chapter 2 of the worst novel ever written
when I was a kid, I watched a VHS of fairy tales from the public library (my parents were ALWAYS big supporters of the public sector!) about a man who had wandered through a mysterious door in the wall near his town and on the other side he lived a fabulous life as a rich man, which was totally a change from his life as a poor shepherd boy on the other side. One day, after years of living a happy life, the man noticed another door in the wall, considering what a trade up in life he'd gotten the last time he opened a wall-door, he went for it and was right back where he started off... impoverished and in his original world and depressed, because the door disappeared for good and he could never get back to his happy life...
as a grown up, I read the book Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, and when the boy went to the other side of the wall THERE he had fabulous adventures and lived happily ever after... he found the love of his life, hung out with cloud pirates and fended off wicked witches and became the king!
I had to wonder... if I pursued Death any further, which shepherd boy would I be?
Death stayed in my mind though... I swear that I would catch glimpses of him in the newscasts from time to time smiling out of the tv at me (which actually, to my parents' delight, got me watching the news on a regular basis!)... but then again, isn't the news always about death and destruction?
I thought I caught a glimpse of him at my great grandmother's funeral as well... not that he didn't stick out like a sore thumb (much like I always have) in the sea of curly light brown hair, freckles and blue eyes... he winked at me from the back before vanishing.
I started to see him in reflections of store fronts, in the backgrounds in mirrors and passing me on the other side of the street from time to time. I was starting to wonder if I was becoming sex starved and was imposing his face into strange locations like cartoon characters do with food when stranded on desert islands. I was kind of hoping that my vibrator would start looking kind of like Death, as warped as that sounds... beats porn ANY day!
I hadn't tried to kill myself again, because last time I did it took 19 hours for me to wake up and I started to ponder the fact that I really didn't want to die yet. Maybe that's why I don't deserve love- I'm too chicken to take the risks associated with it.
Around September I quit my job at the hotel because I got in an argument with my boss over something stupid and neither of us would back down. I walked out the door after telling him that I'd like to see HIM do my job since he didn't even know how the computer worked... pretty immature of me, I know, but I've never bragged about being GOOD at adulthood. I started working at the liquor store around the corner instead- they hired me on the spot because I had a valid liquor license and an employee had just left earlier that week after a robbery attempt and they needed someone to cover the night shift.
Night shift was fine with me- I've always been more of a night person anyways, and now I wouldn't have to stop by the liquor store on my way home anymore.
I started to adjust to my new routine... working from 6pm until 2am every night, closing up the store, heading next door to the Mexican bar and drinking until the place shut down at 3am (state law) and then heading home to finish up whatever I'd picked up at work. Wake up at 10 or 11 and start the day all over again- at least my spanish was getting better and better, which is probably on the short list of perks of living in the area of town where I live other than affordability!
Soon, Death started to show up in my dreams. This made me wish that I could have the nice, sexy dreams that people have in movies instead of the odd and disturbing Dali-esque dreams that I tend to have. One time Death was running an all night convenience store that I ended up at with my high school nemesis while on the run from an FBI agent who thought that we'd stolen the Mona Lisa from the local museum of art (note: I don't live in Paris)... the FBI agent inexplicably had absolutley no face but DID have a beard. Another time, Death was a farmer who helped hide me from the Neo-Nazis that I'd accidentally pissed off by stealing the clothes from their effigy of president Obama because I had gone to school naked. Every time Death appeared in my dreams he was courteous and helpful and smiled at me.
This just made him more and more attractive to me... Death had to be manipulating his image in my dreams... right? That was the sort of power that Death would have other than collecting departed souls, I'd guess.
I did have a bit of hope though... as anybody who took too many spanish classes knows, Dia de los Muertos occurs every year right after Halloween and is a celebration of the dead... altars are made to the deceased, picnics are held in graveyards and skeleton decorations and candies abound. I was guessing that if Death was going to walk the earth on any night, Dia de los Muertos would be his night of choice. I would have originally gone with Halloween, but it's become so commercial that the beliefs behind it have died, and All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day just sound too churchy to inspire a possibly necrophiliac encounter.
Was having sex with Death a form of necrophilia? I'd really like to know because that wasn't ever on my list of perversions to dive into.
As Dia de los Muertos rolled around, I got prepared... I got a haircut, a bikini wax (done at home... those things hurt like a bitch!) and even painted my barely existing nails.
When the night came, I worked my normal shift, selling a bit more Corona, Modelo and Dos Equiis than usual, and then went next door for a drink. I sat in the same booth that I usually do and ordered a Negra Modelo, which is pretty par for the course... if you know what you like why go for the shitty light beer? I had my fingers crossed as I drank and was pretty thrilled when my guesses were right... the hottest man, dead or alive, slid into the seat on the other side of the booth and asked me why I hadn't ordered two.
I wanted to reply, or at least look somewhat smooth... instead I dropped my lit cigarette onto my lap and dumped my beer on the table. And instead of saying something sexy, I ended up saying "oh fuck!"
Death laughed and helped me clean up the dumped beer as I frantically searched for my cigarette in hopes that it wouldn't hit the floor and therefore be rendered unsmokable by the sticky film of spilled beers.
"I didn't mean to scare you!" he said, still laughing. "I really thought that you'd want to see me after you gate crashed my world to hit on me a while back!"
"I DO want to see you... I've just been to chicken to try again!" I snapped, probably a bit more angrily than I wanted to, but my cigarette had just burned a hole in my skirt, and probably my leg as well from the feel of things. "I really don't want to die permanently and I don't know any other way of getting ahold of you, so I really kind of feel like I'm stuck."
Death smiled and replied "it's not your fault, I didn't expect for you to understand how things work, but I DO have my ways... I just kind of wanted to know whether or not you were really into me before I showed up to pursue you. I'm not really that used to coming into the real world of interactions here. There are loopholes, but I'm not allowed to abuse them."
This got me curious... loopholes to Death's realm so that I could get with him? This sounded like fun- I've always been one for the exploitation of loopholes!
We sat and chatted for a while- the basic getting to know you stage so that you don't feel like a slut when you hook up in an hour or so because the person is no longer a stranger. I learned a few important things, like that Death prefered to go by Julian if he had to pretend to be a normal person, and that he lived in his own timeline (if Death CAN live) and that he'd seen all of human history and had met all kinds of historical and famous people who I could only DREAM of talking to (and knowing my dreams, they'd be trying to kill me with a swordfish or something) and that he hung out with them on a regular basis.
"Have you ever tried to get with Marilyn Monroe?" I asked... not even out of jealousy, because how can I begin to compare to her?
"She's still holding a grudge because she thinks that I'm responsible for her death, so she won't get within 10 feet of me," Death replied.
"That is so COOL that you get to hang out with everyone from every time! There aren't many mysteries in your world are there?"
"You're the first mystery that I've encountered for a while... someone who actually wants to be around me. The suicidal just want to get past me and get on with being dead and everyone else is usually pretty distraught about my showing up. You are the first person for a long time who's hit on me."
About this time, the bartender announced that the bar was closing and that we needed to leave.
"Your place or mine?" Death asked.
"You have a place?" I was astonished. "I won't be dead if I go there will I?"
"No, I can protect you from that... let's go, you'll be fascinated!"
We walked around behind the building to the area that was enclosed with a privacy fence that kept everyone from seeing the dumpsters... normally this would make me nervous because I would assume that any man who would lead a woman back to a place like this at this time of night was probably a serial killer, but Death had told me that I wasn't going to die. I was kind of tipsy anyways, so it seemed like a good idea.
By this time I had started to wonder if there was a gate to the land of the dead behind my place of employment that I'd never heard of... what were we doing back here? And Death came in for a kiss, so I shut up and kissed him.
As we kissed I felt a cold sensation... not cold and slimy, like mud or leftovers, but cold and tingly, like snowflakes on bare flesh. I opened my eyes and saw that we were surrounded by absolute nothingness... no light, no breeze, NOTHING...
"is THIS where you live?" I asked... somewhat horrified.
"no... just wait."
)
this thread wins so hard... 
that's one genre that I flat out don't understand somehow 
