The Visit

Note: This story is still in its early stages and there are probably a lot of grammatical mistakes, i will change these later. Enjoy the draft. =]

He called himself John. He had a dark hood on, his face was engulfed in darkness and he had a scythe. I showed him in, asked him to sit. He did. We didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Silence. Finally I asked him, “Who are you?” He replied, “I am death.” I asked him, “What are you here for?” He didn’t reply. I asked him again. He didn’t reply. A couple minutes of silence followed. Quiet. I asked him “Do you want anything to drink?” He replies, “Some tea please.” I went into the kitchen and got some tea. He drank. I drank. More silence. I asked him again “What are you here for?” Slowly sipping his tea, he replied “I am bored of my job.” “Oh,” said I. He finished his tea. So did I. He reached into his pocket and took a tomato out. He started eating it. The juice trickled down his body, and onto my new carpet.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating a tomato”

“You are ruining my new carpet”

“Oh”

“Clean it”

He didn’t say anything. I asked him again. No response. Then again, more kindly, still no response. I went into the kitchen to get a washcloth. I came back and the stain was gone. I sat down, getting tired of the awkward silence, I put on some music. I sat down, and even though I couldn’t see John’s face, I could tell he didn’t like the music. I didn’t do anything, till finally he said “Turn it off.” I did.

I sat back down at the table. I suddenly realized I still didn’t know why he was here. I asked him again. He sighed deeply and said that he was getting old. He said that he was about to die, and that he needed to pass his job onto another person. I looked at him with disbelief. He told me not to give him that look, but I couldn’t believe it and still gave him that look. He turned around and said that I needed to take the job. He said “without death in this world, the world is like a soulless flower.” I still couldn’t believe it. The look of disbelief slowly disappeared from my face like a shadow. I asked him the one question all humans ask, “Why me?”

He looked at me, I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew he was looking at me, he said “why you? Why ME? I was once like you. Being death isn’t that bad, until you realize that you can’t escape your self. Yes, Death dies one day, that’s why I need you. ”

“But why me? Out of all the people, why me? Why not my neighbor?!”

“Your neighbor has a soul.”

“Why not the other billion people in the world?!”

“They all have souls”
“I have a soul”

“No you don’t”

“Yes I do”

“No.”

“Yes”

“No.”

“YES!”

“NO!”

His booming voice over powered my voice like a cloudy sky and left me silent.

“Who said I don’t have a soul?” said I.

“God”

“There is a god?”

“Yes.”

“Who says?”

“I do. I know. I get orders from him. We also have an occasional beer together.”

“God drinks beer?”

“Yes.”
“What brand?”

“See what I mean? These companies have taken your soul. Does the brand of beer really matter? What matters is that he drinks, what does the brand have to do with anything?”

I said nothing. It was true. My soul was eaten by these companies. If I got a toaster, I had to get it made by Toastermaster. If I got a TV, it had to be made by Sony. He was right.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“God told me.”

“Why can’t God give me my soul back?”

“It’s not written in the book.”

“What book?”
“The book.”

I pondered upon what John had said. I sat there, silent. I wondered if I should give in. Should I be death? If I am going to be death or not, I am going to die one day, I decided to ask John for more time.
“Why of course, I know this is sudden, but I’ll come back later in a week. Have your self a good time, well what’s left of it anyway.”

“Wait,” said I, “Do you want to eat or drink something before you leave?”

“Well if you’re going to be so kind, sure!”

I went into the kitchen and made him my last bagel, and a glass of orange juice. As I was in the kitchen making a bagel, I wondered to my self what I would do. I thought about it as the bagel was being toasted. I noticed my hand sliding to a knife and putting it in my pocket. I went over to John as the bagel was still being toasted and asked him if would like to watch some TV. I had just bought the new HD TV from Sony. Perfect picture.

“Sure put the game on,” said John.

I turned the TV on. As his face was facing the TV, I went behind him, and briskly took my knife out and slit his throat. I didn’t think about the consequence of this, until after he was lying on the floor motionless. I looked at my knife to find out there was no trace of blood or anything, only the knife had rusted. I got a look of happiness over my face, and decided to celebrate my victory over some beer. After a good big glass, I decided to burn John’s body. As the body burned, the smoke gave a weird smell of roses and decay mixed together. I didn’t care much of John dying. If there was less death in this world, wouldn’t it make it a better place? As I was watching TV, I saw on the news where this man was going to get hanged, but he wouldn’t die. He apparently stabbed a woman to death, until there was a hole in her for no apparent reason. I didn’t care much of it and went to sleep.

When I woke up, I was in a completely different place. I wasn’t in my bed. I was in a dark room. I soon found the lights and turned them on. I looked around and was blinded my yellow post-it notes. I read one of them and it said “3:50, death of man being hanged.” I looked around and found a mirror. I saw my self dressed just like John. I couldn’t believe it. I heard a knock on the door, and God came in with a beer. He offered me one and told me that I was death.

I am also about to die, and I thought I would write my auto-biography, to let the reader know that, its death and you aren’t going to escape it, especially not me.

The Man

I am going to be hung in two days. I am in jail for a homicide. I told them that all I wanted was to give him pain, the same pain he caused me. They won’t believe me. You are probably wondering, why I am in jail. Well let me tell you. First go find yourself a nice mug of coffee, or some hot chocolate. Now find a good resting place and read my following story.

It was June the 8^th, and my friends and I, decided to go for some pizza, down at Maximos. They have the best pizza in town, and it’s always full, it wasn’t then. After we ate, we came out, and started walking towards home. We started talking about sports, and cars, and new technology. I wasn’t interested, so whenever someone asked me a question, I either replied with a yes or no.

A man came up to me, as we crossed the street. He looked at my shirt and said “the mouth is not right,” and then walked away. I wondered what he meant by this, but didn’t think much of it. I soon went home, and started watching television. I turned on the 10’o clock news. It was the same news everyday. A woman raped on the corner of “X” street. A man caught for fraud. Then comes the ritualistic “be scared of the African bumblebees” or the “ice cream raises cancer” news section, god how that makes me sick. But today, I realized something completely different. I saw the man on there. He was in the corner crying, and telling his story. Apparently, it was a case of where the wife ran away. I found it weird for such a minor story to be on the 10’o clock news…but then, this is America right? I turned it off, after a glimpse of his name.

I fell on the bed, tired, and I dreamt. In my dream, I dreamt of him. I saw him. He was crying. He was sad. I went over to reach him up; he looked at me and said “the mouth is not right.” I looked at the shirt, and the mouth slowly changed. He looked at me and started smiling. I woke up. It was 6:00 AM, and I went to get some cereal.

I left the house at about 7:30ish, and went to my first class. It was English. As the teacher started talking about the youth in Catcher in the Rye, I spaced out. I started thinking about the man. What did he mean by the line “the mouth is not right?” What did it matter to him? Why did he care? Was his appearance on the TV and me meeting him a pure coincidence, or was it all planned? And the question, why me? Suddenly I got the feeling that big brother was watching.

After class, I went to get a snack. The man was there. He was sitting there as if he was waiting for me. He looked at my shirt again, and didn’t comment. Wanting to find out more, I sat down where he was. He didn’t look at me. He stared at his hands, kept staring, kept staring, got up and walked away, and sat at another table. Confused, I tried not to pay much attention, tried to forget it. This was silly. I took my food and walked to my math class, Calculus to be exact. I remember because we learned about derivatives that day. God how I hate those. The teacher kept on talking and talking, but I couldn’t take my mind of what the man had said. Why, I kept asking myself, WHY was it bothering me so much? I was intrigued to find out more about this man, but I had no clue how.

I went home thinking, after a long day of classes. I got right down to my work and finished it, since I had a party later that night. It was all easy, except for the damn derivatives. Sigh.

The party was fun. It kept my mind of the man, until later that night. That was when my insomnia started. I tried to sleep but, I couldn’t. I sat up all night on my laptop, playing, chatting, and trying everything to keep my mind off the man.

The next day, I handed in my homework, and the teacher realized something different. It didn’t have my name on it. Surprised, I looked, and almost horrified, I found out that it was not my name that I had written, but the man’s. I took the paper, said sorry, changed it and gave it back to him.

I didn’t see the man for about 1 week. One day I decided to go watch some old comedies at this vintage theater. I suddenly saw him in a movie theater, sitting next to me. He looked at my shirt, it wasn’t the same shirt, and he looked at me in the eye and said it again. “The mouth is not right.” I looked at him and almost screamed, but I held my self back. Slowly and calmly I asked him, what he was talking about. He answered with “the mouth is not right.” I kept asking him, and he would not answer. This time I screamed in his face. He said the same thing. I took him by the collar and took him out the movie theater, and threatened him. He said the same thing. He took my hands, and walked away. Later that day, I realized I had become obsessed. I was obsessed with this man, and his one sentence conversations I always had with him. What was his problem, more of what was my problem? Why was this bothering me so much? I didn’t have an answer.

The next day I met a girl. Her name was Sylvia. She was nice. I thought to my self, that if I occupy my self with another being then maybe it will take my mind of off him. It didn’t help. Every time me and Sylvia were on a date, I would some how end up talking about him. Somehow, my inner self would lead me to bring this character out. This character that needed to be forgotten, this character that needed to be drowned, but he came out every time. I really liked Sylvia, and she broke up with me for one reason, I always talked about him. After the break up, my life was messed up. I still couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t pay attention, and my grades were dropping.

One day I decided. I was going to kill him. I was going to hunt him down and kill him. The next day I cut all my classes and spent a day hunting him down. I couldn’t find him. I checked everywhere. I even went as far to ask the news crew if they knew where he was. I lied about being related to him and such, and went to seek him out. I couldn’t find him. Frustrated I went back home and spent the rest of the night awake, thinking what I was going to do to this man.

The next day, I cut all my classes and went out to find him again. I couldn’t. This went on for about a week; I had no clue as to where this man was. I grew sick and tired, I hadn’t shaved, I hadn’t showered, and I hadn’t gone to classes!

One day, I decided to quit looking for him, to just stop. I showered, shaved, got dressed and went to class. I lied to all the teachers, telling them I had a serious knee problem.

After class, something took hold of me, if I think about it now. I didn’t want to do this, but something made me. Something inside me, made me take out something from my pocket that I did not know I had, a knife. It was a knife. I went out, took a woman by her throat, and slit her throat. I kneeled down and stabbed her again and again and again. I couldn’t stop. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. What was this taking hold of me? When the police came, they saw that I was stabbing the ground beneath her body, through a hole, in her body. The police took me and asked me why I did this. I told them, I wanted to cause him the same pain he caused me. They did not understand. No one understood. But you understand…right?