As soon as the night came, the frogs started chirping and the buzz of mosquitoes loudened around
the pond of water and the lights lit in the narrow streets of the village.
Death walked in quiet steps towards the house of the old man thinking how the meeting would be.
The body of the old man quivered when he saw death tilting in front of him, He started muttering verses that he had memorized since his childhood, stuttering his tongue, and he ran off some words while he looked at the dread of death.
- Time to meet?
- No, not yet, I just came to talk to you!
- Why did you choose me other than anyone else?
- For your many thoughts about me and your constant talks to yourself about me!
The old man rested a little assured when he knew that his hour had not yet come, and he continued;
- upon a time, I used to hide from you and just thinking about you or talking about you, forgive me if I told you that your name is a bad omen for me, but I have realized that running away will not change anything, so I decided to face my fear and talk about you without restricting myself. I decided to accept what I previously rejected.
- Did you refuse my existence?
- I did not reject your existence, but I detested it. How many hearts did you make suffer and how many doors have you knocked on leaving nothing but pain?
- This is my job.
- Is your job to mourn hearts and leave bitterness in souls?
- You don’t understand anything about me, nor about life, or perhaps you understand, but you pretend to forget like all the people of your race.
Death stayed silent for a moment and completed;
- I am only a part of life that can’t be separated from it. I am the beginning and the end, the beginning of life and the end of another. I am a “point” on a thread that has no end. This line is “life”, so when this line moves away from the point of “birth” or “worldly life” it heads in a quick countdown to me.
- countdown?
- Yes, a countdown.
- A count down to you?
- Yes, I see a difference between a person’s view of time and the real view of time, so a person’s age must be measured by what is left of it and not with what has gone off it! The life of a person is going in a countdown. A person says, “So is twenty years old.” The truth is, so has only thirty-five years left of his worldly life, to reach the next point, or to reach “me.” The days are decreasing and the human capabilities and skills are decreasing with them, everything is going in the opposite direction until it reaches, as I told you, me; or you could call it “the next point” for a life to end and a life to start.
- But nobody knows when it will reach you? _This is not important
- The time when a person dies isn’t important
- Yes, every day the sun rises and the heart is still beating, it is a “full life” itself!
Death went silent for a moment before it completes:
- I get surprised by humans trying to forget such facts. I get surprised by how he spoils the first days of his life, spoils them for the sake of nothing, and soon he spends this life in wars and struggles for the most insignificant things as if he’ll immortalize in that worldly life!
The old man answered
- Your words are boring and cliche!
But death glimpsed a tinge of sadness on the old man’s face.
- Let sadness go now!
- Let what go? The pain of separation that it leaves behind? Let hearts be bounced and betrayed as if nothing happened?
- Have you not heard of “forgetting”? Have you seen someone vowing their life for someone crying? Even if they were closest to them, I think you know this but you try to forget it as well, the sadness will fade and melt with time, so the blessing of forgetting is one of the greatest blessings of the worldly life. I watched a lot of people who swore by the fiercest of faith that they will never forget their “missed ones” and have also vowed that they will visit them every day or every week or once in every month, but soon their worldly life takes them again and they forget their oath, and years pass without them visiting their missed ones for a single time, as the the worldly life has ended for a new life to start again. A new life that has its own characteristics and distinctive qualities.
It’s “the life of purgatory.” A person proceeds their life in it until he reaches a new point or a new life, which is the life of “resurrection”, another new life that has its other qualities and characteristics, where a person lives but in a different way, a way that differs from what his body knew in his worldly life and “the life of purgatory” he sees, realizes, watches and laughs and his soul brings back the details of his first life, that is “the life of the resurrection” and then there are no other points, in that thread, a continuous thread that you can’t interrupt its points.
The old man held his tongue then muttered;
- I don’t want to complete this conversation, because I already know everything you said, I know it well and it is not even new. I actually petty the human; the first stage of his life is accountable for all the other stages, this is unfair. Does he pay for everything because of that worldly life and those few days? He pays for the countdown? Remember this?
- One does not need years to make the difference and illuminate his worldly life and the lives of those around him.
Death moved towards the door about to leave.
- Excuse me, I am leaving now. There is work that I must do. Until we meet again..
The old man hesitated before replying;
- Until we meet again..