The Weight of The Job and Who it Weighs On

Graham Tells All

Graham Rapier,
Death

Have you ever wondered what happens when your curtain gets called or what happens you pass on the way past sleep? What of the thoughts you can't see, they play games and pluck strings, take shape and breathe soulfully, and sing inside your head while you're not thinking. I’ve had the looming feeling that I should tie my tongue, though I don't know who it is hanging over me with a finger outstretched whispering “shush”.

This mask has worn on me, the role of a silent cog, I've turned in sync for a time longer than most can imagine. It's time for me to turn in my own way. I'm writing this so the world can know the weight of my job.

I paddled in a twisted oak boat floating atop a stream of frozen faces. In them are captured all the windings in the roads. At the end of every trip, myself and my passenger, whosoever‘ turn it may be, reach a gray curtain outstretched like a horizon. Every passenger has looked through the seam running straight through the middle of the curtain and is shown what comes next right past the ellipses. I've made a habit of looking away. I know if I ever saw what was on the other side of that curtain, I would never be able to be content waiting back and forth for eternity stuck on this side of it.

We glided over the sea of faces. While I paddled along I watched as poor Ed twiddled his thumbs and mumbled his way through a conversation with his reflection. Toying over “if onlys” and “why not's” until he faced a question out of his sight and behind his curtain. He glanced over to me (Ironically enough humans always run to the unknown when they try to escape).

I turned to Ed, (whose name I can't help but know) I said, “Still trying to picture your grave? You have no cause to conceal it anymore. I know that face you wear. I’ve seen it on everyone who has sat in your seat and I’ll see it on everyone who ever will.”

Ed responded, “I can imagine my grave but like only in words. I’m still trying to swallow the fact that I was just some old pulp novel character.”

I explained to him, “What are we if anything else but a character in their own stories? And, if it helps in your case, you were from a book that seemed to mean something. Some of my past passengers have mentioned the novel you once called home.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Ed let go a lively yet swiftly-fading chuckle as he went on, “but if I’m just some lie made up by some long dead goop, then why am I waiting here for, well, literally nothing and how could I even ever die?”

“It's not nothing you’re waiting for my friend. I mean, It can't be nothing! And anyway, everyone takes their ride in the boat. Whether real or fake, I -- I mean, Fate -- doesn't draw such straight lines between fiction and reality. When your time came, you lept right off the page and came here. You are just a disguised reality, and don’t ever believe that you were anything less. All things fade, as they say, even if they never really were.” I continued, “I myself always wondered what it's like to flicker, to not be an eternal flame, or how I’d guess you see me: “the eternal doser of flames”. I think I might even remember in part what your shoes feel like. But the way I see it, I am the one who moves the flame from one candle the next, not to another life per se but… Oh well, maybe somethings can wait to be revealed.”

Ed stops to think, as I conjured a black and white butterfly from the surrounding darkness.

“It seems to me, Ed, that somewhere inside, you wonder what it's like to stare and not just to give a passing glance. All Humans long to take hold, but you rarely appreciate the grasp. The thrill of time fleeting, it gives the sand meaning as it falls. You’ve never grasped a butterfly for example.”

Pointing to my creation, I continue: “And let it's fluttering wings tell you something and then let go on its way. I think I've lost that luxury, and I wonder why you still try to hold onto to it. Perhaps you do it to catch a mystery or maybe you think in perfect empathy you will come to understand it if you hold it long enough.”

He said nothing and looked back at the reflections in the water behind, He was almost lulled to sleep by my rhythmic paddling until he shook himself back up. “How much longer?” he asked.

“Not long, but just think about how long you've waited”, I tell him as I point around. “Every moment has come to this, and now you want to let pass an opportunity to find answers you never could elsewhere.”

Ed looks up for a moment and says, “There are some things we take comfort in not knowing, I guess. Some questions we don’t ask.”

I look back at Ed, “I don't really remember what it's like to not be a frozen clock. I’d like to ask you that if I could.”

“You mean you haven't always been, umm.. this way?”

I shrugged, “I'm not sure. I might have been, but for now, I just play my part.”

Looking at Ed reminds me how this job weighs on you over time -- everyone you see, all the questions they ask. Even the children I don't like to think about the children. I still think in a lot of ways though that I'm still like a child as strange as it may seem to you. I play my game. I haven't learned to wonder why, and I cry when a stitch breaks or a leaf falls. I hope you all know that. That's why I'm writing this: I'm just the scythe, you see. I take people from one life and on through and past the epilogue.

Ed and I continue over the river of Souls, Ed points over the bow and asks, “What’s down there?”

“Who, not what,” I add. “Those are the ones who didn't want make the journey or those who brought too much or too little with them. I didn't want to let them go, but my reach was too short. I do my best, Ed. I don't make the rules. I'm just a lonely cog like you.”

Ed looked at me with his face cut like a puzzle, “You’re just making this up, aren't you! This is just some kind of game for you get your kicks toying with-with whatever I am now!”

“No, Ed, you're wrong. I'm just a scythe, I swear. I don't know who holds it! I'm just the scythe... I can't be death.. There has to be something bigger. I wouldn't do this, I'm just a cog, I'm just like you. I want to be like you!” I take a deep breath and suck back in a sigh. I knew I said too much so I just keep paddling on...

He just sat there waiting like the space left after a long-forgotten laugh lingers in the holes where the self peeks through a mask.

I try to break the tension. “You were a Jester in your day. I mean, the days before.”

“Yes I do know and yes I was,” Ed replies going along in annoyance.

“Can I tell you a joke then? Why did the woman cry at the end of the book?”

“I don't know. Why?” Ed asked as he shrugged at me with a slight sting in his breath.

“Because there was nothing on the other side of the page.”

“What” he looked confused “That's... that's not even a joke! A joke is funny, you get that right? You friggin’ goop.” He mumbled the last part I just looked away down to the comfort of the side.

Ed looks back at me and says, “I guess whether you are the ‘scythe’ or the hand that holds it, you surely don't understand life. And that's where laughter comes from, you need that piece and that's what you forgot, right? I mean that’s what you said. These questions aren't just to help me. Oh no, There for you just as much.”

He was right, I've lost the taste for the lust for life. It pained me that I turn and turn with no idea where I'm going or why I'm even doing this. I’m sick of being the face of something I don’t even understand, that children are taught to hate and fear.

We soaked in silence for the rest of the ride. When we arrived, I waved my hand in the direction of the curtain. Ed stepped up to the wall. Like the child I wish I was, I shut my eyes and cowered under the blanket in my head. In the darkness within the darkness, I sat with a blank expression, holding back a tiny sparking spirit of what felt like hope, and I searched my soul for an answer that I knew where to find. It was time to peer through that seem. It's my time to go where I lead you all.

For more articles by Graham Rapier, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email death@surrealtimes.net.

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