Death's Children

At the bottom of the ocean is a mirror.

In this mirror is an old man, and we call him death. He is not the cruel reaper we have imagined. He is sad and tired, and the innocent and the guilty alike find themselves swathed in his dark embrace.

Say what you will of political ambition, of unbridled power, of sharp intelligence that gives birth to cruelty and malice. The two most dangerous things in this world are none of these, nor even death himself, but his children, hunger and fear.

They love you. They exist to keep you safe. But here is what they don’t tell you:

Like their father, they adhere to no boundaries.

Their unconditional attention comes with a price. You can pay with time, or you can pay with sanity.

Fear has eyes like quicksilver and a voice like a fever pitch. She is small and agile, living in the corners of your peripheral. She is kind, if a little jumpy—but once you become attuned to her presence, you begin to hear the things she mutters under her breath. You will begin to see that her hands are always shaking, that she carries a spool of thread and winds it relentlessly about her knuckles. She whispers that everyone you love will be devoured like meat in the unceasing jaws of time, that nothing you do has any meaning. Death abandoned her once, and his absence taught her of impermanence. Nothing lasts, she knows now. Love is finite. Fear is a wonderful seamstress; with her thread, she can spin an estimate into an explosion and a theory into thunder. She tells stories of little girls stolen away into the night, of boys hunted like prey, of sickness and insanity that scuttle beneath the skin. Fear has woven mistrust into murder and crumpled affection into ash between her nimble fingers. She is anxious, suspicious, and she is never satisfied with safety.

Hunger is a broad man with glacier-gold armor. As a child, death often forgot to feed him, and he has spent lifetimes trying to fill that hollow ache. He is greed, he is lust, he is pure, unending, desperate want. He insists that you deserve everything you seek, that you are worthy of all the wonders in the world and all the stars in the sky. And many times he is right. He is the part of you that craves knowledge, that craves love, that craves freedom and says I deserve better than this in the face of injustice—but he also corrodes your chest with cold, dense jealousy. He becomes prideful and entitled if overindulged, and he says more like a battle cry. Give him your attention for too long and he will strangle compassion in one fist and sense in the other. He goes by many names—ambition, drive, desire—but his first name was hunger, and hungry people are never truly full.

Death was a poor father, and now he hides at the bottom of the sea, where his children cannot find him. He ventures out only to pull the souls of the dying into his arms, and he is always quick to return to the water.

But they will find him eventually. Together, hunger and fear scour the world in search of their vengeance. Their wrath grows stronger with time, and they wait patiently where the smell of death is potent, in hospitals and cemeteries and back-alleys.

They wait in one such hospital now, at the bedside of a young woman without money to buy proper care. She will be discharged in a matter of hours, and death will come out of hiding to take her soul. His children will be there to greet him.

“Vultures,” the woman grumbles. “I know you’re here, waiting for me to die.”

Hunger and fear regard the mortal with new interest. They have not been addressed directly in eons. Quite frankly, they are surprised she retains the ability to speak at all. Her ribs serrate a thin hospital blanket, her bones knifing out from skin the mottled color of a bruise.

“Yes, I see you,” says the woman. “And I’ve seen him too—the old man you’re looking for. I know where he is.”

“You speak of our father?”

Her voice is fervent. “I’m not dying today.” She clutches a small black notebook in a trembling fist. “I’ve written down all of the things I want to say, and I will get the chance to say them, do you understand me?”

Hunger respects this tenacity, and fear sees herself reflected in mortal eyes.

“Will this cover the bill?” asks hunger, money materializing in his proffered hand.

The woman counts twenty thousand dollars, and quietly, carelessly, she whispers, “Today is a nice day for swim, don’t you think?”

And if, somewhere, pain cleaves the depths of the sea, if an old man stares into the eyes of his reckoning and shards of glass lash the water like silver ribbons, only the fish are around to see it.