And there I was, dead as a stone. I wasn’t an angel, for I had no wings to cradle the air, nor did I wear a crown of Halos and golden light. But I floated above my body none the less. It was cold being dead, and the world took on new colors of gray and blue.
I knew I was dead, not from the body that lay spread out for all eyes to pray, but for the numb chill that eclipsed all senses save sight and sounds. Then came the tears, though not of my own, but of those who mourned me. It was as if time knew no laws, and skipped beats like a failing heart. Family and peers, face foreign and strange, all watched in sorrow, as my body slowly descended into earth as the skies shared tears of rain, As I lay six feet, the dearly departed did as such, disbanding like a flock of gluteus vultures, clad in black and stuffed to their fill of melancholy upon my corpse.
Then came a drum, and toll of a church bell across the stormy heavens. I looked across the horizon, and saw the pale horse, its rider cloaked in misty darkness. With him a reaper and wakes of fallen souls as his steed galloped the wet evening sky. As he approached, my legs betrayed all reason, standing firm in the fading horizon. Soon he was upon me, lifting his hood to reveal the hollow skull that lay beneath the smoke and mist. Its eyes, wide and empty starred through me as if through stained glass, and strange as it may seem, I was not afraid. Then the reaper dismounted- my highest point no taller then his chest.
“Your time has come,” the Reaper said.
“I understand,” I replied.
“You do not fear me?” he asked, unease deep in his hollow voice.
“You are Death are you not?”
“I am he,”
“Why must I fear what I have known would come? Why must I fear what I’ve come to expect? My time has past, and I shall haunt those I love no more, and leave them in peace.”
“It is time.” The Reaper said.