A Divine Incarceration

Death watches me through the thick metal bars with a curious half smile on her red painted lips. “They’re not switching it off just yet, if that’s what you’re thinking” she says as I look again at the small screen hanging above the toilet. On it I can see a man in white talking silently to Emily as she absently brushes my hair. I wish I could hear them. Her eyes are locked to his, looking for answers, looking for hope. Her eyes were what attracted me to her a lifetime ago; so blue, so captivating, they drew me across the room and into her arms in a matter of hours. Now though, they seem dull and lifeless; any remaining spark blunted by the endless hours spent at my bedside willing me to wake from the coma that has brought me here; locked up and teetering on the edge between life and death.

Shortly after arriving I saw Emily talking to my father and pleaded for sound to accompany the images informing me of what I’d left behind. “It would upset the others” Death said simply and walked away to deal with the constant stream of bewildered souls trudging down the wide central corridor towards the light. They, the dead at least have somewhere to go; Death welcomes them in and moves them on in a matter of minutes but not us. We who are imprisoned in Death’s waiting room awaiting sentence have no direction, no final destination. Trapped in an incorporeal airport; not left yet not arrived; the Terminal terminal if you will. The room that holds me is stark, the television and cracked porcelain the only nods to an age later than steam. The bars reach round on all sides interrupted only by the two doors that wait at either end.

I was hit by a bus. It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud like that, but there it is. The reason I’m here watching my wife sit by my motionless body is because of a f***ing bus. I was half way across the road when my phone went. As I think back on it now, it seems to have taken an age although I’m sure it would have been but a fraction of a moment. I can remember the flashing numbers on the phone being suddenly replaced by the large stationary ones above the word STATION as I turned my head. It didn’t hurt. One second I was surrounded by people and wondering what she was calling for and the next I found myself alone and imprisoned; looking down on my mechanically assisted self.

The people in the cells around me change every few minutes so I can’t really get to know any of my neighbours. They arrive terrified and lost, no idea where they are or why they’re here. I try to explain but as I said, time is of the essence and no sooner do I get them to calm a little than they fade away to be replaced by another screaming wreck. I’ve stopped bothering now. They’re young for the most part as I guess the older ones tend to struggle less when the time comes. I did see a guy yesterday who must have been in his eighties though. He appeared two or three times as the team in the hospital brought him back over and over again. I think he was relieved more than anything when they finally let him go. Me, I’ve been here for almost a month and seeing the resignation etched onto my wife’s face I don’t believe I’ll be moving on anytime soon.

I’m surprised at how attractive Death actually is; the individual rather than the state that is. She glides rather than walks; a gothic angel with pale white skin and eyes as dark as her soul must be. The black hooded robe at least gives a sense of familiarity to the figure that I see now coming towards me, my heartbeat quickening at her approach. She pauses a few feet from me, her eyes alternating from one locked door to the other. “Which one will it be?” she whispers. “The one back to her and the fleeting taste of time that you call life or the other where I and eternity wait?” Her hand reaches through the bars towards my face and I feel my skin pucker and blister as her nails sink into my cheek; watching with a repulsed exhilaration as she brings her fingers back to her mouth and slowly sucks them dry. The unnatural reaction of my body fills me with horror and an overwhelming hatred of what I am. I love my wife and long to be back in her arms but Death’s touch brought with it a craving and an arousal that resonates within me. Laughing, she drifts away.

My stomach clenches and I throw up, coughing and spitting as I eject the acrid stench all around me. Wiping my mouth with my sleeve I fall onto my knees as the hopelessness of my situation is finally realised. I look around at the hordes of people shuffling forward towards oblivion and a searing anger starts to boil at their resignation. There are no sounds of protest as they march toward their deaths. No tears for loved ones, no screams of anguish, just a weary acceptance of why they’re here and where they must go. I look to the screen and watch Emily as she sits with her head in her hands, the sobs racking her body and wonder what dice have been thrown, what wheel has been spun that has decided that she must suffer so. The anger bursts to the surface and I run at the bars pulling and screaming at them to let me loose, let me go, LET ME LIVE.

The sound of a bolt drawing back puts pause to my fury and I hear the creak as one of the doors slowly opens.