And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
Edgar Allan Poe
I didn’t think about death much then, because I lived in a nearly impregnable fortress.
I was healthy and observant and had two competent parents who protected me from the pervasive stupidity, lassitude and aggression of the human species. Doctors vaccinated me against infections, both rare and commonplace, and civilization provided for nearly all of my needs.
As I grew to manhood, death was peripheral, something that lurked in the shadows and preyed on the weak, the foolish and the unlucky.
I had no reason to fear it.
Every now and then, I’d attend a funeral, but death never held my attention for very long. Once the coffin was lowered into the dirt, it was time to move on, to get busy with the living, as they say.
My grandparents died, aunts and uncles passed on, classmates died in gruesome car accidents, but I shed the specter of death each time without too much effort. I carried caskets to burial sites many times, and I even once wrote a brief essay for a funeral program.
Life seemed limitless, inexhaustible, infinite.
Still, I felt as though something wicked wandered silently beyond my field of vision, something that threatened everything I knew and held dear.
As I aged, the weeping and wailing that accompanied the obsequies of funeral services worked upon my mind, and I began to linger about the tombs and graveyards after the ceremonies had long been over.
At first, I attributed my interest in such matters to a natural curiosity about decomposition and decay, but it was more than that.
I had no way to verbalize what I felt, only that there was a barely discernible rumble rising in the earth beneath my feet.
Following one particularly somber burial of someone far too young for the grave, I lingered in the church sanctuary as the sun gave way to a maudlin moon drifting above the black tops of oaks, maples, and poplars.
At length, I heard a metallic groan as someone pushed open the doors of the church, allowing an icy breeze filled with the scents of autumn into the sanctuary.
I heard footsteps in the vestibule and made my way to the aisle to escape the barriers the pews represented. Oddly, I felt unnerved by the interruption of my solitude, almost as if someone had violated my reveries with evil intent.
The figure who entered was difficult to discern in the dimly lit refuge, but he put flame to a small kerosene lantern and hung it from a coat rack.
He was tall, exceedingly so, and his hair was thin and disheveled by the elements of a coming storm. His face was gaunt, the remnants of a skull wrapped in rotten grey silk.
“Good evening,” he said, his words echoing across the space like a multitude of black bats.
I nodded toward him but found I could not speak.
He removed his topcoat and draped it over a mahogany church pew, and then slipped a pair of silver spectacles from the pocket of a satin vest the color of blood.
He placed the spectacles on his nose and peered down at me as if from a great height, the lurid flames lapping at his emaciated physiognomy.
“You hear it now, do you not?” he said.
I managed but a muffled whimper.
“Yes, I believe you do,” he said, straightening his tie with luxurious fingers that unfolded like the forelegs of a mantis.
As we stood regarding one another like predator and prey, I began to tremble.
“Are you afraid?” he said.
In the grip of utter terror, I struggled to utter even a syllable.
“You should not be afraid,” he said. “It is merely the way of things. I bring you tidings from beyond.”
“You are death, are you not?” I finally said.
He laughed.
“I am the custodian of the fortress of forever,” he said. “I am known by many names.”
A breeze blew into the church and extinguished the slender flame inside the lantern.
It was now full dark, and I stood with the prince of gloom just a few feet away.
“Have you come for me?” I asked.
“No, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Halloween,” he said.
Selah.