Breath

by Jackie Morse Kessler

  Perry’s nose twitched. “I didn’t get a chance to mix the tea.”

  He sensed the regret, so he waited.

  “Kevin was finally gonna teach me how to make some of his teas, you know? The special ones that’ve been in his family forever. For the longest time, I just couldn’t mix the herbs the right way, so he’d mix everything and put ’em into their sachets and tell me to add water. And that was fine. I mean, I’d been working here in the store for two years, and I was cool about not being able to make the homemade teas. We all have things we can’t do, right?”

  He nodded.

  “But then last week, I woke up and I said to myself, I’m done with not knowing how to make the tea. I’m gonna learn how to mix those herbs, and Kevin is gonna be proud.” Perry laughed quietly and shook his head. “I don’t know why learning to do it suddenly became so important. It’s just tea. But it’s like I had a new goal. And Kevin was proud that I wanted to learn how to do it right. He was. He’s real picky about those teas.”

  “All artists are picky about their work.”

  “It sounds silly, hearing me say it out loud, but I was looking forward to him showing me how to do it.”

  “That doesn’t sound silly at all.”

  “It’s just tea.”

  “But it mattered to you.”

  Perry sighed. “Yeah. It really did.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He squeezed it for a moment, then looked up at him. “I’ve got this to give to you. But could I make you a cup of tea first? Just to see if I could have done it?”

  He smiled, delighted. “Homemade tea would hit the spot.”

  And so, in the early hours of the morning, the police milled around a body found outside a bookshop while Death and a dead man sat inside the store and shared a pot of tea. They were both pleased to discover that it was not at all bitter.

  ***

  Lynn Tyler was bitter. “But I’m only twenty-six! This can’t be it!”

  “Define ‘it,’” he said.

  “It. Over. Finished. Done. The end.” She kicked her body, or would have, had her foot not ghosted through the flesh. “Dead!”

  “I’m afraid that this is it, then. You’re dead.”

  She stared at her corpse, at the splayed limbs by the foot of the stairs. “All because I didn’t want to wait for that stupid elevator. I was running late, so I ran down the stairs.”

  “Exercise is healthy,” he said. “Well. Usually.”

  “It was that loose heel again, wasn’t it? I thought I heard it snap, right before I fell. I was going to fix it. I was,” she insisted, turning to face him. “Let me fix it, and I promise I’ll be more careful! I’ll slow down!”

  “You wouldn’t have fixed it,” he said patiently. “And you never would have slowed down. Between work and school and socializing, you barely had time for sleep. You squeezed more into each day than many do in a month.”

  “Yeah, and for what? I didn’t even get to take the bar.” She kicked through the corpse again. “All that work, and all I got out of it was bills and exhaustion. I’m pathetic.”

  “Of course you’re not. You lived your life. You pursued a dream. You wanted to be a prosecutor, someone who helped make those who hurt others pay for their crimes. It was a noble calling.”

  “But I didn’t get the chance to do it!” She looked at him again, pleading. “A second chance. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “I could,” he agreed.

  “Please. Please. I’ll do anything.” She fell to her knees. “Anything you want. Just give me more time.”

  “This life is done, Lynn.”

  “But you could give it back!” she screamed, tearing her hair. “You said you could!”

  “I can. But I won’t. Rules,” he said, shrugging.

  “There has to be a loophole. There are always loopholes!”

  He didn’t bother replying. There were loopholes, of course; he was the one who had put the rules in place. But either people knew the loopholes or they didn’t. He wasn’t about to teach them. So he shrugged again, and gave her another minute—roughly speaking; time was relative for him—to rage over the unfairness of it all. And when her anger finally played itself out, he said gently, “Come, Lynn. It’s time.”

  Lynn was crying now, her sobs filling the narrow stairwell. “It’s so unfair.”

  “If you say so.”

  Sniffling, she took one more look at herself—the splayed limbs, the snapped neck. Her corporate-chic skirt had bunched up when she’d landed, and she tried to nudge the hem back into place. Her hands passed through the clothing, through her body, and she sobbed harder.

  He reached over and tugged the hem until the skirt protected her modesty.

  She tried to say “Thank you,” but the words stuck in her throat. Even so, he knew her intent—he always knew their intent—and he said, “You’re welcome.”

  With a trembling hand, she offered him a coin. He accepted it somberly and tucked it into a pocket. “Ready for what’s next?”

  Sniffling, she nodded.

  He took her hand, and then Lynn Tyler moved on.

  ***

  He inhaled souls; he exhaled lives.

  He breathed, and the world turned.

  Another breath; another death. Every ending was personal; every encounter, unique. He knew them all, better than they knew themselves.

  And they all knew him.

  Ruben Morris (76, third and final heart attack) was devastated that he was going to miss his grandson’s wedding in three months’ time. With a sigh, he kissed his wife—who was so busy shrieking at the paramedics to keep trying to resuscitate him that she didn’t feel the chill upon her cheek—and then fished a coin out of his pocket. “It is what it is,” he said to his wife, who couldn’t hear him, and then he offered the coin to Death, the Pale Rider.

  Mohammed Hassan (68, kidney failure) was surrounded by family and friends as he whispered, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah,” and after he died he gave thanks for a gentle death, even as he gave Death a coin.

  Huang Mei (102, old age) was pleased to have died a five-blossoms death—she had been married, had a son, was respected in her community, had a loving grandson, and died in her sleep after a long life. She dropped to her knees and bowed, knocking her head to the floor nine times before she presented him with a coin.

  Ramesh Ravi (56, lung cancer), with his wife and two sons by his side, died with the mantra Aum Namah Shivaya in his ear and the taste of milk on his lips. His heart full, he touched Death’s feet and gave him a coin.

  Frances Caprio (66, Alzheimer’s) was worried that she had died before giving her last confession, but he assured her that last rites had been performed. Grateful, she smiled as she presented him with a coin.

  José Martinez (82, influenza) had a last request: “Como yo te amo” had just come on the radio, and he asked if they could wait until the song was over. Less than three minutes later, he smiled as he presented his coin and thanked him profusely.

  ***

  “You’re such a sap,” the pale steed said after José moved on.

  “I’m patient,” Death corrected.

  “You say tomato . . .”

  He smiled. “It is what it is.”

  ***

  Not all of them moved on right away. Not all of them were ready.

  Some were angry. Shelley Silber (23) wanted to haunt the drunk driver who had slammed into her car; Lincoln Archer (18) wanted to wreak havoc after learning he’d been cut down by a stray bullet. He tended to let the angry ones work out their issues before they moved on—and not because he was a sap, no matter what his steed said. Human essences remembered pain, clung to it as they moved on. It made things messy in the long run. Dying was messy enough; why bring that baggage with them?

  Many were scared. Franco Coppola (82, liver failure) had been a thief for most of his life, and now he didn’t know if that was going to make him burn for eternity. Golda Siegel (63, stroke) had po
isoned her philandering husband years ago, and now she was certain he was waiting for her. Timmy Jones (8, leukemia) didn’t want to move on without his parents to keep him safe. Li Feng (one month, sudden infant death syndrome) was terrified of being alone forever.

  Some were tired. The ones who’d lived their lives and had made their peace with dying were usually pleasant, even friendly. The ones who’d died after a debilitating illness tended to welcome him. There were the ones who had been used and abused by the world, and he sympathized with them even as he accepted their coins.

  And then there were those who had lost hope somewhere along the way, the ones who, after a long and dark desperation, had finally given up—the ones who had stopped living long before they stopped breathing.

  All of them had stories to tell before they moved on.

  And so he listened, and he gave them all what they needed.

  ***

  He listened to the oak tree’s song of its life, a chorus for every ring. It was a nameless song, for names are as meaningless to trees as legs are to worms, and it was a slow, winding tune, full of rustles and sighs, at turns mournful and joyous. It was a song of quiet triumphs over hurricanes and floods; it was a song of remembrance for its offspring, lost to the Great Burning.

  Eventually, the tree fell silent, and it listened to him sing the tree’s song of death, how its body would continue to provide shelter and nourishment to countless living things.

  When he, too, fell silent, the oak rustled one last time in a final farewell, and it moved on.

  ***

  He gently scooped up the kitten, which had been too young to open its eyes, and nuzzled it until it blinked up at him. It purred him a question, and he answered. The kitten stretched, kneaded his arm—careful not to stick him with its claws—and then moved on.

  In the cardboard box behind the garbage can, its littermates slept on, as did its mother, who twitched once as Death passed by.

  ***

  The livestock after slaughter. The prey after the hunt. Flies after a swatter.

  He was there for them all—them, and for all living things. He spoke to them all, and they all spoke to him in the ways of their own kind.

  And then they moved on.

  ***

  It had been a long day, even as one such as he considered time. He felt the age in his bones. That, and something more.

  Something colder.

  It was coming. It wasn’t here yet, but it was coming: winter’s frost creeping in amid the autumn branches.

  Soon.

  Next to him, the pale steed nickered, “You okay? You seem . . .” The horse stumbled for a word. “I don’t know. Sad.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied. “Just tired.”

  “Want to stop?”

  Of course he did. He knew what was to come.

  But he would do what he had always done when that knowledge became unbearable: He would step into the Slate and find that one thing that he needed to see him through. If he were alive, it would have been the one thing he lived for.

  Yes, soon he would have to retreat to the Slate, retreat and replenish. But soon was not now. Until then, he had things to do, dead people to see.

  “A couple more,” he murmured, “then a brief respite.”

  The horse nodded, in the way that horses do. “Respite is good. Maybe call the others, play a game of cards?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Just be careful with War. She cheats.”

  That made him smile. “None can cheat me. They only think they can.”

  “You’re too trusting.” A pause as the steed snorted. “Would that be a fatal flaw?”

  He groaned. “Oy.”

  “Sorry, has that been done to death?”

  “You’re trying to cheer me up, aren’t you?”

  “Is it working?”

  He chuckled. “It is. My thanks.” He patted the steed’s neck. “All right. A couple hundred more for today, then a break.”

  Xander

  The late bell rang. Actually, it beeped—which, Xander thought as he peeled down the school hallway, was exceedingly strange. Bells didn’t beep; they rang. Or, in the case of the late bell, it shrilled like a fire alarm. But not today. Today, the late bell beeped exactly once, then gave up the ghost.

  He raced inside his philosophy and film studies class ten seconds later. “Sorry, sorry, sorry . . .”

  “The late Mr. Atwood,” said Ms. Lewis, shaking her head. “At this rate, you’ll be late for your own funeral.”

  He grinned as he slid into the seat to Ted’s right. “Wouldn’t you want to be?”

  Ms. Lewis sighed loudly, then turned her back to finish writing on the board.

  “You’re only half as clever as you think you are,” Ted whispered.

  “Which is still twice as clever as you.”

  “Ouch. You practice that comeback as much as you practice smiling in front of a mirror?”

  Xander should have known it was a mistake to share that tidbit with Ted. “Riley has no complaints.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ted snorted. “Can five minutes go by without you mentioning Riley? Never mind five—can one minute go by?”

  Xander grinned. “Nope.”

  “And you’ve only been dating for what, two months? God help me if you make it through the end of senior year. You’ll be insufferable.”

  “It’s good to have goals.”

  Riley was the reason Xander had been late for class, again—they’d been hanging out by the lockers, just talking and touching and making plans for after school, and then the late bell had rung. Well, beeped. Xander knew that Ms. Lewis was marking down every time he bolted into class after the bell, but he couldn’t help it; he loved spending as much time as possible with his significant other. Was it because of Riley’s amazing smile? The black hair styled in those elaborate braids? Those dark chocolate eyes that he could drown in? The infectious laugh? Those were all part of it and yet didn’t begin to scrape the surface of why he was obsessed with Riley Jones. He knew he was a little crazy, but it was a good sort of crazy, the kind of feeling that made him believe anything was possible.

  He thought he might be falling in love.

  Ms. Lewis turned to face the class. On the blackboard, she had written a quote.

  I think; therefore, I am.

  —Descartes

  “Before we get started,” said Ms. Lewis, “a quick reminder that if you’re going to get involved with the school musical, today’s the last day to sign up. I promise not to be an evil faculty advisor and micromanage everything. My job is to make sure no one does anything illegal or dangerous. That’s it. Everything else is up to you.”

  Ted shot Xander a look: You signing up?

  Xander nodded. Of course he was; he did so every year as part of the musical’s Art Squad. He didn’t crave the spotlight like Ted—the leading man for two years running—but Xander absolutely loved making something from nothing. When he looked at a blank canvas, he didn’t see emptiness; he saw potential. In his creative writing elective, they talked about world building. He thought that concept applied to art as well, especially as part of the Art Squad: He helped build the world of the school musical with every stroke of a brush. It was like playing God. Total head rush.

  “Now that my public service announcement is done,” said Ms. Lewis, “I have your existentialism essays to hand back. Overall, very well done. I’m glad most of you enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”

  When Xander got his paper back, he noted the big A at the top—unsurprising, since Ms. Lewis gave everyone an A as long as the work was handed in on time and answered the assignment questions completely—and then he scanned the rest of her comments.

  Good job showing how the main characters struggle to define themselves and their confusing world, and how they eventually come to the conclusion that their destiny is their own fault.

  Xander grinned. Was that what he’d done? He thought he’d just been using meaningful quotes
at opportunistic times. He liked the “film” part of the elective, but the “philosophy” part was weird. Whatever—it was still an easy-A class.

  After she returned all the essays, Ms. Lewis said, “Time for our next segment. Let’s talk about solipsism.” She pointed to the quote on the board. “The idea of solipsism is that we can be sure that our own minds exist, but that’s it. Everyone else’s minds, even the world itself, might not exist at all.”

  Ted raised his hand. “That’s stupid,” he said when Ms. Lewis called on him. “The world’s right here. I see you.”

  “But what you’re seeing might not be real. I might not be real.”

  “Of course you’re real. I’m looking right at you.”

  “What if I’m an illusion?”

  “Like in The Matrix?” Xander asked, belatedly raising his hand. “Everyone thought they were in the real world, but that was just the machines fooling them so they could feed off of them.”

  “Good example,” said Ms. Lewis. “If you want to get technical, The Matrix falls under Cartesian skepticism.” She pointed again to the quote on the board. “If you doubt everything, then the only thing you can know for sure is that we exist as thinking beings. I think; therefore, I am.” She smiled. “Descartes went on to say that there’s no way for us to know whether the world we’re experiencing isn’t really just an illusion created by a ‘malevolent demon.’”

  An appreciative murmur rippled through the class.

  “Cool,” said Xander.

  “That sort of explains my math grade,” said Ted.

  “Or, you know, your lack of studying.”

  Ms. Lewis continued: “Descartes’s notion leads to the idea of solipsism. Keep in mind that what one person perceives to be true may not be true for another person. It’s subjective reality. Which brings us to this week’s film.” She nodded at Xander. “It’s similar to The Matrix in that the main character lives in a false reality. But the main difference is that the main character is the only one fooled by what’s false. And now, the first part of The Truman Show.”