The Melancholy of Death Preface

The Melancholy of Death

Preface:

         It was a cold, crisp winter morning-the sunlight shone brightly behind a mob of strangling clouds, its ethereal rays permeating here and there casting soft shadows on the winter snow.  I stepped softly onto the fluffy plethora of condensed snowflakes, hearing its soft crunch as my feet compacted it into the ground.  My black boots were covered up past the sole, and I began to think if I took another step my foot would be sucked down into the white maw of the delicate ice beast.

         I felt the cold of the wind whip at my face, and in response my scarf seemed to instinctively wrap itself around my nose and mouth, keeping the frigid breath of winter out and my own living breath in.  Well…somewhat living, anyway.  The last time I had seen this much snow in one area was years ago.  During the American Revolution when I crossed the Delaware River, in fact.  I folded my hands up inside of my black jacket; bare flesh touching freezing metal and sending bone stiffening shudders throughout my body.  My grey eyes shone brightly from under the hood of the black hoodie I was wearing under the black leather jacket and scarf combo; giving my face a ghastly visage of pallor.

         I trudged up the road slowly; attempting to suck up what little bit of life that was left in this frozen hell.  Who knew that hell would be so beautifully, exquisitely cruel.  Its beauty a thing of legend, and yet so deadly that whispers of its actuality have become mere conjecture. My beautiful frozen wasteland, my living hell of a constant sub-zero, was my only friend that I had anymore; aside from a pitch black raven with piercing golden eyes.  Tobias, he had called himself the first time he spoke to me, as well as the last. 

         So, for the last few hundred years I had hid in this desolate wasteland of white death.  My once firm body had begun to shrink and become bone like, like a malnourished child in the videos they once showed on what the humans used to call “television.”  In the revel of my memory, I began to lose track of just how far I had walked, and soon (albeit I would not realize this for another hour actually) I had passed my destination completely.  It was alluring and yet methodical how this same process had become nothing more than habit over the past…lets say…two hundred years, perhaps.  The conundrum of why I continued to miss our destination even though I knew its exact location and transversal time, it seemed to give me reason to think why I kept passing by. 

         “Fuck me…  you walked exactly an hour past the destination again, Goddammit!” I heard Tobias caw from his perch on my shoulder.  I ignored this, and his other constant stream of profanities that spouted profusely from his blood crusted beak.  And this I did, just as I had become accustomed to for the past several centuries of my existence.  I raised my hand to the sky, spoke my name, and watched as time and space ripped itself apart to reveal to me the White Gates.

         “A piece of advice.” I said while turning to glance at the infernal creature on my shoulder, “watch you tongue in his presence, or you’ll find it quickly parted from your mouth.”  “Oh, indeed sir, I will be the face of a cherub.” Tobias said sarcastically, “a grin hiding behind it a deluge of blood and shit.”  I flicked the bird between the eyes, and laughed inside at the hollow thump that resounded off of his skull.  “Let’s do this then.” I said as I started to walk up into the air towards the huge white gates forged from pearls-that just so happened to span the expanse of the sky. 

         With each step more and more flesh disintegrated, until eventually there was none.  The muscle then contracted, retracted, contorted and surged across bone-reforming and strengthening itself in rejuvenation.  The clothing I had been wearing stretched, shredded, sheared itself as it reformed into a flowing black cloak that spanned my entire body.  My spine pulled apart, formed into two, and the copy flew to my right hand, slowly forming itself into an intricate scythe.  The scythe was embroidered with screaming skulls that grew out of my bones, and ended in a very sharp ivory blade with a wicked point that cut the wind as I walked.

         The last thing to go was my face.  From the appearance of a man around the age of twenty five with strong structure, I retreated back to the visage of a muscle corded skeleton straight out of hell.  Twin horns curled up in spirals on either side of my skull, and my hair, once shoulder length and black, now flowed down to my feet and was whiter than the snowy hell that I had made my home.  I looked up as the gates once again came into view and I let my scythe hang down by my side.  The celestial wind whipped my hair over my face as I neared the gate keeper, blocking his view of my face. 

         “State your name and your business here, mortal.” the gatekeeper demanded in its rumbling metallic voice.  I looked up through my whipping mane of hair, my silvery eyes glowing in the white darkness. 

         “I’m here to see God…” I said in a whisper like the rattling of dry leaves… “And my name is Death.”