I was driving home from a party when it all went to hell. I wasn’t even drunk, in fact I was the designated driver. My best friend Damien was hollering out the window at some chick in the next car over and my bud Ray in the back told me to crank the music up. That was when we got rear ended and our car slammed straight into the intersection.
I wish I had blacked out, but instead I was frozen with fear as I gripped the steering wheel and saw an 18 wheeler heading straight toward us. I didn’t have time to even scream, the crushing weight of the semi instantly causing me to black out.
Next thing I knew, I was on the streets hardly able to move. I turned my head to see the carnage. The car had been completely destroyed, smashed like a tin can from a hammer. Ray was torn in two, his face plastered with shock and surprise as his eyes went pale and he gasped for air.
Damien had it worse I think, his head had been completely severed from his spine due to the impact and all that remained of him now looked like a puddle of goo. The entire scene was fire and chaos, people yelling to call 911 and running to help me.
I saw something out of the corner of my vision on the other side of the road.
It was a tall figure, completely dressed in black holding what looked like an ancient scythe. It’s face was completely obscured but I knew immediately what this thing was, and all I could sense from it was a void. Total endlessness. The end of all things.
And it was walking toward me.
I’m not sure why, but I tried to run. I turned and bolted down the road like a mad man. The Reaper did not care. It was there in front of me in a matter of seconds, blocking my path and brandishing its weapon at my neck, a subtle warning not to try anything so foolish again.
I couldn’t even get words out, because the next thing I knew; it was speaking in my head. It sounded like a million different voices, coalescing to form a single cohesive thread.
“Roman Andrews. Your time on this plane of existence was not meant to end today. Thanks to the foolish carelessness of others, you are no longer among the living,” it told me.
I wanted to puke. But I couldn’t feel anything. My hands were shaky, my feet weak.
“No, no this can’t be happening. This isn’t fair,” I stammered, wishing to god I could do something, anything to reverse this.
The reaper heard my thoughts of course and offered a gambit.
“There is a way. You can retrieve the life you lost. But to win it back, you must play my game,” the Reaper told me. I could see it’s gastly skull face grinning madly at me.
“A… game? You’re shitting me. You’re an immortal hellbeast. How could I stand to win against you?” I asked.
“I will arrange it so that the odds against you are reduced. It will be considerably difficult, but not impossible… it is a one time offer, Roman Andrews, what say you?”
I looked over at my dead body. I would do anything to live just one more day, I thought to myself.
“All right, sure. What’s the game?”
“I will provide you with five key memories of your life, all valuable assets to your time on earth and you must decide which one was the most valuable. If you choose incorrectly, and the value is not as important as you think it is, your soul belongs to me,” the Reaper told me.
I shuddered, thinking this sounded extremely unfair. “Isn’t that a matter of opinion though? What I consider to be my best memory might not be the one you picked,” I told him.
“That is the wager, Roman Andrews. If you choose not to play, we can simply end things the old fashioned way,” it replied.
I sighed, wishing I knew what to expect.
“All right, fine. Just get it over with.”
Suddenly the scene around me changed. The Reaper had disappeared and I was standing in my old childhood home. I recognized it because my room had a small balcony that overlooked a small ditch and sunbeams would always filter in every morning to wake me up.
It was summertime, that much was clear because I could feel the heat. Toys were everywhere on the floor so I figured this had to be from my early childhood.
Then I saw my brother Andrew and I realized where the Reaper had taken me. This was the day he had convinced me to jump from the balcony into the ditch.
The night before he and his buddies had gone through the trouble of filling it up with wet leaves and mud. They loved to play around and get messy in it. But I was only seven, almost eight. Too timid and frightened to join.
Plus my parents were overprotective. They would never have been ok with me doing something this dangerous. But even at that early age I knew that my parents marriage was fracturing. They weren’t home that day, off to get some things finalized for the divorce so Andrew was babysitting me.
“Come on, this might be the last chance you ever get to live a little,” he urged me.
I was my seven year old self standing at the bannister, looking down at the ditch. I knew the outcome but it still made my heart race as I heard Andrew and his friends cheer me on. I heard myself countdown and whisper that I was strong. I could do this.
And I did. I leapt over the balcony into the leaves below. Bht it didn’t go as planned.
I heard my younger self scream as they hit the bottom and I immediately remembered the pain of my foot slamming into a rusty old nail. Somewhere amid the pile, the boys had unknowingly left it there and fate found its way to make me pay for being adventurous.
I don’t remember much of the experience after that. Andrew calls our dad and I’m rushed to the hospital, I got a shot for tetanus and I remember my foot was in a cast for a week.
But it had left me feeling very proud that I had taken the leap despite the risk.
As the screams echoed in my head, my body was propelled to a different memory. This one was not as pleasant. I recognized the scenery of my mom’s bathroom immediately and tried to back away from revisiting what was about to happen.
Screw this game, I don’t want to relive finding my mom overdosed and drowned in the bathtub. I tried to call out to the Reaper, but there was no answer. Instead I was forcibly pulled along by unseen strings behind my younger self toward the bathtub.
“Mom…? Mom you have to wake up… I’m going to be late for school,” I heard my younger self blubber as he tried to wake her. She had been gone for hours.
My father would never admit it but the divorce drove her to this. I would see Andrew again at the funeral and my father would ask if I wanted to live with him and his new wife.
I remember telling him to go fuck himself. I was already old enough to be independent and I didn’t want to ever see his sorry face again.
What though was the value of such a horrific memory? What was the Reaper trying to tell me?
I didn’t have time to ponder it because the next thing I knew I was in a hospital room, alongside my former girlfriend Tammy.
I felt a pit growing in my stomach as the nurse brought in my little boy Carson. He looked so perfect. So peaceful. Not a care in the whole world.
Tears filled my eyes as I got to hold him. Tammy sang to him.
It was a perfect day. This was surely more valuable than any of the shit I had to endure later in our relationship?
Somehow I could predict the next event the Reaper wanted to show me, even though truthfully I didn’t want to experience it.
Carson’s funeral. I had been as high as a kite that day, using drugs to push out any emotions.
I remember someone yelling at me, now that I was revisiting the memory I saw it was Tammy’s mom.
Was she really telling me the SIDs was my fault? How cruel. How heartless. I stood there looking at the small casket wishing it had been me to die. Maybe I did deserve to die. Maybe if I die, someone more worthy like Carson could live? Was that the lesson the Reaper wanted me to appreciate?
The last memory was a bit of a surprise to me, because it connected to something that only had happened a few days ago. Damien had come over and offered their dog to me. His name was Rascal and he was an adorable pit Bull. It was clear we had a bond.
Damien told me it would be good for my therapy to have something to take care of. And I had gone out to buy the little pup a bed. The last image I saw before the Reaper returned was of that little dog sitting in my lap, cozy and secure and without a care in the world.
If I died, who would take care of him? Would he starve? Would it even matter?
The Reaper stood there in the void, assessing me as the memories all faded away.
“It is time for you to choose Roman Andrews. I have shown you the five most important moments of your short life. Now you must tell me which one of these was the most valuable?”
I stood there, tears streaming down my face. My body wrecked from the guilt and anger and sorrow I felt.
“Is there a problem?” the Reaper asked.
I stammered to find words, but a burning indignation sprouted from me and I pointed a finger at the immortal figure.
“Don’t you get it? All of these memories are important to me. There’s not a single one I could treasure that is more important than the others! Do you know what I would give to see my brother Andrew again! Or my little boy!! My mom…. All of them mattered to me. Every single one of these memories. I never even got to say goodbye to my damn dog. No one is going to take care of him now that I’m gone. It’s not fair. It just ain’t right,” I shouted.
“You must choose, Roman Andrews. Those were the terms of our wager.”
I turned to look toward the endless void, suddenly feeling very existential toward the rest of humanity. How many people had come here, staring at the end of all things and realizing that they could not get one more moment with their loved ones?
“Fuck that stupid game man. I’m not playing. Forget it. I don’t want to choose. No, I can’t choose. Every last one of those things mattered to me the same way it matters to everybody. That’s what life is! Who am I to get special treatment?”
“Roman Andrews, do not spit in the face of what fate has offered you. Finish the wager and choose,” the Reaper warned.
Then I had an epiphany, one that shook me to my core.
“Then I choose this one. This memory right here.”
The Reaper said nothing, and I took the chance to see if I could push my luck.
“My life was cut short but I’m not unique. I should have appreciated the time I had with my mom or my son or anyone else more. If I could go back, I would tell the whole world that. I would tell them, treat every moment like it’s your last and appreciate everyone in your life.”
The cloaked figure leaned against its scythe and nodded gravely. Then, I suddenly felt air return to my lungs and I was back in the world of the living. I was in an ambulance being rushed to the hospital. I heard them shouting that I had lost a lot of blood and would need emergency surgery.
Amid all of this I saw shadows in the corner of my vision. Death was lingering close to me, it could taste how bittersweet it would be to take me back to the void.
Six and a half hours later, I am in a recovery room with a story to tell. My body is broken and my mind splintered, but I insisted that I be given my personal items.
As I sit here and think about this second chance that I don’t deserve I can see the ghosts of my mother and my child just off in the fog.
They are lonely, wishing that I had joined them on the other side.
Why hadn’t I thought to hold them close when they were alive? Why had it taken death for me to realize how much they mattered to me?
The Reaper had let me come back to life so that I might recognize the faults of my life. It would seem I have won the game.
But I don’t feel like I have.
All I feel inside is that endless void, beckoning me to return. The inescapable silence of death that will one day come to me without a game to be played.
I get to live and breathe. But others don’t. Others I once loved are long gone, no game will bring them back.
I realize perhaps too late, the game is rigged. I can never escape. The Reaper is just beyond my line of sight. In the shadows, in the corners of my vision I can feel its presence. It is sharpening its scythe . It is always there, always reminding me of the universal truth:
No matter if I had won or lost, the result is the same.