Death's Prayer

A simple short story about the Grim Reaper. I was inspired by "The Book Thief" and "The Pit and the Pendulum".

Time moves at a taunting pace.

Each second dragging onto the length of a year.

The days are endless and maddening.

It's as if demons have risen from their damned depths of Hell

And chosen to bewilder me with the freezing of the very movement of life.

It seems to be just another part,

of this wretched curse.

I wander among the white,

My hands blood soaked,

My back heavy with doomed souls.

I watch the glistening specks of white

Fall to the ground.

Snow, is what they call it.

It moves so slowly....

Each one suspended in the chilling air

To terrorize me.

I peer past the falling frost,

Into a hazy distance,

Where I longed to be.

I wanted to be free of my state,

I wearied the demons with pleas,

In the idle hope that it would change,

anything.

I staggered slowly past a graveyard.

The place where the owners of these soul,

that rest on my back,

Will one day stay.

Envy built up in my dark being,

I wanted nothing more than for my exhausted body

To be lowered into a dark, dark chasm...

There I could rest in eternity's edge.

With each step, I feel a tug on my worn body.

With each tug,  I wonder if I'm closer to the end.

I often ponder why.

Why had I been chosen,

To suffer humanities' deepest burdens.

Humans make their own burdens.

They make war,

bombs,

guns,

destruction,

And cause me.

My eyes are worn from seeing much blood, much pain, and much terror.

My feet are bloodied from walking a distance, much more than the Earth consisted of.

My arm were blistered and sore, for pulling souls out of their home's required great effort.

My back was hunched permanently, in constant pain, for the weight of souls were more than Atlas himself was forced to bear.

I look up to see my lifelong companion.

The sky.

Perhaps the only thing that was existent before I.

The sky was now a melancholy shade of blue. Not quiet black, but close.  Slowly, through the breaks in clouds and gaps of snow, I could see it.  A small star.

That was one human tradition I quiet fancied.

Wishing on a star.

How..... hopeful?

As if, wishing on some merciful God would bring salvation!  I believed in no God, for what just being would torture me so?

However, if it is prayer that will help; why not try?  

If even once?

I fell to my knees for the first time and closed my over-worked eyes.

My wish, Oh dear God, was simple.

I wanted for MY death to come.

I hoped that I would finally die.

I prayed that I would no longer be

Death.

Reviews

[Arien Bleuefire]

this, I think, is my favorite poem that i read from you thus far. the insight into the darker side of human nature is incredible and sadly, unbelievably accurate. The new perspective of death, opposed to wanting to take their souls and wanting more people to die (like in Tales of Beedle the Bard The Tales of 3 brothers) is really interesting. It's strange and eye-opening to think that death was forced to take his job and that he loathes it. Humans always believe Death to be mean, cold, evil, wicked and yearning to kill. The descritions and allusions of this poem add a certain dimension, like this is really coming from death himself. And his prayer at the end adds a nice touch of irony. FANTASTIC write.

[Layla J Omorose]

This is very good especially for someone of your age. With that being said there are just a few grammatical errors such as comma splices (meaning that you place commas in a sentence when they do not need to be there basically) and run-ons. For instance in your first paragraph when you write "It's as if, demons have risen from their damned depths of Hell,
And chosen to bewilder me, with the freezing, of the very movement of life."
There are comma spices here. It seems to me that there are two sentences here and by adding the commas you turn the sentence into a run on or maybe it would even work better as one sentence without all the commas. So my advice would be just to read it through again or maybe come back to it later and see what could be done differently to make the flow of the story perfect for the reader. However I do like the story, you reminded me of myself when I first started writing so long ago. But this is good and just keep up the writing and you will get better...if you have any questions about writing you can feel free to message me and i will answer you the best I can.

[Amber-The-Panda]

It's funny how it was inspired by stories from school. lol :)

[Petal]

LOVE IT!!!! it reminds me of The Book Theif and it was very very very very descripitive with color and objects that surrounded death himself. It also descibed his feelings about himself and how much he wish that one day he could be at peace.