Spirit Wars by Mon D Rea Read Free Book Online

petals.
The osseous ash tray then sinks away in the same manner it has emerged and
leaves no sign whatsoever that it was ever
there.
    “But when I signed off her father’s extension,” Sephtimus
continues, “I no longer cared how long I made it for. From that day she stood
up to me, I thought of claiming only one thing: her own fragrant soul. And the
appointment she set on that fateful day thirteen years ago is drawing near. The
appointment of October 31st falls on the hour barely two weeks from now.”
    Two weeks before another light is snuffed out, I think to myself.
“But what if she was meant to live out all the days of her life? You can't take
anyone's life short of its natural span, can you?”
    “This
is true. I cannot. Which leads to your repulsive presence here and the only
need I have of you. Which explains why you’re still holding on to a shred of
your sanity and not dribbling down your chin...” Sephtimus drifts backward then
does an about-face like the ghost of a bullet-riddled military officer. Instead
of heels to turn around on, the coat’s skirt which is the bottom tip of him
spins and flaps daintily, almost touching the floor.
    “There's
nothing in the Book of Life and Death that gives me the power to do just that,
answer someone's death wish or influence another person to take a life. I'm
bound to practice non-interference, all to preserve the autonomy and freedom of
choice that was granted to insects like you. I was relegated to sneak around in
the shadows like some whipped mongrel waiting to be thrown table scraps by its
master.”
    This makes sense. The idea of Death being no more than an executor
of things has been around in some folklore. He’s an agent, an enforcer who
simply does what he’s told and carries out fates that have already been set.
But how to explain the reprieve that he gave the woman's father?
    “Yes, it's a fucked-up, ironic business when you think about it.
Death being a mere bagman,” Sephtimus continues. “As a bagman, I can choose to
be lenient and award a grace period, extend man’s sojourn in his world but not
hasten it. Life isn’t for me to give or to take.
    “In fact,” he says after a long pause, “in the natural order of
things, the responsibility of taking lives falls into the very capable but
violent talons of the Crows.”
    “The what?”
    “Crows. Don’t you believe in angels, meatball? Storks
for the entry of innocent cherubs and for the departure of other pure spirits.
Cro ws for the arrest of the illegal, overstaying
ones. These two forces are the original immigration police of the world. The
Great Duality. One for continuity and propagation, the other for control and
stoppage. One for existence, the other for perpetual cancellation. It’s very
dangerous business to get involved when it’s not yet your proper time. Like if
you were love-ripe and next to a troll, or if you were at death’s door and
still vacillating.”
    For a second I’m reminded of those pointy, birdlike things that
swooped down on me in the fisherman’s boat and delivered me to this Land of the
Eternal Dead. I shudder at the memory.
    “Why’s
that?” I venture, sensing Sephtimus is a chest
brimming with secrets, even bursting to reveal all.
    “The raw forces that they are, they tend to be unthinking. Like
fifty-foot babies they’re unstoppable once they get started. The Storks, for
instance, are pure love and creation. If they had their way, promiscuity would
be the way of the world and you’d all be fucking like jackrabbits and flooding
the earth with your bastard children. The Crows, on the other hand, are the
embodiment of rage and destruction. They’d rip you to shreds in their blind
fury, devour everyone and everything in their path and never stop their feeding
frenzy.”
    “Where do you fit in?”
    “Death is the one who unleashes and points the Crows in the right
direction. Mass-scale in times of war and disaster. On ordinary days,
everything’s pretty