To reap or not to reap, that is the question.
Is it not unfair that I must steal the lives of others?
And yet, when I know it is their time, I must do as I am told.
For if I were to falter from my preset instructions,
God knows what could happen to a very little child.
God is like that, you see, he will take a life for a life.
And in his opinion a small darling is worth less
Than a modern middle-aged man.
And while I don’t agree, I wouldn’t fight,
Because we all know that God is always right.
So I follow my instructions to-a-t
Every day for twenty hours and I get a break from
One-pm-to-five.
I don’t need to sleep or eat but
sometimes it is nice
To walk along a beachy ocean or to
meet a lot of strangers.
I’m a big fan of speed dating, though I
don’t think I can feel love,
But that’s not a problem because I do it
for the fascination
That I have with humans, they are
shocking and confusing
And they make me want to watch them for a while.
One time there I met this Scarlett,
she lied about her job.
She said she was a bank teller, but she was an escort.
See, nobody can lie to me but I do my best to judge the least.
Because Scarlett also lied about her three-year-old who has leukemia.
And instead she was wearing this beautiful fancy dress
That I know she got from the thrift shop on the corner of Six and Eve.
She said she was unwed and had no kids and that she was doing great,
So I took her hand and told her that no-one is ever fine.
She asked me to come home with her after a round of drinks and food
and I saw little Eternity in her room asleep.
And I realized she’d be gone in just a week.
I held Scarlett in my arms as she cried.
And I told her that no matter what I’d
find her wherever she might be.
And I left her with two-thousand-cash
that I found in the alley trash
Of Denny’s on the parkway back in ‘93.
I’d never understood the need for currency
until now but I had kept it
In my house just because I had a
feeling that I’d need it.
And, honestly, nothing will beat the face that Scarlett made.
And before I left that night I looked at
Eternity sleeping peacefully and
Asked Scarlett why she named her that.
She said she had a dream that Death himself had told her
That her girl would live forever if she only had that name.
So I stood there in the foyer of her
small apartment complex
Looking for something to say to that.
Until I realized that she didn’t know that I was that man
And that I remembered back when I liked to mess with dreams.
And then I wondered why I’d just called the endless
Power-surging life-taking darkness-bearing being
That I am
A man.
One week later I went into the apartment
in the cloak of darkness
Terrified to take a life, I’ve never felt this before.
But before I could open the old door I heard the fighting.
I took off my invisibility and went in very forcefully.
I went up to that man and punched him square in the face.
He hit the wall, and then the lamp, and had a deep gash in his head
Immediately I knew he was dead.
Scarlett ran to the phone in the other room,
And I pulled my scythe out and,
Touched his soul and watched it float above the air.
Scarlett came back and said she’d called 9-1-1.
And we checked on Eternity, who somehow
Still slept peacefully, and Scarlett
hugged me and she cried.
And for the first time in my life I shed a tear.
I realized standing there with blood on my hand
And her in my arms
That maybe I actually was a man.
God and I had a dark chat
And he made a deal with me
That for Eternity’s life, I’d lose my immortality.
And maybe that was stupid, but now that I am human,
it’s no longer
A simple question that I asked myself
Walking along the beach,
For now Scarlett and I walk hand-in-hand.
And I know that in two years she will be pregnant
And we’ll marry in the church where she was born.
She doesn’t know that I can see the future
Or that I used to be a reaper
But I no longer worry about that.
Somewhere in the world there is a new man
Or woman who will come for me
I tucked Eternity in bed, she just turned ten today.
I gave her a kiss on the head.
I go to bed with Scarlett and always say I-Love-You,
I know that when she wakes up I’ll be gone.
A heart attack in bed will take me before dawn.
So I took her hand and told her that no matter what
She does, I’ll always love her and I’ll miss her.
She asked me what was wrong, I said a bad feeling in my heart.
She kissed me and said she loved me more than anything
In the world, except maybe her kids,
and I told her that’s probably fair.
I said I don’t know what will happen when I wake up
But that I am surely not afraid of Death.
She gave a laugh, the smile I love, and said that was absurd.
We cuddled and I fell asleep, and that was the last thing I know
For I woke up in heaven, where God said I was good.
In the end I’ve no regrets,
And I have no fear.
I will live, dead, in this new-old world, so familiar
With nostalgia, seeing friends who now see me as a stranger.
It is worth it, I will build a home right here in this new universe
For when the girls and my son join me someday by my side.
To reap or not to reap is a question I’d asked years ago
And honestly the answer is do both yet do not do both.
Do some of one and some of the other Let yourself be near another
And to any reaper, I say you are in charge.
I’ll wait here now, peacefully. My job has been complete.
I’ll wait here for my love, and for my son, and
I’ll wait here for Eternity.