TAG Part 10 – The End

I was gone, just like that.  Painless, though.  In fact, it was more than simply pain free, it was more than numb.  It was…vibrational, purifying.  It was thrilling.  It was an ending, and it was an awakening.  It was a death, and it was a birth.

When I say gone, perhaps that is too restrictive in language.  Because how could I be gone when I am here?  So let me clarify.  I, Allison Walker, as I had always known myself to be was gone.  Is gone, forever. I am now someone new, something new.  Ally ended, and I began.  And even that doesn’t fully explain it. I didn’t really begin as much as transformed, and took over a role… One that has existed since before time.  Earth and human time, that is.

Let me explain as best I can in a way that you can understand.  

That day in the shop, when I was on the floor… I can still see it in my mind’s eye as it happened. There I was, on the floor…. He took my hand.  I felt a rush of peace and the pulse of an ancient power that is too hard to articulate.  I saw him, I saw Des, and then I closed my eyes.  That was the last thing that I, Ally Waller ever saw.  When I opened my eyes again, I still saw them, still there…. But I was not seeing them through my own eyes anymore.

I watched the boy release my hand.  He knelt down beside me, he sweetly kissed my forehead. I watched him walk away for a second time, and just as mysteriously as the first time on that day that seems so long ago, I watched him get smaller and smaller, until he disappeared.  It felt like a dream, but it was no dream.  It was surreal, yet I was fully aware that while it was fantastic, it was very real. 

So I do not mean to be arrogant when I stated earlier that I had to explain it in a way that you can understand.  These experiences have no human words, no existing comparison to which you can relate.  You are, after all, only human.

While I am no longer Ally, I still have some of her in me.  I have many of her memories, although they fade away very quickly.  I have some of her emotions, but they feel more like a whisper of a feeling that I once had.  Not a strong emotion, simply a shadowy reminder of it.   It is pleasant, and allows me to remember the feeling without having a strong attachment to it.  Almost as if I am reading about Ally in a book.

I still have the soul of Ally to some degree.  I still here her favorite music in my head from time to time.  Often, when I am doing my new job I hear a very specific song, one of her favorite classic rock songs and it makes me smile.  Not because of what I have to do, but because there is a certain poetic irony to it all.  In a weird way, Ally created the soundtrack to my new existence through her life and her pleasures. 

So not to be overly dramatic, but… “Please allow me to introduce myself”.  Did you hear it?  Did you hear the Rolling Stones in your head?  OK, first off, I am not the devil.  Yet the song suits me.  I have been around longer than I even know.  Since the first life existed in the universe.  I am eternal. However, I have only had this job, this everlasting existence, for a small window of time.  I am told that I won’t have it forever, nor will I know when I am about to be retired.  I am told that there are processes that I do not need to concern myself with.  I just do my job, and enjoy this weird new world.  My job, sounds so plebeian, so bourgeoisie.  Yet I am the one person who strikes fear into the hearts of most humans.  You pray I stay away.  You beg me to not do my job, and you curse me when I do it. 

You see, I am Death.  I am known as the Grim Reaper, The Angel of Death, Shinigami, Thanatos, The Sandman, Mot, Yama, Santa Muerte and more.  I come at the end of a life, and transport the dying person to the afterlife.   Every day, I whisk souls through the light, and to the nexus of life.

Part of why I am sharing this with you, is that I want you to know death is not the end… I want you to not fear it.  Just as you were born, you will die… and you will be born again, and die again.  Humans fear this process because they cannot know what happens once they cross that line.  And that is the human experience.  So I am here to tell you… it is nothing to fear.  Your soul has existed for all of eternity, and will always exist.  Even I cannot kill a soul.  All I really do is transport humans out of their failing vessel, and into the magnificent universe.  Where I bring you cannot be described in your language because it simply lacks the nuance and structure to full explain it.  I can only say it is like a blanket of love.  A peaceful energy, a euphoric experience, a calming sense of joy.  A sense of understanding and knowledge as cannot be imagined. 

Which is why my job is well, actually enjoyable, which might be hard to imagine.  The Grim Reaper digs her job?  Yeah, pretty much.  I still get to experience some of the earthly pleasures that Ally enjoyed.  She is with me, and together we are having a unique experience in this vast universe.  We learn things, we grow.  I am never given all the information, just what it is that I need to know to do my job.  There is an immense cosmic pool of knowledge beyond me, and from time to time, I get shown a tiny sliver of it.

The boy who changed my life in an instant, he had been death for more time than can be remembered.  I am told that someone came to him in the same way, leading to his terror and confusion, just as I had felt.  Then he transitioned and spent his existence carrying people through.  Then his time was up, and it was my turn.  I will do my job, and someday it will be someone else’s turn… Who knows, maybe you will be next?

It defies logic, I know.  But that’s the way it has always been… or so I’m told.

TAG Part 9

“He,” I slowly repeated, “He told you.”  The words came out slowly as if my face was frozen, and more like a statement than a question.

“Yes,” came her reply, and nothing else.

More silence as I absorbed what this could mean.  Millions of neurons seemed to be crashing into each other in my brain as random and crazy thoughts flew.  “How?”, “Who the hell is he!”, “Why?”… “He wanted me to come here, I was brought here by him.  I was brought here by him?”   All these thoughts, plus a thousand others, whisking through my brain like eggs being beaten.  And the feelings.  The fear, the worry, the anxiety.  The feeling of loss of control, the feeling of hopelessness.  The longing for my life back and the almost paralyzing fear that it is gone forever.

What was happening to me?  I had a great life, I was happy.  I had friends, I had a good career.  I was motivated, I was inspired.  I was active.  I enjoyed life.  Now, I was wearing gloves so I didn’t accidentally kill anyone.   It was like some cosmic magician pulled the table cloth out from under the plate, and I was the plate that falls shattering on the floor.   I wondered what it could all possibly mean.  Then I had an even more terrifying thought – what if there was no meaning?  What if it was all just some random bad luck situation, and there was no answer.  If there is no answer, then there is no…no cure. 

I have no idea how long I sat there, staring into space and contemplating my new world.  It seemed like only a moment, but I knew it was longer than that because when I came back to the moment, Desdemona was gone. 

I stood up, and slowly moved towards the door back to the shop. As I did, something caught my eye.  There appeared to be something tucked behind the picture frame with photo of the boy.  I moved closer and saw yes, there was a little piece of paper tucked behind it.  I moved over and lifted the frame, and then pulled out from the back a folded piece of yellowing paper.  I almost knew what it would read before my eyes saw it.  In an ancient looking handwriting, almost a gothic script, was my name.  Allison Walker.  And nothing else. 

As I stood there staring at the paper, I heard some commotion and talking in the shop.  Des must have gotten a customer while I was in my mini-trance.  I put the photo and the paper on the desk, and went into the shop.  I expected to see a tourist perusing the potions and angels, but stopped in my tracks when I saw… I saw him. It was him.  The boy, the little boy with the dead eyes.  Des and the boy were deep in conversation and didn’t notice me.  There was a third person there too, an older man who was wearing all black.  A priest maybe?  I couldn’t be sure. 

All of these weeks, I had no clue what had happened.  And now, there he was.  Right in front me.  I could have all the answers I wanted to my myriad of questions:  Who are you?  What did you do to me?  Why are you here now?  How did you know I would be here?  But instead of facing him and getting the answers, I was suddenly terrified.  I had the feeling of being trapped.  The blood in my veins ran ice cold.  I felt as if I might faint.  Suddenly, I needed to escape.  I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to run again.  I knew I was in terrible danger.  I quietly stepped back into the office, and scanned the room for an exit.  There was no door, but there was a tiny window.  Unfortunately, it looked too small for me to fit through.  I had to go back out into the shop.  I knew there had to be a back door emergency exit somewhere.  I just had to be quiet and not let them see me. 

I peeked back out, and they were still talking, in a hushed little circle.  They were very focused on the conversation, and it looked as though I had a chance.  I ducked, and slowly and quietly moved towards the back of the shop.  I saw the door.  It had an alarm sign on it, but I figured once I pulled it and it rang, I would be gone.   They could not catch me.  I walked to the door.  My palms were sweaty.  My head was tingling.  I put my hand on the door latch, and went to pull it.  But my arm wouldn’t move.  Like an out of body experience, my arm seemed disembodied from the rest of me.  I wanted to leave, desperately wanted to flee.  But I was frozen.  Like a soldier in a mine field, there was a threat in every direction.  Stay and face the doom in that shop.  Leave, and never understand what is happening. 

At that dizzying moment, I let my hand release the door latch.  I knew.  I suddenly knew.  I could not leave.  I had to face him.  I felt it, in my gut.  I had to stay and I had to hear the story.  But as I turned to walk back towards them, the odd out of body experience broadened.  I could no longer keep my body standing.  I was weak, and slid down the wall and folded to the floor.  I exhaled loudly as I hit the floor, and that is when they all saw me.  They came running… perhaps they thought I was trying to escape.  But I wasn’t.  I knew now who I was and why I was there.  I knew in my soul that my life as I had known it was gone forever.  What happened next was just a formality.

As they approached me, they seemed very calm.  They did not seem to be the same threat to me that I had perceived only moments earlier.  Instead, they seemed to be more like shepherds to guide me, to bring me to where I needed to be.  To make my soul whole. 

There was no going back.  There was only going forward.

They got to where I was sitting.  The boy with the dead eyes was in front of me, so close I could touch him.  I could not move though, and the only thing I could do was stare at him.  Gaze into his black, soulless eyes.  There was such a power in those eyes, a compelling and controlling energy as nothing I had ever imagined.  He was a young boy, but he seemed to be a thousand years old.  He had an ancient presence about him that was undefinable.  All this time, all I wanted was this moment.  But now that it was here, all I could do was sit and stare.  My eyes started to well up with tears.  I wasn’t crying, yet tears flooded down my cheeks.  In one instant, I both knew my future and at the same time, felt like a child entering the universe for the very first time.

He held his pale arm out to me, and offered me his hand.  Des stood close by, clutching the pendant around her neck.  She wore an expression of peace and hope. 

He finally spoke to me.

“Are you ready?” was all he asked.

“Yes,” was all I replied. 

Then, I took his hand and I was gone.

END TAG PART 9