Breathe.

Nothing is real.

You’re badly hurt.

Everything is going to be alright.

Just breathe.

Something clicked loudly deep inside his brain, like a metal switch being flipped. His ears flooded with a rushing sound, as if he had been plunged underwater.

He forced his eyes open. The medics were gone. Diane was gone. He was no longer being carried toward the waiting ambulance. As he breathed into the mask, the sound of his pumping heart throbbing in his ears, he focused his eyes upward.

Impossibly long, spiraling black serpents filled an endless pale white sky, a massive host of creatures, a writhing plague corroding every inch of the expanse.

Shuddering, panicked, he pinched his eyes closed. His breathing quickened, his heart raced. Both eyes spilled a rush of tears, as if he had looked directly into the sun. But there was no sun. No clouds. Just that pale sky and the beasts...

After a few moments, his heartbeat slowed, his breathing steadied. His body felt light, so light. He waited, then heard the lapping of dark waves as they slapped rhythmically against the sticky bark of impossibly tall trees.

Did my parents really say they loved me?

And, one last wish, if his wife and son was truly there, he hoped, against all hope, that his boy could meet his namesake. Or perhaps that was just a sweet fragile dream, like everything else in this shattered world.

He felt movement. Heard muffled, faraway screams. He shook his head, clenched his good hand into a fist of prayer.

He prayed that when he once more dared open his eyes, the sky above him would be blue.

DEATH, MY OLD FRIEND

I WON’T LIE to you. It’s strange growing up with Death as your best mate. Lots of explaining to do, hard to keep friends and all that. Tough all around, I’d say. One exception. No bullies. Free and clear are the close friends of Death. No one wants to be on his bad side, do they?

Still, wasn’t all fun and games. I mean, he had a job to do and he did it with vigor and more than a little relish. In school – the both of us just wee and still figuring out the what’s and who’s of life – we’d sit beside each other in the classroom, as usual the last row, desks parallel, trainers kicking air.

“Took Mrs. Haberdash last night,” he’d say, whispering it to me so Mr. Blackburn wouldn’t hear it over his lecture on the highlights of the Peloponnesian War. “Heart disease, you know,” he’d say, and I’d just nod and look forward, staring hard at the blurry saturated image of ancient Greece the projector had splattered over the room’s white concrete wall. “She was nice, eh?” he said lamely, quietly, as if to himself. “I mean, never a bad word.”

Mrs. Haberdash was piano tutor to both myself and Death, along with many other kids whose parents were keen on promoting the finer arts in their dullard children. I’d gotten no further than “Chopsticks” before quitting, spending the time I was supposed to be in Haberdash’s parlor exploring the creek out by Westford Park for minnows and tadpoles. I had dreams of a frog farm then.

But Death always enjoyed the lessons, said they “rounded him out,” for whatever that’s worth. He’d brag about his knowledge of Chopin and Bach, how he’d all but mastered “Moonlight Sonata.”

“So then why’d you kill her?” I asked, not for the first time. It was a question that tended to rise whenever a similar set of circumstances presented themselves.

The conversation had leaked on into break. We were on the swings by then, shooting skyward parallel to one another, stomachs lurching on the backswing, feet thrusting forward on the return, trying, without making a show of it, to stay in rhythm.

“I didn’t kill her, dolt,” he returned, focused on propelling himself upward, shooting toward the sky, kicking his heels at the clouds, then bending the knees sharp, dropping away. “I don’t kill anyone, you know that. Don’t make a fuss. Is what it is, init?”

I nodded, felt bad for vexing him. We all had our tasks. We were all just getting along. My folks, for instance, wanted me to be an athlete. Pushed me to sports every chance they could get, but it never took, primarily because I was small and weak and uncoordinated. Poor hand-to-eye contact and all that. Tried joining a couple teams after grammar school, never caught on with it. Lot of hassle over similar games you could play in the park with mates you liked versus the assholes they teamed you with at school. Still, wanted to succeed for mum and da. Failed, of course, but A+ for effort.

Death tried football but quit when a kid died during a match. Just dropped mid-field from an aneurysm. Fate, of course, everyone knew it. But Death was still there, on the pitch, in the forward position actually, and had to go over there and send the boy’s soul on his way, right in front of his teammates and a bandstand full of onlookers. Not a pleasant task. Most of the opposing fans were jeering as it was their player. Parents crying, of course.

Death quit the team after that, told me it was for the best as the fellas tended to pace themselves during practice and warm-ups, keeper even taking on a helmet. Coach said it was affecting the intensity, overall effort was waning, etc. So Death acquiesced and bowed off but was distraught, to tell the truth.

What folks don’t understand is that Death doesn’t cause the inevitable, he simply handles the transaction, dresses it up, like. He manages, how do you say, the exchange, as it were, between this life and the next. His proximity to the killing itself has nothing at all to do with it. Hell, I’d had multiple sleepovers with the bloke, and I’m still right as rain. We even shared a cigarette once. Talk about tempting fate!

At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

Still, he made folks edgy and no lie. He was good about it for the most part, only at certain times becoming vexed, irritated or, on more than one occasion, severely depressed by the stigma which surrounded him. But we all had our problems at that age, teenage years being what they are, so his issues were no more dramatic than my own or anyone else’s. At least he knew what he was going to be when he grew up. Advantage, that.

For the most part, Death and I got along famously. We hit speed bumps, like most best friends will, but all-in-all we were great mates. Highs and lows, sure, but I was always there for him if needed and, to the best of his ability, he was always there for me.

Our biggest fight stemmed from what you could call a misunderstanding. It was our junior year of high school, and I had a major World History test the following day, first period. It was late at night and I was fast asleep, having gone to bed later than I’d wanted because of a rugby match on television I just had to watch the end of (good guys lost, btw). Anyway, it was late, and I was brought awake from what I guess was a nasty nightmare, or maybe I just heard him sneaking about. Impossible to say.

But when I woke up he was standing near the foot of my bed, heading toward an open window. We kept them open all that autumn because of the late heat, and mum and da couldn’t afford air, so windows and fans it was on those hot nights. When I saw him, I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Yeah, we were best mates, but we certainly didn’t sneak around the other’s room at night. Don’t get that idea.

So it was startling, to say the least. “Hey!” I said to him, whispering loudly as I could, not wanting to wake the folks. “What are you about?”

He froze, didn’t look at me at first, just stared at that open window, like he was gonna will himself through it without having to take another step. Finally, he did turn, his face caught the moonlight, and I could see he was shaken up. “I’m sorry, John,” was all he said, then he took three quick steps and slid out the window easy as pie.

“Sorry for what?” I said from the bed, talking now to an empty room, asking questions of shadows.

I got up, went to the window and looked out. He was my friend, yeah, but I closed the window after him nonetheless. I liked him, Death. Not sure I trusted him, though. Besides, everything seems creepier in the middle of the night, am I right?

Back to sleep and the next thing I remember is waking up to my Da screaming. I jumped out of bed like it was on fire and ran down the hall to my folks’ room, saw the old man bent over the bed, hysterical.

Mum had died in the night.

Heart failure, just like Mrs. Haberdash, the piano tutor. Very rare, apparently. Unusual, they said after, when the doctors got to her. I thought but didn’t say, Yeah, tell that to Haberdash. It was becoming his specialty for those more sudden rug pulls, I suppose.

Obviously, I was pissed off. I tried to confront him about it, ask him why he didn’t at least warn me. Told him I thought we were mates. Told him what’s the point of being best friends with someone if they can’t pull you a solid every now and then? Ain’t that what friends are for? Jesus, would it have killed him to do me one favor, and let my ma be alive? I missed her. Cried and cried for days, for fuck sake.

He showed at the funeral, and I couldn’t stay upset. It was big of him, and if I’m being honest, I was glad he was there. So I let it slide, and we came to an understanding about certain things.

“We all go alone, John,” he said during the viewing, when we were sitting in the car park tossing pebbles at the hearse’s hubcaps. “Ain’t nothing changing that.”

“Not you, eh?” I said, not even sure if I was right about that one. “Immortal, et cetera.”

He didn’t say anything.

“And besides,” I continued, “we don’t go alone, do we? You’re there.”