Angel of Death

 

The woman watched the child’s laboured breathing with intense concentration, as if her will would be enough to heal the girl from her hospital bed. The woman was devout in her gaze, the hums of the machinery to the side causing no distraction, just as the soft volume of the television screen behind stole no interest. The woman was here for the child, to soak up every moment with her, before it was too late.

 

The woman was elderly, in her seventies but healthy enough that she could live another twenty years. Her hair was all grey, her skin etched with wrinkles, but she walked her dog every day with a pace that few could manage even half her age. She was a strong woman, determined to be by her family’s side for as long as she could. Though she was old, she knew that they needed her, even if they didn’t say so.

 

It was a lesson she had recently learnt herself. The passing of her husband only six months earlier continued to rip into her heart, but she had to remain, she needed to help her family. Especially when the sickness came.

 

The woman was grasping Madeleine’s hand. The contact was firm, the way grandmothers always want to be as close to their grandchildren as possible, but this hold was far softer than what she would usually give. She couldn’t be too tight, the child was so frail, she did not want to break her.

 

“Please,” the woman murmured. “Please...”

 

“Mum?” A man entered the room, a private ward in the hospital. The family did not have so much money that they could afford such luxuries, but this was the kind of hospital that put children in private rooms when they weren’t faring too well. Kids on their death beds was considered a contagion.

 

“Mum, I brought you a coffee.” The man, early thirties, came to sit by the woman and held a styrofoam cup out in front.

 

The woman finally broke her gaze, appeared bewildered for a moment before she collected the presence of her companion. “I’m sorry, Thomas. Thank you, coffee will be lovely.”

 

Thomas drunk his cup, the woman hers, in silence bar the subtle sounds of their swallowing. A minute passed. Not so very long, but since every minute is agonised when a child is fighting for her life, it was a generous time at that.

 

“Damn it!” Thomas shouted as he planted his styrofoam cup firmly on the side table. “I can’t believe this, I just can’t! The doctors said it was treatable! It has a seventy three percent survival rate, this shouldn’t be happening!”

 

Madeleine was not disturbed by the outburst, she remained rasping under her white covers. Rasping because her lungs were compromised. Metastasised. She could still breathe herself, but barely. Soon she would have to be put on oxygen, then morphine before she finally passed.

 

“It’s just not meant to go this way,” he continued, softer now, speaking pains he could only divulge to his mother. “We had everything in our favour. She was young, healthy. She was the light of our world. We tried so hard you know, for a child. Sarah and I, with the two miscarriages, then finally Madeleine made it. She did, she was our miracle child, for ten years...” Tears choked out his words.

 

The door opened again where a woman emerged. She was a few years older than Thomas but normally constructed her appearance so well she could have been considered a half decade younger. Now however, if someone were to guess her age and round it down they still would have given her a few years. Her skin appeared thin, the shadows under her eyes deep purple and large. She had lost weight too. It started two months ago, it showed now.

 

The entering woman tweaked her lips as the other two adults turned to look on her. An attempt at a smile, perhaps a reflex that was doing as poorly as their emotional states. She barely even closed the door behind her when the child murmured, Mum...

 

The younger woman, Sarah, rushed by her daughter’s side in a heartbeat. Even with all the noise the two others made it seemed the only thing capable of rousing a sickly child was the presence of her mother.

 

“Madeleine,” Sarah soothed as she knelt beside the bed, grasping what would have been a cold hand of her daughter’s with the two of her own. “Tell me, how are you feeling? Is it hurting today?”

 

The child raised her sleepy eyebrows then shook her head on top of the pillow. “No, I feel okay actually. I think I might be getting better.”

 

The mother smiled but could not keep the hint of a tear a bay—she’d heard the latest diagnosis.

 

“Did you do it?” Madeleine asked. “Did you remember to record my show? The one with the horses?”

 

“More than that! I brought all the episodes you missed on DVD!” With that Sarah whipped into her handbag and displayed the case to her daughter.

 

“You mean...” Madeleine paused, struggling for breath but recovered quickly. “You mean you bought it. It’s still wrapped up in plastic with the price tag on it.”

 

The three adults chuckled.

 

“A ten year schooling her parents, that’s priceless.” Thomas smiled.

 

“We shouldn’t expect any less from such a clever girl,” the old woman added.

 

The girl laughed. “And when I get to twenty, just watch out for what kind of wonders I’ll be capable of then, maybe I’ll be able to change my own car tyre!”

 

“Gosh that’s saying something,” Sarah uttered as she placed the show’s disc into the player. “I’m more than three times your age and still can’t fathom it!”

 

As the show started it bestowed a group of teenage girls caring and riding horses that they competed with professionally. Amidst the jockey-club other drama occurred in line with any other teen favourite, but it wasn’t the drama that stole Madeleine’s attention.

 

The old woman leant toward the girl as the show played. “So how will you put your genius tyre changing skills to use when you grow up?”

 

Madeleine gave a gentle smile that faded as she spoke. “I used to want to be all sorts of things: a doctor, lawyer, dancer, actor, writer, teacher...but I’ve stopped thinking those things. Now I just wish I could have a chance for that,” her chin indicated towards the small screen ahead of them. “I...I know I’m sick and I also know things are going bad. I...I want to ride a horse.” She kept her voice soft so her parents couldn’t hear, but not so quiet that the woman couldn’t hear the despair.

 

The woman leant in further and spoke in a softer voice still. “You will. I promise you will ride a horse and more. You’ll have a life, don’t give up. You’re a fighter, just like me. You can’t die unless you’re ready to.”

 

Madeleine turned to her, eyes glistening, and smiled. It was small but it was real. “Thank you, Grandma, you’re right. I promise, I...won’t give up.” She had to stifle a cough to say it, but she said it.

 

That was it, her grandmother was decided. Even though she wasn’t voicing it I could already hear her calling me. She was old, but she was also strong.

 

The woman placed a hand to her granddaughter’s cheek. “You have so much kindness in you, so much passion, and life. You have so much of yourself to share with the world. Don’t believe the doctors, don’t believe your research. Yes, I’m not so old that I don’t realise how all these young people are diagnosing themselves on the internet. Believe that you’re strong and you will never die until the moment you’re ready.”

 

They kept their voices hushed so Madeleine’s parents couldn’t hear. Thomas and Sarah saw the interaction but did not interfere. They all needed their heart to hearts, their goodbyes.

 

Madeleine smiled properly then, she coughed, but put it back in full force. They didn’t say any more, just fell into a hug of the woman’s volition and remained there for a good two minutes. Eventually it was the grandmother who pulled back.

 

“I need to pop out for a bit, sweetie, but I’ll be back soon, okay?”

 

Madeleine nodded with more energy than she had shown in days. Positive thinking was an amazing thing to give strength, but stretched over too long a period it could ring false too easily. The only thing that could trump it was genuine belief. No one had spoken of the child’s survival with the same hope as the woman just had in a long two weeks.

 

That was what scared all of them, it went from treatable a couple of months ago, to fatal just weeks ago. They did everything feasible, the chemotherapies, the radiation. Surgery wasn’t possible, not this type of disease, but the parents signed off on everything else. It gave their only child a chance to survive and with it she grew thinner and dropped hair. But the success rate, it was high for kids, they were sure that their daughter’s suffering now would be met with life in the long term. There was just no comparison to that.

 

The old woman left the child’s bedside with a final kiss to the forehead and a I love you, then exited out the ward door.

 

She walked down the hospital aisle, passing multiple wards, most quiet at first but becoming louder with every footfall. An open doorway revealed a room where kids were actively engaging in a pillow fight. It was the same ward Madeleine was present in just a few weeks ago.

 

The woman walked further still until she found that familiar female sign indicating a bathroom. She ventured inside and, after ensuring it was empty, approached a mirror and began to draw.

 

Most people think that to communicate with other realms some sort of sacrifice is needed. Things like blood, fresh killings of animals, certain body parts, even hearts. It’s true, but not all communications are the same, only the most sinister realms demand the most garish of sacrifices.

 

Upon the glass a clear fluid outlined the shape of an hour glass, its sand falling to both the top and the bottom of the vial.

 

The caller must make a gift, always something from one once living. My gift is one delivered in pain but at least one that is no longer wanted once shed.

 

It didn’t take long for her tears to begin to weep down from the drawing.

 

Using the gateway I appeared beside her in the bathroom, the light dimming as I took physical form.

 

“Angel of Death,” she acknowledged me. “Forgive my summons, I don’t mean to pull you here against your will...”

 

“No, stop.” I told her calmly, raising a hand in front of me. The reflection in the mirror also raised its hand out in front of it. It looked like a woman with fair blond hair and porcelain skin. The dress it wore clung with fair pink wisps, moving as if in response to an unfelt breeze. The invoked body did not favour being cast in such a restrained form. To be bound by gravity and flesh was always a stifling experience.

 

“Don’t apologise,” I continued, “I’ve known your intention for quite some time, gazer. That is why I responded to your call.”

 

She smiled grimly. “Then you will know the reason for my call?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Well then, can you do it?”

 

“The question is not can I, but whether the will is there,” I corrected.

 

The woman fidgeted with her fingers, battling between her internal fears and desires but soon declared, “Give it to her, please! She’s can’t die yet, she’s too young. She needs more time!”

 

“Time is a constant force,” I informed gently. “It can bend, be slowed down, sped up, even jumped across; it is not as straight and simple as you humans perceive it. Having said that it is still limited by a set of governing rules. Just as you cannot fashion gold from lead I cannot weave time from desire. It can be transferred, if that is your wish, but it will come at a cost.”

 

The woman nodded, the whites of her eyes tinging red, the soft skin beneath them dragging with the weight of decades of sorrow.

 

“I cannot create time,” I cautioned. “The child’s has run out and you are not young, your sacrifice will not buy her a full life.”

 

She grasped her hands tightly as she asked her question, “If I agree, how long will she have?”

 

“I am sorry, I cannot say.”

 

The woman nodded, she almost bestowed a sly sarcastic smile, almost. “Even death plays by a rule book.”

“We all have laws we are compelled to follow.”

 

“Well then, I guess the next best question to ask is what your price is.”

 

“Smart question,” I relayed my fee.

 

“I see...” the woman murmured. “So you cannot take time unless it is given willingly?”

 

I nodded.

 

“And without time nothing lives, not even angels.”

 

Again I nodded.

 

“But you will take no more than what you say? You will give the rest to her?”

 

“Yes,” I agreed. “From the period you permit me to take your time I will give it to her minus my fee. This can be arranged at any point but understand I cannot give time to a clock that has stopped.”

 

The woman shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “I understand. Three days, that’ll give me time to settle my affairs. In three days,” her eyes snapped open and a new woman shone forth. No, not new, just clearer than ever. A ferociously determined woman locked eyes with mine. “Take my remaining lifespan and give it to Madeleine.”

 

“Aright, then.” The room dimmed further for a moment before an object materialised into my hand. I walked back around the woman. She started but allowed me to continue and place a necklace around her neck.

 

“Your symbol,” she breathed as she stared at the adornment in the bathroom mirror, “the unending hourglass. Same on top as it is on bottom, the sand falls up just as it falls down.”

 

“It is the channelling of time,” I explained. “Not a scythe like your Grim Reapers, my kind do not seek to destroy. We simply rearrange the sand remaining to those of the living. As long as there is life, no matter your perspective, the sand will always fall.”

 

“And you’re right at the centre of it, the neck where the sand will always pass through.”

 

“No one else will see it except for you. It binds to your time, no one else’s.”

 

“A shame,” she remarked, the glint of a smile on her lips. “It truly is beautiful.”

 

“And you’ll be able to take it off any time that you wish, set it down and put back on. You can treat it like any other piece of jewellery but when the trigger sets and you are not wearing it the contract will be broken and you’ll never see one of my kind again. I will receive none of your years, just as your granddaughter will not either. You have three days, not to the hour but not within a wide margin. If you are wearing it however, when the trigger sets, then you will die of a heart attack.”

 

“Not peacefully in my sleep then? I see. Makes more poetic sense this way—I am doing this for love, after all, and it is my love that destroys me. Still, if it can save her, allow my son and daughter in law to have their daughter in their lives a little longer then I remained resolved. There are worse ways to go.”

 

I smiled gently. I never know if it’s the right thing to do at time like this, in a plane such as this one, but on Earth I like to smile to my callers. Their braveries deserve that small positive appreciation, I think.

 

I evaporated my material form then and the room glowed a little brighter with the returned energy. The woman spun around, searching left and right for me, eyes wide. I was still there, but incorporeal. Our transaction was completed so there was no need to linger as I was, and I craved to be back in my free-form.

 

Returned to the Unstrung Realms I could see her: fidgeting with her hands once again, eyes locked onto the burden she now carried, but at the same time I could also see the child, already fallen back asleep in the hospital bed as the television played the horse teen show. I could see the ward between where the kids transitioned from pillow fights to a game of marbles on the floor, and wards further on where a woman squeezed her bald husband’s hand as fluid dripped into his other arm. I could see outside the hospital where a group of young woman sat gossiping at a diner for afternoon tea, and kids being dropped off by school buses to their neighbourhoods. I could look into other countries, copy my essence over the stone carvings of cathedrals and reach up to skyscrapers that soared beyond even the clouds. I could stretch further, to the neighbouring red planet, to gaseous giants and barren rocks, and right up to the solar-system’s yellow sun itself. I could stretch out to other solar-systems, admire the life-forms there, and still cross into entirely new galaxies.

 

Time and space are like that. Though they work within a set of rules in one universe, they abide by completely different rules within another plane of existence. My realm, it’s not so complicated. There are no strings to keep things in place just as there are no strings to keep them apart. I can see into one world, see the details, then my set my sights over to another universe trapped in webbing and watch its undertakings there. I can see into any time, so long as it does not predate or exceed my own.

 

I still have yet to learn the limitations of my sight.

 

I could see already that the woman didn’t take the necklace off, not even once to get a better look at it. A hand mirror sufficed for her, one that she smiled every time she gazed into it. She died on the third day, a heart attack as I predicted. It happened as she walked from her kitchen to her lounge and just before she made the sofa she collapsed, the tea cup and saucer cluttering beside her. She clutched her chest as they all do but she did not fight her demise.

 

The woman’s son, Thomas, cried when he heard the news. It fell on him like a crashing avalanche—his daughter was already on her death-bed but now his mother just passed away? It was too cruel, both his wife and I could read the murmurings of his silent lips, it was just too cruel.

 

Madeleine’s mother noticed her daughter looked a little better the day after her mother-in-law died, but she said nothing. Though her daughter’s better days were getting fewer, she did not dare mark it as a bright day in light of the news.

 

Then the next day Madeleine looked a little better again, then a little more the next. Three days since her grandmother’s death the doctor walked into the room wearing a massive grin.

 

“She’s responding!” he declared, so elated as if he was stating the good news about his own daughter. “It was a one in a million shot but she’s responding to the new drug—we’re looking like we have a fighting chance here!”

 

Even though he was wracked with grief Thomas allowed himself to smile.

 

A few days later Madeleine was permitted to leave the hospital for a few hours. Though her black dress made her skin appear so white it almost shone, she looked healthier than her parents could remember in weeks. She was white, but colour returned to her cheeks and lips, returning them to their full deep pink. She looked beautiful as she said her speech about the grandmother who never let her give up hope.

 

Three weeks later she was placed back into the children’s ward. Two months it was deemed that the therapy was responding so well she could return home, only needing to return for treatments and tests once a week.

 

Five months later the doctors happily declared that the treatment was an astounding and terrifically surprising success. Madeleine was cured.

 

She had to repeat the fourth grade. She was going to turn eleven soon and most of her peers were still only nine years old, but she took it with stride. The other kids were incredibly supportive. They even seemed to think of her in awe, like she was some superhero who defied a terrible evil.

 

“That’s what Grandma would have said,” Madeleine stated one day to the horse she was riding. “The power of determination is the best power a superhero can have.” It was during her third lesson and she was just picking up the knack. She couldn’t have them often, the tuition was dreadfully expensive, but every couple of months her parents managed to make one happen.

 

She grew up, finished school, became an attractive young woman that diverted the attention of many young men, but her focus was only for one other.

 

When she was seventeen a boy named Kieran told her that he loved her. He was a year her junior but towered a good half foot over her even at that age. They proved to be high school sweet hearts.

 

When they finished school they both studied at university, both enrolled into journalism and after three years got to wear the long black gowns and silly four sided hats. They married three months later.

 

Then, after nine months, Madeleine was back in the hospital. This time she was aged twenty-three and placed into a ward for adults. It was called the maternity ward.

 

I watched her stare into the crumpled red face of her sleeping child and admired how her excitement and determination warded off her growing fatigue.

 

“She’s wonderful,” Madeleine husked.

 

“Yeah, she’s really something, else,” Kieran’s hand brushed his daughter’s tiny forehead as the babe laid in her mother’s arms.

 

“I’m so glad we got here, I’m so thankful I get to know what it’s like to hold my daughter in my arms.”

 

In another year the child would have been starting to walk, saying her first words amongst the jumble of nonsensical ones. She would have been learning her shapes, placing the cube in the square hole, the sphere in the round one. She would know how to laugh, understand what her parents were saying to her, she would know who they were, even if that memory would be forgotten in time.

 

The child would cease to remember the mother, but if it were not for my fee then at least the mother would leave with a glimpse of who her daughter was growing up to be.

 

“I’m so happy that I...” Madeleine added, the exhaustion of birth sapping at her determination. “Made it to term.”

 

A year never seems like such a long time when you deal with decades.

 

Her eyes closed then, baby still held in her hands but only because her arms were arranged in such a way that it didn’t tax them.

 

“No, no, Madeleine—wake up!” Kieran insisted. “You’ve got to stay around for your daughter. She’s born now so as soon as you’re recovered we can start the therapy. You beat this illness before, you can again!”

 

Madeleine opened her eyes. “Shh... not so loud, you’ll wake her.” Wanly she maintained her smile. “You know it’s too late, it’s all through my body, far worse than when I was young.” She was sweaty and pale, her hands ice to touch. If not for the blanket cradling the child she would have been woken by her mother’s hold. Her voice was even weaker than her appearance.

 

“Don’t talk like this, you can beat this,” Kieran pressed, careful to keep his voice hushed.

 

“Kieran...” Madeleine started but he cut her off, it wasn’t hard.

 

“Just, don’t fall asleep yet, okay? Your parents will be here any minute, let them have this happy moment, daughter and grandchild.”

 

Carefully, making sure the baby was still secure, Madeleine reached out and touched her husband’s cheek. He pressed it back against his face with his hand, eager to give his warmth to the frozen body part.

 

“Tell them...” her eyes closed for two harrowing seconds before reopening into slits. “That I’m sorry. I love them, I love you, and I love her...”

 

“Wait!” Kieran called, louder than he intended but still the baby did not stir as if she knew this was not a time to interrupt. “No, you need to stay awake, Maddy, fight this!”

 

“I won’t sleep,” she whispered. “Not until I tell you her name. That was the promise, you let me keep her and refuse the treatments and I get to pick her name. Well, she’s born now so I guess I can give you the surprise.” Her eyes were closed, she stopped looking at her daughter.

 

“Don’t then. Don’t tell me until you’re feeling better!”

 

“It’s Caroline. That was my grandmother’s name. Pretty, isn’t it?”

 

Kieran forced a grimace. “Yeah, it’s a beautiful name, it’ll suit her well.” Then he noticed that the arm around the child had gone slack.

 

“Madeleine!”

 

The buzzers screamed a moment later.

 

The nurse sitting at the end of the room was quick to scoop the child up. She was concerned that the babe had still not woken.

 

Doctors swarmed in with a relative blur to Kieran. He laid over the bed, face buried where the child cradled just before, weeping.

 

I heard it then, his desperate desire to give anything, everything, just to give his wife more time. He was so consumed with his fading love that he didn’t even glance over to the silent babe.

 

A doctor threw Kieran off the bed the same time another inspected the child. The commotion allowed his eyes to wander and fully realise what was happening.

 

“Caroline, why isn’t she crying?!”

 

Then it came, the high-pitched wail of what only a newborn could produce. The cries were deafening.

 

A year I stole from mother and child, a year that was added to my own growing lifespan. I could take more, there would be some who would accept. There are some that I demand it from, but I cannot take less. It is not in the rules, not those that govern the Unstrung Realm, but more simply in my own. There are other Angels of Death out there, extending themselves freely as they gaze through space and time. Some feel sympathy for life on the Strung Realms, some hold very little taxes, months, weeks, days. Some even forgo them if the case warrants it. As soon as they do a free case their lifespans begin to shrink. It never grows again.

 

I skipped on ahead, I saw Caroline grow up. She never became sick like her mother, not in the years that I viewed. She grew strong and tall like her father, and I saw her have a daughter of her own, she was called Madeleine. Two more kids followed the litter. Many lives, many time-spans given birth from the sacrifice of one old woman.

 

The outcome was not a justification of my tax, more a reminder of my own limitations. Space and time are loose and easily acquired things for me. I could reach across any dimension, pluck out one thing from the strings and relocate it onto an entirely different set. No trouble at all. I was the vessel for such things, the waypoint sand needed to travel between to reach its new destination. But that didn’t make me strong, it made me empty—a negative space. I am called an Angel of Death but that’s a misnomer really, for it is not really me doing the giving or taking, I am simply the resistance that process passes through. If I were really something grand, something worthy of a heraldic name, then I’d be capable of more.

 

Men cannot create gold, I cannot create time, but because neither of us are capable of the tasks ourselves does not mean they are not possibilities. Stars, though admittedly through their deaths, fuse elements so densely that they dispense the universe’s entire contents of gold. Matter and time are fixed to strings on this plane, everything expands, things only appear to move forwards, this universe is one on an accelerating collision course to destruction and yet my lifespan keeps increasing; time keeps increasing.

 

More life is being born—each gifted with their own unique lifespans. Time is being created. It’s increasing, pushing the edges of the Strung Realms out faster and faster. People are worried about the universe stretching too far that it will no longer keep form, well that is foolish. Matter does not need to keep the universe together, in fact it only makes up a very small portion of these people’s worlds. They cannot see it, but they know it is there, even if they shun it to darkness. Time wraps itself around matter and it will always hold it. Not until it runs out, not until the universe dies, will it collapse. They don’t need me, a stealer of their most precious commodity; they just need the organ I attack when I make my claim.

 

Men cannot create gold and sometimes they cannot save lives, but they can create time.

 

All it takes is the creation of life.

 

 

 

 

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Texte: Danielle Bolger
Bildmaterialien: Danielle Bolger
Lektorat: Danielle Bolger
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.02.2017

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