–This entry courtesy of Grim Reaper No. 3,425,167
Do you understand my brothers and me?
No mortal understands us.
We are greeted with tears.
Do you think we like tears?
Do you think we do not feel the poignancy of the tears of children?
Do you believe our hearts are stone to the tears of maidens?
Can you imagine that we have no pity for the families torn apart by our visits?
Why else would we pause in the middle of our entrusted task, unless we were waiting for your pleas?
We are not cold. We are not blind to tears nor deaf to sobs. We hear your every word as clearly as we see into your hearts.
And we cannot do your bidding.
We answer to a different call, and when your pleas do not align with that force to which we respond, we cannot comply, though we hear your every word.
You talk of the bravery of those who face us. You call them heroes. We have yet to hear you talk of the bravery that we possess.
No matter. When we accept our task, we accept all that comes with it, including your fear, your hatred, your dread, your nightmares.
All of this resistance that is so unnecessary to this, the most fundamental of duties and tasks. We are the other side of that which you revere. How can you worship one without the other?
No matter. Big mysteries are meant to be just that–mysteries.
Is it any wonder that when we come we take a moment when our task is complete to find some pleasure or joy?
Inside your homes, you keep gadgets that are miraculous to us. There are few things I enjoy more than a good tv show on a good flatscreen tv.
Yet why is it that just as we are stealing a moment to relish the seldom-tasted pleasures of this physical realm, the evil ones amongst you must come to fight or yell or argue with us and to demand that we leave?
To be misunderstood by even the evil shows how deeply this mortal resistance goes.
All right. I will leave.
Before I depart, I will give you a gift. I will tell you how it will go.
At first, you will feel that your heart has split in two. This is not a symbol or a metaphor–this is what you feel, a sharp, stabbing pain that slices your heart.
You will say that time will heal. And it will. But only if you let yourself feel that your heart has been split. If you ignore this pain or push it away, it will linger, and a dozen years later, this ache in your chest will have been stitched into you.
Your heart is broken. Feel it so that you can heal it.
This is how it will go. You will at first feel that you are alone in your grief.
You will feel your own aching heart so acutely that you will be blind to all other pain.
You will feel too sad for games.
Then, through your solitary sadness, you will begin to notice another. You will come together, as family, as friends.
Your hearts will be softened. Even the toughest of you will open through the depth of this sorrow. You are not alone.
You are family–sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, cousins, aunts, uncles. Friends. You are part of the human family. You are part of the family of mortals.
Have you not yet discovered miracles?
This is how it will go.
You will spend time together. You will feel connection.
You will even continue on with life: meeting new people, completing goals, learning new skills. You will love again.
You will rest in the sound of each other’s voice.
You will find comfort in family.
You will feel awe at the miracles around you: a beautiful daughter.
A loving wife.
This is how it will go.
If you are wise and lucky, you will remember. You will heal your heart, yet you will not forget: you will keep open these pathways that have been carved by my scythe. You are precious. And one day I will come for you.
But that day is not today. And a small young evil boy who is angry that I came for his grandmother, a young boy who does not yet understand, has insisted that I must leave. I have told you how it will go.
Do you understand now?
