by Peyton Bortner
I usually hate the feeling of grass tickling my skin, but laying on the ground tonight is nice. I can smell the pine trees standing guard all around me. It reminds me of Christmas, the joy of the holiday, and the promise of miracles, even if it is the middle of June and the warm air
holds me in its comfort. I can see the moon in a space between the treetops. I forgot the many Instagram posts mentioning it was a full moon tonight.
My breath has grown shallow, I’ve noticed. No matter how much I want to absorb the nature around me, my lungs won’t expand enough to take it all in. I was told I would die soon. Tonight is a great night to go to sleep.
I close my eyes to see if the starry sky is overwhelming my senses, its freckled face vibrant from the lack of light. Unfortunately, no, I am left wanting more, longing for the smell to linger a little longer in my throat.
However, I’m now much closer to the moon. Its body is close enough that I could probably graze it with my fingertips if I were to stand. I long to try, but I can’t seem to feel my legs anymore from the weight of my decaying health. Two years ago, the doctors had told me they could not cure me and warned me this would happen.
The pine has been replaced by primrose, a smell I remember from before the hospital beds and metal, when I spent most of my time in my mother’s garden. There is an echoing ring in the distance; it sounds like it is emanating from the very center of the moon itself. Then, a voice.
“So many people die each day. Tonight it is your time, as well as many other’s, to be reborn.”
Her voice sounds like my mother’s, and all mothers’ voices. Velvet smooth and lilted into a lullaby.
When I blink, I find that a woman’s figure has emerged from the moon’s luminescent body. Her skin is like the labradorite my roommate gave to me my first week in the hospital, and her eyes are milky. She’s wearing a flowing black gown that ruffles in the breeze I hadn’t noticed until this moment. Her hair is what really captures me, its colors shifting in a swirling nebula of pinks and purples.
Her body floats down until it is just above my own, the tip of her nose grazing mine. She has no breath to mingle with my own.
“I bid you peace and good fortune on your journey. I love you, I’m proud of you, and goodnight.”
Her whisper stains my skin before she presses her peony lips against mine. Rather than my lungs shriveling within my ribcage in this suffocation, I feel a warm vibration course through my spine.
A year after I was declared a dead woman walking, my condition had worsened to where I couldn’t attend school anymore. Making my way around campus was a harrowing experience typically met with seizures or the occasional cough of blood. The doctors were unsure of exactly what was wrong with me, they tried to pin it on some tumor and yet couldn’t find the growth. They just said my body was degrading, slowly.
In the hospital, I took to reading a lot more than I had time for while studying. I read everything I could surrounding death; the poetry of A.K. Ramanujan (he’s right, we are all biodegradable), vampiric stories, and myths from around the world.
I suppose it was to meet Death. It is such an intense presence in life, which is hysterical. We spend our entire lives discussing Death, unknowing of when we will be visited and how. I was foolish enough to believe when I died–when I was old, brittle, and gray–a skeleton in black would slice me with a scythe. I taught myself to be ready, to let go of the fear, and welcome this monstrosity. I never knew Death would be a spectral lover with a tender kiss.
I open my eyes after some time, wanting to see her face, wanting to reassure myself this was happening. Instead, I find myself in a dark space, the Moon has left me, and I’m sitting up with my legs crossed. I want to call out for her, but I cannot speak. I can still feel her lips on mine.
I notice a two-headed snake in front of me. One half is white with scales shimmering like an opal and golden eyes. The other half is its opposite, obsidian skin with eyes of silver. Both heads lick my knees with their thin, fleshy tongues and a reverberating hiss. They coil up my body in perfect harmony and wrap around my throat. I can feel their chilled exhales on either side of my head, their tongues navigating my ears.
“Have you ever wronged yourself?” The left head asks in a surprisingly gravelly voice. I’m unable to answer, my lips still overwhelmed by the moon’s despite her absence. Of course, I have wronged myself, we all do. We walk through life choosing to mistreat our bodies and minds, dosing them with questionable habits we are aware are killing us. We laugh off the consequence under the guise that this time it doesn’t matter, this moment won’t hurt us, and then we grow further apart from ourselves.
In the last two years of my life, I took up every vice I could, just to feel something different from the pain. I was tired of feeling the grit whenever I’d bend my arms or legs, so I drank. I didn’t want to cope with the hunger, so I popped whatever I could to feel satisfied. Instead of building my body up and maybe even prolonging its existence, I shattered its foundations. Tonight could have been postponed.
“Perhaps it could have, perhaps not. We are not the harbingers of our own fate.” The other head chimes in. I am curious how they can hear me, though I suppose I am not in my own reality anymore.
“When we listen to the thoughts of those who are passing through, it is much easier to judge. No pre-existing answers of self righteousness– just pure honesty.”
I understand. I suppose others who have died “unjustly” would protest too much. This is the fairest way. This was another aspect of dying I was not prepared for. I thought life itself was the judgment period and upon death, I would be cast to whatever fate was chosen for me. This process is direct and intimate; I feel like I am a part of my own ending.
“Do you deserve love?”
No. Isn’t that funny? We all deserve love, it is the very thing that reassures us that our existence is worth it. Yet, humans have a natural habit of dichotomy; we deserve love, but we hate ourselves so we don’t, but everyone needs someone to love them. We are forever fighting against ourselves.
Many people loved me. I had a mother and a father I pushed away since they were always crying at the sight of me. I had four younger siblings I lied to so they wouldn’t know their big sister was dying. I had friends– true, genuine friends–who I stopped contacting after a few months of dropping out from the shame of not having a body as strong as theirs. I don’t deserve love because I don’t allow myself to be loved.
“One last question…are you afraid?”
Yes. All this time knowing I was going to die, and yet I was still afraid. Afraid of the unknowns, afraid of the myths, afraid of ceasing existence. My beliefs have been shaken tonight, in a marvelous way. I can only imagine where I will go or what will happen to the people I have left behind. I don’t even know if I will remember them–remember life, where I am going. Is death a rebirth? Or an everlasting coma? I’m unsure, and so I am afraid.
“Beautiful…” the snakes hiss in unison. They crawl back down to the floor and look at one another. The white snake’s head shakes and rattles. I realize the black snake is freezing into stone. It crumbles, revealing a white tail.
“What now?” I ask. The snake flicks its tail as it smiles at me.
“It’s time to start anew.”
It swallows its tail, creating a perfect ring before floating into the air. As it rotates, I notice its body grows in length, widening the circle. It grows large enough to where I would fit through and stops rising once it is right above me. In the opening, I can see the galaxy again with its blazing stars and nebulae. My body lessens, I feel weightless and I start to float as well. The skin of my fingertips flakes away, unveiling a shining form just underneath of blue light. I am losing shape. I am becoming a vast entity, a collection of nothingness, a ball of gas.
But I’m not afraid anymore, not at all. So many people die each day, and now it is my turn to be reborn.
About the Contributor & Piece
Peyton Bortner (she/her) is an English and Literary studies major with a concentration in Creative Writing. She is also the President of the Literature Club and Ramapo’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honor Society, and the Arts & Entertainment Editor for the Ramapo News. She focuses on writing fantasy prose and has only recently started to experiment with poetry. She loves Nintendo, Jim Henson, and animals (especially hamsters <3).
“I have always loved learning about psychological archetypes and I wanted to try and make my own version of what happens when a person passes. For some reason, whenever I think of Death, I think of a beautiful woman rather than the skeletal Grim Reaper.” – Peyton Bortner