknown thanks to gene renewal therapy and the transmutation of cells into automata to scour plaques from the substrate of the brain. His aging mind was thus untrammelled by any feebleness; the comforting haze of forget and confound that might have bolstered his resistance to that dread anticipation.
As Nathan had, Jeremy took to waiting for Death’s foot-beats to run him down. Having never married, and without much use for his painstakingly accumulated wealth, Jeremy hired robots to patrol the grounds of his estate.
“I’m being stalked by a man in a Grim Reaper costume,” he told them.
Orders were then given to restrain this man so that the police could be called. The small squad of machines saluted and dutifully trudged off to their guard points. Jeremy retired to a rear room to watch a bank of monitors.
He’s physical, isn’t he? An embodied presence, thought Jeremy. Well, that works both ways.
Eighteen months went by. Jeremy did not sleep, having had his hypothalamus suitably modified to obviate the need. He sat for all hours of the day watching the screens. Sure enough, one day his vigilance was rewarded. The skeleton lightly slipped over the perimeter wall; sensors at its apex emitted a klaxon blast.
“You bastard!” shouted Jeremy, and almost convinced himself that this moment was one of surprise. He reached for a microphone and his amplified voice filled the compound, commanding Death to halt. He did not, and walked through an outer garden towards the house.
It was worth a try, thought Jeremy.
The robot posted there was upon Death now, warped light shimmered within its carapace as it discarded its cloaking field. It grabbed Death at the forearm.
“Take that,” whispered Jeremy.
He uttered a command word, and another servant machine took Death’s other arm firmly. Jeremy knew that sensors in each metal palm would be detecting no pulse under those robed limbs; thus his next order would be obeyed instantly.
“Rip him apart,” ordered Jeremy, and to his great satisfaction the robots did so; shards of grey bone and cloth pattered amongst the flowerbeds.
He rose from his control chair and hurried to the garden to observe his handiwork. His guardians gathered pieces of Death into their own bodies via hidden vacuums and sweepers. Jeremy slapped the nearest robot on its back.
“Well done, boys,” he said.
The robot raised a finger, its face pitching crimson and black. Jeremy’s eye-line followed the digit to its target: a skeletal hand scrabbling at the wall-top, soon joined by another. He ordered his troops onward. Their response was no less brutal than that meted out for the Reaper’s first incarnation; this time, the skull flew loose from the spine with a single punch and rolled over the lawn with jawbone gawping.
Another Death followed, of course. Jeremy eased himself to the grass and sat cross-legged. The skull’s orbits regarded him blankly.
Of course, this will continue, thought Jeremy, until the robots’ power drains and they are unable to attack any more.
He had never married nor had children, and his family were long dead. This very moment’s longing was solely for the existence of one more, that he be allowed to be himself for as long as that conception could hold possibly true. As never before, Jeremy was conscious of the beating of his heart and his breathing. A single cornflower blossom, severed by the robots’ exertions, lay nearby.
He stroked the petals, thinking:
That is the most beautiful shade of blue I have ever seen, that could ever be. What a silly cliché to feel so very alive. It’s a corny paradox I’d laugh away, if it were not happening to me.
He asked the nearest robot the power reserve remaining for the squad, assuming Death’s attacks continued as they were.
“Seven hours, twenty-two minutes and six seconds,” was the reply.
“I don’t think …” Jeremy smiled, feeling himself near tears. “I don’t think I can wait that long. I can’t just sit inside until he comes for me.”
And then he thought:
I can’t hide anymore.
The robot acknowledged this with a tilt of the head, asking what its new orders where.
“Leave him be. He’s suffered enough, don’t you think?”
The joke was a poor one, yet he managed a small laugh. The robots ceased their attack mid-way through the dismemberment of this Death.
Both arms were gone but he still could walk. Jeremy guessed he would gain the 10 metres that separated them in a matter of seconds. He drew his breath in deep and waited.
I see now, his mind ran, that each discrete second is really its own reality, that Death is not the promise of an imaginary future but the abyss spanned only briefly by our perception and that Samurai saying, what is it, oh I know - If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue and here he is now -
And so he was. The lead robot watching this scene saw the robed figure crane its head forward as if to kiss Jeremy. He recoiled slightly then raised an arm to grasp the black cloak, his knuckles blanching white with the force of the grip. Whether this was an attempt to keep the skeleton from him or draw it closer could not be discerned.
Death leant its gaunt frame forward, easing Jeremy to the ground where he lay still.
In the absence of further instructions, the machines waited a further three days until their batteries were completely depleted. The pieces of bone and cloth stowed within their internal holds were transmuted to a fine ash.
In the flowerbed next to Jeremy’s body, the remaining cornflowers began to bloom, and although the robots’ fading electric eyes could not judge, they were the most beautifu
l shade of blue that had ever been.
###
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