Story Stopper

Part VII: Dead Stop

It had been building for a few weeks and although j had for seen it, there was nothing I could do to stop it. A soothsayer is a human being with the extraordinary gift to predict the future but a reaper exists outside time its self and therefore he knows the future.

I remember it in bits and pieces as I do most of my experiences being human. I was a student at Virginia Polytechnic institute in the year 2048.  You'd think there would be flying cars and robots everywhere but not much had changed, really.

The first thing I remember is lounging at the bottom of a staircase that crossed under a bridge and looked out onto a garden. It was there that a couple of students were talking philosophy and though I could see them, there was a man in a long black camel skin coat who stood in the shadow of the bridge. His face obscured, he talked to me of philosophy and as I debated him, I walked over to him and crossed past him and as I walked into the garden, I saw that this man was wearing a Guy Fauks mask which made my human brain think, "what a poser," buy my angel mind was terrified.

The next scene I remember is seeing the man in the mask on the roof of a building and as people passed by, no one seemed to notice. I had just gotten to an art building when I heard a scream from behind me. Several people wearing Guy Fauks masks walked around an island amidst a brick walking path circle with guns drawn. People ran and I ran to a small concrete wall jutting out from the ground like a tree would grow. It had a square base at one end and columns that grew out of the ground like tree trunks along the way up a hill.

In front of me, I saw the panicking art students and in their panic, I saw them looting art supplies like oil base paints and charcoal pencils. I remember thinking to myself, that would be how humanity would act when doom is imminent. All the while, this man in the Guy Fauks mask stood at the top of the building looming like a seven foot tall gaunt monstrocity or a perverted VanGough version of a human gargoyle. Still, no one noticed his presence but me.

As the chaos escalated, someone noticed one of the people in the Guy Fauks masks open and close a briefcase while someone else shouted, "bomb!"

I remember being glad I was on my back behind that end pillar of cement but I also remember thinking if the bomb should go off, how much of this mortal body would be protected from the blast? I remember trying to change positions as the chaos ran rampant and more people tried to take shelter being the slats in this small wall. Still other people next to me, stood next to the wall, watching the bomb squad at work as they arrived.

None of it made very much difference because as the time for the explosion drew nigh, I could feel it in my bones. As the bomb exploded, I crawled out of my physical form and into a world where time had stopped.

Not stopped for real, mind you. Only god can stop the flow of time but more along the lines of the world was on pause like one would pause live TV from a TiVo remote: the program keeps playing but for the moment at least, I am able to view a still image of the world that is already burning in live time.

Ironically, the man on the roof top could still move in this frozen time and at this, it became apparent as to who he was. I had gotten my job from him.

"Good evening, Samael," I said.

Stretching out three pairs of darkened wings, he floated to the ground, leaving his mask on.

"The heat from it is amazing, is it not?" He said.

In the moment the bomb had exploded, the last thing I felt with my human nervous system was the heat and the last thing I saw was a great blue light; it was the lightest shade of blue I had ever seen.

"I have been at this job for a long time, Dolphael," (He pronounced my name slightly differerent than I did) "...and in none of my destructive exploits have I ever seen the awesome power of mankind's own vision of destruction equaled. I reigned down vulcanized sulfer from the skies on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the power of that destruction made me weak but these days, all it takes is the slight convincing, in human form no less, to fit a bomb into a briefcase and set it off. What is the high angel of death to do with himself when his job gets to be this easy?"

As he wandered the frozen scene, he poked and prodded at the stagnant chaos in this vignette from a nightmare. He loomed over those who cowered in fear of the explosion and I found the irony that they were all this close to the true angel of death and the Grim reaper, but still afraid more of the bomb, almost humorous. I say almost, of course because mass death such as this, despite it being god's will and god's personal hand of destruction, is still tragic in both the metaphysical and the physical sense.

Our lord kills indiscriminately but he is the designer and everything he does has a part to play in his master plan. Looking at the way Samael scoped out the destruction, however, made me think that after all this time, making world wide floods, hitting the planet with an asteroid, reigning down burning silver and the list goes on to infinitum, I thought I might have seen a glimmer of joy exuded from the being of Samael.

Even I had to admit that he had become an artist at destruction and the people were almost placed in this vignette of frozen time to make a living work of art. A living work of Goya, mind you, but never-the-less a picturesque vision of the beautifully grotesque avant garde.

In this moment, I remember the times when I was still reaping often and the times I had orchestrated deaths of my own to picturesque horror. I misses those days.

"Well," Samael told me, "My job is done here, time for your reapers to come collect the mess. Good to see you again Dolphael. I miss your early work. Perhaps I'be inspired you with what's happened here. I look forward to the individual encore. Until we meet again, Dolphael."

With that he faded away; like a sand sculpture drying out and falling apart grain by grain. I hated to say it but the truth was, he had inspired me and I couldn't wait for an order from god to end a person before his time. I wasn't going to pass this one onto one of my lesser reapers this time.