Hold Your Breath

The nurses' station at Memorial General was quiet at just after midnight. Beatrice, with her silver/blue washed hair, was making her rounds through the corridors; insuring patients were sleeping soundly. Sleep was absolutely necessary to the healing process, after all. Poking her head in each room, insuring lights were turned off and people were tucked securely into their blankets. All seemed to be as it should be. Nadine sat at the station, her three month old issue of Cosmo in hand. It would be her turn to do the rounds next time around, but things were quiet as one could expect on the ward, so rounds tended to go quickly.

Ashton Marks lay in his bed, eyes nearly closed but not quite. He wasn't asleep when Beatrice stuck her head into his room, but he didn't turn to look at the intruder. He hadn't been able to see anyone in his room in weeks, his eyes had already failed. Black hair plastered with sweat from the very action of continuing to live, he wasn't comfortable, but this level of discomfort was acceptable. There was at least no pain. The pain was the worst part. He kept waiting, kept wishing, but the one visitor he wanted never seemed to come.

At 12:45, Nadine looked up from her magazine, Beatrice had gone to the bathroom, and there was a gentleman standing at the nurses' station. One could say gentleman because he wore a black suit, a white button down shirt, and a tie. If she looked, she would have seen his shoes were black as well and shined until one could see faces in them. While she sat there trying to make sense of his appearance, he withdrew a small book from his coat and thumbed through it slowly, bringing his thumb to his tongue before doing so. She still hadn't found her voice to say anything when he said:

"Marks, Ashton. I understand he is here. Might you direct me to where?" His voice barely seemed to crawl from beyond his lips, yet each word was heard clearly under the florescent lights of the ward. Nadine blinked at him before finally managing to say,

"Visiting hours are over." Her voice trembled in a way she hadn't heard since she was a little girl telling her mother she had cracked her favorite china plate.

"Yes, my dear," he didn't seem to be bothered by her words, his voice still soft and yet suspiciously cultured, a smile on the edges of his lips reaching up to eyes a strange shade of hazel. "I am aware. However, I'm sure you've realized that visiting hours have nothing whatever to do with me." He shut his book with an echoing snap and tucked it securely back in his suit jacket. It didn't bulge as one would expect, just disappeared into the shadows at his chest. "Mr. Marks, if you please." He repeated his request.

A ripple ran down the hallway, Nadine shivered and the man turned his head to look down the darkened hallway. "Well, it appears I will not be needing directions. A pleasure to speak with you, my dear." Then he turned, his step sounding like a heartbeat instead of the expected click of heels on tile, to go down the hall. Nadine found herself gripping the edge of the desk, her knuckles and face white, when Beatrice returned from the restroom.

"I think I just met Death," she breathed. Beatrice only nodded.

"Well, he does come around here fairly often. You were bound to meet him eventually."

"You mean," Nadine's seemed as if she might start to cry at any moment, the tears in the edge of her eyes, chest hitching just slightly.

"Yes, I've met him. You can't stop him, so don't try. Sometimes he comes to visit; sometimes he comes to escort." Beatrice then settled down in her chair and started a game of Solitaire on the computer. Nadine looked at Beatrice's back with bulging eyes before starting to cry, burying her face in her hands. How could Beatrice be so blasé about the whole thing? "Sweetie," Bea turned around and wrapped her arm around her younger companion. "He's just a part of this business like we are. You get used to him after a while. Don't think on it too much."

Ashton heard the door and felt the all too welcome chill as it wafted across the room toward him, followed by the feeling of a hand on his. He opened his eyes a little more, trying to make out the shadowed shape above him.

"Is it time?" he asked desperate for relief.

"It is indeed, good Sir," once again that soft cultured voice. "My apologies for the length of your wait, but surely you understand I cannot deviate from the dictates of my appointed schedule." Death held out one pale hand and a small bottle, cerulean blue with a white wax stopper, appeared in his palm. "Now I'm sure you're quite ready to see this business concluded, so shall we?"

"One question," Ashton gasped out. "Will I go to heaven?"

"I'm merely the reaper, Sir, sorting is done by an entirely different department." The same indulgent smile he used on Nadine was at the edge of his lips. "Now, if you're quite ready, just breathe into the bottle." He pulled the stopper from the bottle and held it near Ashton's lips as the old man breathed out for the last time. His heart stopped and the monitor began to cry foul. Beatrice hustled into the room seconds later as Death put the stopper back in the bottle and checked the name off his list.

The elderly nurse stopped in the doorway looking at Death's back. He was all shadows to her eyes. "Is there any hope?"

"No, Madame, there is not," he assured her. The bottle disappeared into thin air like the book disappeared into his jacket. He moved to walk past her, the lights seeming to dim with his presence. "It is, as usual, a pleasure to serve." Then he was gone. Beatrice walked across the room and shut off the heart monitor. Ashton Marks died at 12:48. No one could say it was anything but a mercy. He had no hope of getting better and the fact he lasted as long as he did was nearly unbelievable. However, now his life was over. Everyone could breathe a little easier.

Nadine found herself looking for him. He was a regular visitor according to Beatrice, meaning he would have to come back again. Each time someone died on her watch, she held her breath as if it would help him to appear. Nothing. A year went by and he began to finally fade from her mind.

It had not been raining when she started to work, but by the time she made the interstate, rain was pouring down. Sheeting until the road ahead was mostly obscured and what was not shifted unsteadily as if the world itself wobbled drunkenly. She hunched over the steering wheel, straining to see ahead of her. Putting her foot on the break, she tried to slow down and the car skidded on the water. Spinning hard until she was facing the wrong direction in traffic. Another car, caught by the weather itself, plowed into her.

Her head bounced off the steering wheel and fiberglass crunched all around her, window glass shattering. Leaned across the steering wheel, blood running down her face in crimson rivers, her half aware eyes saw him standing on the side of the road seemingly unbothered by the rain. Ears ringing Nadine could somehow hear his steps like a softly thudding heartbeat as he moved across the soaked pavement toward her. He reached through the broken window to run his fingers along her face.

"No matter how you look for me, my dear, you will never see me coming," his tone chided her gently for her obsession.

"Is it time?" Her lips barely moved but the question hung in the air between them, as it had between him and so many others.

"No, my dear." he drew back up to his full height, a shadow the rain fell through. "I am the Reaper and I only reap when the time is right." Red and white lights appeared down the road coming toward her. "Your saviors come. Hold fast to your breath."

The silver rain cut through the shadowy figure until he was gone leaving her gasping for breath as the ambulance pulled up on the shoulder.

Death stood back from the accident, his black book in hand untouched by the still driving rain. Beside Nadine's name, he made the mark for visitation. After all, sometimes he visited, sometimes he escorted. Today was a visit. Tomorrow it might be to escort. It really depended on how she held to her breath.