[ WP ] Death appears at your door , he just wants to talk .

I opened the door. It was Death, standing with his hood off and his scythe leaned gently against the wall. His skull shined like porcelain under the porch light. The instinctual twinge of fear passed by almost unnoticed. It had been a long time since that fear grabbed me by the throat and brought me to my knees. Instead I smiled at Death. He smiled back, or, at least, it looked like he smiled back. It was hard to tell how he felt without skin and muscles. 
 
 “ I saw her again, ” he said simply. His jaw clicked as he spoke, like tapping two seashells together. 
 
 “ What? ” I said and opened the door wider. “ Shit. Come on man! We ’ ve been over this. ” 
 
 “ It wasn ’ t my fault, ” Death said. “ There was this old lady in her building that fell wrong and hit her head on the counter. I was just minding my own business shepherding the woman ’ s soul to the afterlife, and there she was. ” 
 
 “ Did she see you? ” I asked. 
 
 Even without normal physical cues I could read his expression. “ No, shit sherlock ” that expression said. “ Of course she saw me. ” Death grabbed his scythe and held it loosely in his bony hand as he walked into the hall. I subconsciously moved myself to his other side and closed the door behind him. Being careful to avoid direct contact, I placed my hand on his robe. 
 
 “ Right. ” I said. “ Well, come on let ’ s get a drink. I got a six pack of that apple cider you like. The one with honey in it. ” 
 
 “ Closest thing I ’ ll ever get to mead. The good mead, that is. ” 
 
 “ Yeah, so you ’ ve said. ” I said going to the kitchen and pulling out the six pack. I popped the cap off one and took a long drink. Then I popped off another one and held it out for Death. He didn ’ t take it. He was busy scratching my cat, Whiskey, behind the ear. Whiskey liked Death, he purred and his tail whipped excitedly in the air. I put the hard cider on the table, and fell into my seat. Something about the absurdity of watching Death scratch my cat ’ s ear made me shudder. It made me remember. 
 
 Death had first come to me after a particularly bad car accident. I was driving home from a party the smell of onion rings and garlic dip on my breath instead of alcohol. My lights were on and I was driving the speed limit. In other words, I wasn ’ t doing anything wrong. 
 
 The oncoming car had been the problem. 
 
 I never found out if the driver in the black sedan was drunk or asleep, but it didn ’ t matter. In the last normal instance of my life I saw a car barreling towards me on the wrong side of the street without its headlights on. I yanked my steering wheel hard to the right, and sent my car careening off the edge of a steep cliff. I slammed my head on the driver side window. The glass splintered. A crack traced a jagged line into my skull. The car rolled, pulling me out of my seat and throwing me hard to the ceiling. By pure luck I turned my head to avoid breaking my neck, but the crack in my skull widened, like a ceramic plate hit with a hammer. My car continued to roll down the hill bouncing over trees and rocks and rocking me back and forth against the interior of the car. 
 
 By the time I came to a stop at the bottom of the ravine slamming hard into an ancient tree I had suffered a broken arm, a dozen or more cuts and lacerations, broken ribs that punctured my left lung, and a dislodged vertebrae that left my toes tingling. Worst of all was my head. The side of my head that had been cracked against the window and the ceiling again and again. The fragments of bones were being held together by nothing more than a thin layer of tissue. One more strike to the head and the sharp shards would cut through the gray stuff in my head, destroying my motor capabilities and stopping the frantic beating of my heart and the harsh wheezes of my right lung. 
 
 But I was alive. I was alive and somehow I thought if I could just stay awake long enough help would come. The paramedics would get me out of this car and pull me to safety where everything would be okay- 
 
 Above me there was a loud crack and a heavy branch on the tree that stopped me fell free. It crashed down on my car ’ s roof and caved the ceiling down against my head. 
 
 Then everything stopped. 
 
 Time makes a sound. No one notices it because it ’ s all around us. It ’ s like sitting next to a river for too long, and tuning out the sound of water coursing out towards the ocean. The sound becomes part of the surroundings. That ’ s what the sound of time is like. It ’ s part of living, and when it stopped I noticed. As if the river suddenly disappeared, the roar of time ceased and I was sitting in complete silence in my car. 
 
 [ End part one. Part two in comments ]
