Hello, Death. It's a Pleasure. by Evan Purcell

Would you strike up a conversation if you accidentally ran into Death on a city street? 

One day, though I can’t quite remember when, I met Death. I accidentally bumped into him on my way to Timmy McManus’s house in Cleveland. Or was it Pittsburgh? Timmy was a nice kid, though he had an unfortunate overbite.

The contact was sudden and quite jarring. I remember face-planting against his billowing cloak. He was quite cold, because of the whole skinless thing, and his bony fingers dug into my flesh as he pushed me away. I felt a tingle.

He was very cordial about it, Death was, and I said that I admired his work. Not seriously, of course. I just thought it was the polite thing to say. As you might expect, looking into the sockets of a six-foot, hooded person can become intimidating, and not much else would come out of my mouth except the occasional conversation-filling gurgle. Death told me that he was very proud of what he does. Not many other people could say they kill someone every 3.2 seconds. I thought my line of work was difficult, but his seemed a bit more extensive.

Death also said that he was in town to get through a whole building’s worth of burn victims way down on seventy-first. He pointed his bony little pinkie in the direction of the billowing smoke cloud. I asked if he felt sorry for all those people burning up. I mean, someone doesn’t just wake up in the morning and imagine that he’s going to be a pile of sizzling ash by nightfall. Death shrugged, a disturbingly innocent shrug, given that it came from a man completely covered in shadow. “I don’t know,” Death said. “I don’t want to sound insensitive, but it gets kind of repetitive, you know. You’ve seen one third-degree burn victim, you’ve seen them all.”

I nodded, pretending I understood when I really wanted to run and cower somewhere far, far away. I’ve heard the Southwest is nice.

Death smiled at me, his white teeth gleaming through the cloud of black nothingness that was his face. They glistened in the fading sun along with his scythe blade. Twinkle, twinkle, spark, spark. Death took really good care of his teeth. I admire that in a person.

The small talk continued. I asked him what caused the fire. He said something about a cigarette gone haywire. I asked how high the death toll would get. He said thirty-seven, still smiling, as if the grisly change in our conversation’s focal point registered no emotions in that skull of his. He must have really loved his work.

The moon had suddenly come up, giving Death the lighting he needed, just enough to show his immense outline. The wind picked up around the same time, and his cloak twisted and fell in the breeze, writhing about like the cloth version of the fire that was now high into the sky. “Well,” Death said after our conversation slackened (I contemplated asking where he did his dry cleaning but realized that was too much). “I should be going soon. I think I hear the ambulance come. I’d hate to have made this trip for nothing.”

He patted me on the shoulder, and I again felt a distinct tingle. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it was mostly unpleasant. He cocked his head for a second, and a look of confusion fell over his face-void. Then, as if to test something, he reached forward and poked me in the forehead. I pretended not to notice.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” I said, although I hoped that would never happen.

He turned to leave, slowly walking into the night. I knew he was still only feet away, but it was getting harder and harder to see him. Before he was completely gone, he turned back, his sockets giving me clear eye contact. “By the way,” he said, stroking his chin with those skeleton hands in a comically grim gesture. “I ran into you. How come you didn’t die? I thought only myself and a few of the other Immortals were allowed to live forever.” He seemed very understanding as he said this, treating my continued life as some strange condition that one reads about in medical journals.

I smiled, turned and flew away. I wanted to let him figure it out. After all, little Timmy McManus still needed me to collect his tooth.

Evan Purcell has written five romance novels, as well as over twenty sci-fi and horror shorts for various anthologies. He was a finalist in the 3-Day Novel Contest and the LA Comedy Fest Screenwriting Competition. For his day job, he teaches English at a high school in Bhutan.

Find out more about Evan: http://www.Facebook.com/EvanPurcellWriter

http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Evan-Purcell/2137687674
https://www.amazon.com/Evan-Purcell/e/B00KE4HD3E

Story ART by: Amanda Bergloff

A Flicker of Time, by R.A. Goli

The height of Death's candles are equal to a life span, but even Death can't measure the depth of a father's love...

Merrick Chandler worked tirelessly, rendering down beef fat to make the tallow. He had a busy day ahead due to an unusual number of women about to give birth. He’d already been cooking it for a few hours and his workshop stunk. Fortunately, the quality of fat was good and he knew how to cook it so it wouldn’t smell once the tapers were lit, which was a good thing considering how many candles there were.

While he waited for it to cool, he shifted to his large oak desk and consulted the list. Death had written the names and candle sizes for each baby to be born that day, so Merrick began preparing the wicks by cutting them to size and securing them in the mold.

Once the tallow had cooled a little, Merrick poured it into each section of the mold according to the length of the wick. He remembered when he’d first started candle making, he’d used the technique of dipping the wicks in the tallow repeatedly until the tapers had formed the desired shapes, then trimmed them to the appropriate length. Death had commissioned a blacksmith to make a mold so Merrick could craft hundreds of candles at once. It was physically less demanding and each candle was uniform in width. The height of each was of course based on the life span of each individual.

Once they’d set and hardened, he removed them from the mold, and took them to the candle room where Death waited. Calling it the candle room was not accurate. It was more like a tunnel that stretched for miles, with built in shelves in the brickwork, which housed a million candles, all lit and burning brightly.

“Good evening, Merrick,” Death said when he arrived, for it was now early eve.

“Good evening, Death. How fair thee today?”

“Busy as always.”

Merrick pulled his candle-laden cart to the empty section of shelves and began placing the unlit tapers beside the appropriate name plaques. When he was done, Death approached, handed him a scroll for the next day’s crafting, then set to work lighting the wicks. Merrick watched as Death lit the candles as each child was born, saddened by the number of short ones there were in the day’s batch. Death also noticed.

“There’s a pox raging through North Larkhurst,” Death said.

“Such a shame.”

Bored with watching Death work, Merrick went for a stroll through the tunnel of lights, comforted by their warmth and calmed by their flickering glow. He saw the large candles of the healthy children and young adults in their prime, and saw the shorter ones belonging to older folk, those who’d lived many years already, with lives coming to an end.

He smiled when he reached he and his wife’s candle, burning so brightly, both with many, many years to go. He realized how lucky he was, Amelina was in full bloom, almost ready to have their first child. Tired as he was, Merrick almost jogged out of the candle room, suddenly eager to get home.

* * *
When Merrick unrolled the list of names for the day he almost jumped out of his skin. His son, Renick Chandler was on the list.

“Today, he’s to be born today!”

Merrick’s shouts of joy reverberated around his work space, until he read the rest of the entry. He swallowed down rising bile and felt the pulse at his neck jump under the skin.

“No. It can’t be.”

A hard knot tightened in his throat as he stared at the scroll. Then anger washed over him like grey waves and he rushed to Death’s office. Death was seated at his desk and Merrick threw the scroll down in front of him.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Death reached a skeletal hand forward and grabbed the scroll, then turned to him, sympathy was written across the man’s pallid face.

“This is the way of the world, Merrick. You know that. It’s the cycle of life and death. I cannot change it.”

“You must! I know you can.”

Death shook his head. “It is not the way.”

Merrick dropped to his knees and clasped his hands together. “Please Death, you have the power to make this right.”

“I’m sorry, my friend. You must make your son’s candle along with the others.” He handed Merrick the scroll and placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.   

Merrick shook it off angrily and snatched the scroll, then stood and left without a word.

He went back to his work room, sat at his desk and cried for an hour. How would he explain it to Amelina? That their son would only be with them for such a short time. She’d be devastated, as he was. Eventually he prepared the tallow, sorted the wicks and poured the molds. Once the candles were set, he loaded his cart and took them to Death and once again pleaded with him.

“You must do something, it’s so short. It’s not fair!” He sobbed as he looked at his son’s candle, so small, a few days or weeks’ worth of wick and tallow if he was lucky.

“Life and Death aren’t always fair, Merrick.” Death said as he began lighting the wicks.

“Can’t you give him an extra candle?”

“I cannot. I suggest you go home now if you wish to be there for the birth of your child.”

Merrick stared at the back of Death’s cowl as he bent forward, lighting wick after wick. How can he be so cruel? But Death wasn’t cruel. He knew that already. Death paused in his work and turned to Merrick.

“You may have tomorrow off to spend with your wife and child. I’ll make the candles myself.”

“At least tell me how.”

“The bloody flux,” Death said.

Merrick nodded and turned away, the flickering flames forming a large orange blur through his watery vision.

* * *

Merrick didn't go home to Amelina as Death had suggested. He sat in his work station trying to come up with a way to trick Death. When he did find a solution, it didn't exactly make him happy, but it was all he could think to do. He waited until he was sure Death had retired for the evening and snuck into the candle room.

He stood in front of his candle, watching its happy flickering flame, Amelina's flame the same. They seemed to lean towards each other. When Merrick removed it, his wife's flame shrunk a little, then stood straight and still. He walked to where Renick's sat, so short, its flame so dim compared to a healthy newborn's. He took his son's candle and replaced it with his, tall and strong, though not a full life left, but at least he'd given his son many more years.

He walked back to his own name plate and placed the short candle where his used to be. Amelina's flamed leaned down towards it, and he choked back a sob. Such a difference now. He left the tunnel of lights and headed home. He'd need to tell her what he'd done. She'd be heartbroken, but he'd done the only thing he could.

He'd given a mother more time with her son.

R.A. Goli is an Australian writer of horror, fantasy, speculative and erotic horror short stories. Her work has been published by Broadswords and Blasters, Fantasia Divinity Magazine, Grivante Press, Deadman’s Tome, and Horrified Press among others. In addition to writing, her interests include reading, gaming, the occasional walk, and annoying her dog, two cats, and husband.

Check out her website: https://ragolifiction.wordpress.com/

or stalk her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ragolifiction

Story ART by: Amanda Bergloff

The Physician's Wife by Sarah Allison

Once, a princess slept and dreamed of Death...

The princess slept.

She dreamed that Death stood by her feet

and called her away in a soft cold voice,

somewhere else, far from the fever,

into a quiet dark that smelled

of earth.

But she woke up.

Her father bid her wed a stranger, a physician,

who had cured her, so would keep her.

She smiled as she had been taught to do.

They were married with flags and trumpets

and the sky rained rice and flowers.

The physician slept.

He did not wake, only sank deeper

with a face full of dread, and she wondered

if he dreamed of Death. They buried him

with flags and trumpets and much weeping,

and she wore widow’s black

though they had been married less than a day.

Her father did not seem to mind.

Over dinner, he remarked

he had a better husband for her.

A wealthy king from a nearby land

who would make a strong ally in war.

Sarah Allison lives in Florida. Her short fiction has been published in Liguorian Magazine and NonBinary Review, and her fairytale blog can be found at writinginmargins.weebly.com. 

Poem ART by: Amanda Bergloff

A Phantom Flame by Gabriel Ertsgaard

A voice from the past calls out to the present, and an old tale is more than a fragment in someone else's myth...

Once upon a time, a princess was very sick. Once upon a time, there was a maiden with countless names. Humor your old grandma, dear. You may have outgrown bedtime stories, but this is a more mature tale, if I can just figure out how to tell it. Once upon a time, a silver-haired woman received a surprising letter—I suppose that will have to do—and the letter went like this:

My dear Caroline,

If you recognize this handwriting, then it must feel like you’re hearing from a ghost—the girl with “strange, sad eyes” back from beneath the lake ice. You were too curious, my friend; I learned, long before we met, to vanish from those who peered beneath my surface. It’s cruel, I admit, decades later to upset your serenity, but I offer a form of payment. I’ll finally give you what you sought back in our college years: the truth about me. 

I’ve enclosed a few photographs: the mugshot of a careless young flapper caught in a club raid; a very recent Starbucks selfie from a millennial with purple hair streaks; and (in case you’ve forgotten how we looked forty years ago) the two of us in our infamous tie-dyed t-shirts, just a few hours before our psychedelic torsos taught us why we shouldn’t have put them on half damp. Lay these pictures side by side, and most would detect a lineage, grandmother to daughter to granddaughter. Do you see past that? Those three women don’t have similar faces, they have the same face. They are all the same woman. They are all me. 

You notice telling details, and more importantly, believe them. That’s why I’m writing you (and why I abandoned you). I had no idea, until you started taking notes, that I still talked in my sleep—much less, to borrow Professor Durand’s phrase, in “an Occitan dialect already archaic by the Napoleonic era.” He just couldn’t decide whether that “oddly scholastic prank” was one you were playing on him, or one I was playing on you. Perhaps, though, you’re no longer someone who can believe what this letter contains. Really, it doesn’t matter. Right now, memory matters more than belief. Make me into a fable or a bedtime story. I just need to be more than a fragment in someone else’s myth.

I was burned alive three times over the course of the Renaissance—let’s start there—twice as a witch, once as a heretic. (That was during my Huguenot phase.) Three times I felt my body caught between the physics of combustion and the metaphysics of, well, whatever I am. Can you even imagine that sensation? I’ll spare you the grotesque similes, but anything you posit, it’s at least that painful. My behavior isn’t always fair, I acknowledge, but my fear of perceptive people has deep roots. Of course, the way biometrics are going, I could be flushed out into the open by the end of this century.

I need to prioritize, though, to focus on the life events that best explain me. My first clue regarding my own nature came when a cholera epidemic swept through Galatia. It took my six-year-old daughter, the only child I ever had the courage or recklessness to birth. That was worse than being burned alive. At midday she was still pretending the staircase was an alpine mountain. Then the vomiting started, and she lost more fluid than her poor body could handle. Dead by sundown. She had cinnamon eyes. It’s the only part of her that I still remember clearly. Just a half century ago, I could have sketched my little girl’s portrait from memory, but time eventually blurs everything.

A shadow stood at the foot of her deathbed, and strangely, I knew him. I knew this Lord Death. He went into a wild panic when I caught the hem of his cloak. Ironic, really, how terrified he was of our reunion. When he finally shook me off, I didn’t land anywhere on Earth. I was lost in a black void. At first, my lungs ached, but the cold soon numbed everything. I felt timeless. Then a strange, celestial light carried me back to terra firma. Aether wind, I suspected, until Michelson and Morley proved that no such thing exists. Angels? Perhaps. There’s a comfort, though, in knowing that some mysteries still dwell beyond one’s ken.

For centuries, I pored over tracts on alchemy, philosophy, and science, searching for the key to my persistence. I should have listened to wrinkled grandmothers telling bedtime stories. They knew. Have you heard the tale of Godfather Death? A new father once sought a fair and just man to serve as his son’s godfather, but it turned out that only Death himself met the man’s high standards. Death comes for us all—the rich, the poor, the great, the humble—what could be more just than that?

According to the tale, Death gave his godson a medicine that would cure any disease. With this, the latter might earn a respectable living as a doctor. “Yet if you see me standing at the foot of someone’s bed,” Death warned the young man, “you must not cure that person, for I’ll be there on dreadful business.” But there was a princess…of course there was a princess. She was gentle, beautiful, and deathly ill. Her desperate father promised the maiden’s hand in marriage to him who cured her. The usual fairy tale stuff. 

Memories from my fever delirium have always been gauzy. A shadow hovering at my feet. A young man’s voice demanding, “Quickly, spin her bed around!” Suddenly, the shadow by my head. The youth with cornflower eyes putting a vial to my lips. His elixir molten in my throat. In the folklore, though, these fragments fit a coherent whole, the tale of the young doctor’s ploy to outwit Death. 

The old wives say that Death, furious over the ruse, dragged his godson down into a mysterious chamber that was lit by the eerie glow of inumerous candles. Nevertheless, there was something the tale weavers missed. In every variant, every version of the story I’ve found, the young doctor collapses dead on the chamber floor. But I recognized him, standing by my daughter’s deathbed. He still had the eyes of that youth who hoped to marry the princess. It’s been ages, though, since we were princess or doctor—ages since he stole his godfather’s cloak and cursed us both. 

You see, I’ve been stalking Death, and now I’ve found the path to his chamber. I intend to claim my birthright, and I don’t mean the crown of a vanished kingdom. One of those candles is linked to me, one that flickers with a phantom flame. I want the real fire back. Now, before I forget my daughter’s eyes, I’ll finally burn out the last moments of my natural life. For the sake of justice, Lord Death must give me that. There’s a last justice, though, that my one-time physician cannot grant—the right to echo on as the heroine of my own story and not just a fragment in his. My dear Caroline, I beg you, grant me that final mercy.

Your friend,

Jean Copper

formerly Princess Joanna of Burgundy

formerly Rufina, the mother of Esperanza 

formerly many women who were, in truth, the same woman

* * *

Once upon a time, a princess was terribly ill. Once upon a time, there was a maiden with so many names. Once upon a time, a silver-haired matron pondered a message from her very old friend...

Gabriel Ertsgaard has served on the English faculties of Caldwell University and Wenzhou-Kean University. He earned his D.Litt. from Drew University with a dissertation on environmental themes in an Irish legend.

Story ART by: Amanda Bergloff

How He Found a Wife by Kiyomi Appleton Gaines

A pure heart would 
never trick Death...

There was heat and pain. There was nothing else. There had never been anything else.

The cool rag over her eyes, the drops of water spooned into her mouth were of Paradise. When it withdrew, she tried to call back that gift of mercy, but no sound came through the fires that baked her mortal coil.

Her vision was blurred, but she saw there, at the end of her bed, an old man, gaunt, gray-skinned, his eyes sunken so deep she could not see them, in a Benedictine robe. Last rites, she thought. She must be dying. She felt relief and sank into it.

Hands grabbed her. Voices apologized. She felt pain, tried to tell them not to move her, she wasn't dead yet.

Bitter tea passed her lips. The gaunt priest was at her head. He held her hand, stroked her hair. “What have you done? What have you done?” he murmured. She tried to apologize. The priest put his hand on her forehead. His touch was cool, healing. She closed her eyes. “Not you, dear,” he soothed. “Rest.”

The room was bright. She could feel her body, weak but not burning, she could see the room, could feel life still within her. Her father stood over her, his eyes wet, his expression beatific. Beside him was the physician. He looked triumphant. “There now! She's awake!” His voice was too loud. She closed her eyes. “As soon as she's well enough, we'll wed, and you will name me your heir. I told you I would save her, and so I have!”

Her father sat down on the bed, clutched her hand, and sobbed.

It took great effort, but she laid her other hand over his. Beyond him, in the corner of the room, stood the gaunt priest.

The castle hummed with the preparations for the wedding. Dressmakers came and went, tables were moved in for the feast, everything was polished to a high shine. The quiet priest was never far from her side. When she felt tired she would reach for him, and his arm would bear her back to her rooms. Always silent, he would nod ascent, or shake his head to each activity, approve or reject each dish set before her, and sit, a constant comfort, at the head of her bed each night until she fell asleep.

The physician's voice could be heard ringing in the halls, echoing in the courtyard, as he demanded to inspect the stables, the grain houses, the storeroom, the village and tenants. “This will be mine,” he reminded them all. “My sons shall inherit all of this. I must see to the future.”

The wedding feast would be swan, baked and then covered again with its own feathers; suckling pig glazed in cider; blackbird pie. The wedding clothes would be of cloth gold and lined in silk. The goblets and dishes jewel encrusted. The archbishop was to come perform the ceremony, the physician said.

“No,” she said, and it was the only point she insisted upon, “The Benedictine will perform the ceremony.”

The physician puckered his mouth, as though he'd eaten something rather sour, but he did not press her. On this, she would not be moved. “When you are my wife,” he said in a low voice, “You will do best not to defy me. You will do well to recall that you owe me your life.”

“The Benedictine will serve,” she repeated.

The day itself arrived. She was dressed, with cloth tucked and sewn until she felt she could not breathe. Her hair was brushed and pulled and twisted until her head ached.

The church was awash with candles lighting the way to the altar. The warmth made her swoon, and the flickering brightness hurt her eyes. Still her father bore her to her fate.

The priest began, “Each candle represents a life. The wax of each melts and pools in different ways, much like the varied paths of our lives. Yet each flame must burn out, and we hope that in our time, we light many other candles before that day comes. Now each of you should take the candle before you, the one that marks your life, and join the flames to this one that I hold, which will mark your path together, until your end.”

A slender taper sat before her. A squat stub, the kind used by scholars, sat before the physician. She reached for the taper, as she was bid, but the physician's hand darted in front of her and grabbed the candle away. 

He smiled, not with kindness, but smug, as though he'd out-smarted them all. 

She reached across, too, and took up his candle stub. She watched him lift the taper and tip it toward the large candle held by the priest, but the melted wax had pooled and the flame was snuffed out.

The physician paled. “No! No, it's not fair!” He dropped the taper, looked around, wild, and then grabbed for the candle stub still in her hand. She stepped back as he lunged for her. He fell dead at her feet.

“Do not fear,” the man in the robes said, and she knew then that he was not a priest after all. And she knew that he had been with her through every hardship, and that his hand had cooled her fevered brow, and dripped water over her parched lips. And she knew that she could never fear him. 

“This man will be my husband,” she told her father. “This land shall be our kingdom.”

So she lifted the small stub of wax and lit the flame of Death.

Kiyomi Appleton Gaines loves folklore and fairy tales for what they teach us about what it means to be human.  Her writing can be found at workofheartkag.wordpress.com.  She lives in New Orleans with her husband, and two fish.

Story ART by: Amanda Bergloff

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A Tale Told in Four Voices by Rebecca Buchanan

Reality is different when seen from four distinct viewpoints...

The King

Not too old.

Smart, but not clever.

No, a clever son-in-law

is never a good thing.

Ambitious, too,

but not so much 

that I should worry for my crown.

Yes, I believe that he shall do.

I shall keep my promise —

this time.

The Princess

His nose is oddly-shaped

and he talks while he eats.

And he never stops talking.

Death?

Magical flower?

Indeed.

It’s all absurd.

Pathetic almost,

like a knight exaggerating the size of the dragon.

And he’s no knight.

Not even a baronet, or a baron.

Money, yes, plenty of that,

but it does nothing to disguise his commonness.

He’s still talking.

But father did promise.

And he did save my life,

or so he says.

Perhaps I can come to appreciate him.

Perhaps.

The Godson

The shack with the leaky door

and rags for shoes

and a belly so hollow

that I could swallow the sea

with all its fishes

and still be hungry.

That was many years ago —

before Godfather claimed me.

Boots now

of softest fur and leather

and silken shirts

and pheasant and boar and wine,

so much that I almost forget

that pit in my belly.

Almost.

Save her, as you did me,

the King says.

It is not a request.

I could have said no.

Godfather did warn me

not to deceive him again.

But she is beautiful

and the palace is warm

and the food is rich.

When it is done,

she smiles at me

and that void 

beneath my heart

is filled.

The Godfather

I am not cruel.

I never tell a lie.

And I always keep my promises.

Rebecca Buchanan is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine, Eternal Haunted Summer. She has been previously published, or has work forthcoming, in Bards and Sages Quarterly, Cliterature, Enchanted Conversation, Eye to the Telescope, Faerie Magazine, Gingerbread House, Silver Blade, Star*Line, and other venues.

Poem ART by: Amanda Bergloff