The Life of Death

Forgetting those dreams has become as probable as forgetting the color of this endless night. It’s been many decades since those blissfully ignorant times. I still look back on those precious years so that I won’t forget who I am, or who I was, to say it better. The first night I suffered the dreams I woke in a cold sweat, panting and grasping the sheets to assure myself that I was indeed dreaming. It was so real, so terrible.


It wasn’t until the fourth dream that I realized I was watching the lives of people. I felt there was a connection between them all, and myself. It felt real, because it had been. There didn’t seem to be a common personality as I remember it. The calculating bounty hunter of the cobbled stone roads of England, the sterile swordsman of the grass fields of Japan, the ruthless killer of the battlefields of Vietnam, even the kind farmer of the wheat fields of middle America, the countless others. I would have never imagined them knowing each other, let alone having anything in relation.



I remember the atrocities I’ve committed in some dreams. I remember the love I’ve felt in others. I remember drowning as a young girl over and over again. Most vividly I remember looking out of a dusty window from a barn. I remember that clearly because that one had been different. I remember the voice of the reaper asking me if was ready yet. I asked then, as I started to suspect, if all these people I’ve dreamed of had become something after the lives I’ve watched. The grim smile on his face was enough answer for me. He explained that it was important that I knew the lives of those that came before me. Explained that it was so important that they be remembered for what they had done in their lives. Told me that what was to become of them will soon become of me. That one day I will think nothing of life, and be remembered only by death.



The ghastly form of the farmer told me in that dream of the responsibility that I would carry. He explained that the concept of good and evil no longer existed. He went on to say that I would be bringing death to the young, the old, the sick, the healthy. I don’t remember if it was the dreams or just his way he told me, but I do remember not feeling any emotional attachment to life anymore. It was then he handed the sickle to me. It changed from its given form to many other shapes of weapon until it settled on the rusty length of chain I carry to this day.



I haven’t run into any of the troubles that I was warned of yet. But as I’ve said, I’ve only been doing this for 82 years. The beings that hold life to those that shouldn’t still be alive have given me a wide berth. I’ve had a few looks that gave me pause, but they know as well as I that they can’t afford to lose anymore than they have. I have a solitary existence, and only I seem to think it’s necessary. I document this because I’ve heard talk of the coming of the final days, and I fear that I will be the last of my kind. I just want to be understood. I want to be remembered. I had life. I was happy. I’m different now. I am forgotten. I am alone. I am death.