Steven Marshall Horror

- Conversation with Death -
Featured in The Dark Art of Wonder
by Steven Marshall

“May I have a cigarette?” asked a stranger passing me by in the park.

I obliged nonchalantly, but nonetheless provided him with one. Despite no evidence of being a smoker myself, he still somehow detected a target in me and my concealed treasure, of which he found himself a lucky recipient. Despite being a rickety wisp of a man, his tone conveyed a confident but gentle mannerism that posed no threat. Just a friendly, carefree old man down on his luck.

I could remember when the city park used to be a safe haven where people could go about their leisure; where joggers and walkers could drink the morning air into their lungs, couples could sip each others’ lips on a park bench and children could just be themselves at play without the worries of the new world disorders. Now the local gangs and troubled teens rule by majority, intimidating and deterring the good folk who once enjoyed the civil liberties of their tax dollars. Where addicts and homeless people have since claimed it as their place of residence by night, leaving their empty liquor bottles behind, or syringes of their habits in the sandbox for children to uncover come playtime. Indeed, the park used to be a place of childhood dreams, now it’s just littered with the filth of broken ones.

“May I have a light please?” asked the stranger again.

“What? Oh, yeah, sure,” I replied distracted.

“Would you care to join me on the bench and have one with me? I promise I will ask nothing more of you, other than perhaps your opinions and viewpoints.”

‘Did I hear him say perhaps?’ I mused in wonder. Normally I would not find much mental stimuli hanging out with the local vermin, but not having much of an agenda at that particular moment, I got the impression he was just seeking advice from the company of a stranger. Maybe he was lonely and in need of some companionship. Either that, or it was a prelude to him hitting me up for some money. I decided, as I sat, that time would be my only charity; otherwise more of his kind would emerge from the woodwork, like some regular night-of-the-living-dead, seeking my flesh.

“Ya know, you have that look of a thinking man trying to figure out the ways of the world,” he said with a raspy voice and haggard laugh as he exhaled the smoke from his lungs. Small talk and personal observations were typical rules of engagement in a New York city hustle, as a way of lowering people’s guards.

“What kind of look was that?” I humored.

“Perplexed…distraught. Not content,” he observed.

“Long day at work, just trying to unwind,” I replied, averting my gaze from him.

“You’re answering like a politician.”

“No offense, but after all, you are a perfect stranger.”

“First of all, I am far from perfect, and it’s not that I’m a ‘stranger’, it’s that we’ve only just met. Besides, some of the best, impartial advice comes from strangers.”

Just as I sensed him getting confrontational, he demonstrated some reason and humor in his response that caught my interest, at least for conversations sake. So I played along for the time being under the harmless guise of a cigarette as he chatted away about everything and nothing.

“Even though I’m on vacation at the moment, I can relate to a long day at work and being frustrated. I may not share your lifestyle and all, but I’m willing to wager that we think and feel alike about things and perhaps we have more in common than you realize. There’s always parallels that bring people together,” he surmised with a smile.

‘Interesting perspective; did he actually make a point,’ I thought to myself. “What kind of work do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Course not, I’m in murders and executions, but like I said, I’m taking a little vacation away from it all,” he said facetiously like some inside joke, which I didn’t really understand at the time.

“Oh, mergers and acquisitions,” I said, half listening. “I’m familiar with the field, being an accountant.”

“Yep, everything seems to be a numbers game nowadays, destined to be some statistic,” he philosophized, easing along the conversation. I smiled politely, still expecting some pitch. He leaned forward, stubbing his cigarette halfway through on the edge of the bench.

“Care for another?” I graciously offered, to spare him the indignity of begging, groveling or worse.

“Sure I would and thank you again,” he said smiling, exposing a mouth full of rot with a vagrant’s pride.

“So what kind of advice were you seeking?” I asked, wanting to get to the point.

“I’m not seeking advice. As I said I just wanted your opinions and viewpoints on things. I’m a tired and lonely old man who enjoys the simple pleasures of a good conversation once in a while when I’m not working. No harm in that I hope!”

“Oh right, of course not,” I fumbled in embarrassment.

“I’ve had enough advice to last me a lifetime and none of it led to any success. Now all I know is I’m more time poor than money poor,” he brooded.

“Well, success isn’t always measured in money. As far as time, you can’t count time, only make time count,” I clichéd.

“Sounds like clever advice in disguise to me, he said. “Not interested.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Guess that’s the accountant in me. Always budgeting things.”

“Well, you seem like you do pretty well for yourself, judging by your looks.”

“I try to live modestly. I might have a champagne fancy, but a cheap wine lifestyle…excuse me, I don’t mean anything by it with regards to you,” I hesitated, realizing he may want to part me from what little I had on me.

“No offense taken and just so you know, I have no monetary interest with regards to you, so you can relax,” he assured me.

“Let’s start over,” I said humbly. “What opinions or viewpoints interest you?”

“They are too numerous to mention…but lately and particularly today I had something on my mind…”

“You’ve got my full attention,” I assured him.

“Well, I’m kind of curious by nature…for example, did you ever wonder what it feels like to be dead?” he asked out of nowhere.

“Pretty still I imagine,” I said vainly.

“I’m sure you can do better than that,” he encouraged.

“Are you feeling…suicidal or something?” I asked as a practical inquiry, all the while observing his condition.

“I didn’t say being dead, I just asked what death might feel like,” he clarified.

“I thought the point of death is that you don’t feel anything; you’re dead.”

“Don’t be so conventional in your thinking. Use your imagination and answer the question seriously. Close your eyes if you have to,” he said, with conviction.

“Is this the part where I get jumped and mugged?” I asked in a way that wouldn’t offend him or challenge his character.

“Be serious. Can you answer the question?”

“What does death actually feel like?” I quoted, affirming the inquiry before me.

“Exactly the question!” he stated confidently.

“Hmm. Let me think for a minute,” I said, buying time, at a loss for words.

“No problem, take your time. Remember there are no right or wrong answers, just your opinions and viewpoints,” he assured.

“Right, okay,” I said, feeling out the situation I had somehow obligated myself to. Somehow the wisdom was evading me at the moment, but my interest was piqued by the challenge, so I attempted to humor him with some poetic words. “Maybe like…the cool air of a grey sky ripe with decay in the late afternoon of a perpetual autumn,” I said, proud of myself, hanging onto certain words for an intended effect.

“Not bad for a first attempt. Now try again, but think more in terms of the body.”

“Well, what do you think it is?” I asked, offended that he altogether dismissed my answer, without even considering my wisdom.

“You first. I asked you. I don’t want you plagiarizing my idea with my point of view,” he chastised, wiggling a wrinkled finger at me.

“Right, okay,” I replied, still thinking. “How about, let’s see…how about an empty shell frozen in blackness, like a perpetual winter night isolated in the still of time.”

“Stop with the fancy ear pleasing shit. Allow your vision to become clear in the darkness. Feel what the body would feel. Try once more.”

I sighed, a little disenchanted and was starting to get fidgety, almost losing interest. Like he had the defining answer to it, yet probably no place to even call home. Who was he trying to fool, saying he was on vacation? He looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks and was now clutching at straws just to keep my company and perhaps acquire more cigarettes. By this point I just wanted to complete the objective before me so I reluctantly decided to play along. Concentrating, I allowed myself to sink to a depth I had not previously known. I really started getting in harmony with death and picturing it vividly in my mind’s eye. Then something came to me:

I depicted a ruin of dark underground catacombs buried deep beneath the earth, glowing with glacial phosphorescence in some subterranean wasteland. Inside of it I envisioned a wooden casket standing in an upright position slowly opening its stiff door. As it came into full view, the cadaver was barely supporting the last of its flesh. Its emaciated muscle remains were clinging feebly to its fragile bones. Its hair looked like spidery cobwebs sprinkled with dust and age; its eyes dried up in the shells of their sockets; lips shriveled like dried up worms around its smiling skeletal teeth. The corpse had an empty and haunting vacancy on its expression, as if it could almost look right into me, despite having no eyes.

I held the image vividly in my mind as I stomped out my cigarette underfoot. And now I imagined the actual feeling of death as one I never had before…

“Yes, of course, that’s it: the answer was right before me the whole time…dying is but a cigarette burning down slowly with each passing day. Life is the ember consuming it to ashes. The smoke is like the soul ascending and dispersing in the air. And the act of death is the stomping of a cigarette underfoot, leaving only the ‘filter’ of the corpse behind; your life merely vanquished and extinguished just as quickly as that.”

“I’m afraid it’s much more simple than that,” he commented. “When the fluids are drained from the body and the flesh has gone ragged with decay, the feeling of death is nothing more than a prolonged itching sensation that cannot be scratched. It’s as simple and as complicated as that,” he concluded, stomping out his own cigarette, smiling with a profound wisdom.

“That’s it? A terrible itch and nothing more?” I asked in disbelief.

“That’s it, my friend,” he said convincingly.

“And how is it that you have such knowledge?”

“Well, I’ve been doing this for quite some time, that’s why I needed a vacation. Murders and executions and all. For example, the body I’m residing in now was my last victim, Calvin Walker. I needed to take a walk in the flesh and see things from the point of view of those I claim. This black gentleman you see here next to you was him. He was scheduled for a heart attack. Once I confirmed my target I went up to him, wrapped my hand around his heart and took over his body. But I’ve been on vacation nearly a week now and I have to be getting back to work soon. Gotta fulfill my demanding quota in this crazy numbers game! They raised the bar on me once again. In about ten minutes I have a party of four scheduled for a fatal carwreck – right across the street from here. You can stay and watch if you like, perhaps gain some perspective…” he said convincingly.

“Good one, ya had me going there for a minute.”

“Oh, by the way, funny we should run into each other now, almost ironic in fact! Your number is coming up; not now. But soon. If I had more time, I’d clue you in, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise of death. Not to worry, we’ll reschedule and meet again. Then true knowledge of this shall be yours. Well I quite enjoyed this conversation and your perspective, but I have to get going. Thank you for the company and the cigarettes…and careful, these things could kill you someday.”

“Look, I didn’t catch your name and all, but how naïve do you think I am? Do you really expect me to believe that you’re…?”

Then, something out of the corner of my eye seized me in the midst of my sentence…

As I turned to glance at him, his body suddenly slumped forward on the bench and crumpled onto the ground in a lifeless spill. The man lay face first on the ground and showed no sign of getting up. I panicked and immediately sprung off the bench and ran as fast as I could, never turning to look back or even consider if it was a prank. But the strangest feeling came over me that told me that what I saw that day was indeed the face of death, if in fact it had one.

Along with the unexpected trauma imposed on me that day, I still look back and reflect in dark wonder and awe, pondering when my time is coming. A haunting memory resounded as I recollected the dead thing on the bench. More disturbing were the words he spoke when I confirmed in New York Newsday a head-on collision claiming four lives on that day. I have now resolved my doubts with a certain belief that it was not my imagination. While there was no mention of the older black gentleman, often hoboes dying in the park don’t make headlines. Maybe I am reflecting on the very phenomenon of death itself…or the form in which it appeared to me.

It’s now two months later and still I observe every precaution, not knowing exactly what he meant by ‘soon’. I have since stopped smoking, even though I know I cannot avoid the inevitable if it should quickly claim me. So each time I think in retrospect of that day, I have a renewed sense of life and a profound appreciation for death. Often these thoughts are accompanied by a soft tickling at the base of my neck. Sometimes I even feel these deep internal itchings, like the reaper’s sickle tickling my stomach with a feather of death. Alas, they are ones I cannot scratch…

And if you were to ask me after this incident, I would say, “Life is not a walk through the park”…but who’s to say death isn’t?

© Copyright Steven Marshall 2005.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or republished by any means without the prior permission of the author. This is an original work protected under U.S. law.