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                         Underground eXperts United

                                 Presents...

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         [  Memento Mori  ]                        [  By Blackfire  ]


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                              Memento mori

I slowly turn around, facing her. She is more beautiful than I'd ever
imagined her to be. Her hair is long and black, her face pale, yet
wonderful. Her eyes - they are of a color impossible to name. Deep eyes. Not
piercing ones, but deep. Her look enters you, goes beyond whatever you'd
imagined was inside of yourself. Her clothes are hard to see in the pale
moonlight, but it's some kind of cape, black as the shadows in the darkest
of the night. Behind her I can almost see one of her wings, neatly folded
down behind her back. She is the perfection of beauty.
   "So, you have finally come."
   I throw away the half-smoked cigarette, finding it unfitting right now.
   "Were you surprised? You were the one who called me."
   Indeeed I was. I summoned her, and now I can't come up with a reason why
I did so in the first place. And now she is here. "I thought you'd be too
busy..."
   I feel uncomfortable, sweat starting to form at every surface of my body.
   She looks straight at me, almost laughing. "Right now, I am both here and
a million other places. One summoning more or less means little to me, even
though it means everything for the ones I visit." I look at her, realizing
how foolish my question had been. She is not like me, or you, or anybody
else. She is...
   "Please, tell me why you called for me. Your turn hasn't come yet, by
far."
   "I wish I knew. I thought I had it all figured out, all the questions I
were to ask you. But now I remember nothing."
   "Are you afraid?"
   "Yes."
   I am afraid. I am shaking, wishing I hadn't throwed the cig away after
all. I am terrified. I want to die. No, that is the only thing I do not
want. I want... I don't know what I really want.
   "Are you afraid... of me?"
   "No."
   Then, what am I afraid of? After all, I had chosen this place because it
was a safe place, a spot where I'd feel comfortable. And she is not scary in
any way. Maybe a little, but that is not the reason my spine feels like it's
breaking apart as I tremble like an earthquake. The reason... the reason
is... and I suddenly know why I am scared.
   "The answers. I am afraid of the answers."
   "Do you want me to leave? You will, after all, meet me again later
anyway. Maybe then you will be more ready than now?"
   She makes a move, as if to return to where she came from.
   "Don't leave me."
   All the questions I had so carefully crafted, they are all gone. I don't
remember any of them... except one. The big one. The most important.
   "You are not human... You are an Angel, the Angel Of Death. Still, you
Angels have emotions like us, you feel pleasure and pain just like us. And
someday, long after the suns have faded away, you too will die. When that
time comes, who will come for you? Who will lead the Angel of Death when you
die? And to what place will you be taken?"
   She looks up at the stars, as if they would have an answer ready for her.
Her eyes are now silvery grey. A single tear runs down her face, making its
way down to the ground, Then another one comes. She realizes I am staring at
her and turns away. But I can still hear her silent weeps.
   And she answers me.
   "All these years... since the moment of Creation I have lead men and
animals through the Valley of Darkness, into their new afterlife. Millions
of years I have been who I am. Angel of Death. Taker of lives. And never I
even considered myself dying. I have lived for so long that I have taken my
life for granted. Many of the greatest men I guided were crying all the way,
and I thought they were stupid and foolish for not expecting me to come for
them too. Yet I am no better myself.
   I don't know who will come for me, and I don't know what place I'll come
to. But one thing I now know, and it is that when my time comes, I will be
crying like nobody ever have done before. And my tears will become rain in
heaven."

She is gone, and I just stand there, looking at the stars as she did. For an
eternity I just watch them as they float by, standing there, wondering.
   Until dawn.


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 uXu #474              Underground eXperts United 1998              uXu #474
                ftp://etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Zines/UXU
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