Expiration Date

by Nancy Kilpatrick

  “Hello, Carissa.”

  She looked around frantically, but saw no one. “Who’s there?”

  “A friend,” the voice answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “Right here.”

  Carissa turned toward the passenger seat where the voice seemed to be coming from, and a spectral body began to take shape. A man, dressed in black, his hair jet and slicked back; he looked as though he had stepped out of the nineteen fifties. His thin lips turned slightly upward at the corners in a grim, almost mocking smile that held no comfort for Carissa, and she shuddered. However, it was his eyes that she found most disconcerting. Completely black. Not just the pupils, but the irises and the cornea, even the sclera was black. And dull, without the sparkle or shine of normal eyes. Eyes that held no life.

  “Who are you?”

  “Who I am doesn’t matter, Carissa. What matters is you. You and your present situation.”

  “And that is?”

  “You’re going to die.”

  She felt the blood drain from her head and glanced around in panic. Something about this strange, dream-like man evoked fear. She didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or do all three at once. All she could think was that this had to be some kind of sick joke. She had to go home and make dinner for Kalan and the kids. She couldn’t die. Not now. Not yet.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. Who are you really?”

  “I’m known by many different names, depending on the culture. The Egyptians call me Anubis; the Greeks, Thanatos; the Romans, Pluto; the Norse, Odin; the Japanese, Shinigami; the Christians may call me an angel, for that’s what they referred to me as when I wiped out 185,000 Assyrian men in one night. I supposed the Grim Reaper would be my most common name in the western world, but I don’t much like that term. You may call me whatever your religion dictates.

  “Then you’re Death. Death incarnate.”

  Death scowled. “That’s such an ugly way to put it.”

  “Well you steal lives from people, so I’d say you deserve an ugly name.”

  He laughed a hollow laugh. Everything about him was… lifeless. “I do not steal life, Carissa. I merely help souls along the way when their time has come. Don’t you believe in fate?”

  “I believe that everyone forges their own path.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  She didn’t bother to argue with Death. Fate or no fate, he would not have her without a fight!

  “May I show you something, Carissa? May I show you your future?”

  “I thought I had no future. I thought I was to die in the next few minutes.”

  His smile was rictus. “You will, but your children live on and are they not a part of you?”

  The car, the road, the head and tail lights dissolved and Carissa found herself standing beside Death in her living room.

  The sun shone through the window, it was no longer raining— not that she was surprised. This was the future. Death had told her as much.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  Keira bounced in just then and went spinning around the room, laughing. “Daddy, hurry up!”

  Kalan came walking in, chuckling at his daughter’s antics. She looked to be about seven now.

  “Settle down, George. The movie isn’t going anywhere.”

  George; that was what he had always called their youngest.

  She squealed, “I’m not George! I’m Keira!”

  Kalan’s face adopted a look of shock. “Not George? Then you must be an imposter!” And then father and daughter fell to the floor in fits of laughter, Kalan tickling her as she screamed in delight.

  Carissa wiped away tears. Not much had changed.

  “This is two years after your death. As you can see, your family is doing well. Keira and Kalan are both happy.”

  “What about my son Jason?”

  The room dissolved and the laughter of her husband and daughter faded but continued to echo hauntingly in her memory.

  A new room appeared around them. The dim lighting and lack of large windows told Carissa that it was a basement. Her son, three other boys, and two girls sat on the mismatched couches and chairs positioned around a large TV where they were playing some kind of war game.

  Jason, now sixteen, had a controller in his hands and shouted animatedly at Colby, his best friend since elementary school and apparent team mate for the current game.

  As the game came to a close, Jason passed the controller to the girl beside him, smiling. “Here, you give it a try. Colby’s the worst. You just can’t win with him as your wing man.”

  “Or you just suck. Should we show him how it’s done, Colby?”

  Carissa watched as the girl and Colby played a round and came out victorious. Jason put his arm around the girl as she smiled up at him triumphantly. “Guess it’s just you, Jason,” she teased.

  “I lost on purpose.”

  “Sure you did. To make me feel better about myself, right?”

  Everyone laughed, Jason included, and his laughter joined the endlessly looping laughter of his father and sister in Carissa’s head.

  How was she supposed to deal with this? How could she face the fact that her family didn’t need her? A mere two years after her death and they were living life as if nothing had changed. Her son hadn’t become some teenaged delinquent, her daughter was a happy and lively seven-year-old and her husband seemed to be managing fine without her.

  “How can they be doing so well? You’re just showing me what you want to,” she accused.

  Death shook his head. “I do not have the power to change the future or bend it to my will. I can only show you what is or what could be.”

  “So, you’re telling me that no matter what, on this day my son will be here and my daughter will be laughing and wrestling with my husband on my living room floor?”

  “Essentially, yes. If you die, this is exactly their future in two years. Would you like to see more?”

  She nodded and they were once again in her living room. Keira sat by the Christmas tree, a few years older than the wrestling girl Carissa had seen just minutes ago. Snow fell softly in huge clumps outside the large picture window, adding to the Christmas-y feel in the house. Jason walked into the room, a young man now — Carissa guessed about eighteen or nineteen — no longer a boy, and sat beside Keira.

  “What are you doing up?”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “For Santa?”

  She shook her head and giggled. “Don’t be silly. He doesn’t exist.”

  Carissa smiled. Keira always had been too smart for her own good.

  “Then what exactly are you waiting for, miss smarty pants?” he ruffled her hair playfully.

  “For morning. I want to open the present from mom.”

  Jason sighed. “You know Dad just buys that, right?”

  “Yeah, but it makes me feel like she’s spending Christmas with us up in Heaven.”

  Jason smiled sadly and put his arm around his little sister. Carissa thought that she even caught of glimpse of tears shimmering in his eyes.

  “She’s still here. Just cause she died do you think she’d leave us all alone? She’s your guardian angel now.”

  Keira nodded. “Do you miss her? Sometimes I don’t miss her anymore and I think maybe I should feel bad.”

  “Sometimes I miss her. Not as much now, though, but there’s always an empty spot, you know? I’m not sad, though. Mom’s happy where she is and I think she’d be glad to see us happy. She wouldn’t want us sitting around moping over her.”

  Keira nodded very matter-of-factly, very adult like, and then ruined the illusion by snuggling up to her brother. She was so young, nine or ten. She had b
een five when Carissa had left that morning.

  “Will you wait with me?”

  “Sure.”

  The heart-warming scene disappeared too quickly for Carissa and was replaced by her kitchen, now re-modeled, where a much older Kalan stood with Jason, now in his mid-twenties. They looked so alike, both dressed in suits and drinking from whisky glasses. They could have been brothers if not for the gray sneaking its way into Kalan’s hair.

  “Do you think mom will be there today?”

  Kalan smiled, a tinge of sadness behind his eyes. “Of course. No pearly white gates would keep her from her son’s wedding.”

  Carissa smiled. Tears brimmed as she said, “He’s handsome. Grew up well. I always thought I’d be here for his wedding, though. I thought he’d walk me down that aisle and I’d be able to hug and kiss him goodbye.”

  “In his mind you will be there.”

  She turned away. “And what about Kalan? Does he find someone else to be happy with? Does he re-marry?”

  Death did not answer. The dissolving room was answer enough. What would he show her? Her husband’s marriage to someone else? Their first child together? She wasn’t sure this was something she wanted to see and she found herself wishing she could have taken her question back, wishing she could have died believing that she was the only one Kalan could ever love.

  Sure enough, Carissa found herself sitting beside Death in the back of a church. The guest list seemed to be small. Much smaller than her own wedding had been. She recognized many of her closest friends and family along with Kalan’s. A handful of people she didn’t recognize sat on one side of the church, and she assumed they were the friends and family of the new woman.

  Kalan stood up front with the minister, Jason stood beside him as the best man. Jason was a few years older from the last time she’d seen him. A woman stood there as well, presumably the bridesmaid, and then the music started to queue the coming of the bride. Everyone stood.

  She was a simple looking woman, but pretty; the kind of pretty that didn’t need makeup or jewelry to highlight it. Natural beauty, Carissa had always called it. She had a look about her that said she would be kind and loving to anyone. Looking at Kalan, Carissa’s heart broke. He was giving this new woman the same look he had given her on their wedding day, the same look she got every time he told her he loved her. It was her look, not this woman’s!

  “I’ve seen enough.”

  Death nodded and they were back in the car. The world around them remained frozen.

  “Are you ready to continue your journey?”

  Carissa shook her head, staring out the damaged windshield. “Ready? For death? I will not give up my life so easily.”

  “You have seen for yourself that your family will be fine. What’s holding you here?”

  “I cannot allow my husband to marry some other woman, for her to be a mother to my children. I belong in their lives. I belong at my son’s wedding. If they do well without me, how much better would they do with me?”

  “You realize that you have no choice. You path has already been set, it cannot be changed.”

  “Then why do you even bother?”

  “Because, for a soul at peace with its destiny, transition is easier than for one fighting to stay.”

  “What if I were to prove to you that it would be best that I remain alive? Could you change my path?”

  “Potentially. But no one has been able to convince me yet that their choices are better than fate’s. What makes you think you’re any different?”

  “You have to let me try. Take us to when Kalan is told of my death.”

  Almost instantly the car became a sterile hospital waiting room. Kalan burst through the doors and nearly ran to the nurse’s station. “Where is she?” he asked frantically, interrupting another patient’s question.

  A nurse came around the counter and pulled him aside. “Who are you looking for?”

  “Carissa Flemming. My wife. She was in a car accident. She was brought here. Where is she?”

  “I’ll be right back, Mr. Flemming. Please, take a seat.”

  Kalan paced anxiously near the desk, refusing to sit idly by and wait.

  “Mr. Flemming?” The nurse returned and put her hand on Kalan’s arm in a comforting gesture.

  He stopped his pacing and looked at her, hope and worry etched on his face.

  “She’s in the OR. I’ll take you back to where you can wait for the surgeon to finish. He’ll tell you more.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “I do not know, Mr. Flemming. Please, follow me.”

  Carissa and Death followed Kalan and the nurse down a maze of corridors through the hospital. They stopped at a row of seats outside a set of double doors. The quiet hall lacked the bustling activity of the rest of the hospital. Carissa shivered. This hall seemed made to bear bad news.

  “You’ll have to wait here, Mr. Flemming. The surgeon will come out when he is done to update you on your wife’s condition.”

  There was no mention of Kalan seeing her after surgery and Carissa suspected the nurse knew, or at least had an idea of the seriousness of her condition and didn’t want to give Kalan any false hope.

  Once the nurse left, Kalan paced the hall. He tried to sit down a couple of times but seconds later he would spring back up and begin pacing again. Carissa half expected a path to wear in the floor, but these floors had held up to more than Kalan’s shoe leather.

  It seemed to go on for hours, but finally the doors opened. A surgeon came out, still in green scrubs splattered with blood. Carissa’s blood.

  “Is she alright?” Kalan nearly pounced on the surgeon but stopped short at the sight of the blood.

  “You’re Carissa Flemming’s husband?”

  “Yes. Is she okay? When will I be able to see her?”

  The surgeon shook his head sadly, as if at a loss for words. “I’m afraid we lost her.”

  The words sounded a little hollow, rehearsed, lines delivered countless times before, but Carissa understood that he had to retain a certain distance if he was to survive his job.

  “Lost her?” Kalan looked lost, unable to understand what the surgeon had just told him.

  “There was internal bleeding. We couldn’t stop it in time. I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

  Kalan turned ghost white and leaned against the wall. Slowly, as if what the doctor had said was starting to make sense, he slid down the wall to the floor. Tears streaked his face. “No. No. No,” he sobbed quietly.

  The surgeon looked pained. “Is there anyone I can call for you?”

  Kalan just shook his head and waved the surgeon away, unable to find words to express the pain.

  It broke Carissa’s heart to watch him torn apart. She walked over to him and tried to embrace him but her arms just passed through his body. They were no longer of the same world. “Can you honestly say that it is for the best to put my husband through this kind of pain? And what of my children?”

  “Every transition involves pain, Carissa. He will heal.” Carissa wanted to strangle Death for his lack of empathy.

  “So you don’t care?”

  “What I care about is gathering souls for the next life. That is my purpose. You’ve proven nothing to me, Carissa. I have already shown you that this pain is only temporary. Kalan will heal. Your children will be happy. Is there something else you wish to show me or are you prepared to accept your fate?”

  “You said before that this is the future if I die. Can you show other futures?”

  “You wish to see what it would be like if you survive?”

  “Yes.”

  Death frowned, but Kalan’s sobbing form disappeared and was replaced by Carissa’s living room. She saw herself, a few years older, sitting in a chair. She was dozing off. The clock on the mantle read 2:15 A.M. The house w
as quiet except for the ticking of clocks. It struck Carissa that you never realized how loud clocks were until you were in a completely silent house. If she survived she would get rid of some of them. They spoke too much of time passing, the time she had left.

  The clocks were interrupted by the soft click of the front door opening and closing and Jason padded slowly past in an attempt to get up the stairs and to his room as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “Jason?” Carissa had woken.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, mom.” He didn’t look sorry. He looked annoyed at being caught.

  “Where were you?”

  “At Colby’s.”

  Carissa could see the pain in her older self’s eyes. Jason was lying and this was likely not the first time. What kind of trouble had he managed to get himself into?

  “Your eyes are bloodshot, Jason.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “Are you doing pot again?” There was no beating around the bush. Plain and simple. This wasn’t the first time she had dealt with this. Her son was doing drugs; every mother’s nightmare.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “Jason! You have to talk to me. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You may not realize it now, but this could ruin your life.”

  “I’ll talk to you when you aren’t throwing accusations around.”

  “All you have to say is no, Jason.”

  “If I say no, you’ll call me a liar. If I say yes, you’ll cry the blues. I can’t win this. Goodnight, mom.”

  The older form of Carissa bowed her head to hide her tears and Jason took off up the stairs.

  She turned to Death. “Why is he doing drugs? That isn’t my boy.”

  “After you came home from the hospital, because you didn’t escape unscathed, Jason had a hard time dealing with everything. You’re paralyzed, Carissa; from the waist down. Suddenly his mother wasn’t everything she was supposed to be and he was left with a cripple. It was hard for a teenage boy to deal with so he turned to marijuana. It took the edge off.”

  “You’re saying that if I live he turns to drugs, but if I die he lives a happy life?”