17

Dawn//Poetry

20 minutes earlier
The sound of the gun hitting the stage is almost as loud as when it went off, but maybe that’s just me. Jackson’s death was so quick that, by the time Atticus drops the gun, I can already see Jackson’s soul -the best word for it- sitting up from his body and looking around.
Atticus flees the stage and the crowd begins to shuffle out, baffled and anxious to leave, so I glide through the mass, swimming upstream. I meet his gaze as Jackson sits on the edge of the stage, having waited for me.
“So the bastard killed me, what now?” Jackson isn’t even mad as he says it. I know he’s been waiting for this moment for several weeks, even though he’ll say that he wanted to be on the other side of the barrel.
I push myself up onto the raised stage and sit next to him. “Now? I suppose that’s up to you. Have anything you want to get off your chest before moving on?”
“I was one of the lucky ones, wasn’t I? I had it easy and got to die before anything actually bad could happen to me.”
“If that’s how you want to see it, sure.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done all those things throughout my life, taking the lives of those in this city, making everyone miserable for my own benefit. I wasn’t even happy.”
“You can feel regret all you like, but it doesn’t change anything. Is there anything I can show you to help you move on?”
“No, you’re right, I may not have been happy but damn if I wasn’t comfortable, maybe I don’t regret a thing.” He hops off the stage, “Where am I going?”
I shrug and slide off the stage myself, “You’re already there.”
Jackson fades away. A shadow being swallowed by the surrounding darkness, or a particle of sand being picked up by gentle waves on the beach, carried back out to sea. Regardless, he returns.
Nobody can see me now, but I take a moment to watch as men begin to surround his body with the intention of taking it away. I can hear the poor kid yelling in a back room until Dimitri comes out the door with a smug look on her face.
She glances my way and smirks, “Turns out it only takes about 40 years to get over it.” She doesn’t have to yell over the activity in the room for me to hear her before she continues back to where I know Trevor stands.
I don’t hate any of them, I suppose some of us just can’t help our natures, but I get sad knowing that they could be good despite their natures.
I wait a moment longer and then go to find Eun-Min and the kid, who understandably isn’t taking any of this well. No human deserves the treatment that most of us gods give them, but I guess they did create us in their image.

3 hours earlier
A young girl sits in a dry river bed, skipping stones across the hard clay of the desert. Her body lies emaciated nearby. It probably took everything in her to get to this riverbed, only to find that nothing is left. She looks like she shouldn’t be more than 8 years old with how small she is, but I know she recently had her 11th birthday. Her father is kneeling over the body, screaming at me for taking her. It’s not my choice. If it was, she’d grow old and live a happy, healthy life with a family of her own. I’ll never get used to taking them this young.
“Can you make my dad stop screaming?” She looks up from the cracked earth when she notices my arrival. She looks sad, but surprisingly calm.
I walk over to the father and kneel next to him, a hand on the back of his shoulder. He lets out several more curses, each of which burn me just a little more, but nothing I’m not used to. He can’t see me, but I do my best to offer condolences the only way I can until he stops screaming. Instead, he breaks down into quiet tears. I stand and approach the child.
“Thank you.” The girl’s voice is quiet. “I already knew I was dying, but seeing him makes this a lot harder.”
“Oh hun, it always does. It just means you spent your life loving and being loved, are you ready?” I put out my hand for her, which she takes, and I help her to her feet. We walk up the riverbed until my hand is empty.

5 hours earlier
The older gentleman coughs one last time, trying to clear his throat of the tar that’s been building up in his respiratory system for nearly two decades. He’s fighting for his life, sucking in as much air as he can, but it’s no use, the cancer has taken its toll.
He refuses to leave his bed when he sees me, “No! It’s not my time yet!” He rambles in his native tongue about a life well lived, more privileged than the majority of the people in central Asia. “Give me more time, they’ve been developing more medicines! I have the resources to pay!”
I sit at the edge of his bed and calmly take one of his hands from its place in the air, flailing as he speaks. “No amount of payment can prevent my eventual arrival. You said it yourself, you had a life well lived, is that not enough?”
“It was a lie! I need to make it up to my wife and my child! I’ve spent every day wishing I had spent my precious time with them instead of running away from you.”
“There is nothing to be done now, and I can assure you they lived well. Is there anything I can show you to help you move on?”
He begins to calm down and looks me in the eyes. His own eyes are filled with fear, “My daughter, can I see my daughter?”
I nod and guide him out of bed, “Of course, she’s right outside these doors.”
He slips out of my grasp as he goes to turn the door handle with a newfound life in his step, but the handle never turns and I’m left alone in the quiet room. I’m not sure if he’ll ever actually see his daughter again, that’s beyond my scope, but I do know that I helped her pass several years ago. She fell prone to the same toxic exposure as him, but far sooner because of her proximity to the fallout sites. Her father left her and her mother years ago, coming down to the southern end of China in an impulsive act of self preservation. It extended his lifespan, but at what cost?
8 hours earlier
A young man sits on the dock, watching his body disappear into the water. Two more unconscious bodies lay around him, but I’m not here for either of them. His younger brother is sitting, wide-eyed between the bodies, tears streaming down his face.
The man hears my approach and turns to look at me, “Not yet, I’m still holding on.”
“I know.” I take a seat next to him, but we both have to quickly move out of the way when his best friend breaks through the surface of the water with the body in his arms.
We watch as the two others drag his body out of the water and the older one fights to save him. He speaks to me over the frantic conversation between the two living, “This is weird, watching myself like this.”
“You’re not really meant to watch.”
“Yeah, I bet. I trust him though, and I’m still holding on.”
“He’s praying for you, you know. Asking for you to be spared by me.”
“I know. Atti would never admit that, though.” He glances at me, a sad look in his eyes. “I think I get it now.”
I smile at him, “I can’t see the future, Alec, but I can say that right now, neither of your lives are in my hands anymore. Take good care of Atticus, I can tell he needs you more than you know, and I’ve sat beside him in too many of these situations now.”
“Don’t worry, I know. And call me Sunny, please.”
“I’ll see you again someday, Sunny.” I stand and walk away alone, and it feels good.

Two weeks earlier
“You have no right deciding whether a human lives or dies, Eun-Min, it goes against the natural order.” I’ve had this conversation with far too many gods over the years.
“The business of entertainment is not for the faint of heart, Death, I’m sure my predecessors killed plenty.” He’s unphased.
“Not with their own hands.”
“What’s the difference? Dying because of entertainment or at the hands of entertainment itself? All the same in the end.”
“I cannot have this conversation right now, you’re not worth it.” I push past him and take a deep breath before entering the room.
Through the doorway, the man is standing near his desk, flipping through a stack of CDs. His body lays nearby, as if he fell asleep at the end of a long day of work. I like to think that’s how it ended for him.
“Sorry if you’ve been waiting a while, it’s hard to keep up with you all.” I speak softly to interrupt his focus and avoid spooking him.
He looks up and smiles, “Not a worry at all, I could never get tired of looking through this collection. I sure hope the kid takes good care of it all.” He places the plastic case in his hand back where he found it. “Is there still music where I’m going?”
“Only one way to find out. Show me your favorite record?”
“That’s a hard one, but I think I have one in mind now that it’s over. Over here-” He leads me to a corner of the room and carefully extracts a vinyl from the middle of a stack, handing it to me with a grin.
I study the front and back of the sleeve and carefully remove the record itself. It’s scratched from a century of use and I’m surprised any of the physical music in this room even survived the recent collapse. I replace the record in its sleeve and then leave it on top of the pile so that the next person can find it more easily. The room is quiet now, but I hope he can hear all of his favorite music again.

12 years earlier, Early 2119
The woman holds her lifeless child for the first and last time as her own breathing falters. There’s a midwife next to the bed, injecting her with something to ease the pain. The child never experienced life -I took him away a month ago- but the mother didn’t realize she was poisoning herself as well. She couldn’t afford the proper procedure and now her living son will have to lose another parent.
“Should I bring in your son?” The midwife softly asks the mother.
She’s looking me in the eyes, as I stand by the doorway, and she’s holding on for her final moments. “I don’t want him to see me like this.” Tears are filling her eyes, “Can you leave the room while he’s here?”
I shake my head, unable to leave, and the tears begin to paint her cheeks like rain on a windowpane, except it’s not raining today like it so often does in this city.
The midwife carefully takes the bundle from her and, unaware of my presence, exits the room. She leaves the door ajar for the boy to enter, he’s nine years old and lost his father not half a year ago. He’s trying to be brave, having quit crying before entering, but he doesn’t know how noticeable the streaks are, having cut paths through the dirt on his cheeks.
The boy has his mother’s tan skin and curly hair, but his face emulates the father. No matter how many I meet, I always remember. I know that the boy also takes after his mother’s ability to pretend that everything is okay, even when it isn’t.
He stands at the edge of the bed, allowing his mother to take his hands in her own, but I can see from here that he’s the one helping her hold on. “Mom, you can’t leave me.”
“I don’t want to, Atti, but she’s already here for me, I can’t hold on for much longer.”
“Who’s here for you? I’ll fight her off, Mom, I can do it. I’ll tell her to pick on someone her own size and I’ll get all the chickens to help me.”
She manages to laugh as best she can in her weakened state, “Oh, my little rooster, it’s not like that, nothing we can do. I’m sorry I won’t get to watch you grow up, but I know you’ll be okay. You wanna know how I know that?”
He nods, his face scrunched up to keep the tears at bay.
“Because you’ve never stopped believing in your own strengths. If anyone could fight off Death with a joke, it’d be you.” She pulls him into her, holding him as she passes and then continuing to do so even after the fact.
Her son in her lifeless arms, the mother finally looks back up at me.
“He had a compelling argument, I wish I could have left. Anything I can show you to help you pass?”
She shakes her head, “My entire world is in my arms right now, is there a way for me to never let go?”
“Of course.” I smile as she fades away and I like to think that she really is holding him still.
I watch the boy for a moment as he begins to tremble, no longer able to hold back his tears. I wish I could console him myself, but I hope he doesn’t have to see me for a long time.

39 years earlier, Summer of 2092
She begged me to take her, night after night, but there was nothing I could do. Now I watch as she must suffer that same despair from hundreds of thousands of others. A teenager; she should have been the future of humanity. Instead, they made a martyr of her while she was still alive and now she’s immortalized by her own tragedy.
Dimitri is on the ground, comfortably leaning against the rubble of a demolished building. She lights a cigarette and puts it to her lips. “I am not afraid of you, Death, you can come sit with me.”
I move into the sunlight, in clear view, and go to join her. “Nobody should ever have to live through this much tragedy,” I speak in her Russian tongue.
“Would you consider me alive?”
“You’re experiencing life, aren’t you? All the emotions and connections of a living being.”
“But now I will not die, which makes it much more gray. I think I am not living.”
“Time marches on, the feeling will pass.”
“How long will it take? 5 years? 20? 200? I think humanity is sick for what they’ve done to me.”
“You were also human merely a few months ago, are you not also responsible for this?”
She sticks her chin out and scoffs, putting the cigarette out on the ground next to her, “This shit doesn’t even work for me anymore.”
“We’re the most fundamental manifestations of how humans see themselves and the world around them, we’re not meant to dull the pain, we’re meant to feel it all so they don’t have to.”
“They deserve to feel it, but fortunately I don’t have to do anything now, they’ll just keep doing it to themselves. Tragedy after tragedy, I doubt it’ll end until there’s nothing left, and then I’ll be able to rest for good.”
“There’s always hope, we always come back around. I’ve seen it all.”
“Then tell me, Death, how long will it take for me to die? You wouldn’t take me when it mattered most, so how long have you condemned me to watch my people burn?”
“It’s not my choice whether one lives or dies, I’m just here to help them pass, you cannot hold this against me. I can’t say how long it’ll take for humanity to come back around. Maybe you’re right, maybe everything will be destroyed before they figure it out and decide to change. It is your choice, however, whether you’re proactive in that fight or allow them to lose themselves completely. You understand the mind of a human far better than most other gods. You are an ocean right now, Dimitri, and you’ll have to decide how unforgiving to be.”
“Insightful, I’ll keep that in mind as I reap the benefits of people in power destroying the lives of those below them.”
“And yet you seem to be considering taking up that role yourself.”
“Why not? I was the first one to survive the virus, I should’ve been a sign of hope, and yet they still destroyed my nation, just to preserve themselves. I deserve to be on the other end now.” She stands up and brushes the ash and dust from her clothes. “I think it’s time for you to decide if they’re still worth advocating for. You’re right, I do understand what it means to be human, which means I understand that we’re all inherently selfish.”
I stand as she begins to walk away, “Dimitri! We do not benefit from their downfall! It’s our job to keep the balance and give them something to believe in!”
She turns a corner and I’m left alone, surrounded by the familiar sight of destruction and loss. I’m not really alone, though, there’s still plenty of souls to care for.
I turn the opposite direction as Dimitri and duck into the remnants of a nearby building, where a young boy and girl are waiting for me. I see no bodies, but the siblings are digging through the rubble looking for something. They quit when the girl uncovers a dismembered arm with the same painted nails as her own. She stumbles away, but I catch her before she can fall into the dirt.
“I’m sorry, little one, your parents are nearby if you two would like to pass with them?”
Tears in their eyes, both children nod at me and I take one in each hand. We walk around the scraps of what was once their home to where their parents are pacing. The children run into open arms and the parents smile at me sadly before they all fade away, ashes to ashes.
At another city in the region, I arrive to find a man attempting to pry himself out from under a collapsed wall. He’s severely burnt and unrecognizable, but he fights for his life nonetheless. Finally, he notices me nearby and slumps against the ground as he realizes his own fate. He stands with ease a moment later, his body left behind.
He’s handsome and has a friendly smile when he approaches me. “I understand, and looking around, I think maybe I’m better off not fighting anymore. I’m ready.” His dialect is different from those in the last city. “I think I’m scared though, can you walk me to my destination?”
“That’s what I’m here for, friend.” I link arms with him and we walk through what was once a beautiful park, but now the playground equipment is melted and most of the trees are burnt to a crisp.
“I grew up playing on that swing set.” He points towards where it once stood. “I think I’d like to swing on it one more time.”
He slips from my grasp and I like to think that the swing set is still standing wherever he ended up.

Present
I sit with Atticus for several moments longer. We say nothing and I know I’m needed elsewhere, but I always make it on time, it’s just the nature of my existence. It doesn’t take long and Atticus has fallen asleep in the skywalk, his head resting on his knees and his breathing becoming steady once again.
I can faintly make out the stars through the glass around us as I stand and go to find a blanket. There’s one in an unused room nearby and I softly lay it over Atticus, who has since lowered himself to the floor, where he’s now curled up in a ball, facing the window.
I go to leave but pause when I hear his muffled voice from under the blanket, “Thank you, I’ll do my best.”
I consider offering to walk him home but I don’t think he plans on getting up until morning. I leave him in the walkway, suspended.
I’ve met thousands of gods. I’ve observed their creations and seen them die. Some appear from thin air, like Eun-Min and Trevor, and others are stripped of their humanity to become a symbol to the people, like Dimitri and Atticus. I’ve met gods of every domain and met different iterations of the same gods throughout time. Some are large and powerful with hundreds of thousands of followers, like the late Allah. Others have been small and humble, like some of the regional yōkai of Japan.
I’ve known Atticus’ previous manifestations, and he’s not the first to start as a human. Apathy is historically something that people love to project onto others, it’s easier than admitting how much one truly cares. His predecessor was forgotten not long ago, if forgotten is the correct term. She faded a decade after the Rapture, when the world decided it was time to pick up the pieces and start to rebuild. They didn’t have time to pretend not to care.
I’m lucky enough to be able to help forgotten gods pass as well as humans. In the end, god or human, we all face the same fate. What happens after, I’m not sure, and I won’t be sure until all things come to an end. When the other primordials have passed and there is nothing left but me, then I’ll know. Death is the only true constant in life and I’m the only one.
I hold the hand of a young woman as she fades, her body already getting washed out to sea as the others in the room secure the drugs she left behind. Fog rises from the surface of the canals as the sun ascends into the sky, opposite the sea.