Only the Lonely

In the two hundred and twenty years since his wife and daughter had died in a fire meant to take him, the march of time hadn’t touched Matthew Simpson. It was a gift with dark wrapping. He hadn’t thought it possible when his family had died, but now he was sure; he was lonelier now than he ever had been. What use this gift of eternal youth if all of your friends aged and died? He had stopped getting close to people after the first 50 years. For the most part he had also stopped asking why… Why him? Why did he get to live when his family, when everyone else, died?

In what was once a yearly pilgrimage but had now become once every decade, Matthew again found himself standing in front of the crumbling pile of rock that marked the grave of his family. As he had done before, he tried to recall everything he could about them. Just like previous times, he was able to remember less and less. He could no longer picture their faces, but recalled that they both had hair the color of wheat at harvest time.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a figure in a robe that looked like a piece of pre-dawn sky. He turned and stood face to face with what could only be Death. A voice like boulders grinding together issued forth from the cowl covering its face. “Matthew... I’ve been waiting for you.”

Not caring about the consequences, he grabbed at Death’s robe and blurted out, “Take me. Give me peace.”

Death reached up its skeletal hands and lifted the hood off of its face. The transformation was instantaneous. Where the archetypal skeleton had been was now a young woman dressed in the same slate grey robe. “I am so terribly sorry, Matthew, but there’s nothing I can do. You missed your time to be taken all those years ago. It was my mistake taking your daughter, your wife and your unborn son.”

Matthew gasped and fell to his knees. Ruth had been pregnant? The hurt and emptiness welled up in him stronger than it had in over two centuries. Death reached down and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, instantly reducing his pain with a small measure of her power. He looked up at Death and asked, “Why?”

“You are living all the potential life from your son and daughter and all of their descendants. That you haven’t aged since that day is proof that you would have had a strong, prolific line. Again, I can’t apologize enough.” Death stepped back from him, gathered up her scythe and adjusted her hood back up on her head. She was again the skeletal figure.

“This may sound unorthodox, but if you’re interested I sure could use an assistant.” She held out a hand to help him to his feet. “You are uniquely qualified and to tell you the truth, I’ve been a bit lonely…”

-Babaluzer
499 words
August 19th, 2007