I'm Afraid

I am afraid. Too many things have happened too close to the whisper of death's footstep, approaching. Too much has touched the dark veil of death's long black cancerous coat. The pale, skeletal face of death looks upon me. The eyes long since rotted out. I hear him approaching. He is carrying a scythe, with which once the long, green grass was cut. And now. He uses it to cut down the bodies of men, and reap their soul. I am afraid of death. I will not go gently.

I am not afraid of Death's stench, or decay. The eternal pain in which death comes reminds me I am alive. I am afraid of Death itself. Death is a powerful, almost unstoppable force. He lives in darkness and cold. He is nausea, rotten sickly sweet flesh decaying - his herald, the ant, the maggot - the bacterium. The shredding, grinding, tearing mandibles of the insect.

Death comes quickly. It is a payout - a karmic thing - to be able to be in the wrong place at the right time, when he does come. You cannot outrun death, but you can jump out of the way and he might miss. He will try again.

Death will eat the spring garden we have planted. There will be dull, rotten vegetables, and seeds. There will be rotting beans on the vine. We will harvest them and dry, and replant. If we survive the long, cold winter to come.

That winter stabs already at my feet. They are numb. I cannot feel them. I wake in the morning with respite from the pain. The dream still vivid in my mind. Death approaches, inexorable death. Danger. Darkness. Reality, distorted just enough to make you question what you see from the corner of your eye.

Not enough to change your perception. Perhaps, question it. Even now. Was that just another sound? Did you place this, just here? Listen. Dark carnival music is playing. A cold wind blows, just at first - and the first leaf of a tree turns yellow and falls to the ground. How? A trick of light. Simple, tiny, imperceptible changes in light - and suddenly they know. It is better for them to die now. Than to meet Death itself.

I am afraid. The darkness comes. I can hear the faraway sound of a carnival - its tune played on the whisper of the first cold wind of autumn, the last dying gasp of warm summer carried away in its ever colder grip. The dull pain in my foot throbs with each step. I can't hear my own footsteps. Or water. No sound.

Only the glowing, dull lights of the carnival. Far in the distance. The sound of the music. And I am the only one who can see it. Everyone will soon come. And they will all disappear. Those who survive will struggle for existence.

I see death approaching. Fast. And to those , it comes quickly - they will feel no pain. But others. Will see. Grief. Pain. Despair.

And death will not spare any of us. Sooner or later it will get us all. It eats and feeds upon us - swallowing our flaws like gristle. And the fat of our bodies burns to a crisp, our muscle and tendon its bacon.

And spread upon the flat, breaded surface, will be our eyes. Gouged from our head. In a grotesque mr. pancake. Smothered in liquid syrup. Our bones cracked open and the marrow slurped out like pixie straws. The elastic skin that stretches over our abdomen - the thin film that covers our body - pulled down around us - the white, exposed undercoat - laid down upon his plate. Our blood , in a glass. Everything we are, or will be. Will become. Dust.

And death will laugh alound - opening a jaw that was once covered in flesh. Now, in the dark of his cape. White bone.

Something. Wicked. This way. Comes.