His memories were still good. The day after their engagement party, Lisa and he had traveled by car down to Kent to view the cottage. Here, they had stood upon Moon Point, right at the cliff’s edge, and held each other’s hand and gazed upon their new home and dreamed of their new life. But the dream had not lasted.
After the failure of their relationship just three months later, the couple had renounced the cottage, which they hadn’t yet occupied, and it had been sold elsewhere and turned into a restaurant boasting a sea-view. But while still it stood empty, a lost soul like his own, Patrick had traveled here to meet his destiny -
*****
- “Hello,” the Reaper said with Patrick Beach’s mouth. Light from the restaurant’s big windows flooded the cliff’s edge almost as far as the fence that secured the precipice. Here the real Arden had found the real Patrick Beach sitting on the other side of that fence, facing a long outcrop of rock that overhung the cliff and the sea eighty metres below.
Patrick glared at the Reaper, neither moving. Patrick threw up Arden’s hand.
“Come no closer! I’ll jump.” He got to his feet and scuttled along the pier of rock, stopping at its edge. Beyond him lay the moonlit sea, angry tonight and whipped by the wind.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said the Reaper with Patrick’s mouth. “But that’s my body you’ll jump with. And I want it back. I do have a job to do, you know.”
“Stay away!”
The Reaper had clambered through the hole in the fence and was a step away from the pier of rock. Below, the sea heaved like so many hands reaching for them, sensing a sacrifice.
“I cannot go on,” said Patrick from Arden’s body -
****
- ”Who are you?” Patrick said as the stranger stepped out onto the outcrop of rock he sat upon. “Stay there. I’m having a moment here, if you please?”
The Reaper was all in black, carrying a scythe. It was the vision he used to greet all those who were moments from becoming his: the erroneous but typical depiction of the Grim Reaper. He figured it made them comfortable to see a recognisable image, despite the scythe and gaunt complexion.
“You know who I am, although you may have heard me go by other names - Azrael, Charon, Thanatos, others. Forget what you think you know about me, for I am Arden, the First. I come unto you because you seek your own death - but why is this?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Patrick said. “I have loved and lost.”
“Then you are part of the majority. You do not suffer alone, friend. Do you know why I am here?” -
****
- “You are here to reclaim your body, I know that. But I don’t fear your wrath. I wish to die, and there is nothing you can do to scare me. A lost soul knows no fear.”
The Reaper smiled and took another step along the pier of rock. “But your soul is not lost, friend. It is safe. It became mine when you surrendered it eight years ago now, right here upon this very rock. And do you remember why it was surrendered?”
“My life was over. My relationship was over, I had nothing going for me…”
“And you came here to kill yourself?” -
****
- “You do not need to perform such drastic action, Patrick. I can release you from all this pain and suffering. I can offer you a new life, and a purpose.”
“What purpose can you possibly offer me? You’re the Grim Reaper, stealer of souls, correct? You pick and choose who dies, but who gave you the right to do that?”
“God, actually. And that is not what I do. I come unto those not unlike you, who have come to the end of a road but see no other route ahead. I simply point the way.”
“And what way is that? Be swift, for I have pressing business with the rocks below.” -
*****
- “I have another offer for you?” The Reaper smiled, but upon the deformed face he wore the expression lacked sincerity.
“Lovely. More trickery. Last time you offered me a new life, and instead you put me in a fat little body and made me wait on you hand and foot, soulless. Do you have any idea of the pain I constantly feel inside, the emptiness? Do you know how much having no soul actually hurts?”
“I know. I was the First, remember. But you are naïve, my friend -“
“I am not your friend.”
“But you are naïve. You remember the place your kind call the Basement, don’t you?”
“Of course. Its a prison for souls.”
Wearing Patrick’s body, the Reaper stepped forward along the pier, forcing Patrick back a few paces. It would have been strange sight to any who watched: a perfect physical specimen shying away from the reach of a squat man in bad clothing The sharp edge of the cliff was frighteningly close now, the roar of the sea below a constant thud in Patrick’s ears.
“It is not a prison. You might be better calling it a boiler room.”
“I know where you lead this, but I don’t believe it. It is said the souls you collect become workers who power the universe.”
“Not quite. The souls are the fuel, and the supply constantly needs replenishing. Such a waste for a soul to die with a body upon some rocks.”
Patrick looked down at the rocks. “So you did your job. And I got stuck with a fat new body and trapped in a dungeon, taking abuse off you. Limbo. I would have preferred oblivion.” -
*****
- “Oblivion? Really? You would wish for nothingness? I think not. It is exactly why your kind choose to believe in an afterlife - no one wishes to believe that the world will continue without them, or that loved ones are gone forever. It is an imperfection particular to humans. Take my hand now and all this pain will vanish. I will show you the road ahead.”
“What will happen?” He was still doubtful.
“We will leave this world. To those you leave behind, you will be dead and they will bury your body, but as it decomposes it will knit together in my world, where you will not know the pain of the human soul. You will begin your new life. It’s really that simple, no sales pitch needed. It is the only route open to you. Take my hand now.”
“I will still have my body? Can I visit Earth as a ghost?”
“Yes, the Reaper lied. “Take my hand.”
The hand seemed overwhelming in Patrick’s vision, like a shining light at the end of a dark tunnel. He reached out and took the hand in both his own. The next second, Patrick fell limp, dead, now just an empty vessel.
*****
- “Oblivion you cannot have, Patrick Beach. That is my body you inhabit now. That you stole. And I want it back.”
“Why does the great Grim Reaper need a body?”
“I do not have to answer to you, Cretin. Suffice to say that destroying the body of Arden, the First, will close the chapter on human existence in this universe.” He stepped closer still, reaching out a chubby hand. Patrick found himself wanting to take it, because it was his own. But he checked himself with an internal warning.
“You fear me even in this ugly body?” the Reaper hissed. He did not know the concept of ugliness, but knew that Patrick did.
“I might be ugly,” Patrick said. He stared now at his own ruined face, staring right back at him. Hopelessness flared within him and he turned to face the sea. “But at least I was me!”
And with that, he jumped.
The Reaper loosed a moan and reached for the body of Arden, the First. Below, the sea foamed like the mouths of Pavlov’s dogs awaiting food. Patrick fell, turning, reaching for the hands that sought him, suddenly sure this was a bad idea. Oblivion. Nothingness.
Their fingers brushed and Patrick jerked as if stung by a bolt of electricity, and the next instant he felt the cold rock beneath him, the wind in his hair, and he was looking down, down into the abyss, watching a body tumble away from him, the body of Arden, the First, plummeting towards its doom. In Arden’s eyes was a panic that the Reaper had never known until now.
Patrick was lying on the outcrop of rock, shivering, and he could feel his own body wrapped
around him, and it was warm and good. Their touch had reverted he and the Reaper into their own bodies; he was alive again and it…
…did he really feel it? Yes, he really thought he did: he was alive again and it…felt good.
He stared into the abyss, trying to see Arden’s smashed body tumbling in the sea, but the night was just too dark. He shivered at the thought that the Grim Reaper was dead, and momentarily wondered what that might mean for the universe. He felt a wave of sorrow go out to the Reaper, who had fallen in Patrick’s place. Dead and gone and turned into nothingness? Had the Reaper stolen the oblivion that Patrick had so rashly desired?
“Keep it,” Patrick said.
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