He was just turning
to page one of the arcane tome
The Meaning of
Life and Death when he thought
he sensed something familiar, and yet dreadful,
stirring outside his window. From his four-poster
bed Old Jacques could see much of
the countryside with his ancient eyes. That's
how he spotted the white figure walking his way along
the lane in the moonlight. Nervously fingering
the three rosaries around his neck,
he lifted up in his bed clothes to
watch the lone figure. Jacques' pale
lips parted when the tall one
walked right through Jacques' gate and stopped
in his yard and started to dance. Despite a wave
of hacking coughs, Old Jacques sat
up further in his bed, the sheets
falling away like shedding skin.
With myopic eyes he tried to identify
the figure. Might it be one of his
sons or daughters, come to check on
his declining health? The figure stopped
dancing long enough to perform a stately
bow in the old man's direction
at his second-floor window. Mesmerized, he could
not remove his eyes from the suddenly
dancing figure, so he sought his glasses
on the nightstand with his thin hand. The figure, alone
in the yard beneath the full moon,
began swirling in a dervish, going
round and round and round. The
night world became clear as he pushed
his glasses onto his face. Jacques gasped
when he saw the dancing figure was
a tall skeleton, grinning up at his
window with its toothy smile. Still spinning,
it kept looking up at the old
man. Suddenly the skeleton
stopped swirling and raised its arms
to its skull. With a snap,
it plucked its skull from its spinal
column and hurled it toward Jacques'
window. It crashed through, showering him
with shards of glass. Jacques flailed himself
out of his bed, falling to the hardwood floor and scrambling like
an infant. His tome fell with him. Floating in the
air above him, the skull grew larger,
all the time emitting an unearthly
cobalt-green glow. "Read any gooood books lately?" Death's voice
boomed as he puffed great torrents of breath, blowing Jacques' philosophy
book away like leaves after a frosty morning. Jacques winched as
the dark breath stung his nostrils:
it bore the stench of the crypt.
"Your breath smells of seventy-eight years of candle wax and birthday
cake frosting!" "Seventy-eight's your
number, Jacques O'man. Your ride's here, Pops. Climb aboard!" "No! I am afraid
to die!" Scrambling to his
unsteady feet, Jacques fled into the
hall where the skull pursued at a leisurely
float, as though mocking the slow gait
of the old man. "He-eere's how you
do the hoochey-koochey soft and slow!" In the hallway
Jacques almost slipped on the throw
rug. Running into the room that
had been sweet Martha's, he slammed
the door and bolted it, leaning against
it, feeling the thin tissues of his lungs rip. "Go away!
Leave me!" "Can I have this
dance?" "How did you
get in here?" cried the old man,
turning and seeing the spectre floating
before him. "I got to be
somebody's / ba-by toonight!" His gnarled fingers
threw back the bolt, tore open
the door and he was running down his
long hall again. "I'll ward him off with a Bible! There's one
in this house somewhere!" The library. As
he ran stumbling into the dark, musty
room with the thick, drawn curtains, he
did not bother with closing the door. The thing obviously
could go through walls. He began throwing
books from the high shelves, psychology,
philosophy, poetry, science, all went falling
to the floor like dead birds. "Here it is!
In the original Greek!" It weighed
like a stone in his thin hands, but
he whirled around, holding it like
a shield. The skull was
idly floating into the room. His eyes
seemed to see perfectly in the gloom of
the library. His lip-less mouth seemed to
grin. "Honk if you love death." "Begone, foul beast!"
shrieked the old man, shaking the Bible at the approaching skull.
"Begone!" "All sales are
final." "I cast thee
out, you skinless banshee!" "Meet me on the
back / of the / blue bus." Seeing that even
the Bible could not halt the skull's
slow advance, Jacques dropped it onto the
pile of the other books, and, ducking beneath the hovering
skull, ran back into the hall. Now
every time the old man panted, a
fine red mist appeared. The chase went
into every room of the empty mansion,
smashing furniture, forcing portraits to
thud to the carpeted floor. He wasn't
even looking back anymore -- of course
the damn thing was still chasing, he didn't
need to see it -- and he was
getting confused. Had he already run this
way? And wait, why was he running?
A floating skull was chasing him? "I've
got to sit down," he moaned, collapsing
into his favorite chair, his cold pipe
on the table next to his arm. "I'm
exhausted. I'm hallucinating . . . " Looking down at his
night shirt, he muttered: "And I seem
to have spilled red wine . . . all
over . . . myself . . . " He began
hacking, his eyes closed and not noticing
the red stain growing upon his trembling
chest. Through the hacking,
he heard a steady voice cajole: "Special
orders don't upset us." Jacques' eyes
flew open, his red-dripping lips flapped
like wings. "One size fits all." The
old man shot to his feet, his head
suddenly helium, and he thought he
would float across the horizon on the
breeze, but instead collapsed on the floor.
"Frim framalooma / the loss bamboo!" Jacques, tears running,
turning pink at his lips and dropping
like rain from his chin, climbed to
his knees, made his hands come together
in supplication, looking like a skeleton
trying to look like a church steeple.
Eyes growing wider, he watched as the green
skull closed in, its mouth opening
wider and wider like an abyss of darkness
growing around him. Then Death simply
hovered and turned into a smiley face
with eyes friendly and warm, krinkly Santa
Claus-eyes. Jacque gasped at the new sight
and the smiley face drew closer. Suddenly
it turned again into a great skull and
Jacque shrieked. Death chuckled and
said: "Sorry. Couldn't resist pulling your
leg, Jacqo." It reverted to the giant
smiley face, still drawing closer, mouth
opening wider, wider, krinkly Santa-eyes
twinkling. "All sales final." He first felt
horror, but as the darkness took him
to its bosom, Old Jacques was suddenly
suffused with a feeling of peaceful rightness. The jaws closed
slowly. The skull shrank back to its
original size and floated slowly on an
air current, back toward the front yard
glowing with moonlight. All the dogs
in the countryside began barking at
once. Lights in houses came on and men
with rifles or axes went out to
see what had agitated the dogs. But
they found nothing and yelled sharply for
their dogs to be quiet and let
them sleep. Widow Adams, unable
to sleep, sitting on her little porch
and drinking honey-water to soothe
a recently developed cough, looked at the treey lane. She
thought she saw two figures walking together,
and they courteously bowed to her as
they passed her gate. From them she heard
quiet conversation and loud, very loud,
laughter as if they were old friends long
separated. As they walked away, they left
behind no footprints in the dirt road. She couldn't recognize
them for she had left her glasses
in her house.