“ Death? Why this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death!...Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.” – F. Forrester Church
It’s five o’ clock, the bright yellow sun shines dimly through a layered quilt of dark grey clouds. A thin white mist licks at the shins of all who dare step outside. In a non-descript faded brick two story apartment complex a shrill scream rings out. Twice more the scream rings out with astonishing clarity yet no one bothers to call for help, no one cares. It’s six o’ clock; the clouds and mist have thickened to the point that even the pigeons have taken roost for fear of accidentally flying into a solid object and severely injuring themselves. A lone violinist still plies his trade in a deserted park. He stands upon a strip of concrete that is cracked and disconnected from the rest of the path. All around him green grass hangs limp with tiny beads of condensed water weighing down their stalks. The all encompassing milky mist hugs his long lanky legs dressed in black silk, tendrils caress his long, bony pale fingers as they quickly move up and down the strings. Standing straight up as though a metal rod is lashed to his back the man is dressed in a pure black suit with a black silk shirt underneath. As this richly dressed man pulls the polished mahogany bow with the precision of a surgeon across the thin strings a haunting melancholy melody ensues. His eyelids are partially closed concealing their black depths which when open suck you in as a black hole would. As he performs for heaven and hell the shadows begin to dance slowly in a circle around him, the mist lazily swirls around him, small tendrils frame his flawless pale face, and pull his jet black shoulder length hair backward gently. Soft minor falls and crescendoing major lifts entice his dark audience, a shrill scream pierces the reverie he has bound the shadows with. The scream belongs to the same woman from one hour earlier only this time it is cut abruptly short. The shadows begin flickering and fading though they continue to tango and endlessly twirl in perfect geometric patterns. Squeezing his eyes tight the violinist is unable to keep a single tear of sorrow from falling, though it never reaches the ground. Knowing duty would soon call he ends his performance with a brilliant minor fall lending the fog a depressing tone. The waltzing shadows gracefully return to their owners and the mist releases him from its calming embrace reluctantly. Bending over the violinist opens a long worn black case and quickly stows away his mahogany violin and bow. Picking up a black leather trench coat and matching fedora, both worn and scarred from use, the man pulls both on and walks toward the building, from where the screams originated. As he walks his tall lanky body slowly fades from sight and mystically reappears in the apartment complex where a recent death has occurred. He grasps a spherical tarnished brass doorknob and cautiously opens the scratched green door to room 6B. Upon his entrance the man immediately becomes claustrophobic under the aura of tension weighing down upon him in this scene of horror and spots a trail of scarlet blood smeared on white tile leading toward a bland white door hanging slightly ajar, a bloody handprint is the only color on the door. A quick scan of the compressed white-walled room allays any fears the man had of any unwanted occupants; the only objects out of place are an overturned vase, now lying shattered on the newly painted tile, and table and obviously the trail of rusting liquid on the tile. Following this gruesome path he comes upon the cooling body of a young blond woman with sapphire blue eyes wide open in shock. Acting swiftly the visitor closes the victim’s eyes and crosses her with his left hand and mouths soundlessly a few phrases in a dead language. “Greth dunh Keptr. Deargth Joifd Nurt.” The door is open. Enter and find peace. A sudden relief in the tension that had been thick enough to cut only moments before alerted the musician his work was done. Standing tall the man once more begins to slowly fade from existence…only he doesn’t return to our world this night. The only thing he leaves behind is a haunting melody that only the dead can hear.