chrissyjoy

She always knew when death was coming. The faint smell of stale cigarettes wafting in the air, mixed with an almost sour, humid air. A chill that ran through her body, teeth chattering and goosebumps enveloping her. She learnt not to be afraid. After all, it is only human. She thought it was fair. Everyone had to die. Young, old, rich, broke, famous, infamous, loved, or unloved, they all came to the same fate. Death felt like home to her. She’d felt it long enough that it came to be familiar to her. Almost comforting.
Sometimes there was no warning. A sudden raincloud drenching her and that smell lingering around her for days-on-end. And other times, it took days. Families hovering over a loved one’s deathbed. Prayers unanswered, and tears ever streaming. She didn’t mind. After all, there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t stop it. So, she accepted it. Welcomed it, almost. Brothers, mothers, sisters, misters. All of them, who might have meant something to her, became worthless. She couldn’t bring herself to care. Couldn’t let herself get close. Because they would die. They would all die. Death was everywhere. So, she pushed everyone away. Folding in on herself.
She walked the streets at night, longing for that feeling that only she knew and recognised. Grief-stricken families, black hearses, the limousines of the dead, grey, black, and white swirling to create the portrait of her life. One where she never gave in to the feeling of love or joy. All hope of bliss, pleasure, and life was sucked out of her. A black hole of an individual became her persona. Clouds of thunder, rain, and lightning hovering over her every move. She was beautiful like a rose. Prickly thorns covered her outside, scaring all away. Who would dare come close to her? No one would ever try. But inside, she was covered in flowers. Someone who had once known love and kindness. Forever doomed to never experience it. A childhood that had been wrenched away from her in the form of a dark hood and a scythe. Taking lives all around her. Friends, families, classmates, loved ones. Gone in the blink of an eye.
So, she gave up on love and her future and chased the darkness that stole her heart. Gloom, despair, hopelessness, everything that she grew up with. She wanted it to have control over her own life, to stop the grief and regret she lived with. She became a shadow, a side character in her own story. Never one to look up to the sky and bathe in sunlight, but one that watched from the sideline, jealous and bitter of the life she could never live.
Resentful as she was, she became hardened from a lack of joy. She relished in the last breaths of loved ones, life draining out of their eyes, face and body turning pale and grey, eyes closing for the final show. It was everything that gave her comfort. She waited for her time to come. For her final grains of sand to fall into the hands of Death himself. She did everything she could think of to speed up the process. Walking through the highway, blindfolded and ready to be struck, drinking rat poison, swallowing pills. But it never came. Guardian angels constantly looked after her and kept her black soul on earth.
So, she stopped. Stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped watching. Day in, day out, she waited. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks passed, and still she sat. Cheeks hollowed, body consisting only of skin and bones, as a result of not caring to her body. She waited. She had all the time in the world. Relaxation and a feeling of euphoric happiness filled her bones and brought a shimmer of warmth to her body when she smelt it. Cigarettes, cadaverine, and death. She would become one with darkness, one with the earth, and one with the sky. She let out a sigh she didn’t know she had been holding.
“Thank you,” she hoarsely whispered.
And finally, the darkness consumed her, the peace she always dreamed of.