There is a monster in the darkness.
He cannot be seen but for his eyes.
They gleam from the shadows.
There is a monster in the hearts of men.
Men cannot know their hearts.
Shadows lurk within us all.
“I heard you were dead.”
“Who said I wasn’t?”
“You’re rather healthy for a corpse.”
“You’re rather sick for a living man.”
The shadow passed, and I laid back in my hospital bed. The machinery around me beeped and buzzed as my life slowly ebbed away.
There’s a crow out my window, evil and hunched over. It’s black eyes peer into my room. When the doctor comes, it spreads its wings and laughs and flies away. But when they turn out the lights, I hear his beak pecking at the glass.
My daughter came with her children, but I couldn’t wake up. That night I couldn’t sleep.
“Aren’t you dead yet?”
“I’m dying. Give me time.”
“Time is what you lack, dear friend.”
A nurse poked her head in, and the shadow was gone.
I hear them whispering when I’m asleep, worrying over me. They know I will die, I know I’ll die, but we all keep pretending.
“You’re terrible at this,” he said.
“Sorry I’m not as good at dying as you were.”
The time’s coming, I know. I’m in and out, in and out. The days and nights are all morphing together. And now I hear, I hear the shadow whisper:
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Tale Told 