Metal crumpled. Glass burst. Then nothing.
No pain came with the dark, only a wrongness, the way a room goes strange when a clock stops. When my eyes opened I stood beside my car, or what remained of it, the hood folded like a paper fan someone had stepped on.
“Is this what death looks like?” I asked the empty road.
“Death? Not quite.”
A man’s voice, deep, unhurried, British. The air beside me organized itself into a Harry Styles lookalike, warm smile, beautiful brown eyes.
“You’re not quite dead yet, my dear. Not exactly alive, either.”
“Who are you? You’re not Harry Styles, are you?”
Fear climbed my ribs one at a time.
“I am Death. I look and sound however, whomever, you’d like. I’m here to take you on a journey. And contrary to popular fiction, I never take a holiday.”
“What kind of journey?”
“Through time and space. To what waits beyond this world.”
Death was supposed to be the end. Full stop, lights out. That belief had carried me twenty-three years, and here stood a man dismantling it with a smile.
“What do I have to do?”
“Just follow me.”
He was gone before the words settled.
Follow him where? The road stayed empty, the wreck stayed wrecked. But the world had turned up its own saturation: grass greener than grass, sky pressing its blue against my eyes.
My hands stopped me. Small hands. Smooth, unscarred, a child’s. The shattered window gave back a girl of six or seven wearing my old face, the one from the photo albums.
A young woman appeared beside me, long brown hair, bright blue eyes, smiling like she’d been expecting me.
“What’s your name?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“How about we give you one?” She knelt to my height. “How about Ashley?”
“Ashley.” The name fit like a key turning.
“That’s right. Now, let’s go play.”
She took my hand and led me from the wreckage, and the hours after that, if they were hours, dissolved into sunshine and ice cream and other children. I danced barefoot in the grass. I sang songs whose words arrived on their own. The world had shrunk to something simple, and I fit inside it exactly.
The sun lowered. Death’s voice arrived with the dusk.
“Time to move on.”
Sadness dropped through me, a stone down a well. “Can’t I stay here?”
Tears needled my eyes.
“I’m afraid not. But don’t worry. There’s more to come.”
Gone again.
Wind shoved my eyes shut. When they opened, my toes hung at the lip of a cliff. Dark sky. Stars in reckless numbers. Peace settled over me the way snow settles, without asking permission.
“Welcome to the edge of the universe.” Death stood beside me.
“The... the edge of the universe?”
“That’s right. Where everything begins and everything ends. Where you’ll find the answers you’ve been seeking.”
Words failed me. I was a comma in a book the size of everything.
“Can you tell me why I’m here?” Urgency pushed the question out.
“You have questions. About life. About death. About everything between.”
Clarity arrived then, and under it, purpose. Curiosity had run my whole life, always hunting answers, and here at the universe’s edge they waited.
I stepped forward into the great unknown. Death’s hand rested on my shoulder, steering gently. Walking meant continuing. Continuing meant everything now.
Memories flashed past as I walked. Childhood, the teenage years, college, my first job. Love and loss, joy and pain, an entire life reliving itself in moments.
“Why am I seeing this?”
“These are the memories of your life. The bright parts, the broken ones, everything between. But there is more to come.”
Excitement and dread traded places in my chest. What came next stayed hidden.
Ahead, a light. Nothing I had ever seen matched it. It tugged at me, patient as gravity.
“Is that where I’m going?” I pointed.
“Yes. Where your journey ends. And where a new one begins.”
Whatever waited past the light, some deep instinct promised beauty.
Warmth folded around me as we approached, thick as January blankets, the specific comfort of being expected somewhere.
Then a door. Glass, etched with designs that seemed to turn inside the panes. I looked back at Death. He nodded.
“This is it. Beyond this door lies the unknown. Are you ready?”
A deep breath. A nod. Uncertainty and all, I was ready.
I walked in amazed, fear left behind somewhere on the cliff.
A white room, bright as noon on snow. A figure stood ahead, and with each step the figure became my grandmother, dead since my childhood, her face exactly as memory kept it.
“Grandma?”
Tears again, hot ones.
“Hello, my dear.” That smile. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Joy went through me like warm water. Dreams had rehearsed this reunion for years; none of them got the smell of her right.
“I have so many questions.”
“I know. First, let me show you something.”
She led me by the hand to a window. Below, the world I had left. Family. Friends. Every place I’d ever known, small and complete.
“They’ll miss you, Ashley. Your optimism, your smiles, your kind heart. But they’ll be okay. You marked their lives. They won’t forget you.”
Calm arrived and stayed. Fear of leaving loosened its grip finger by finger.
“And now, your questions.”
She answered every one. Love, hate, evil, death, life. Each answer smoothed something in me until nothing needed asking.
Then the airbag, my face pressed into it, powder bitter on my tongue. I lifted my head. The dashboard ticked. Had it all been a dream?
Death’s voice again. In the passenger seat sat that borrowed Harry Styles face, smiling.
“Your journey is over, Ashley. But your legacy lives on.”
Peace, whole and final. My life had counted for something.
Death vanished. So did I.
Author's Note
I wrote this story for my friend Herb who inadvertently became a muse. Our discussion on the afterlife enabled me to take a glimmer of an idea and expand it to its current form.
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This is a powerful story. I enjoyed that it had a mostly positive tone, as opposed to hinting at potential dread. The older I get and the more screwed up the world gets, the more I'm finding myself drawn to this kind of hopeful vision.
I loved this story. Don’t want to say too much more, but the experiences of the main character had particular resonance for me. An uplifting tale to light up dark times