Death's Life

by B Latif

  Rose nodded quickly, sensing that she was in danger.

  “Why?”

  “I…” she couldn’t babble anything because the dangerous thing, the arrow, was still pointing at her, “I… I took you as my…”

  Henry raised his brow for her to speak. It seemed like encouragement.

  “Err… hobby.”

  For a moment, Henry’s eyes remained firm. Then as if she had cracked a joke, he chuckled.

  “Hobby?” he lowered his bow slowly and stopped laughing, “How so?”

  Rose bit her lip, “You are the first human I have seen, and you are… fascinating.”

  Henry arched his brows as if he had taken it as a compliment. He slumped down against the willow again.

  He took the berries out of his pocket and began to chew them again. He looked at her and then moved a little to make room for her. Rose sat down beside him, and he generously offered the berries to her, but she looked at them with reluctance.

  “If they were poisoned, I wouldn’t be eating them,” Henry assured her.

  Rose took a berry and stuffed it in her mouth, savoring the tangy flavor.

  “What is that?” Rose asked after some time. Henry saw her gesticulating towards the bow and the quiver.

  “Those are my darlings, I guess,” he answered with a sparkle in his eyes as he looked at them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he cast her eyes at her, “this is called a weapon.”

  “What does a weapon do?”

  “Kill.”

  There was silence after that. Rose kept staring at them as Henry had pointed them at her twice, both now and in the cave.

  “What is kill?” she asked finally, forgetting the berries, while Henry kept chewing them.

  “Dead,” he replied.

  Rose hesitated. Death was one question in her mind that her mama hadn’t answered. The only way to get an answer was by asking Henry.

  “Henry?” she licked her lips tentatively.

  “Hmm?”

  “If…” she stopped as if her conscious was stalking her, ‘If… I asked you something, would you tell me?”

  “Of course.” He was still busy with the berries, appearing to be very hungry.

  “What is dead?” she dared ask.

  Henry looked at her suddenly. He wore a frown and Rose seemed to regret she had asked him that. He seemed upset.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

  “You don’t know?” Henry sounded taken aback. Rose shook her head slowly.

  For a moment, Henry kept looking at her closely without blinking. Then he dropped the berries as if they were worthless and got up with his bow.

  “Let me show you, since explanation will be futile,” he offered her his hand. Rose held it and he led her away from the willow, neither of them uttering another word.

  Rose seemed happy as she anticipated finally getting the answer to the question she had formulated from the Koran.

  Henry stopped at the place where the chirping was loudest. He let go of her hand and prepared his bow and arrow.

  He directed it up toward the canopy.

  “Ready?” he looked at her from the corner of his eye. Rose nodded excitedly but looking studious.

  The arrow flew through the air like a shooting star.

  The clamor rose among the birds as a toucan fell on the forest floor.

  Henry lowered his bow as he watched Rose hurrying toward the bird. The blood was oozing, and the arrow was straight in the belly.

  “Oh, my God!” Rose squealed. She dropped to her knees beside it and her hands trembled as she gently tried to pull the arrow out, “Oh, my God! What should I do? It’s hurt…!”

  She held the bird in her hands. The girl who used to help creatures was looking at the bird with two silvery streaks running down her cheeks.

  She had no idea what to do with the motionless toucan, as her hands began to turn crimson with its blood.

  “Blood!” she whispered, holding out her hands, “Blood! What should I do! God! And as if she remembered Henry was there too, she turned her head, “What did you do to it? help me now! It isn’t moving!”

  Crying and shrieking, she was panicking. Henry squatted beside her and looked at the bird in her blood-stained hands.

  “Wake up!” she shook the toucan, but its yellow and black beak remained still.

  “We have to help it now,” she continued hysterically, but Henry remained still and silent, looking at the weeping Rose as if studying the depth of her soul.

  “We can’t,” he said, “it won’t move or wake up ever again.”

  Rose looked at him, shocked, and whispered, “Why?”

  “Because it is dead,” Henry said without any note of sympathy in his voice, “and I killed it.”

  Rose’s nose flared in anger and hurt. She pushed Henry with her blood-stained hands on his chest, toppling him to the ground.

  “You heartless, mean human!” she taunted, got up and marched away with the toucan in her hands.

  “You asked me, Rose!” Henry justified loudly. Hearing this, she turned to face him and licked her lips, tasting the tears.

  “I wish I hadn’t,” she said mournfully, turning back and walking away, staggering among the trees. Henry sat there for a long time.

  ***

  “Mama!” Rose bellowed the moment she entered the castle’s grounds, “MAMA!”

  I came out and saw her carrying the toucan, rushing towards me helplessly.

  “It’s dead!” she told me, “Can you do something?”

  I kept staring at the toucan and Rose kept looking at me impatiently. There was nothing I could do. Who could bring a dead toucan back to life?

  “Yes,” I replied after a while. This gave her some hope. I was supposed to take lives, not save them.

  She watched me dig in the ground. I knew she expected the bird would fly if I would help it. I took the toucan from her and put it in the hole I had dug, then covered it with soil.

  I looked at Rose as I finished my work, her swollen eyes fixed on me, demanding an explanation.

  “Rose, when something dies, you bury it… it can’t come back.”

  She seemed broken-hearted, badly shocked and hurt. She stared at the spot where the toucan was buried, and with her face full of anger, she strutted back toward the forest.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to kill Henry!”

  Hearing this, I rushed behind her, “ROSE! DON’T!”

  She just kept walking.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, “Do you want to be like him? Do you want to be a killer? A heartless, mean human?”

  She came to an abrupt halt.

  At a snail’s pace, I reached her. She had her face covered with her palms and was sobbing uncontrollably.

  She didn’t even ask me how I happened to know about heartless, mean human. I knew what to do and put my arm around her and walked back with her at the same slow pace.

  “See? That was why I didn’t tell you,” I said softly.

  Rose cried over its dead body as no human had ever cried for another dead human. She sat by the buried toucan and all I could do to console her was to sit beside her silently.

  For a week, Rose remained silent, and I tried my best to bring a smile to her face.

  Sitting by the toucan’s grave, she was lamenting again when I took her by surprise.

  “Smile for once!” I sang as I sat beside her, “Look, Rose! I found a perfect rose for you!”

  She remained stoic and the rose dropped in my lap slowly.

  “If you smile, I’ll get you a new dress!”

  The offer was associated with greed, but I didn’t care. No response. She stayed there like a statue and I started thinking of some other way to please her.

  “Please smile for once…” I pleaded, holding her hand. She just blinked at the grave.

  “Okay, tell me what you want. A new book? The Koran? A sketchbook?”

  Nothing
. She had lost interest. I didn’t get up and sat by her side for a long time.

  The sun began to sink behind the veil of clouds, turning them orange as if it were already doomsday. That was the time when Rose and I would stare directly at the sun without blinking until it disappeared.

  The moon was already dominating the sky, surrounded by puffy white clouds. What a controversy, sun and moon together in the sky.

  What a controversy, Death and life together by a grave.

  I had decided to stay quiet, but Rose murmured something in a trance.

  “Why is this rose pink?”

  “First, smile,” I said, suppressing my own smile at her words.

  “Answer me first.”

  “Uh-huh. Not like that, lady.”

  She put a fake smile on her lips and asked, “Now?”

  “A real smile,” I emphasized the ‘real’.

  “Mama!” she complained, “If you just tell me, maybe I would!”

  “Okay,” I put the rose in her lap, “roses aren’t just red. There are pink, white, yellow, and many other colors.”

  “Like a rainbow?”

  “Kind of.”

  This was the smile I was yearning. A real happy smile. Holding the pink rose, she smiled at it, “Lovely.”

  “So, do you want me to drop a pink rose on your book every time I leave?”

  She was generally indecisive when she was little, now, making decisions was an easy task for her, “But you named me after a red one, so I think I’ll go with red.”

  “Okay,” I laughed.

  “Mirror mirror on the wall

  Who is the fairest of them all?”

  No.

  I didn’t ask myself this. I am quite perplexed because at some point in their life, sooner or later, humans always ask themselves this question.

  Why?

  I am perplexed because to humans, beauty of the body matters most. It is controversial because to the Lord, beauty of the heart matters most.

  Nobody, no matter how much humans try to focus on their inner beauty, no one falls in love with that. It’s always the face.

  Souls are doomed because of the mirror, it makes one proud, overconfident, and jealous. I have never seen a thing that humans have created as useless as a mirror.

  Being Death, why I am saying this?

  Because the mirror doesn’t reflect me.

  ***

  Rose hugged the willow and was weeping loudly, away from me. Embracing it as if it were a person, just as she embraced me, her eyes were closed, and tears washed her cheeks.

  “Why are you crying?”

  In her solitude, she had forgotten to listen for the alerting sounds of the forest. Abruptly, she turned around to face the man behind her.

  “Why are you even concerned?” she wept.

  Henry shrugged, “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Hearing his calmness, Rose stepped closer to him hastily and glowered at him.

  “You killed a bird. How can you live with that?”

  Henry stared back at her bizarrely. How can you live with that? Killing a bird? Lord… people killed humans and live with that.

  “You are weeping because of this?” Henry held his expression of astonishment, “It’s been two weeks, Rose!”

  She turned around violently and marched away on her heels, never looking back. but this time, Henry followed her.

  “I don’t care! You killed a toucan!” she said scornfully.

  “Well,” Henry began to justify himself, snaking his way through the trees behind her, “You asked me to.”

  Rose didn’t look back, she kept stomping with her arms swaying at her sides.

  “You shouldn’t have! I didn’t know what it meant!”

  That was the first furious argument Rose had ever had and she was really good at it.

  Chapter 11

  OBSERVATION No. 21

  Humans seem to have an aptitude for self-defense even if they aren’t taught it.

  “What…” Henry pulled his foot free from the root tangling it, “What could I have done?”

  Rose turned around so violently to Henry that he halted.

  “Explained!” she bellowed, “Just… explained!”

  His jaw clenched and the groove between his eyebrows deepened. He couldn’t think of anything to say because Rose’s cheeks were completely wet with tears.

  “Okay,” he said calmly, “I’m sorry, alright? Next time, I’ll just explain.”

  Rose kept staring in his eyes darkly, then her look softened from Henry’s invitation.

  “Would you like to have lunch with me?”

  “Why?” she asked politely.

  He thought for a second before answering, as if he had no reason but needed one to convince her, “Because I’m sorry.”

  Rose stared at him. Then the realization of the level of closeness made her step back. she nodded, “Okay.”

  She wiped her face on her scarlet sleeve before following him along the speckled floor of the forest.

  It wasn’t a long journey and soon they reached the tents, without saying a word to each other during the journey.

  Paulo spotted them first, “Rose, what a pleasant surprise!”

  “Salam,” Rose uttered nervously.

  Paulo exchange a glance with Henry at Rose’s salutation. Henry looked at her sideways.

  “You’re a Muslim?” he asked in surprise.

  Rose nodded.

  Before they could discuss religions or start on blasphemy, Daniel came out of the tent with a guidebook in his hand. His glasses had slipped to the tip of his nose and was scrutinizing the book.

  “Oh, you’re back,” then his eyes went to Rose, “And Rose too. Did you save her life again?”

  Henry buried his hands in his pockets, eyed Rose, and said in a reserved tone, “Kind of.”

  He walked away and as he passed Rose, he stopped and leaned toward her, whispering in her ear, “Or you would have cried for the rest of your life.”

  Rose didn’t giggle and kept her eyes on him as he went in the tent, announcing loudly, “She’s staying for lunch!”

  As he disappeared inside the tent, Rose looked at Daniel who had closed his book, pushing back his glasses with his forefinger.

  “Don’t mind Henry’s tone,” Daniel was trying to cover up for him, “He is… he is…”

  As he groped for something appropriate to say, Paulo carried the log in front of Rose and stopped, answering Daniel’s incomplete sentence in a genuine whisper, “A bulldog.”

  Daniel smiled as Paulo smirked. Rose remained stoic as she had never seen a bull or a dog or a bulldog.

  The fire was lit on the damp forest floor, the food was cooked and served while the four men and Rose sat on the logs around the soaring flames.

  Sometimes, they ate silently, but when it became disturbing, one of them broke it. Alex always cracked a joke, which would make Paulo and Daniel grin, but Henry remained indifferent, so did Rose because she couldn’t understand them.

  After lunch, the men scattered toward one side while Rose sat where she was until Henry joined her.

  “So…” the acquaintance was changing into friendship, “How is your mother?”

  Rose smiled, “Best as ever,” she didn’t stop there. She began to describe briefly in literal terms how I was, “She is so beautiful that you can’t even imagine.”

  Henry’s jaw twitched and he looked sideways at her as she arched her knees and tucked her chin between them.

  “Well, I can imagine,” he replied, his eyes on her, “I bet she is as beautiful as you are.”

  Rose sighed hopelessly.

  “Mama says I am, but how can I tell? I’ve never seen myself.”

  Henry scowled at her words, “What?”

  “What?” she looked at him, alarmed that she might have said something vile.

  “You have never seen yourself?” he was astounded.

  “Of course,” Rose replied in a matter-of-fact way, “How can one see oneself?
”

  He moved his eyes away from her for some time and then looked at her again, “Of course.”

  Then he smiled, utilizing muscles he seldom used, and asked, “Of course… so would you tell me how I look?”

  Rose was avid, “Yes!”

  “Then describe me,” Henry said, quelling his smile.

  Rose eyed him from head to toe without hesitation and jumped to the conclusion without any waste of time, “You are beautiful!”

  Henry plucked the grass and cast his eyes on it for a second. Twisting it in his fingers, he wove a plan to trick her.

  “But I still don’t know what I look like. My eyes, my hair… describe them for me.”

  Licking her lips, Rose began in a critical tone, her eyes moving on his every feature as she tried her best to describe them.

  “Your hair is black, just like the moonless night,” she touched his hair and her fingers made their way to his ear, so did her eyes, “You ears are like… like your friend’s ears…” her fingers went on his neck and her thumb traced the scar there, “Your neck has a line just like… a line on a leaf.”

  With her left hand against the ground, her right hand was tracing Henry’s skin, making his hair rise, “And your cheeks have short hair, like thorns… but they don’t hurt as I touch them… they aren’t ugly, they are beautiful, they line your upper lip too.”

  Her fingers went on the bridge of his nose, moving down, “You nose is perfectly shaped.”

  And her fingers traveled down to his lips, and she hesitated for the first time as she touched his lips, but only for a second, “And… and your lips are pink…”

  Gulping, she moved her fingers to his eyebrows, tracing them with her finger, “Your eyebrows always wear a frown, but it looks good on your face and they are thick… and your eyes…”

  Nothing came out.

  As her eyes met Henry’s, she became speechless. Because he had locked his eyes on her face the moment, she had started describing him. He had fixed his eyes on hers and she was unable to blink away that magnetic look.

  She had cupped her hand on his cheek and forgotten to remove it

  “Well,” he asked without changing the intimidating look, “What about my eyes? Ugly?”

  She swallowed but didn’t unlock their gaze, “No… your eyes are…”