The Magnificence of Death

by Rhea Rainwater

Death was the omen that plagued all of humanity at birth. It was the ticking embedded in our ribs, the expiration sealed in the soft spot of our skulls. It was an inheritance, silent and absolute. Not a man with a blade, but a law. A rule that never changed. He doesn’t come for you. He’s always been with you.

He is the absence you carry, the shadow stitched to your spine, the cold when your skin is warm. He is the mirror that stops reflecting, the breath that never returns, the name no one calls out loud. The quiet. The waiting.

This must be what it feels like to surrender to Death, I thought. Not in the final sense—I wasn’t allowed that—but in the way a tired heart leans toward silence. It was harrowing. A daydream decayed by ivy and rot. A tangled and twisting ache that left behind pebbled skin and thoughts I didn’t want to name.

In the space between heartbeats, in the shuddered breath before surrender.

It’s strange, isn’t it? How, in the end, what we have to show for a life lived are these bodies—flesh and bone, worn and marked. Memories blur with time, but the body holds our records.

“Our words carry weight, Astoria.” Feodora didn’t look at me, but her voice turned gentler. “You gave a cosmic entity an identity outside his duty. It meant a good deal to him, and so Death prefers his name be reserved—for you.”

“Had an affair… he was always so… disappointed with me.”

Astoria, the woman who had been torn apart by her husband's lies, was the one who gave, who forgave, who loved where others would have broken.

it was that life didn’t always have to be a fight. Sometimes, letting go was its own kind of victory.

“Not just a star. The star. The one thing bright enough to make even Death look up.”

“You don’t have to earn your life,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to prove you’re worthy of it. You are worthy. Because you’re here. Because you breathe and hurt and try again even when it’s messy and half-hearted.

"I don't want your firsts," he said, the words agonized. "I want your lasts. Your last kiss, your last laugh, your last life… your last breath.”

"Your darkness has always felt like my light,"

that was the least I could do for the girl brave enough to fall in love with Death.