Selfless

A short story

I

In that one second, I could have saved him. I saw the truck coming. I did the screaming, I called his name despite the fact that I should have known that he would not listen. I’ve seen it happen too many times on television. He was not going to hear me in time, was not going to be able to get out of the way in time. As the truck’s horn blared, as he stopped to look at the last thing he would ever lay eyes upon, I stood glued to the sidewalk, capable of only watching in horror as his life ended before my eyes. He died instantly. There were no last words, no forgiveness, nothing. Just a violent death which I hadn’t prevented.

Like I said, I had done the screaming, I had called his name. What I hadn’t done was jump in to save his life.

We hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, as anyone else who was there would have told you. The girl that I loved had chosen him over me, and there had been no one else in the world to blame but him. He had known of my undeclared love for her. He had been there to listen whenever I needed to talk about the girl whom I had only the courage to admire and love from afar. He had been the one to tell me that ‘there was hope’, that she would notice me eventually.

And when I saw him kissing her, I knew only rage, rage that departed all too quickly at the moment of his untimely death.

I remained frozen to the spot as other people called the paramedics. I watched as the ambulance arrived too late. And as they declared that he was dead, I realized that instead of remembering him as the person who had betrayed me, I would only remember him as my best friend. My feet beneath me gave way then, as I lost consciousness. The time spent before I awoke again in my bed with my parents sitting at my side with worried looks on their faces, were filled with dreams of the past, as though my subconscious was trying to remind me bluntly of what I had lost.

Because I hadn’t been fast enough, no, because I had been too afraid to act.

“I didn’t save him,” were the first words that escaped my mouth as returned to the physical world. And from that moment onward, to the following nights after, I knew only that I was a coward. I blamed myself endlessly for his death, and nothing that anyone could have done or said would have convinced me otherwise. My parents contemplated sending me to get help, and they probably would have, had things gone on longer as they did. Whether they really had that in mind, I guess I’ll never know.

The mind is a cruel thing. Had I been only able to convince myself that he was the villain, that he had probably deserved death, I probably would have been able to move on. But no, all that I was allowed to remember was how he was there for me when I needed him the most, and the things we used to do together. I’d sleep and I’d dream of how we first met, and of how he had died right before my eyes.

‘A true friend is selfless’, he used to say. Of course he normally meant it jokingly whenever he ‘borrowed’ money from me which he would neglect to return later- a fact that I did not often hold against him, considering the fact that I often ‘borrowed’ from him as well, using the same line. We were joking whenever we said it, but there was truth at its core.

Had I been in his place, and he in mine, I just knew that he wouldn’t have hesitated to give his life in order to save mine. Knowledge of the fact kept me up at night, and haunted my dreams when I wasn’t awake. It was the sole reason why I didn’t attend his funeral, nor did I visit his grave at any time. I was too guilty to face him.

It ended one fine day, when my father decided that ‘enough was enough’. I had to come to terms with his death, and accept the fact that ‘I couldn’t have saved him even if I had tried’ (liar). My father took me downstairs, we got in the car, and he drove me to the local cemetery.

He led me to his grave, and then left me alone there, reminding me firmly not to return to the car ‘until I was ready’.

And then I was alone. Alone with the tombstone of my best friend. You know how some people talk to the dead when visiting the graves of their loved ones? I never believed in that bullshit. To me, when a person is dead, that person is dead. Any apologies made then would have been apologies directed to a piece of rock set upon the dirt where my friend lay beneath, rotting in his coffin.

I stood there silently for an eternity, just looking at his tombstone in complete silence.

And after a while, I found out that I wasn’t alone.

The man was dressed in a tattered brown trench coat, with an equally dirtied old hat on his head, from which long strands of hair hung in front of his face. He wore a warm smile as he approached, and yet it was one that chilled me to the bone. His brown eyes scanned me from head to toe for a long while, as I stared at him in response. After a few seconds of awkward silence, a kind of satisfied look appeared on his face as he smiled and said, “He didn’t have to die.”

It was bitterness he got in return. “Well there’s nothing anyone can do about it now, anyway,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

To this, he laughed. It was an almost insane kind of laughter, one that gave me the urge to run away. And yet I stood there, watching him. When he had finished laughing, he smiled at me, baring yellowed teeth saying, “What if I told you that there was something you can do about it?”

“Are you crazy?” I asked. “The dead don’t come back to life. What are you, some voodoo priest who brings back the dead to life?”

The man shook his head, still smiling. “Your God dictates that the dead don’t come to life. Mine doesn’t. But no, I’m not going to ‘raise your friend from the dead’. I work in different ways.”

“You see, someone has to die on that particular day. My God will not change that. He will however change who dies,” he explained.

My eyes narrowed with skepticism. “What, you mean like, turn back time?” I asked.

He nodded in reply. “I guess you could call it that,” he said, his voice coarse. He coughed, the kind of cough you normally hear from the people who spent their youth sucking up on cancer sticks. He didn’t look like a messiah or messenger of any God. But that thought didn’t concern me too much at the time. All I knew was what he was offering me, even if a part of me still disbelieved him.

“So…you can take me back, in time for me to save him?” I asked.

He nodded again. “But in exchange, you’re the one who has to die, boy. Think you can handle that?” he asked.

Now that he had put it that way, I fell silent. Over the past weeks, I had blamed myself for not giving my life in exchange for his. And now the opportunity presented itself where I could rectify that mistake, where I could make the sacrifice, and would not have to suffer the torment brought upon me by my guilt.

For a matter that involved life and death, I didn’t give it much thought. My mind was occupied only with doing the ‘noble’ thing.

“I can handle that,” I said simply. Then, curiously, I asked him, “Who are you anyway?”

“Name’s Gerard Cain,” he said in reply, with a tone that suggested that that would be all he’d be willing to tell me.

“Is there some sort of payment?” I asked then. “What does your God get out of switching who lives and who dies anyway?”

And as I asked him this, a dark look appeared on his face, as though this were the question he didn’t want me to ask. The way he stared at me then made me feel as though he were contemplating killing me himself, like I had stumbled in on some secret he did not want me to know.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this drill somewhere before,” he said finally, his smile returning. “You get to save your friend’s life in exchange for your soul.”

My eyes narrowed accusingly. “So this God is really Satan?” I asked. Not that it mattered, really. I wasn’t much of a believer in God, Gods, angels or devils. If he had admitted that it was indeed, Satan, it probably wouldn’t have affected my decision.

He shook his head, looking terribly offended, “No. Satan isn’t even considered a player in the big game. Demons are just pieces on the board. So if you gave your soul for your friend’s life, you won’t really have to worry about a lifetime in hell. My God doesn’t function that way.”

“Then how does he function, then?” I asked.

“He repays them in kind,” Cain replied. “A soul given away for a good cause would be rewarded.”

Would the reward be Heaven of some kind? At that point I decided that I didn’t really want to know, lest I change my mind later. My heart seemed to be urging me to take up the offer quickly, so that the right thing, the selfless act could be done.

“Fine,” I breathed, staring him straight in the eye.

“Does that mean we have a deal?” he asked me for assurance.

I nodded. “Just do it.”

II

In that one second, the second that was given back to me, I could have saved him. I was back at that fateful day, at the exact same spot by the road at the exact same moment when I had noticed the truck speeding towards him. I had the opportunity now to correct my mistake.

I did not take it.

I saw him die for a second time, that day. With the same violent way. This time he hadn’t even seen the thing coming, as I hadn’t screamed or tried to warn him. I only stood, watching him silently as the truck crashed into him, killing him again.

And again I found myself frozen to that particular spot on the sidewalk, watching as people around crowded around the scene of the accident.

Why hadn’t I done it?

Perhaps I am just a coward after all, I thought to myself. But this time, I didn’t see it as badly as I saw it the first time. I had reason to be afraid of death. As it started to rain, I closed my eyes and thought about all I had to live for.

I had my parents. I had my whole life ahead of me. And now that I thought back, I was finally able to see that he would probably not have wanted me to give my life for him. I knew that, were I in his position, I would not want him to die for me. He would have wanted me to live, and I decided then that I would live, for his sake and mine.

And I probably would have, were it not for the fact that I had already made a deal.

“It’s too late to change your mind now, boy!”

III

In that one second, I heard him scream my name. And before I could react, before I could turn around to face him, I heard the sound of the truck, and I knew what had happened.

Our positions had been forcibly reversed!

All thoughts I had once had about how he would have given his life selflessly for me instantly vanished as the truck became the last thing I saw.

IV

In the end, no one is truly selfless. My death and the fact that he is alive brings me less comfort than I would have expected, but it still beats living in torment. I at least knew the truth now. That friendship really isn’t as strong as those TV shows and movies like to make it out to be. It’s too late to change my mind now, anyway. The deal had been made, and as promised, my soul now belongs to It.

Cain had at least been honest on how I would not be sent to Hell or subjected to any form of eternal torment. I am instead now becoming a part of the God’s collective consciousness, built out of the countless amount of souls It has gathered over the period of Its existence. Of course, everything I am will cease to be shortly, but it still beats eternal torment.

I’m going to live forever now, in a sense, beyond the barriers to the physical plane of which I was once part. Until Cain gathers enough souls for Me to pass through.

In the meantime I shall just wait.