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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Ancient Colors” Down in the Dirt, v148 (the August 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Random Thoughts the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 418 page May-August 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

A Story of Living in Dying

Mary Claire Garcia

    I was dying and the girl who made me feel alive was an Angel of Death.
    I first met her at the hospital when I was ten years old. She was at the end of the corridor, just standing, and seemed to be looking at me. She was strikingly beautiful, like a snow sculpture - white hair, white skin, and a white dress that shimmered like the sea. But I wasn’t scared. Even when I saw that she had black wings on her back. My ten-year-old mind wondered if there was a costume party in the hospital and why I wasn’t told.
    When I pointed her out to my mother, her face paled and asked me in detail what I saw even though she was already gone when I looked again. Mom said that she should tell me if I see the “strange girl” again. She had tears in her eyes and I blamed the doctor for whatever he told her privately. I never told her again. A year later, Mom would tell me that I had just survived the deadline of my life that the doctor told her. I would surpass those literal deadlines again and again. It must be why I saw her again and again also.
    I was twelve years old when I saw her again. I was alone, playing at the back of my grandparents’ house. They had a huge backyard, if you can even call it a yard, and even had a lake of their own. Ever since grandfather died, our visits with grandmother became more frequent. Also, my family thought that giving me a natural environment would help me.
    She was sitting this time. Her feet were on the soft short grass, her hair gently being swayed by the cool breeze, and her black wings were more splendid than I had remembered. She looked like she was waiting for someone and I must have stared at her for a long time, waiting for something to happen, when the thought finally came to me that maybe she was waiting for me. So I approached her - tentatively. Her wings seemed to move and I wasn’t sure if they really did or the breeze caused them to move. When I was already behind her, she patted the grass beside her and I took that as a sign to sit beside her.
    “Do you remember me?” Her voice was like the chiming of silver bells, pleasant to the ears, musical but strong and clear.
    I nodded. “Yes, miss, I saw you at the hospital before. Two years ago, I think. Does Mom know you’re here? I think she doesn’t like you very much. I’m not sure why.”
    She looked at me. Her eyes were of the lightest blue I had ever seen, like the skies that wouldn’t betray you with suddenly raining. “I know why,” she said.
    She didn’t speak for a while after that and we just stared at the lake and I felt really mature for my age for not being bored at it when she spoke again. “Your family is strange. I usually go unnoticed.”
    “Really? But you stick out so much! I haven’t seen anyone like you. Oops, sorry. I meant that as a compliment,” I said, feeling dumb and unsure if I was saying the right things.
    “No, not everyone can see me,” she said softly and she looked at me like she was waiting if I was going to scream and run away but I didn’t.
    “What are you?”
    I wasn’t scared but it was kind of weird for me and I didn’t want to offend her either. She looked at me with a sad smile.
    “Every time I come to you, it is when you are closest to Death’s door. Your heart almost stopped just this morning before you went out here. You didn’t notice, did you?”
    I didn’t. Had I just almost died two years ago when I first saw her in the hospital or was she there for someone else? It was strange but I already believed her. Well, it would have been more illogical for me if I carried on believing that she was still from a costume party and she had just trespassed our lot.
    “But you’re still here. Why?” I was suddenly worried.
    “It just gets lonely sometimes. I know I’m not supposed to and there are times when I wonder why I was still given feelings when my life’s purpose shouldn’t affect me.”
    “Do you still...get affected?” I knew I was asking all the wrong questions but she looked so sad and so lost.
    “Yes, I still do,” she said with a sad smile.
    She disappeared after that, too fast for human eyes to see, leaving only a black feather as a mark that I was not insane.
    I saw her again a lot of times after that. We’d talk a bit and she’d disappear still with that sad smile of hers haunting me for days. There were times when she’d come thrice a year. It became more frequent the older I got. She no longer looked older than I did. I had caught up to her through the years and when I was twenty, I was already taller than her. I had started to see her more as a woman. I started noticing the curve of her ears, her slender neck, and her heavenly scent that I had never paid notice when I was still a young boy. I looked forward to her visits. I had the crazy notion that she always paid me visits, and not because I could have almost died just a few seconds ago. My condition was worsening and Death’s beautiful angel was ironically who made me feel alive.
    Mom thought that I had a long distance girlfriend. She was happy for me but she was also worried. She wasn’t sure if I could still deal with the emotional stress of handling a relationship when there were so many things going on with my body already. It’s complicated, I’d always say. We weren’t exactly friends but I felt that we weren’t just friends either. She never got into the specifics of her job, and when she did tell me about herself, I would always listen intently. My black feathers collection had grown through the years.
    I was twenty-two when I told her that I had fallen in love with her. I hadn’t prepared anything, no sweet music or gifts, because I never knew when she would suddenly appear. I hoped that I wasn’t imagining it but I thought I saw her happy for a split second before she shook her head and looked at me with her sad eyes. She disappeared right after that. I was left with a black feather to cry and feel sorry for myself.
    She didn’t show up again after that for years and years. I wasn’t sure if it was because maybe my condition had gotten better or she just chose not to show herself to me. Sometimes, I felt that she was watching me, her melancholic presence enveloping me like a tearful embrace. Sometimes, I’d find a black feather and hurriedly compare it with the black feathers that I had at home. They would be different and I would feel dejected once again. But there were times when they were undeniably the same, having that otherworld beauty. I hoped that it belonged to her and not from some other Angel of Death.
    I got an online job that allowed me to stay at home. I shouldn’t have told her what I really felt. If I hadn’t, I might have still been talking with her regularly. Then the day my heart almost gave out on me came. It was excruciating. Mom was not at home that time and I had collapsed on the floor. I couldn’t even get out of my room to call for help. It was terrifying. Before, I was never conscious that I could have almost died but the sudden pain that came that time was like a reminder that I was still dying.
    Then I saw her again. She was kneeling and her hand was rubbing my back. I was gasping and writhing on the ground. I wanted the pain to be over.
    I struggled to form the words. “P-p...p-please...” Please what? Please take me away from this mortal world? Please end this pain? Please stay here with me?
    She continued rubbing my back. “It’s not yet your time,” she said softly, her voice still like the chiming of silver bells that I have missed hearing for years.
    The pain soon dissipated. The angry sea returning to its calm state. I was still on the floor. I was exhausted. I felt like I had battled a monster and was left half-dead.
    “You disappeared on me. Why?” I said with a bitterness that I wished I could have hid better.
    “It was wrong.”
    “What was?” I asked. I avoided looking at her, choosing to stare at the ceiling. I felt her dress brushed my arm. She was sitting on the floor beside me. Then she moved. I heard the rustling of fabric, and I felt a weight on top of me. I feared that my heart would suddenly give out on me again.
    “This,” she simply said, and she laid on top of me, her breath on my neck, her arms on my chest, and her wings majestically open. She wasn’t kissing me, but I felt like I was being enveloped by her whole being. She smelled of the woods, of sea salt, and of grass. She smelled of how I imagined the world would smell without its harshness and its impurities.
    I was going to put my arms around her when she suddenly disappeared. I was left lying on the floor with a lone black feather on top of me, telling me that she had really done that.
    She appeared two months later. There was no pain this time. It was just like old times.
    “Did I just almost die?” I asked casually, closing my laptop to pause the real world for her.
    She shook her head and there looked like a small smile on her face.
    “Do you still get affected?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if she would understand and I wasn’t really comfortable in going to it in detail.
    She nodded and her eyes were fixed on me. I didn’t want her to be sad but I didn’t want her to feel indifferent with my death either.
    I lived on for more years and our meetings became more frequent. I had become slightly older than her in appearance. She had become my companion in death. She was death and she breathed life to my farce of a living.
    Then my time finally came. There was so much pain again. I was in a mall’s elevator alone when it happened. I found myself lying on the floor - writhing in agony. It was like before but I already had the inkling that all the years after that were just borrowed time. My whole life was just borrowed time. Then I felt her arrive. Her gaze was different. Her eyes were still sad but there was a sense of finality about them. I heard the rustle of fabric and she was on top of me once again. She wasn’t heavy and I was still clutching at my chest. I wondered if she would do what she did before, if she would give me that strange comforting hug again.
    “It’s time,” she said and my mind went to our conversation before. I wouldn’t want her to be anything else. If she wasn’t given feelings, her existence would have made my years unbearable. I would have hated her. I wondered if Mom saw her with Grandfather before he died. I wondered if she acted the same with the others like me and I selfishly wished that I was the only one she really talked with.
    Then she kissed me. She tasted like the sweet summer of my childhood days before I was diagnosed. She tasted like the fresh air at the back of my grandparents’ house where I met her. She tasted like the bitter coffee I was drinking when I told her that I was in love with her when I was younger. I felt like being bathed in her white radiance and being consumed in its heavenly beauty. I welcomed Death like an old friend. I was grateful for Death for letting me experience how it was to live.

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