The year was 2013. I had a pretty great life at the time. I was teaching at a good school, my student loans were almost paid off, I had just bought a car, I had a great boyfriend whom I loved with all my heart. Simply put, I was happy.
So, of course, something had to happen.
One night, my boyfriend and I were cuddling, talking about almost nothing, really. Telling stories, giggling, the like. The topic turns to work. He rarely ever told me details about his job as a private investigator, so I was doing most of the talking.
I figured he was sick about hearing about which of my students wrote the best essays, so I asked him how work was going for him. “Okay,” he replied. The usual.
“No, but really. How is it? You never talk about your job. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing my stories. Tell me some of yours.”
“I don’t have any good ones.”
“C’mon, babe. I’m sure you have some.”
“Abby,” he said, looking me in the eyes. “You don’t want to hear them.”
“No. I promise you that you don’t.”
“I promise you I do. Come on, you can trust me.”
He sighed. “Are you sure I can trust you? You probably won’t believe me.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, wondering what he was going to say.
“I’m not a private investigator.”
“No, I heard that. Then… what do you do?”
“I- I’m Death,” he sighed. I looked at him blankly for a few seconds, then laughed hysterically. “You’re hilarious! Death! Good one!” His facial expression didn’t budge.
“You can’t be. Death isn’t an actual person.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“Google it.” I did. The Greek personification of death. All the blood drained from my face.
“Wait… so you… kill people for a living?!”
“No. I only deal with deaths of natural causes. Old age, sickness, the like. Once they’re ready to die, I come and escort them to the Underworld.”
“If somebody is murdered or something, I still take them to the Underworld, but I’m not responsible for their soul leaving their body.”
“So… you’re a Greek god?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“I didn’t think you would react this well. I’ve had a couple girlfriends in the past and… well, they didn’t appreciate that they were dating Death.”
He sighed. “Most ran away, not even leaving a note. A few killed themselves after hearing it.”
“I won’t leave you. Death or not, I love you too much to do anything about it.”
He smiled appreciatively, like he believed I was being genuine. I was, at least, with what I knew at the time.
The years went by. We lived as a happy couple. He proposed, I said yes. Nobody else found out who he was. I had our first child, Diana, a year after the wedding. Two years later, I gave birth to our son, Carsten. We were a family. We were happy.
At least, until my mom got diagnosed with cancer.
Lung cancer that metastasized to her brain and liver, the doctors told me. She’s terminal. And Thanatos was loyal to me through all of this. He held me while I sobbed for hours and hours, took care of the kids while I spent days and nights at the hospital trying to figure out how to say goodbye. I knew what would happen. I knew how it would happen. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to spare her. I thought he would do it without asking. We had been married for six years, dating for even longer, and he knew what I was thinking before I did. I had faith that he would do this for me.
One night, I sat in the hospital next to her bed, holding her hands as she slept peacefully. All of a sudden, the heart rate monitor let out a long, steady beep. The line became flat. I called in a nurse, saying that there must be a mistake, that it must be broken.
“No, sweetie. I’m so sorry, but she’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”
“That’s not possible. Your equipment is broken.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” I made the nurse prove it, to hand me the stethoscope and let me listen. I even had her bring in a doctor. I simply couldn’t believe it.
I drove home in a state of shock. He was surprised when I walked through the door. “Hi! The kids are in bed and I just finished cleaning up dinner, but I can make something if you’re-”
“What the hell did you do?”
“I said, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!”
“Stop yelling! You’re gonna wake up the baby.”
“My mom is dead because of you. This is your fault. I lost the most important person in my life because you thought your goddamn job was more important than your family!”
His face twisted. I knew that had stung.
“Abby,” he said softly. “It was her time. She was in pain. I had no other choice.”
“OF COURSE you had a fucking choice, you bastard! It wasn’t her time! She wasn’t ready! I wasn’t ready!”
“You’re in shock. Please, sit down, I’ll make you some food, we can talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. This is all your fucking fault. You did this. You could have, should have spared her.”
“Abby, she was in pain. She’s at peace now. I made sure she went to Elysium. She is happy now. She’ll be reborn. Her pain is gone. Don’t you want that?”
“How the fuck can you say that, you psychopath?! She’s dead, gone because of you. I’ll never hear her again, talk to her again, hug her again, laugh with her again because you’re a goddamn monster! How could you do this?”
“Shh,” he walked over to me, trying to give me a hug. “I know, I kn-”
“You don’t know!” I yelled, pushing him off. “You’re in charge of death, but you have no fucking idea what it’s like to lose someone you love. No goddamn clue! You shouldn’t have done this.”
“Get out of my house, you fucking monster, before I take the children and run the hell away where even Death won’t be able to find us.”
“This is crazy. I love you”
“Well, I don’t. Get out of my house right now.” His face was stricken with grief, as if he had only just realized what he had done.
“Leave. And never, ever come back.”
He gave up. I watched him solemnly walk out the door, tears running down his face. “I won’t come back,” he whispered.
Two centuries later, he’s kept his promise. Two hundred years it’s been since I last saw Thanatos. Two hundred years it’s been since I saw my first and only love. I have been stuck reminiscing, regretting what I had done that night,. Not a day has gone by that I don’t wish I had done something else. Two centuries have left me with time, almost too much time to grieve over what I had done that night without thinking.
Not only had I lost the love of my life, I had committed one of the worst sins I could think of.
I made Death go through what he puts people through every day: losing the one in his life that he couldn’t bear to live without.
Generations later, I have seen the lives of my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and more. I love them all dearly, but I wish he would come back only so he could take my life. I know he won’t, which is what torments me the most. As a naïve young woman, I thought death was the worst of all punishments. But only recently did I realize I was wrong. Death isn’t a burden, rather the opposite. Living without him is the true punishment.
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