Which Way Do You Want To Die? - 1. Which Way Do You Want To Die

Which Way Do You Want To Die?

By W.L

(Foreword: Death is the final destination, the undiscovered country, and the only truth to all existence. There is no avoiding it as nothing that is created can last forever, nothing that is built can hold together, and nothing that is crafted can keep its beauty. However, the path to death is what truly defines life and gives it meaning and purpose.)

In the Beginning, there was light…I know you’ve all heard something like that a million times, probably on a pew during a scorching summer day, while thankful there was central air. I will never be amazed at how many times your kind can repeat a fantasy until they believe it to be the only truth. To be honest, in the beginning, there was everything that there is now. What you call life didn’t exist, nor what you guys understand as death; though, the manifestation of death existed in its perfect form. If you want to get scientific about the shape of reality, it was a Tesseract, a four dimensional cube. It was a perfect shifting collection of energy particles and vectors, until the day life came into existence in the form of matter. My progenitor lost a major part of his connection to this reality as a new younger power came into being and took the connection on himself, becoming omniscient, but the younger power could not control his new domain completely as it was expanding far too fast. It didn’t take long for both forces to recognize a need for Order. Stability came about with rules for life and death to keep the equilibrium between both forces, until Chaos entered the equation. Chaos is a complicated subject and it is the source of what you call evil with beings resembling your demons in its ranks.

Anyway, my progenitor became known as “The First” for being the first consciousness and took to administer the rules of death and rebirth. You can probably guess who the other guy is and what he does. My species was born soon after, becoming the agents of Death, the parallel of angels, not their opposites. We are born by groups and generations. I am part of the youngest group and newest generation to be based on Earth, born around ten thousand years ago at the dawn of your civilization. Our generation is kind of special due to how we were formed by both our progenitor and his human partner, usually an individual of our kind is only around a few centuries and fade off, but we have been at our jobs for thousands of years. Also, we seem to be aging at a much slower rate than any other agents of death with the exception of possibly the Arknor agents of death, it’s taking us a hundred times longer to mature into our full forms.

Okay now with all that said about my background, please note, I am not a scary skeleton with a scythe. It was just meant to be a prank on the Medieval Europeans from my group. In fact, we really have no actual true form, unless we desire it and believe me, the skeleton look is not our favorite form. In terms of my current form, I look sort of like a 16 year old. I’ve got orange hair, brown eyes, and a lean muscular body. I prefer to wear black and white, when I am working. If that sounds familiar to some of you; fine, I admit that I am a fan of Bleach. I don’t carry around huge swords with magic powers or anything like that, nor do I have a hole in my chest, which would be epic and cool in my opinion.

The Japanese got part of my job correct; I help souls or spirits in your realm get to the afterlife. Sometimes, due to extreme emotions, these spirits become very disturbed to the point of harming others. Most of these disturbances are born out of the emotion of love or its reflexive form hate. You can’t become miserable without feeling love at least once. In these situations, we can either try reasoning with them or as, a last resort, dispersing their malicious essence, essentially cleansing their soul of an entire lifetime full of memories and hatred. Then, we send them off for rebirth into their closest genetic kin and hope for the best. The latter is not something that any of my kind likes to do as it basically spreads the malice and hate into the surrounding environment, turning one tragedy into a pandemic of hate. Think World War I leading to World War II as an example, where we had took such extreme measures and its results. Hate and malice cannot be spread like butter without consequences.

Okay, enough with the talk about the big stuff on how the Universe was formed and who the big players are, you guys are here to hear me tell you a story about choices, not start a religion. Sorry if I get annoying telling these stories and sidetrack about stuff.

In the last few thousand years of being around humans and other beings that inhabit this world, I can basically classify five choices for how people confront death with the first choice that is overlapping, Fear. Death of course is a certainty, but how you arrive at it can help or harm you and others. Since I am assuming most of you are gay, bi, or whatever you call it nowadays, I will relate stories about certain people. Personally, agents of death really don’t have sexual preferences. True, I like being a male and have had predominantly male lovers from time to time, ever wonder how Edgar Allen Poe came up with his stories. In your limited understanding of cosmic events, if you want to classify me as gay or bisexual like yourselves, I’d forgive it.

Fear:

Yes, I get this the most out of all the choices. People don’t want to die, I get that. Death is the end of your story, there’s no way of fixing mistakes that you made in the past, or enjoying the pleasures of the present. You probably think of me as some psycho, who goes around hunting for potential souls to reap. I am not; I don’t kill anyone or cause people to die, at least in this form. Death is a process of degradation or separation of functions that enable life to exist. Your bias of me is part of your fear of death. You are afraid of not knowing what lies beyond your individual lives, being judged for your actions in life, and being unable to change it.

Many things in life are negotiable or at least potentially adjustable. You can change your shirts if you don’t like them, change you TV if it is not big enough, change your house if you don’t like the neighbors, or even change your family if you cannot bear to live with them, which is a painful choice. Death cannot be changed, no one, who has died, can come back, unless you were not alive to begin with, which only works for special types of beings.

For the first story, there was a certain hellfire preacher, who rose from obscurity of trying to sell fish oil and books, not even bibles, into a man leading the charge of millions of worshippers. You probably have seen his speeches broadcasted across your television screens with his message of damnation against society’s evils. He pushed forward major rules and actions within your bodies of leaders, which isn’t that hard if the right pressure is applied. He blinded many with pittances of kind deeds, a few small donations to fix a roof here and a sign on the highway for town there, but in the end, he took in almost ten times what he had given back out in terms of money. As far as I know, no one was giving him the messages to be a prophet, but well, it’s different bureaucracy over there and some are in the mindset that at least he is doing some nice things in a world that needs kindness. You can guess that Death and his agents are not forgiving, part of the job description.

In addition to his ruthless pursuit for power, this preacher was gay; he was sleeping teenage rent boys left and right. Personally, I don’t really care who you sleep with, not my job to judge, I have an opinion, but death must be without bias.

Well, after one of his fundraising drives where he was supposedly trying to save some kids from starvation in Africa, he went on a “sabbatical” to spread the word. He ventured into the usual out of the way seedy motel and made the calls. You’ll be surprised what $5,000 can buy with no questions asked, even in this economy. After he had finished making arrangements, he took off all his clothes and donned a white satin robe. He poured himself a glass of whiskey that he had bought on the way in and waited for his delivery.

“Knock! Knock!” sounded and he peeped out the small eye hole at me with lustful eyes.

He opened the door, “You’re a little older than I ordered and I distinctly called for brown, not a red-head.”

Really good first impression, teasing an agent of death about his hair color, I replied “It’s orange not red.”

He snorted, “Whatever”

Closing the door behind me, he looked me over from head to feet. The black shirt, white pants, and white sneakers didn’t give off the look of death, just the look of a teenager with a monochromatic fashion sense.

“Well, I guess you’ll have to do, take off your shirt and pants, so I can get a better look at you. I hope you came commando.”

“It’s your time, now.”

“Yeah, my time is worth $500 an hour, so get that skinny little white ass out.”

“I mean it’s your time to die.”

At first startled by my reply, then he looked at me with a dismissive grin and grabbed his cellphone,

“Foolish boy, I’ve got God on speed dial, do you think I am worried about a threat from a skinny redhead kid. I can have a dozen guys come up here in less than 30 seconds and they’ll do far worse than kill you.”

“I never said I’d kill you. You did that all yourself, the years of stress over your secret, compounded by alcohol, and one night stands. Can’t you feel that your heart is starting to slow down…slowly winding…the rhythms slowing…slower…and slower…”

He was getting the point finally as he noticed how his heart was beating erratically. The color on his face was turning paler by the moment, but he hobbled toward the drawer to retrieve his own custom gold lettered Bible.

He stared at me, “Foul demon, I hold the power of the Lord in my hand; I speak in his name and shall not die.”

“You speak in the name of one creator; I speak in the name of death. All beings have a time; all life has an end. I do not know what purpose your life has given you, nor do I care. I am not a demon or angel of mercy. I am following the rules set forth from the beginning of time. You may repeat as many scriptures and lines of holy texts as you want, but I am duty bound to guide you out of this plane of existence at the moment of your death, which for you is already happening. If you don’t go with me, you can spend a few years trapped naked in a sleazy motel.”

“Did…did the lord send you here?” he asked fearfully and quaked.

In spite of his rhetoric, he always held the fear that his actions would come back to him in the end. Sad truth about skeptics, they truly are believers at heart, who can’t accept the reality that is in front of them. At the moment of death, I have the ability to peer into a person’s life completely, seeing what they have seen. It’s a weird experience, but it gives me perspective into the people I am dealing with and their spirits.

He blabbered, “You can’t take me, I’m too important to the lord. Without me millions of children will starve to death, houses will not be rebuilt due to natural disasters, and….”

“Enough, I am not judging you, but you’re going to die. Those millions of starving children will either live or die even without your help as only 10 cents of every dollar even reaches them. I know about the slush fund that you have in the Cayman Islands, account number 551266 with the password paradise. If I know it, so will your judges. As your great claim at rebuilding homes, same thing, you overpriced the materials with “faithful” contractors and stashed away more donations, building a dozen homes for appearances. As for your great fear, only thing in your mind that you are beating yourself over, your sexuality and practices with kids, which is not something I really care one way or another. I am an agent of death’s agent, not a police officer. Death comes to everyone, no matter what you have done.”

“No, I’m too important for God to take me. I can change, I will promise you I won’t ever touch another boy ever again, I’ll redouble my efforts to feed starving children, not only in Africa, and really build houses, no Temples, to sing praises of the lord. Just don’t take me.”

“Look, if that trick didn’t work for King David, it won’t work for you; your time is up…now!”

At that, the old preacher’s body fell limp to the ground as his spirit rose out. The spirit turned his head around at his lifeless body, uttering prayers.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For thou are with me…”

I looked at him incredulously, “It is time for you to get out of this place”.

“I am not dead; God won’t leave one of his faithful to die. You can’t take me, because I am one with the lord.”

“Look I can’t force you to come with me, but do you wish to spend years adrift on earth as a spirit here?”

He mumbled until he found some words, “…My soul is with the lord and I shall not want. I see now…that’s why I am this way; this is his test for me. I must fight off temptations to leave this place and pray. I am like Job and the lord will give tenfold back if I should succeed.”

Now, you would think this guy would finally see reason and accept that he was dead. Alas, it’s not so easy, because he’s afraid of what his judgment will be. The “real” rent boy found his body a half an hour later and I thought I would have to pull a double shift that night by the expression on his face. Even with the preacher’s body removed from the motel room, he still would not leave, continuing sprouting random biblical phrases and making promises of epic monuments for the lord for testing him.

You see I can’t force spirits to follow me; my progenitor and the one, you call God, set up a lot of rules on free will, both in life and death. They have to come willingly to be judged after they die, if they deny death, they become ghosts and haunt the area that they died in. It is not something I wish to happen, but that’s death. This guy was not malevolent or filled with hate, just afraid to hear the music and wouldn’t hurt a fly as he believed that he was being tested, so I just let him stay in the motel room and come by every few years trying to get him to follow me for judgment. They usually give up this fear after a few decades, but next time you’re in a seedy motel and hear a middle aged man crying about saving starving kids and building temples, here’s why it happened.

Denial:

Denial, I see it a lot; almost as much as fear, which seems to run in tandem with it. Why you may ask? Death is a certainty, so denial should never even be considered a possibility. Self-delusion is a human trick, compounded with mysticism, and aided by ego. Some people believe themselves so powerful and all inspiring that they will get a free pass, when I come around.

The story I am relating concerns a man that many of you probably have heard about or seen in an adaptations of Angels in America. He was a lawyer by profession, but he did more than practice law. He had high aspirations for power, but he persecuted rather than prosecuted. I am not a judge of a person’s action in life, but I could tell you that he held deep regrets for all his actions despite his assertions. In his own way, he viewed himself as a crusader, trying to live in sin, while fighting the sinners. He had many lovers throughout his life and many enemies due to his dual existence, neither a righteous nor completely debauched man. If you looked beyond the tabloids and the half-hearted efforts of biographers wishing to demonize him for their own purposes, you would see perhaps a piece of yourself in his life story. This man spent most of his life hiding himself through persecution; even in his final days, he continued to persecute despite knowing he was dying from a diseases that disproportionately affected people like him.

Every therapy, every drug, and every advance that could be bought, he secretly took for himself, while dissuading others from feeling sympathy for AIDS victims. Somewhere in his conscious mind, he knew his actions were counterproductive, but he continued on that course. He spent the last months of his life at a hospital, secluded from all other patients with similar conditions in an isolated private room. During the day, almost no human being ever came to visit him, except fellow lawyers presenting suits against him. One night, when his pain was at its greatest, I came to visit, probably the first visitor he had in weeks. In those days, I took the appearance of a modest blond teenage boy, who resembled Anthony Michael Hall.

I whispered, “Don’t fight it, let go of your pain.”

He stared up at me from his hospital bed, “Kid, I think you entered the wrong room.”

I shook my head, “No, Roy, I am in the right room. You’re dying and you are merely prolonging your pain and suffering.”

He looked at me with a surge of anger and resentment, “I don’t know how you found me, but if you even try to get closer to me, I will…” He screamed in agony as his muscles burned from the AZT cocktail that he had been given hours before.

“You don’t even have the strength to lift a finger at the moment. I don’t desire to prolong your agony, please simply stop fighting what is natural.”

“Natural! Natural! There’s…nothing…natural…about ah…Cancer” he blurted out in between his painful spasms.

“You know it is not cancer and it can’t be beaten at this time.”

Roy had regained his wind and blasted at me, “No, it’s cancer and it can be beaten. There are many stories of people surviving cancer. It’s like a nasty New York District Attorney, there are a dozen of them scattered across the wards and outskirts, even New Jersey. I am not afraid of any of them, and can beat them at their own game.”

“This is not a legal case, where you can buy witnesses into silence or change their testimony, pay off or threaten judges, or even make a few calls to the Republican senator in your pocket. You are going to die and nothing you do now can change it. You will only prolong your own suffering.”

“You’re wrong kid, I am unbeatable, the state board has been trying to disbar me for decades and none of them have succeeded. Democrats have taken my name and thrown it into crap, but not enough of it has stuck. You think a little cough and a few bumps on my body can kill me.”

I had other people to visit that night at the hospital, who needed me just as much, so I had to leave.

“Fine, Roy, I’ve tried to persuade you, but you don’t want to go tonight. I can’t force you. Remember, our conversation isn’t over yet. This “little” cough is not going away.”

I left him there writhing in pain and misery. Some of you, who know what he had done in life, might ask, “Why would you help this asshole? Let him suffer for everything he’s done.” My reply to you all is simple, “Then, who should I help? Should I deny offering people the choice of death due to personal reasons? Death is not bias for a very good reason, everyone deserves a chance to make choices for how they want to live and die.”

It was several weeks later that I returned to the private hospital room, which remained as barren, if not more, of human presence. Roy had become more pale and weak. Every breath seemed forced with what little energy he had left. His face looked sullen as if he had received some shock earlier, which I could see was the final verdict of the state legal board.

I went to his bedside, “I hear you just got disbarred.”

He glanced at me and tried to avert his gaze.

“You can’t escape it, Roy. I know you don’t want to admit it; you don’t want to believe it. I can see the fear in your mind, the memory of the elderly millionaire you cheated at his death bed is coming clearly into view. Don’t worry, I am not your judge, nor am I your confessor. Yet, you knew it was wrong in your heart.”

He turned his gaze back to me and tears began to stream, “I screwed up! Is that what you want to hear me say? I screwed my life up and screwed my way into dying from this “gay disease”. They disbarred me and the IRS is seizing my money under their new revised code, damn you Tip O’Neil, you mother fucking cunt. If I still had McCarthy’s backing, we’d never have let that bleeding heart commie get into power…”

His coughing had intensified and he was struggling, I tried to console him, “Roy, politics is temporal, power is temporal. All these things that you have been dreaming and fighting will disappear over time. In the end, all that matters is the life you have led.”

When his coughing subsided, his glance began to stiffen slightly, “I don’t want to let go. I am fighting for something bigger than myself. As long as I am alive, I can keep fighting them. The lawyers, the Democrats, the communists, and even the other fags must be stopped, I am a patriot. That’s why I am still alive.”

“You are alive, because you deny death and are suffering due to it. Those aren’t reasons for you to live Roy. They are merely reasons for you not to die. I know they have stopped the drug treatments and the other procedures. Your body is very close. Please don’t make it any harder on you. You can deny death as much as you want, but you can’t stop it.”

He let out a scream of horror as another sharp round of pain surged through his body, which he used the last of his strength to suppress. He knew he could not keep up this fight any longer.

He looked at me and understood finally, “I’ve been a horrible human being. You know, they’ll probably be writing stories about me for the next hundred years, comparing me to Hitler. I knew what was right and wrong, but still chose the wrong choices. I wanted to fight a part of me, despite what I knew was right in my heart. In the end, I guess I really screwed up and I have no one to blame, but myself.”

All it took was one moment and his body stopped fighting. Despite his protests in life, he followed me into death very humbly like a scared child telling his parents that he broke something. People in denial are different from people with merely fear, denial inherently means that the person knows they did something wrong, not merely suspect it. They accept responsibility for their actions. Roy’s conscious mind had been warning him every step of the way, but he did not listen and kept making the choices that harmed everyone including himself. Perhaps, in human eyes, he is beyond feeling sympathy or even empathy for all his actions. Roy will spend lifetimes in torment thinking over his faults and seeing the tragedies he had unleashed into the world without the ability to change it.

Anger:

This one is very ugly and I wished it didn’t ever occur, but it is one of those things mankind holds onto in every era and civilization. Remember when I mentioned the thing about malice and hate, Anger is the corresponding choice in facing my kind. Forgiveness is not something human beings can achieve easily and it seems to be something that your kind has forgotten in the last hundred years due to the intensity of your wars. On the subject of war, I’ve been with many brave warriors in the past; they were some of the most passionate lovers that you can have. I think it’s due to Achilles’ choice, you know the Greek guy with the weak ankle. The story on Achilles was a myth, but the idea behind it is not. True warriors would rather choose to die for a glorious cause than live a long life of anonymity. You can guess that an Agent of death would be rather attracted to people like that. However, many of today’s soldiers are not warriors fighting for a cause rather their idealism is trained into them in a mechanical fashion. It has been a long time, since I or my group had any empathy for human wars.

The story happened outside a place called Mosul. A bright green city surrounded by endless dust and filled with a thousand years of ancient empires and blood. I can smell it in the air like a stain that will never be cleansed. Some places in your world are like that you know; human beings claim they are sacred grounds due to some magic or divine proclamation, but they are sacred for other reasons. The amount of blood spilled on them consecrated these places in your memories. It is not the piece of land that holds power, but rather the memory of what was lost on the land that holds humanity hostage to endless cycles of conflict.

A caravan of trucks was coming across the dirt road, a common sight in this area, especially if what they are carrying includes foods supplies and parts to military outposts. On one of these trucks sat two young men, who were planning their future, together.

One of them seems to have started up an argument, “Kirk, like come on, California is perfect for us. Great sun, lot of beaches, and they got the best benefits that you can get free from the government. We can live like kings in L.A or get a townhouse in San Fran with what we saved up together. It’s perfect”

The other responded, “Aaron, Massachusetts is way better with full marriage, job protection, and a full set of gay family options that you can’t get anywhere else. Like you know I want to start a family and have a house of kids. At least, we don’t have to worry about crazy hicks from the rural areas trying to get a “kill all fags” proposition passed and you know that they might.”

Aaron replied, “Yeah, but I hate snow.”

Kirk countered, “It snows in California, too”

Aaron gave a soft pout, “Not every other week”

Kirk griped, “Well I don’t want to be harassed by political action groups every other week to support their initiatives and half-baked schemes. Besides, I don’t tan that well, have you seen how much sunscreen I put on here?”

“I guess I could get used to…” Aaron’s words were interrupted by the roar. Smoke filled the entire area and orders could be heard from the radio to the convoy telling everyone to get clear of the smoke. There was a frantic call among the drivers, asking for confirmation of the orders. Confusion gave way to gunfire.

Aaron in frantic motion pushed the gas, “Shit, it’s an ambush. We got to get out of here quick”

As they were speeding off the road, clearing the smoke, Kirk had the realization at this point, “Aaron, it’s a trick they’re trying to get us out of formation, there was no follow up codes to those orders. We got to get back.”

It was too late of course, or else I would not be relating this story to you. Several shots were fired at the truck, flattening three tires and causing the engine to smoke. Eventually the truck stopped completely and the young men had no choice. They were several hundred yards away from the convoy and radio traffic was too chaotic to get help. They grabbed their side arms and prepared to make a stand as a group of militants were converging. They both used the truck as cover. They were making the best of their situation as their shots were able to slow down the incoming group, Kirk and Aaron even managed to kill a few of them as well.

However, their ammunition was finite. When their last bullets ran out, they took out their knives for the final assault. It was silent in their area of the battlefield, the militants were mulling over whether they were trying to get them to make an assault to expose their flanks for gunfire or if this is really what they had hoped for. Aaron and Kirk looked at each other longingly; they hoped for a miracle, maybe the cavalry will arrive in helicopter gunships, or the soldiers from the convoy will see them stranded and relieve them at the last moment. Sadly, real life is not a fairy tale; I rarely ever see last minute rescues in war.

Kirk said his last words to Aaron, “I love you, man, I hope you know that”. Aaron nodded.

They both charged their foe, who unleashed a hail of bullets. Aaron fell backwards with his eyes fixed on kirk. Kirk in a fit of rage forced his way to the group, but he was easily overwhelmed due to his fatigue and wounds.

Kirk was captured by the militants. He was tortured. What he went through leading up to his death would make the best sadomasochist squirm.

As I said, my kind has long stopped caring about your human conflicts or their participants, but sometimes, there are certain cases like this that brings out sympathy. For all your laws and prohibitions, mankind will never eliminate the prospect of torture or pain in war, not even in private domestic disputes. In recent times, each generation tries to make war less severe, but it only makes it even darker and more encompassing. It’s a lie you tell yourselves that you can control behaviors against your base emotions. You don’t face your problems in your nature; you just hide behind your laws. None of those prohibitions could change what happened to this young man.

Kirk's last living moments were recorded on video with the standard warning and threats. Though, he was severely tortured, he would not read their prepared statements, or should I call it their last will and testament for him. Without additional talking, his executioners prepared a large curved blade. It is at this moment that I arrived on the scene and scanned his memories as the blade cut through his neck.

He stared at me, “Who are you? Why the hell are you here?”

I looked at him with a sullen expression, “I’m sorry Kirk, but you’re dead. I wish you could have been spared that long wait, but your time was not up.”

Kirk’s eyes grew wide, “Where’s Aaron?”

I knew that question would come, “He passed, but he chose…limbo. It’s where people go, when they are trapped by sadness and pity. He went there, because he blamed himself for what happened to you.”

He grew increasingly angry, “You mean he went to Hell!”

Limbo of course is not hell, but I’ll tell you guys about that next. I could feel the emotions emanating from Kirk: anger, resentment, and hatred towards all his tormenters. After witnessing what he went through from his memories, I could understand where all this anger was derived. However, there was something he did not see that I could see, the pattern of revenge,

I began my reply back to him, “Kirk, Aaron is not in hell and it was his choice to go there. His soul was weighed down by guilt and tragic thoughts that could not be alleviated. He blamed himself for what happened during the ambush, the actions that led to your capture, torture, and death. I know you want to vent out that anger on something or someone, but what will that accomplish? A cycle of revenge has existed in these lands for thousands of years without an end in sight. Let go of that anger.”

Kirk quickly replied, “They did this to me and him, look at them, really LOOK! They won’t even let my lifeless corpse alone as they continue to defile it. My head has been cut off; now, they’re cutting up my arms and legs. I’m not a thanksgiving day turkey.”

The entire proceeding passed in moments from Kirk’s perception; though it took in reality hours to complete. It was a tragic sight to behold, even for me. I don’t blame Kirk for his anger or his deep seeded hatred.

I nodded, “They are angry as well, but I agree it is no excuse. They believe you are also guilty of the same desecration that you are witnessing.”

Kirk angrily replied, “I am not, I would never in a million years do that to anyone living or dead. They are monsters, whose fanatical religion and beliefs give praise for murder and destruction. Why aren’t you collecting their souls, sending them off to hell or wherever it is they belong? Aaron and I may not be mistaken for saints, but at least we never wished harm on anyone else unless they made the first move.”

I frowned at his narrow thoughts, “Kirk, you and Aaron may not have ever felt or wanted that kind of punishment, but can you speak for others? In the heat of war, there is no difference between intentions as long as you are opponents. It is not an excuse, but merely a way of perception that mankind has long adapted in their views towards conflict. I am sorry that you had to suffer without fault, but you should not hold anger towards an entire group of people, just as they should not have held anger towards you at the end. Don’t you see, anger only creates more anger”

Kirk for one moment grasped what I had told him, but it faded as soon as it came, “I know what you mean, two wrong don’t make a right, but look, I am dead and so is Aaron. What did we do wrong? What did we die for? In this whole cosmic big picture, don’t Aaron and I matter? Why are these assholes allowed to commit more acts of cruelty without someone to stop them? Where is the justice in that? If God were so big on keeping anger management, then he should not let this stuff happen.”

I really hate questions of justice and fairness, because there’s no way you can answer them. As I said, I don’t work for the God you believe in, but the question keeps coming up in my encounters with the dead. I really can’t answer it and frankly, I kind of agree with the spirits. My progenitor said that in the realm of life, we should have no control over actions. Yet, he never elaborated on reasons against enforcing justice and fairness. I understand the reason behind free will, but I just don’t understand the reason for injustice, pain, and suffering.

In my moment of contemplation, a dark and chaotic force began to gather quickly. This feeling was something I had witnessed many times in the past. When anger accumulates to a critical level within a spirit, it manifests. This manifestation is what most of you associate with the horror movie ghosts, who can cause physical harm to others and even kill out of anger. If allowed to fester and grow without a check, this manifestation hardens into a demonic entity, which is far more destructive and far reaching than anyone realizes. Real demons are not scaly or horned brutes in TV fantasy series; they are human with an unquenchable bloodlust and near immortality. Of course, this entire process should take decades or centuries to occur, but the heighten emotions of war and this forsaken land had sped up the process.

Kirk was still a spirit, even though his transformation was speeding up, so I had to make a split decision of whether or not to disperse his anger. I personally am not allowed to engage a demonic entity as my kind have sworn neutrality, but if I had to defend myself, the progenitor gave my group more than enough power to face them evenly. It’s a paradox. On one hand, my kind and group are tasked with quelling angry spirits from becoming these beings. On the other hand, we are not allowed to fight their final forms; even though, we know of their destructive potential. I know the reason for that prohibition is to balance the forces of death, so we show neither favor for order or chaos. Some of my group have violated that compact and decided to join one side or the other.

I made up my mind and whispered to Kirk, “I am sorry I have to do this to you and add more hatred into this land, please understand.”

In a flash of light, it was done. I don’t need magic spells, swords, or spectacular fight sequences to do what I do. My power is based on mere thought alone. I know it isn’t interesting or something that will give a CGI technician any wet dreams, but it is how things work. Where once stood the spirit of a tormented young man, there was only an infant remaining. All his lifetime of memories and experiences filled with anger had been eliminated and the gathered energy displaced across the sands as so many others have through centuries of blood. He would have no memory of this lifetime, nor remember the love he felt for his partner. The dispersion was complete. All that he was or ever could have been, none of it remained. I put a special request in for his soul to wait until his partner’s soul had emerged from limbo, so they may at least hold the potential to enjoy a lifetime of peace together. I do not have any say in what is fair in life, but I at least can offer the hope that in death, there is a chance for fairness.

Sadness:

I know many of you from western European traditions, when you heard about what I do, probably assumed a lot of things. Like I am not empathetic or I am really cold to human beings. Even with modern media portrayals, I am usually the odd man out if Brad Pitt was any indication. Some of you from East Asian traditions might be throwing food offering at me to bribe me from taking you. You respect me for my power, but you fear me. I get it; no one really understands me or wants my kind or group around. It doesn’t make me feel any less empathy or be willing to take the bribes; though, I am partial to the sweet sticky rice balls that are thrown at me.

My empathy for humanity stems from having seen your lives and views of things from different areas. I have seen the lives of the most powerful and mighty sovereigns as well as the paltry lives of the lowest beggar. Yet, I am prevented from sharing this wisdom with you. For such a mighty being, I am sometimes powerless to stop the simplest act of self-destruction.

There was a boy named Jake, who lived outside a city called Boise. He was like any other boy his age, except for one particular trait that I guess you all can relate. He was bullied in school after spending a little too much time admiring the other boys in the locker room. His parents tried to treat his sexuality as a phase of experimentation. They ignored him.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Probably, a few of you have similar stories to share. In the last few hundred years, I’ve heard the same tragic stories across many cultures and over the centuries. It doesn’t matter if you were in ancient Greece where the practice of pederasty ran rampant, nor the middle age Europe where kings held favorite at court, societies held the same tragic opinions of your kind.

Well, for Jake, not everything was a complete tragedy, he had one very good friend named Chris, who made him feel safe and wanted. They had explored their sexuality several times in private without anyone noticing, it became almost routine for Jake to seek out his friend every day for relief. Each passing day, Jake grew closer to his friend at least in terms of emotional dependence in hopes that the void in his soul could be filled and he could be made whole again. He thought that maybe when they were old enough they could run off to Iowa and get married or something. Too bad, life is not a fairy tale with happy endings or else, I wouldn’t need to relate what happened next.

Chris had been growing more and more emotionally distant from his friend’s advances and was yearning to find someone else. He was not gay, but he just enjoyed the blowjobs that Jake provided and at first was not offended in returning the favor. However, as Chris grew older, a realization dawned on him that he did have an interest in girls. The only problem was that Chris did not know how to explain this to Jake. Though, Chris did not care for Jake in a romantic manner, he still cared for him as a close friend.

All these problems came to ahead one imperfect day, Jake was spending lunch time alone like usual with a few stares in his direction from boys and girls. He usually had no appetite and today was no exception, but he had a full bladder from the water that he drank an hour early after his physical education class. With his meal half finished, he went to the bathroom to relieve himself. It was a mundane action for anyone, but he did not know that he was being watched like prey before the hunters.

As he was finishing up, the door of the bathroom slammed open and a familiar voice boomed, “Well look what we got here boys, a little fairy taking a tinkle. You must have been disappointed that no guys were here for you to sneak a few peeks.”

Jake, in shock and fear, squeaked to the group of boys, “Please don’t hurt me.”

The group of boys sneered and its leader, Ed, mockingly replied, “Oh, we won’t hurt you, but you can’t leave the bathroom without first flushing the toilet. It’s only proper.”

The group quickly overpowered Jake, who tried to yell out for help to no avail, and led him to a toilet stall. The “flush” that they meant was the physical act of dunking a person’s head inside a brown toilet bowel, where specks of excrement could still be seen in the cloudy water. Jake tried to close his mouth and hold his breath as much as he could, but one of the boys had manhandled his genitals forcing him to scream out in pain and take in some of the water. After three dunks, and flushes, they lifted his head up.

Ed laughed, “You want more of that fag.”

Jake sheepishly pleaded between gasp, “Please, I’ll do anything…just stop”

As the boys in the group plotted, they each saw an object next to the toilet and nodded.

Again, Ed spoke for the group, “Okay, if you don’t want to flush, I guess you need to clean out the pipes with a plunger. Why don’t you drop your pants and show us how much you love the plunger? If you don’t, then I guess we got to continue the flushing until everything is clean, right guys.”

Jake obediently, out of fear, dropped his pants and did as he was told. Like any gay kid, he had experimented with anal play at one point, but never with something as big as a plunger. For what seemed like an eternity, Jake was pumping the top part of the plunger up and down, even as blood was noticeably streaking down to the amusement of his tormenters. They took pictures with their phones with plans to secretly share it with a select group of friends.

Eventually, these boys got tired of watching his anguish and pain. Jake was left alone with his pride shattered by their actions. This event was the worst that he had ever been dealt and he could only imagine how bad it might get. The first time they had taunted him, the boy tried to alert the teachers and other adults, but they ignored him, which further enthused his tormenters.

After Jake’s ordeal and his traumatic experiences, he was hoping that Chris could console him. However, he could not find Chris at their usual meeting spot after school from where he would usually walk to Chris’ storage shed near his house. So, he trudged the dirt road himself, thinking his friend had probably gone ahead of him. When he was within range of the shed, he saw a sight that he didn’t expect. Chris was kissing Angie Stilton outside the shed. At this sight, Jake couldn’t take it anymore; all his dreams and his hopes were crushed completely.

He ran towards the shed and screamed at Chris, “What the hell are you doing?”

Angie quickly ran off at the sight of Jake and Chris was at a loss for words.

Jake was frantic, “I didn’t see that did I? Tell me, you weren’t making out with Angie, please. Chris, you’re the best thing in my life right now, don’t tell me you’re dumping me for her.”

Chris looked at his friend and nodded, “Jake, we’re friends and that’s what we will always be. I liked fooling around with you and stuff, but I just like girls more. I’m sorry, but I can’t help the way I feel about it.”

Jake took a long look at Chris. Then, he ran as fast as he could with tears streaming down his face.

Jake wandered aimlessly for hours until he was at the causeway leading to the interstate. He stood against the guard rails and began to the motions of climbing the protective barrier. He sat at the top of the barrier looking off as the sun was setting, thinking how his life was worthless and how no one cared about him. With his despair growing ever worse as self-pity overwhelmed him, he launched himself off the causeway.

As his spirit left his body, I approached him, “Hey Jake, it’s time for you to go. I’m sorry about the rough day, but you don’t have to worry anymore.”

He nodded, “I guess I am heading to hell right for killing myself.”

I frowned, “Jake, there’s nothing wrong or immoral about death, no one form of death is better than the next. I’ve seen your life and I doubt anyone will blame you for what you chose. However, I can sense that you blame yourself.”

He began to cry out to me, “Why am I gay? Why couldn’t I be normal like everyone else? I wouldn’t be bullied, my parents would have cared about me, and I’d never have fallen in love with Chris. My life sucks, because I am a fag.”

I offered as much comfort as I could give to him, “Jake, people are tormented and tortured for many reasons. You have to let go of this sadness or else you can’t move on.”

Jake cries grew louder and his spirit began to flicker, “I can’t help it. I am a worthless piece of trash that’s what everyone thinks of me, right. I just wanted someone to love me.”

My words could not reach him in time as his spirit continued to flicker and become lighter until it completely disappeared. He had chosen limbo; he is trapped in the memory of his begotten life until his spirit is able to lift itself out of despair. People stuck in limbo can only be freed by their own choice to release their despair, so they may manifest themselves as spirits, again. Only a few agents of death are allowed to venture into the realm of limbo as it is easy to lose yourself there without proper training; I am not one of them. I hope Jake will one day be able to break out of his inner turmoil, but it may take decades or centuries for that to occur. Perhaps in another lifetime, he might find: new friends, who will protect him from harm, a new family, who will love him unconditionally, and a new partner, who can carry his dreams and hopes. One can hope for the best possible outcomes to such a tragic tale.

Acceptance:

After all that, I guess most of you think I’m one of the lamest incarnations of death in all your stories and media portrayals. I can’t stop people from taking actions leading to their deaths, I can’t punish people for committing horrendous acts, and I can’t even prevent you from slipping into limbo after your death. I’m not an unstoppable faceless killer like the Final Destination movies make me out to be. Some of my limits are due to prohibitions set forth between my progenitor and the one you call God, so there would be a balance of power between life and death. Other things are due to human actions, you can blame fate and beings like me for all your woes, but in reality, you all contribute to the final outcomes of your life and other lives around you. Yes, I am also responsible as my words carry weight just as much as any of you, but I am merely the last line in the sand.

If the preacher had not spent his life in denial and agonized over his actions, he would not be afraid to see his final judgment. If the soldier could only remove the anger in heart and forgave his enemies, I would not have to eliminate an entire lifetime of memories. If mankind could be more open minded and honest with one another, then a child would not throw his life into despair. Yet, despite all those issues, some among your kind are able to live happy fulfilled lives. There will always be some regrets, some conflict, and some sadness in the past and present, but the unexplored future is what can offer you the greatest rewards.

In a place called Provincetown, located near the sea, an old man named Josh stood as a testament of life. He wasn’t tall or muscular looking, but he had a strong heart and will. He was merely a man, who had tasted the bitter and sweet parts of life. He lived alone in a small beach cottage, now. That was not always so; in the past, there were great parties in that cottage filled with carefree lovers. Those days have passed into memories and albums of photographs that are stacked in a brown box. He still sometimes gets visitors, his nieces and nephews bring their children for visits to good old Uncle Josh, if only they knew what I did of how “good” this old man was. Other times, he invites old friends over to talk about old times and play a few round of poker; even though, he and his friends fell asleep half the time during the game and they all wished they had their old stamina to play the poker with clothing as the items on the line. It might not be hallmark moments, but they are simple pleasures for an old man living out the last days of a very full and happy life. Josh was happy that he could spend time with family and friends, but he was secretly waiting for someone else.

As he rose from bed one particular morning, he could feel a change in the air and knew what was coming. He looked over at photograph to the side of his younger self with goofy horn rimmed glasses and a handsome young man, who held a slight resemblance to James Dean. He took one glance at the image and smiled, then began walking to the living room, where he kept his old phone book and touch tone phone. Josh never did get used to the modern conveniences of the smart phone, despite his nieces and nephews’ insistence that he used one. He dialed the numbers of friends and family, inviting them all for a barbeque at his place tonight. He called up the local grocer to place an order for meat, cheese, vegetables, bread, and cola to be dropped off at his home before noon. He called his favorite pastry place and placed an order for a giant marble cake with chocolate and vanilla frosting.

With the calls made, Josh went to the closet adjacent the kitchen and began taking out paper plates and plastic utensils. Then, he went to the cabinet and began picking wines and other alcoholic drinks for the night entertainment. Within an hour, he had turned the entire living room and kitchen area into a place that Martha Stewarts would probably be willing to die in. The old dusty shelves were completely clean, a little makeshift self-serve bar over a foldable table was set up next to the wine and liquor cabinet, and amazingly he was able to unpack and wire the hi-definition audio system that his grand-nephew, Ben, gave him for his birthday by himself. Despite his protests against modern technology, Josh was formerly an engineer.

When the food arrived, he directed the delivery guys to the back, where he had set up the charcoal grill. After they dropped off the food, Josh paid them and added a $100 tip, which made the delivery guys have a double take, thinking it was a mistake or that the old man in front of them had lost his sanity. Josh implored them to take the money, saying it was a gift for all the deliveries that they had done for him for the last few years. They left eventually with huge grins on their faces.

During the night, Josh’s family and friends noticed a revived energy in him; something they had not seen in years. He was running around his home, offering food and drinks to any who desired it. It was a miracle to everyone; here was a man in his 70’s, who acted like he was throwing a housing warming party. Josh went to each of his friends that night with a specific message that he had prepared, when this day was coming. Some of it was just jokes that he wanted to share with them, some of it was insights like how Greg and Pat should probably get married after cohabiting for 20 years already, and some of it was just gibberish due to excess alcohol as he tried to teach his nephews and their spouses how to load a data sheet into hole reader that he designed for computers, but the system had been obsolete for 30 years.

The night slowly winded down and the guests eventually had to leave; Josh’s grand-nephew, Ben, took charge of the cleanup effort and told his uncle to get some rest. Josh nodded and gave the youngster an approving smile. Josh went to his room, where he undressed down to his usual undershirt and boxers. However, he did not lie down on the bed as he would usually do. He knew I was approaching.

Josh spoke out to me, “You don’t have to hide anymore, Bobby. Just come out, I am not scared.”

I appeared to him, “How’s my favorite Hobbit doing tonight?”

He smiled widely showing off his gold crowns, “You still remember Tolkien after so many years. I thought you might have switched to one of the newer authors that these kids are into nowadays, maybe one of those vampire writers. “

It was the best book I had ever read and it was how we bonded in our youth, “Melinyel”

He chuckled with amusement, “Oh you’re using Quenya Elvish, show off.”

Beneath the joy of our reunion, I could see his fatigue from the party, “I hope you didn’t overdo it on that party you just had.”

Josh’s expression changed quickly to guarded like he didn’t want to talk about how tired he was, “I had a blast, but why do you look like an old black and white TV with Garfield’s fur on your head? Did your old man set up another one of his strange ground rules to impose a uniform?”

I couldn’t help, but laugh at his question. I mentioned to you that agents of death can take human lovers, but I didn’t tell you how or why? The progenitor or as Josh calls him, my old man, basically ask that we live among the beings we work with, at least once. It’s supposed to ground our perspectives and improve our understanding. Love is merely one facet of the time that we spend as human beings.

In deference to Josh, I changed my form to that of young brown haired boy with a 1950’s styled leather biker jacket. I had other appearances before I chose this one, you can guess that I had an interest with the teen rebel look at one point. I probably invented it. When I assumed human form, I had to lock away my memories as an agent of death, which prevented me from actively using my abilities, but I could choose my eventual appearance unconsciously.

Josh, in those days, was far from the good looking standards of the day, but he was adventurous and nearly fearless. He might have looked “plain”, but his heart beat with the strength of the best warriors in human history. He actually did go to war, but that’s another story full of its own unique issues.

I grinned at him with my old form, “Better!”

He nodded, “Yeah, there’s something good about classics good looks.”

“You’re one to talk; I think if you were young now, you’d probably be in the cool geeky clique in high school, playing “Magic the gathering” card games.”

Josh twisted his head at that suggestion, “You’re still so immature, how old are you now like ten thousand five hundred and seventy four?”

Again, I couldn’t help laughing, “Well, after you hit ten thousand, you just stop counting.”

Josh felt his weariness getting to him, “Am I really going to die today, or is this visit an excuse to get into my pants? Like a near death experience or something?”

At that question, I knew I had to get back to professional manner, “Yes, you are going to die tonight, but I think you have lived a good life. I see no big regrets in your memory and you treasured every moment of life.”

Josh held a large grin, “I couldn’t have done any of that without you. I have tried to move on without you and have succeeded, more or less, but I wish our time together could have been longer.”

I wanted the same thing, too, but we’re living in two separate worlds. It’s nice to visit each other and enjoy the experiences that we shared, but in the end, neither of us can stay that way forever due to who we are. I hated this part about having human lovers; they will have to pass on and forget you as they enter their afterlife, while you are left with the baggage of emotional connection. The progenitor could retain his connection to his human lover, because they were once one entity and it did not matter how much they changed over the eons; the connection between them would not.

Maybe, you wonder why don’t we just have relationships with our own kind and treat our time among humanity as one night stands, if it is so painful. Some of us have tried it, there’s no prohibition against that type of relationship, even though technically, we are siblings. However, we cannot consummate such relationship as humans are able to. In biological terms, agents of death were born from an asexual reproductive process, which affects how we may form relationships.

I sheepishly glanced over at Josh and mumbled, “Wish we could have had more time together, too. I am sorry that I’m not human.”

He tried to console me, “Hey, you told me this stuff would happen one day, it will be just fine. Who knows, maybe in a few lifetimes from now, we will meet again, fall in love, and live together for whatever time we will have.”

I hope that would happen, but with the countless variables between us meeting again, I doubt it, “Josh, know that everything I felt for you was real and I will always treasure it as long as I exist.”

He nodded, “I know, Bobby, I know. Now, can I get some rest? Being the life of the party is not as easy as it used to be, and I can feel these old bones starting to ache from the pressure I placed on them earlier today.”

Josh began to recline on the King-sized bed and placed his head on the soft satin pillow case. He could feel his body giving into death. Every pain and ache that he had was starting to numb, his heart was beating slower, and his eyelids began to get heavier and heavier.

With his final breath, Josh whispered, “I am quite ready to go on another journey.”

The End