Chapter 16

“Mark? Did you think Colleen Bell liked me tonight?” She was feeling just a bit insecure. It surfaced from time to time. I chalked it up to being homeless. Somehow she still worried that people saw through her now, back to the person that wandered the streets cold and hungry. I could have told her that was nonsense, but her mind would play that one trick on her from time to time.

“Baby, I thought she hung on to your every word. Even if I wanted to add something to the conversation, I couldn’t have because she wouldn’t have noticed that I was even there. It’s the movie thing, Honey. People think what you do at the studio is glamorous and exciting. They don’t realize that we have jobs just like everyone else. And that makes you special in her eyes.”

Abby couldn’t let it go. “But do you think she really liked ME? Set aside that we work for a movie studio. Do you think we could be friends?” Abby hadn’t had the courage to make new friends since the last set abandoned her at the first inkling of trouble.

“Baby, I think that Colleen and Millie would love to be friends with you. I understand that the Bells are very wealthy, so you have that in common, and they know all the best places to shop, so you could get acquainted with all the better retail opportunities with them. Colleen looked like someone who might be lonely to me. It may be that she needs a girlfriend just to be able to have lunch, buy a new dress, have her hair done, but make an adventure out of it, or just have someone to call up and talk with from time to time.

“I think you two could be good for each other.” I could feel Abby smile at the thought of making a friend. “I’ll tell you something else,” I said, with a bit of emotion. “I bet Millie needs a new girlfriend too.”

Then, to take her mind off of Colleen and Millie, I kissed her like a husband kisses his wife just before he picks her up and takes her clothes off. We rolled around in the dark for long time exhausting ourselves, and then Abby and I had identical dreams staring Death.

“ ... you won’t be here long...”

The death voice spoke to us both. Abby and I were naked. We fell asleep still naked, following wonderful loving. Abby was pressed hard into my side as we drifted off to never-never land, and our sleep was just getting deep and quiet when Death showed up.

We were no longer in bed. Abby and I were floating towards the burning pit, over the smoking hellish, place of darkness when the voice interrupted. “You won’t be here long...” It sounded like something between a howl and a pitiful moan. Abby whimpered into my shoulder, hiding her eyes from the obscenity of Death’s presence. Her fear seemed to empower the wraith.

“Though I couldn’t see the images he was broadcasting into Abby’s head, or hear his words, I could tell that he was tormenting my love. Again and again, Abby wailed in fear, and each cry seemed to thrill the demon Death. But he wasn’t thrilled when I chose to stand up and fight him. Hurling insults like they were no heavier than sunflower seeds, I condemned Death for every evil in the world since time immemorial. The pace and fury of my accusations dented, scarred and pitted the scales that protected Death from the horrible army of enraged souls that surrounded him.

When I challenged Death to show me his power, he shrank away from us instead. Abby watched as Death declined, still clinging to me with all her might, as I demanded Death come out from behind his vaporous substance and meet me face to face and fist to fist. My fury was slowly transforming the hellish place of death into an open field, full of blooming wild flowers, and dancing wheat. The sun blotted out the brutal darkness of Death, and soothing music began to drown out the wails of soulless demons, condemned for all eternity to a darkness darker than black.

Unused to being called out, Death danced just out of reach, shimmering with ever decreasing brightness, as my words wounded his putrefying corpse. Eventually Death stopped pretending to threaten us, summoning his waning energies to hide himself from my vicious onslaught of anger.

“Be gone you pathetic, protoplasmic, slime. You have no power over us. We are alive and you are as dead as those rotting scales that drop from your disgusting carcass. Crawl back into the pit of darkness from which you climbed and never bother us again.”

Eventually I could hear music. The sound started far away, but closed in on us with a song that touched our souls and smoothed the ragged places in our hearts, torn open by Death’s demented dirge. It was plainly obvious that Death hated the song, for the howl he set up was awful.

The walls of hell seemed to shake with the shrieks Death made as he was sucked from our presence. It was as if a giant, universal vacuum cleaner was turned on and directed at Death’s illusory form. Little by little, great chunks of his decomposing body were torn away, disappearing into the eternal ether. When his entire self was gone the music slowly died out, leaving only a single, far off quiver of a voice reminding us that we were loved.

Abby held on for dear life as I waited to see what other tricks death would try to pull on us, but there were none. Our essence suddenly sped up. We were sucked away from the pit at the last possible instant before we would have fallen over into it. Abby and I were whisked straight up away from the flames and softly deposited back in our beds, right back where we started, untouched, uninjured, and unbroken.