Death Stalks the Halls at Midnight

[Blackrosefencer]

Just thought I'd share another piece of writing with you...

A figure ventured down the hall of an old, dilapidated apartment building deep in the heart of New York. The figure wore nothing but a black, hooded cloak.

She was a Grim Reaper, the bringer of Death, and she searched the empty corridors night after endless night. She brought a little fear into people’s lives. The kind of fear that makes people stop and wonder: If I died tomorrow, would I be happy with how I lived my life?

Suddenly, two children with unwashed faces raced towards her. A young girl and her older brother. In one of the boy’s hands was a loaf of bread, most certainly stolen from the bakery across the street. In the boy’s other hand, he protectively clutched his sister’s bruised arm with a stump where the hand ought to be. When they reached the Grim Reaper at the end of the hall, they skidded to a halt. They looked up to see her black, face-less head. They took a step backward in fear. The Grim Reaper said nothing, she merely pointed a ghostly hand down the hall towards the stairs. The children didn’t move at first, frozen in terror. Suddenly someone began shouting. A gentle push from the grim reaper urged them to move.

When they reached the stairwell, they looked behind them for their persecutor. A short, fat woman with an apron approached the children. Her hair fell in greasy strings from the bandana she wore over her head. She screamed filthy words and made one hand into a fist. She yelled for them to stop, but the children continued up the stairs.

Any other night Hansel and Gretel of the Bronx would not have fled the wicked witch. The bakery woman would hobble around to the back stairs and jump into the children’s path to freedom. She’d snatch the bread back from them and two more children would starve. But tonight, the Grim Reaper stood in the bakery woman’s path. Just as the children had done, she stopped and stared at the hooded black figure.

“Get out of my way,” she spat. The Grim Reaper did not move. “Some beggar children stole a loaf of bread. I need to get it back.” She tried to go around the cloaked figure, but the figure merely stepped in her path again. The Grim Reaper handed the woman a small card. It read:

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

The woman stared in confusion. “I don’t know what this means?” the woman said. Her voice faltered a bit as fear began to settle. The figure pointed in the direction that the children had gone. “You want me to let them have the bread, is that it? Well, you can just go back to where ever you came from! I’m not letting them have the bread!” The Grim Reaper presented a newspaper in response. It showed the two children and told of their parents who had been killed in an accident. The children had been left in the care of a poor, elderly aunt who could neither walk nor afford to feed them. They lived in an abandoned apartment on the top floor. The room held a moth eaten sheet, a broken chair, and they shared it with a small family of rats, also with nothing to eat.

A tear slid down the woman’s face as she finished reading the article. She looked up, but the grim reaper had disappeared. She turned to leave. She knew the two children would have already finished their warm, fresh bread. She suddenly didn’t care. What was one loaf of bread anyway? She could spare one tonight. Tomorrow maybe she’d make an extra loaf.

On the next floor, shouting caught the Grim Reaper’s attention. A fight in one of the rooms. A woman and her Prince Charming. Angry words were exchanged. What was it tonight? The dinner was too cold? Or too hot? Perhaps Prince Charming was hungry and Snow White had fallen asleep on the couch and forgotten to make dinner? Maybe the woman bought a nice new dress, expecting to please her unsatisfiable husband, but it was too expensive for their unnecessary budget? Whatever it was, their voices now were rich with hate filled words that no longer had any significance in the fight itself.

The Grim Reaper waited patiently outside the door. The man slammed the door to his apartment and was about to walk down the hall. But his path was blocked by the cloaked figure.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” he wanted to know. The figure didn’t speak. “Oh I know, you’re Death or something, right?” he chuckled nervously. “Well, I’m not going to die. I’m perfectly healthy! I know that and you know that...excuse me...” He took a step forward. The figure pointed to the apartment and held out a card.

“Did you bring joy? Did you find joy?” it said.

The man snorted. “You know, once I did think I had joy,” he muttered. He didn’t take his eyes off the card. “We were so happy together. She was the love of my life. I don’t know what happened. We’ve blamed everyone for our failing relationship. We’ve blamed everyone but ourselves. Maybe that’s what went wrong, eh, Friend?” He looked up at the figure. “Well, what would you know? You’re just a....what are you anyway?” The grim reaper pointed to the apartment again. “You want me to apologize? No way, Friend! Not me! She’s the one who should apologize!”

Suddenly they both heard a sound. A sound that seemed to echo through out the hallway. The sound of the woman crying alone in the empty room. Just as she did every night. The man looked sadly at the door and sighed. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if we both apologized.” The Grim Reaper pointed at the door again and nodded reassuringly. The man opened the door to go repair his broken life. When he turned back to the figure to thank it, it had already left.

There was an empty room at the end of the hall. Perfect for the teenage boy who held a staggering teenage girl. They smelled of beer and whisky. He led her to an empty room where they’d sleep together on some old squatter’s mattress. He would have his fun and then leave her in the cold, early morning hours. Sleeping Beauty would wake alone in the stale, rotting room and silent, stinging tears would be her only friend in the middle of sleepless nights. Too many people were hurt in this building at night.

The boy had removed his shirt and was now slowly unbuttoning the girl’s blouse. She sighed and shifted positions, but did not wake. The boy heard someone approach and turned quickly. A hooded cloaked figure stood in the doorway. He stood in horror.

“Who are you?” he asked and stepped backwards. Death said nothing, only handed the boy a card that said:

“Do you know how death works? It doesn't matter if you’re ready or not. It just happens.”

“No!” the boy pleaded. “Please don’t hurt me.” Death pointed to the sleeping girl. “No! I wasn’t going to do anything, really!” Death moved closer to the boy, grabbed his collar, and shoved him against the wall. “Okay, okay,” the boy shouted. “I lied. I was going to do something, but if you let me go, I’ll leave her here. I won’t touch her, I’ll just walk out the door quietly.” Death roughly dropped the boy and pointed to the door. Terrified, the boy ran out of the room and didn’t look back.

Satisfied, Death buttoned the girl’s blouse, carried her to her apartment down the hall and placed her gently on her bed. Before Death left her alone in peace, she covered her with her blanket, turned out the lights, and left a card on her dresser. The card read:

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call to make, who would you call, what would you say, and why are you waiting?"

The morning would find the girl confused and unsure as to how she got home, but she’d be unharmed. That’s all that really mattered. She’d see the card on her dresser and at first, she’d do nothing. Then later that day, she’d pick up the phone and dial. “Mom,” she’d say. “I’m so sorry. Can I come home?”

The sky grew pink as the sun began to rise. The black, hooded figure had one more door to go through. Her door. She opened it and walked inside. She quietly removed her cloak and her gloves. She laid down on her bed.
It was her pain that made her do it. Hell, it was her pain that made her do anything in her life. After years of abuse, assault, and abandonment, her frail existence was shattered and decayed. She had fled from dozens of abductors and stalkers. She looked into the eyes of anger and deceit. She spent her tired, deteriorating life in the palm of fear’s hand. She rarely slept for fear that someone would break into her room. She never ate nor drank anything that she didn’t trust, and it was so hard to trust at all. She always looked twice behind her before turning down the next road. She never went outside at night. She lived a paranoid existence; not once taking a step before she was sure she wouldn’t fall. Not once did she ever let her guard down.

It was on the brink of this paranoia that caused her to venture out of her room one evening. A midnight journey through her apartment building that she hoped would make her tired enough to sleep. A journey she began to take every evening after that, searching the halls for something she’d never find. Yet, every evening she returned to her room, still restless and uneasy. Faces of every one she had seen that night haunted her dreams. Everyone fighting, hating, and using each other. Children dying and people crying. What was worse? Stealing or starving? What hurt more? Rage or agony? When will we learn? How can we learn? Questions that had no answers swam through her head. Until the day she saw Death, walking through the halls of her lonely run down building was like walking through the lonely, run down remnants of her traumatic past.

Death stopped her in one of her midnight walks. It handed her a note that said:

“Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.”

Inadequate life? That was quite the understatement. The terror and anguish she had felt so often had destroyed her. She didn’t do anything anymore for fear she’d get hurt doing so. She left her job, left her school. She lived alone locked in a one-room apartment that cost her 100 bucks a month. A room she rarely left with a bill six months over due.

She realized now what she was looking for all that time throughout her exhausted searches of her building. She was looking for life and hope. She realized that she couldn’t just find it, she had to make it. No one would give it to her, she had to have the strength to get it for herself. She realized that she walked through the apartment building watching everyone else’s pain, not to ease her own, but to ease theirs. She hoped that she could somehow help, but she was always too afraid.

“But what am I supposed to do?” she had asked Death. He pointed to a package that sat along the nearest wall. Inside was the cloak and gloves and cards that were blank. She wasn’t sure how the magic worked, but the cards always had a message. A message that was just what the recipient needed to read.
Words never needed to exchange between the girl in the black, hooded cloak and the people she met in the halls. They merely read the cards and reflected. Sometimes the words touched enough to change the outcome of one night. But sometimes, the words touched so deeply that the person found the strength to change their entire life.

What about the girl, you ask. She has a job now with a payment no dollar bill could ever equal. She found her hope and her life. One day, she will be able to walk out of the room without her cloak. Walk out of her room, find a job, pay her bills and find a new life. But right now? She only wants to sleep. Sleep peacefully for the first time in her life. And she’ll wake again when the sun dips behind the sky scrapers. She’ll wake and don her cloak and journey again. Just as she does every night. She’ll put hope back into a world that has none. And one day enough lives will be changed that the moldy mattresses will be replaced by sturdy, comfortable beds. And the peeling wallpaper and crusting paint will be removed and walls repaired. And she’ll put faith back into the inhabitants of this dark, lonely apartment building.

And what about you? Don’t worry. The girl who's life crumbled around her, who wears a grim reaper cloak too afraid to show her face, and who stalks the halls of a battered apartment building in the Bronx, didn't forget you. She has a message for you too. In fact, I think it’s on the floor by your door right now. Go ahead! Read it! What does it say?

“Be open to your dreams. Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon.”

[Special thanks to the following websites:
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/death/
http://www.usefultrivia.com/quotations/ ... uotes.html]