A man laid on the dusty grounds of Well street. Taking in all mother earth could offer. Dark crimson blood pooled around , walling him in like a brick fence. His clothes spewed far and wide apart like food eaten by dogs and his glory only covered by a tiny piece of clothing. Dust rose, blowing away from his nostrils, rising steadily, it mixed about with the cool breeze of the night.
At the end of Well street, a couple walked in. The girl shrieking on stumbling on the heap on the floor, her legs going on it's tiptoes, dainty. The older man accompanying her looked on with a straight face. Sighing, he used a hand to cloth the girl's eyes and led her away from the scene, making a conscious effort not to step on the blood which splattered round the street resembling the canvas of an amateur artist.
Moments later, a man stepped through, carrying a black leather briefcase. His eyes rowdy and roaming at every inch and nook of the street. He saw the heap, the mass of man tethering between the land of the living and the gates of hell. He bent as his heart imploded him to help, his restless mind in opposition. The mind winning the invisible battle as he was forced to stand. His ghostly hands gripping his briefcase harder. His problems were much bigger compared to this, for she was coming for him, as she did his brother. He blanketed his heart and turned away–after all, all live must come to an end; just like his brother's. It doesn't matter when.
His shoes echoing as he fled down the street.
The moon has begun receding into the sky, and as it's illuminating light faded, so did the man. Like a Vampire exposed to the sun, his lifespan burned to the nil, when a scream tore, more like exploded through the street. Through the hooded light, a woman pale as the milk of an old goat and frail as a twig, ran down the street frantically, stopping before the body. Tears already streaming down her eyes as she accessed the situation. Another scream begging from deep within her throat to bust forth and fill the darkness of the dawn, held back barely by her slender hands. Her legs tentatively prodded the body, and as no movement in sight, more tears gushed from her slanted heavily mascaraed eyes.
She squatted in a hurry and prodded the body furthermore. The body did not stir. Groaning, she turned the man over and held back the bile.
"Hey Mister," she said, her voice uneasy, almost shouting. "Are you ok, Mister? Mister?"
The man didn't bulge.
Breathing through her mouth, she puffed in as much air as she could that her mouth formed a o, placed her arm under him and rose him to a sitting position, his head at an awkward angle. She saw, running down the man mouth, a stream of uninterrupted saliva. The liquid dropped to his chest and disappeared, mixing up with the dry crusty blood. His face had blood and cuts all over that she'd to hold it like a baby's head.
"Please Mister be ok. What should I do?" she cried out.
Pushing her head under his armpit, in between the odor of blood and dirt and death which forced itself on her. She deeply smelled all this until his arm was balanced securely against her shoulders. She lifted.
The woman performed that singular action so many times that she lost count. Each time a more embarrassing failure than the last. She lacked the upper body strength to lift this man and she could only pity herself. She turned around, wishing to see a shadow hurrying by but she was the only living being present.
Fear of death drove their way into her mind. His breathing was just and impassive. After facing so much death, she didn't want to experience such again. Even if he was a stranger to her. But this stranger had a face, maybe a wife waiting for him, a child or children, parents and relatives, people who loved him. This stranger was a person and the death that came before was on his way now.
The knowledge that she could help this man escape what has haunted her filled her with strength and she rose again.
She held him in a standing position and her body exacted so much energy that she thought she would faint. Her legs wobbled but she was determined and she placed it firmly against the ground. Groaning like the engine of a beat-up trunk, she began walking. And as she walked, one couldn't tell who carried who; if she was carrying the man or the man was carrying her. She transversed the street slowly like a tortoise backing it's comrade.
When she exacted herself to speak again, it was from a place of the heart. "I promise your Mister that I will save you, ...and I will. I will. You will be fine."
****
It was darkness. Total darkness. Pool of black liquid which strung the mind captive dragging it through murky floors.
Maybe, this was what hell felt like. Cobly found himself thinking. What the afterlife was all about. Concorting darkness which stirs the soul and made one ponder until infinity, life choices. Death was darkness. But this kind of darkness wasn't the one you sleep off to after a tiring day, no, this kept you on your tippy toes, anticipating, knowing that something lurks and, having to wait for that which lurks underneath to show it's face. But as the darkness is for eternity, so is the mystery of the monster's face and so is the edginess. Death is darkness. It encompassed every part of one and Cobly wondered if life had been lived in darkness all through. Darkness and clawing thoughts swarming through one's mind.
Cobly reasoned that if death consisted on pondering one's life choices then he will be thinking for the rest of whenever. And thinking was pain and torment because his life choices were always regretted. That what was death was anyway; torment. No rest in life and no rest in death. Cobly thought about his headstone if he'd one. The 'RIP' boldly written on it and how it only served to console the living because 'RIP' doesn't encompass in the slightest what death is, what he was experiencing. It is a far cry to what this death is.
Death is pain and his whole mind was burning. Itching and bursting with tormenting thoughts. Was it his mind or his body in pain? But he had no body or could see no body, only he knew he existed, only because he could think, review and tear into his past actions. If only he could get a glimpse of what his body was like in the afterlife or the composition of his soul. It was like if his mind was the only thing alive, lost and searching in a wide abysmal of blackness. Floating through everything and nothing. Death is searching for nothing.
Cobly struggled against his situations and these ideas; that this will be his eternity, that there was nothing more. He was a strong man and he did what any strong man does– oppose. He felt a jerking motion. This jerking motion was done by his body or this composition of his soul. He needed to break free, to see through this darkness and find out what this all was.
He struggled against whatever binded him and he knew he was edging. Edginess and digging his way out from this unending tunnel. He fought until he threw open an eye and the most beautiful of lights flooded immediately into his Iris, effectively chasing away the remains of the scaring darkness that had plagued him. Maybe, death was light.