Daniel and the Reaper

Tick-tock went the clock as Daniel walked the busy street with the swiftness of a man who needed to get to the bank before it closed, as if his life depended on it. Quite to the contrary, however, he would soon come face to face with an abrupt realignment of perspective. It came in the form of a diesel truck that greeted him as he slipped and stumbled into the street, face snapping up just in time to meet eye to eye with the dull dual glow of the truck’s dim gazing lights.

The introduction didn't last long. There was the sting of panic, of fear so enveloping there was no room to exist outside of it. And then there was darkness. Emptiness. No thoughts, no emotions, nothing to sense. No reflection. He was and he wasn't. Suddenly, for that is the only way anything can happen in such a state, a light appeared. A speck. A dot. A growing glow of white that reminded him of his own existence. Daniel became aware of himself once more, slowly, until the feeling that his body was still attached to his mind returned to him. The light seemed to be both impossibly far away and dangling right before his eyes, growing, and yet the darkness still permeated everything. He looked down and could not see his chest, his feet, his hands, and found himself lifting his eyes back to the light quickly as the fear that it may fade began to grip him.

"Turn around, and sit." The most oddly surreal voice he had ever heard, bereft of humanity and any sense of emotion, calm and quiet, yet far from monotone, came from behind him. "If it pleases you." The voice added.

Strange, Daniel was surprised by the sound, but he didn't feel the common reflex to jump in fright, but rather a profound familiarity. And as he turned to face the source of the voice, his eyes laying their sight upon a tall figure poised still as stone and draped in darkness, he felt a profound fear. “You’re…you’re the…” Daniel nearly stammered.

“Grim Reaper, as I am called.” The figure finished for him, the plain black ash laden sackcloth robe he wore hanging from the cold bone of his frame while its deep and heavy cowl left naught but a hollowed den of darkness in place of a visage.

“What…what do you want with me?” Daniel was quivering now. “I…I have so much to do. I have to get to the bank to make a deposit so I can pay my mortgage.” He was speaking faster and faster. “And I have to make it home in time to shower and pack before my flight. I have a tournament to get to. A tournament to win.” Daniel was a chess grandmaster. “You must understand.” Daniel began backing away from the tall, imposing figure, his heartbeat thumping away in his chest.

“I understand.” Simple words simply spoken by the one known as the Reaper.

But as Daniel continued to backpedal slowly, he found he wasn’t getting anywhere. Wasn’t moving at all. “OK.” Daniel nodded. “That’s good. That’s a start. So, can I wake up now? Can I go back to where I came from and leave…” His head turned from side to side, his eyes looked up and down, but through it all there was only endless darkness and shadow. He wondered where the light that allowed him to see the Grim Reaper before him even came from, the pale surreal glow seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“If you wish to go back, sit.” the very sound of the Reaper’s voice, like the light, seeming to fill the air around them, its source obvious, but the sound seeping from all directions at once.

Suddenly Daniel glanced down and noticed as if for the first time a pair of chairs sitting opposite one another with a small square table situated between. They were simple, wooden, but well crafted. Taking a deep breath, with an apprehensive reluctance Daniel took his seat. When he looked up he found that the dark mysterious figure was sitting opposite him, silent. “So…what should I call you? Grim Reaper? Death?” Daniel gave a faint, nervous, chuckle. “My worst nightmare?”

There was silence for a span of seconds that felt to Daniel like an eternity before the Reaper spoke again. “If you wish to return to your life, you must win a game of chess.”

Well, perhaps it was better than he feared, thought Daniel. He was by far the number one chess player in the entire world. As he looked into the endless depths of the malaise of darkness within that hood and found a pair of eyes that were like swirling black holes, their event horizon’s burning white pinpricks of light, his confidence faded. “And if I lose?”

“If there is a draw the game must be replayed, until there is a winner.” The Reaper sat so still Daniel thought certainly he was a statue. Then his right arm moved, raised from his lap, the cloth of ashen midnight hue that hung from its slender length drawing back to reveal the fingers and hand that were white and grey bone and nothing more, those spindly fingers gesturing over the table. “Your move.”

Daniel turned his gaze downward and found the table was now set up with chess pieces at either end, the checkered pattern beneath engraved into the table itself. The white pieces were on his side. “And if I refuse?”

“Death.”

Daniel swallowed once then reached forward, pausing briefly over the pieces, before settling on his king’s pawn, moving it forward two spaces. So the game began, each time Daniel made a move, no matter how long he took, the very moment his hand left his piece did the Reaper’s long, slender fingers of bone reach forward to make his own.

Daniel was on edge, uncertain as he played and made move after move, and yet not once did he feel truly threatened, or disadvantaged. Silence was in the air, broken by the sounds of the wooden pieces meeting the board, and simple words of “castle” and “check” given back and forth. One by one pieces fell as the board developed and the various potential lines of play became clear until, at last, only one thing was clear--the game was a draw.

Daniel sighed softly. At least he would have another chance to beat the Reaper. “What now? Do we switch sides?” Daniel asked inquisitively. Somehow, unexplainably, Daniel was becoming more and more comfortable with the dark figure who sat across from him.

“Choose.”

“Choose? Really? Well, I'll pick white.” It was a no-brainer really, white having the known advantage of going first.

“Very well, your move.”

Glancing back down, Daniel found the board had seemingly reset itself. He made his move and the game began anew, but this time there was a pause before the Reaper reached forward to move his piece. That surreal voice filled the void around them once more. “What, think you, of the nature of life?” And then that hand devoid of all flesh reached out and moved one of the black pawns.

That took Daniel off guard. Blinking once, glancing upward “I think it’s a mixed bag. Ups and downs. Better for some and worse for others. I take it for what it’s worth and try to make the best of my own. What more is there?” Daniel made his move.

“Much.” The sound of the oddest, yet ever so brief chuckles rumbled in the air. The Reaper reached outward and moved his knight to threaten Daniel’s forward pawn. “Do you know what the meaning of life is?” The surreal voice asked in a tone more serious, more heavy, than before.

“No-tell me, what?” Asked Daniel with a hint of excitement. He had always wondered. “What is it?”

“I hoped you knew.” Another odd, deep chuckle filled the air.

Daniel felt a tremor of trepidation run along the line of his spine at the sound of that laugh, reaching a hand up to run his fingers back through his dark hair. “Let--Let’s just play the game.” He nodded as if in affirmation to himself before reaching outward to make his move.

“Very well.” The game continued, the scales tipping back and forth between them until, once again, at the end, they were left with a draw. “Choose.”

Daniel chose white once more and they played again, and then again, and again again. But as they did they began to converse more; the Reaper’s words were always short, simple, to the point, while Daniel struggled to split his concentration between the game and the conversation. From philosophy to art the Reaper probed him with simple questions, and where Daniel had questions to ask, the Reaper had simple answers. Answers that should have been straightforward and easy to interpret but somehow never were. Daniel kept count of the games, and as they went on he began to wonder if this was his little version of purgatory. Doomed to spend the rest of eternity playing Death himself in endless games of chess that always ended in a draw. Finally, after the twenty-second game, Daniel did something different.

“I choose black.” Daniel said. He wasn’t sure if this was the right idea, but he had to do something to mix it up, to maybe even throw the dark, hooded figure before him off guard.

“Very well.” The Reaper reached forward and did something unusual; he moved his king’s knight first.

Daniel felt a ping of excitement shoot through him. This might be his chance to win! “Interesting.” He would have to play perfectly, of course, but he felt confident he could beat the Grim Reaper. He made his move quickly.

“Interesting, indeed.” Echoed the sentiment of Death himself.

The game continued as had so many before, the board developing, pawns and pieces alike falling in trades of equal value. “Why am I getting this chance, Grim?” Daniel had taken to using the simple, singular word as name for the dark figure. He didn’t seem to mind. But, then again, he didn’t seem…anything. “Why do I deserve it?”

“You don’t.” Another chuckle darkly. “It is not about what you deserve or do not deserve.”

“Then what?” Daniel was perplexed. “What is it about?”

“Harmony, as always.” With that the Reaper nodded his head towards the board and spoke simply, as if it were of no consequence. “Checkmate…in twenty three.”

Daniel furrowed his brow and looked back down at the board before giving a light, faint gasp as he saw it, and knew it to be true. In twenty three moves the Reaper would have checkmate. Death had bested him. But in the time since he had arrived in this place, wherever they were, Daniel had come to terms with thoughts of death. A quiet sigh of his breath came. "I've lost. So be it. But before you take me to the afterlife, can I ask just one thing? Just one favor? Can I see your face? Your real face?"

"Very well." The Reaper lifted his hands of smooth white-grey bone to that deep hooded cowl of deepest darkness and cast it back to reveal the white skull of his head, but as he did so the bone seemed to come alive, muscle and tendons growing over its surface, blood rushing into the vessels before flesh blossomed and coalesced into a very familiar set of features.

When it was done Daniel found himself looking into his own eyes, frozen still, before blinking once and looking down to find the dull black ashen sackcloth robe he wore. Looking up, there was nothing but empty space and darkness spread out before him. But he did not mind. He was, and he was not, for now was the mantle of Death upon him, and he upon it.