Time never waits

“Do you want a piece of chocolate cake, Mr. Death?” I’ve asked, trying not to look at my corpse. I’ve arrived home, after ten long hours of work, and I needed something to cheer me up. What better than a cappuccino and a piece of chocolate cake? Well, it would be nice if I hadn't choked on a piece of chocolate cake!

“Glad you asked. But no.” Said that entity that I assumed was the iconic Grim Reaper: no face, a skeleton with a dark robe and a scythe.

“Will someone find me?” Bad question. I could ask anything, but I was just worried with my dead body?

“Since you’re alone and your friends are used to you to stay away from contact, it will be only when your body starts to really smell.”

“Oh, that’s sad.” I didn’t know what to say. “May I stay a bit?”

“We don’t have the time.” I couldn’t know his expression, since he didn’t really have a face. “Your life is gone.”

“I just want to say goodbye.”

“Do you have anyone to say goodbye to? You know that you can’t do that.”

“I know.” I wandered without noticing, checking my corpse and that piece of chocolate cake that had fallen on the floor. That was my last moment: with food, alone, not even a dog or a cat. At least they would not suffer with me.

I went to my living room, searching for pieces of myself. No photos of family, since I didn’t care a lot about them or even friends. There was an empty room without a single puzzle that would say that I was happy. Was I successful? Yes, I had a career that I loved, and I spent a lot of my hours trying to get promoted, have a better status, and upgrading my life. And for what?

Today I’ve just lost my career and all they could say at my funeral was that I had a great job, and I was a workaholic.

Did I travel to see the world? No.

Have I gotten deep relationships in life? I don’t recall one.

When was the last time that I was smiling just for the pleasure of that? Did I ever do that?

“What are you doing? We need to go.” Said the voice of the Reaper.

“I can’t go.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I did nothing.”

“Do you think that you are the first to say that to me?”

“Do a lot of people say that?”

“Most of them try to run or fight me.”

“Does that even work?”

“No.”

“I thought so.” Just as I assumed.

“Where do we go to?” I was trying to have more time since the unknown was too frightening.

“You don’t need any answers now.” The Grim Reaper knew what I was trying to do. “I have to help you arrive at your destination, wherever it is.

“You don’t know where you will take me?”

“Life is as relative as death is. After you die, anything can happen. It depends on your beliefs.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You all want to stay. But there is no tomorrow anymore for you.” He paused. “Not here, anyway. Your body is a corpse, and you are no more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need any understanding. We just need to go.”

“But I want answers.”

“Have you ever got any answers in all those years you were living?”

“Not the ones that I was looking for.”

“Answers are something that you all invented just to lose time, not living.”

“What is life?”

“You are really asking the right entity.” He sighed. “Let’s just go along with it. Quietly.”

“But I want to know.”

The silence was the Grim Reaper’s answer. He was just finished with our conversation. I went to my corpse and said goodbye to that past that had no more future. Do I have a new future? That I do not know. My job now is to go with him.

I nodded. We went. And I was no more.

Goodbye, Cassandra.