Death Of Death

Death died this morning. I’m not exactly sure why it happened; it happened so quickly, but staring into the empty hole in the ground with his black robes folded up neatly inside, there was no denying it. Somewhere along the way he lost the battle and surrendered to the one-track crusaders waving their bold banners heralding “life, life, life!” up to the heavens.
We all had our theories about how it happened. I thought it might have had something to do with the changing times, but Grandma insisted that he went down with religion. Uncle Albert, who had lived through the war, and watched his buddies be killed first hand as he took cover in a freezing foxhole of mud, was convinced that it was those ‘damn commie bastards’ who had killed him.
We treated death like the taxman, whenever he paid us a visit; a cup of warm lemon tea in the parlour room, artificial smiles, and a let him take whatever he likes so maybe he’ll leave sooner frame of mind. We always managed to get through it somehow.
Over the years, death became a well-worn presence in our house. Out of the deaths I remember, I lost three gold fish, my childhood dog, Aunt Biddy, and worst of all one night, after struggling for years of sickness, my mother succumbed to death at last.
The night mom died was death’s longest visit ever. We all waited with apprehension to see what would happen, but Grandma who always the tough one, took up the initiative. Without a sound, she drew the papers across the table towards her and signed the necessary paperwork for death to take her daughter away. I never even saw her cry – the deep cut lines in her cheeks stayed as dry as our riverbeds did last summer when there had been a 4-month drought.
I watched all of this from a distance, hanging out of the wooden stairway rails like they were my own personal prison, and making faces at death when I was sure he wasn’t looking. Somehow though, I got the feeling he still saw me, even with his back turned away from me.
One morning, after I found death had come in the night to make another one of my gold fish float upside-down in its green scum fish bowl, my anger towards death reached its peak.
I announced my indignation to about it to my Grandmother, who I was sure, would agree with me, having lost so many family members over the years. But surprisingly she looked up from her book, and sighing, steered me over to the laundry room to explain, as though the many soft folds and layers of fabric and pants would soften the impact of what I was about to hear.
“If anybody ever tells you that death should be done in,” she said, “You just ignore them, and don’t pay them any attention. Death is a necessary burden. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a screwball.”
But the screwballs came to us that summer one day in mid-July, lined up on our front porch in robes of white.
“Would you like to join our petition,” the people of the neighbourhood asked importantly, “Against death?”
They persisted diligently, even after Grandma gave them a polite “no” on our behalf (I was half-thinking about running off and joining them, personally) until finally she lost her temper and ran them off like we did the stray dogs in our yard that would sometimes come sniffing around begging for scraps.
“You will regret this,” one of them said as they left, and we would soon find out the full fury of their words.
At the store, Grandma was banned from buying anything after someone accused her bald-faced of stealing tomatoes, so that for a few months, we had to go to the grocer that was four blocks farther from our house. At school everyone did their best to make my life miserable, including the teachers. The kids at recess would call me names like “death lover” and “dead boy,” but I stood up to them as well as any dirt-faced boy should be proud of, not letting anyone see me cry. Insults were thrown as heavy artillery across the battle line, but there were no bricks through our windows (thank god,) as the movement against death mounted.
After a year of two of this had passed, we got our worst shock ever one morning as Grandma went to put out the cat and got a bitter surprise instead. Her scream shattered the crystal off the morning grass, and I came running just as fast as I could when I heard it, abandoning the last soggy bits of my Lucky Charms breakfast at the bottom of my bowl. Well it didn’t take long for me to figure out what she was screaming about, but it took me longer to figure out what it meant.
Up in the high realms of the proud Oak in our back yard hung death, still except for the stray breeze fluttering his robes every now and then. I wasn’t a racist, but there was something reminiscent of the old south in the way that death hung from our tree like a misshapen fruit, hemp-stem bunching the robes around the base of his neck. It made me wonder what kind of a person would do this kind of thing.
Grandmother called up the rest of the family, unsure what to do next, and they all reckoned she was off her rocker until they came to see the sin for themselves. Uncle Albert cut death down as gently as he could, sawing off the rope with the Swiss army knife that never left him.
After a small discussion it was decided that death should be given a proper Christian burial, because really, what else was there to do?
Death died this morning. Uncle Albert reckons it was those damn commie bastards who committed the crime, Grandma says that it’s got to do with religion, but I have my own theories. But one thing was for sure, as we stood over the hole of fresh dirt, hands clasped, lacking for even awkward words to say. Death was dead; there was no denying that, and dark times were sure to be coming over the years just ahead.