Every flower, every blade of grass
would live a shorter life, but
as the warm earth beneath my feet
told me, this was the way
it was supposed to be
in the land of the living.
The Duties of Death
I.
The first home we visited smelled of disease. I should not have known this smell, but the decayed, bitter air made me cough. In the very first room, an old woman lay on a cot surrounded by her two sons, their wives and seven children. She was frail, her paper-thin hands shook upon the sheets. Thanatos, unseen by the family, walked towards her. He took her hand and when her tired face, pale-lipped, turned towards him, he smiled and nodded. With a sigh of relief, the woman looked back and took a long, shuddering last breath. Thanatos reached forward and closed her eyes gently. As the family realized she was gone and the sons wept, Thanatos released her hands into theirs and the silver spirit of the woman rose. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered softly, and he nodded. With two quick movements of his scythe, her spirit disappeared.
It was here that I learned that death was the gentle art of release.
II.
The second place we stopped at was not a home but a tree. I watched Thanatos climb this tree with an ease I did not expect someone with such cumbersome robes to do, but perhaps he was used to it by now. It was a graceful oak, its bark ringed with its age. I watched him move something from the branches and then move down as swiftly as he had climbed up. From his pocket he produced three small silver spirits – a trio of baby birds, still so tiny that they could not possibly fly. I looked at him in shock. What could have killed them up in their nest? And then it struck me, looking at their emaciated bodies. Their mother had not returned in some time. So they had starved. Later, Thanatos would tell me that the mother had been killed by a hawk.
This taught me how one death could be the reason behind more. That mortality was frequently dependent on other mortal life.
III.
Thanatos led me through a village decorated with fresh irises and white flowers. Spring had brought her bounty here. Everything looked like the aftermath of a celebration, overturned urns once filled with wine, leftover grapes and bones being chewed on by the village dogs. But it was only when I saw the shells and peacock feathers, an altar smoking with jasmine and myrrh, that I realized that this was a wedding. I turned wide-eyed to Thanatos, who looked straight ahead and walked into the pale-blue, walled house at the centre of the village. When they told the story later, it was that a serpent crept through the night and killed the sleeping groom.
I learned in those dark moments, as Thanatos walked back with the groom, that there are only so many breaths to a mortal life. And that death, though unfair, is a great equalizer.
This knowledge did not stop me from weeping for the new bride, still dreaming of a future that was kind and full.
The Island
It was past dawn
when Thanatos told me
that we were going to collect
the final soul of this day.
We were on an island,
a harsh, rock-strewn place full
of sheep and coarse land
and the heat of the morning sun
already beating down on a golden beach
where a little boy sat alone.
My mouth tasted ash.
Was this the final soul?
