ADRIFT

It doesn’t  matter what you think of me , I do not ride a black horse and go around the world with the purpose of taking someone’s life and inflicting extreme pain that comes along with complex human emotions that are way too difficult for me to navigate through and pin down into the very first paragraph. It is the only way to maintain balance in this humongous and chaotic universe.More often than not, I feel that the person who’s soul I’ll be taking does not deserve such an end , but my job description didn’t exactly have inquisitive as the prime quality required.

In case you didn’t already guess, I am death.Most of my time is spent giving orders to grim reapers and delegating work among them, but since I personally don’t have to make the rounds of collecting souls. I have a lot of free time but no one to share it with.It is due to this predicament of my life that I have long since taken an interest in watching human lives because that is the most entertaining, thrilling, and outright depressing , and since I am death itself, I should at least have hobbies that are cliche`.

I visit prominent places on earth, but somehow, the quaint ones have me hooked. There is this coffee shop beside a beautiful beach that I keep visiting.It bursts with people throughout the day.The myriad of conversations that take place have a strange dichotomy that is both similar and varied. Travelers , businessmen, writers and artists, lovers,

children,families, and the lone souls all passing through this tiny shop , leaving the air dense with different fragrances and cacophony of sounds.As I sit there, drenched in that , it feels as if I have lived a thousand lives sitting right here in this coffee shop,and each human leaves me with a different story.

How is it possible, that after so many wars, plagues and arguments that have led humans to the brink of extinction, they still manage to have such vibrant but fractured lives in a world full of hatred and violence?The evil that lurks so close to the surface among broken minds terrifies even a non-entity like me.How can the same species that has Mozart, Gandhi, Mohammad come up with Hitler, and Vlad?Look at them - so full of

themselves and falsely believing that they won’t end up at my feet.It is absurd,but brave too. I marvel at their strength and will that has transcended through civilizations and in spite of everything that has happened to them,they are still  trying,learning,falling in love even amidst so much pain.It is their almost childlike unyielding hope that has kept this species alive. In the end, when they finally face me and see their life pass through in a blaze,I hope that each  one of them feels as if they have done justice to the gifts that were given to them,no matter how

insignificant they might have been, and laid their demons to waste,or learn to live with them.

As I sit here in the thick of my thoughts and completely enthralled by humanity, I am called upon once again to fulfill my duties as Death.It is then that I disentangle myself from this kaleidoscope of emotions, and leave this coffee shop with a bookmark on my thoughts - until next time.