By M maldonado

Death is staring me in the face. Literally.

In my case, Death constitutes the following: a brawny man with a rugged face so pale that it could’ve been carved from a block of marble. He was in a cold sweat, possibly from the exertion needed to contort his face into an expression of malevolence so strong that it must’ve hurt. In one wet ivory fist he held a sizable steak knife that vibrated in his shaky grip, the wooden handle soaked with his perspiration.

This ghastly apparition has dragged me from the streets, bathed in sunset orange, and into the nearest dark alley, then into the alley of that alley, where this encounter would attract the least attention. He seemed to be gathering himself to do something he didn’t like; he didn’t bother to ask if I wanted him to not kill me. I had been thinking about doing it myself anyway.

And me? I’m a seventeen-year-old junior who’s bad grades and plain features have placed me in that terrible medium known as ‘average’. If you are not familiar with the term, let me explain: ‘average’ is that place between the buxom blond airheads that can’t count to eleven because they don’t have enough fingers and don’t think to use their toes, and the crippled, disfigured or exceedingly overweight girls who had the poor luck to have inherited features from ugly, long-dead relatives. I look average, act average, speak average, think average, and I’m going insane because of it.

That’s why I was silently begging the sweaty man to play a hand of ‘poke her’, throwing my life into the pot: I’m not weird or stupid, outstandingly beautiful or unbearably ugly. I was just one of those faces that blur into the background when all the Beautiful People come on the scene, radiating happiness and anorexia.

The man was clearly reluctant, but the knife called to him: poke her, poke her, it whispered, seducing him to kill me. He stared at the stainless steel blade as if it had cursed at him and called his wife a big hippo.

"Oh, fine. I’ll do it." I grumbled, stepping forward to impale myself on the blade.

It worked like a charm, slicing through my stomach to shred my intestines. I moaned, suddenly aware that this might not have been the best way to go, pinned like a dead butterfly on some sopping sap who hadn’t been sure if he’d wanted to kill me in the first place.

Unfortunately, I came to this conclusion just as I entered that dark tunnel that so many near-death experiencers reported seeing just before someone remembered to turn the oxygen back on. I found myself looking up into the man’s frightened eyes just as the receiving end of the tunnel swallowed me up.

"Well, this looks like a pleasant place to stay." I said sarcastically, looking around at the dimly lit Tunnel of Near-Death Experiences. After that I had nothing to say. I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place, because, frankly, the shredding of one’s insides is not one of those things you live to tell about, even if your listeners could stomach it.

So I just stood there, waiting for something to happen. I got impatient after about two minutes of staring at the light at the end of the tunnel and started walking toward it. I figured it was better to get this over with than to be left waiting. After all, some old man who’d forgotten his heart pills would most likely be coming through. I had no wish to talk to dead old men, here or anywhere else.

The walk to the tunnel was uneventful and boring. I had to stifle a yawn as I strolled down the pitch-black lane, and nearly missed seeing the other light.

I stopped, backtracked, and stared. There was another tunnel in here, leading off towards a light that looked suspiciously like the bare bulb that had been dangling in the alley’s alley where I’d fallen on the knife. Curious, I took a step into the tunnel—

—and suddenly there was no other tunnel. The one I had left was gone, disappeared as soon as I’d set foot inside the second. I scowled at the black void that was all that remained of the other passage, then began the walk up to the misplaced light bulb. I hadn’t taken six steps before I was shoved out of the ebony tunnel and into the dim light of the bulb, which outlined my bleeding and penetrated carcass and my unsure killer, whom I had forced the murder on and was now crying over my body.

I felt remorse in that instant, and it burned me. I had not been brutally murdered by this sad man, who (I now knew, don’t ask how) hadn’t even wanted to use his weapon. He just wanted money so he could continue to scrape out a living. It was my own fault for my death.

I wish I had a mirror, that way I could properly stare Death in the face.

I walked over to the man—figuratively, of course; I’m dead, after all—and laid an unreal hand on his shoulder. To my surprise, he felt it, and looked over his shoulder in my direction, his eyes wide and afraid, clearly expecting someone of authority. He sighed in relief when he saw no one was there, but then froze up again. He could still feel my hand, and I his shoulder. It was one of the few surreal moments I had ever had, and this one while I was dead at that.

I bent close, my mouth a mere inch from his ear, and whispered words that I knew only as I said them, then forgot after they were used. In the end I only got the barest of impressions, that of forgetfulness, selective amnesia. The man stood, his eyes closed, and walked slowly and smoothly back to the street, where, as I watched, he recovered his senses and started home, unaware of the deed he’d done. I watched him go, then returned to my lifeless former body.

I shook my ghostly head as I examined myself, tactfully avoiding the parts recently ravaged. I wasn’t as average as I’d believed. In fact, I was rather good-looking, with brown hair that streaked here and there with mahogany and brownish-red. My face was well-shaped and almost faultless; the only blemish was a small brown spot where the pigment had collected, but that was in the middle of my cheek, so it looked fine. I was not overly thin, nor grossly fat. I was thin without showing the outlines of bones, the happy medium, which has nothing to do with a euphoric fortune teller.

I was perfectly designed in about a hundred other aspects I had once labeled as dull and boring, but the knowledge was too late in its arrival. I was dead and, barring the Frankenstein method, there was no turning back. I could only move forward, though to where I don’t know.

I wandered out of the alley’s alley, thinking deeply about What Next? I passed through cars, people, buildings and one dog, who barked at me, then whimpered in a corner.

Eventually I found myself standing outside of my house. The lights were on in every room, and I could see one of my parents’ silhouettes, moving frantically to and fro, no doubt searching vainly for me. My father’s car was parked diagonally in the driveway, the hood disappearing into the garage door. Mom must’ve called him on the way home.

I stared at my house, wondering what to do. After a while my legs decided for me, dragging the rest of my nonexistent body along for the ride. I passed right through the front door and into the living room, where my mother was crying. Or, rather, had been crying, because the wet patch on the floor below her was at least six inches around.

I was crying and hugging her in less than a second, not caring how much this would scare her or that she could not know that it was I who embraced her. Unthinking, I gripped her tightly.

My mother’s body locked. She stared around the room as my unseen form pressed tighter against hers, shedding tears that would never be seen and could not be felt. I knew this, and cried more for it.

Finally I let her go, and she lay on the couch, gasping and pale and sweaty, as if she were a piece of the poor man who’d started this whole ordeal. I cried for a little more, but ran upstairs when she called Dad into the room. I did not want to be there.

I arrived in what had been my bedroom. There were a few posters on the walls, of musicians like Jonatha Brooke, who was more talented than all the female pop singers combined but nowhere near as famous, though she might not be the same if she were well-known; and System of a Down, whose hyperactive lyrics and guitars were something else entirely, a type of music as yet unclassified. They were—excuse me, had been—my favorite music-makers, but now…

I’d admitted to myself that I really hadn’t been average when living at least ten minutes ago, but now I was even more convinced. To want to die because I thought I was mundane was nowhere near average; I should’ve realized that before.

Death brings about so much insight.

Also, anyone who had such a diversity in music—Brooke’s lilting melodies and angelic voice, System’s complicated guitars and rapid vocals that could change to a smooth, choir-like tone—was clearly a well-rounded person, not afraid to express themselves.

I had been a good, feeling person. I wish someone had told me.

I sighed and laid a hand on my desk. My fingers met a pen and, miraculously, picked it up. Without thinking I sat, the chair somehow supporting me, and wrote.

What came forth from my pen was an account of the night’s incident, making sure to pardon my ‘killer’; this was followed by what I had learned while dead, what I wanted to apologize for, what things my parents shouldn’t blame themselves for. I left no stone unturned and, as the joke goes, no tern unstoned. I had nearly twelve pages when I was finished; I read it, changed things here and there, then signed it.

Sincerely,

Your Dearly Departed Daughter

Elizabeth

I smiled as I finished my name; a great, you-can-see-all-my-teeth smile that stretched beyond my ears and nearly lopped my head off. I knew that, with this letter done, I was no longer attached to the living world. Still, I waited…

I was just about finished fading into nothing when my parents found the letter.