The Death and the pulse

"Hey, what do you think about me leaving the gas on and going to sleep? That’d save me a lot of overanalyzing."

I didn’t know what to do after what happened last night, so if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pretending nothing happened—and that’s exactly what I did.
I walked into her room in the morning. She was completely buried under the blankets; all I could see were a few strands of her hair sticking out.

She didn’t react to my words.
She didn’t react when I flung the curtains wide open.

"Anyway, I’m gonna leave the gas on."

"Let me sleep…"

"You don’t sleep, you just pretend to" I replied, being honest, a little glad she’d spoken at all.

"I don’t care, just leave me alone."

"Weren’t you supposed to stop me from dying? How are you gonna do that if you don’t even get up?"

I heard her sigh, exasperated, from under the blankets.

"The gas trick only works if you’re already asleep. Otherwise, the smell would keep you awake."

"I could take sleeping pills. Then I wouldn’t notice it."

"Are you being particularly stupid on purpose today or what?" she shot back. I could see her clutching the blankets, like she was building an igloo to hide in.

"Doesn’t matter, it’s decided."

"HEY!"

I hadn’t even turned the doorknob when her voice froze me in place. I wasn’t sure if it was the volume or the tone. Something was off.
I didn’t let go of the knob; I just turned slightly to look at her. It was weird—her face held a look of terror I didn’t know she was capable of.

"What’s wrong with you…?" I asked, releasing the knob and taking a few steps back toward her bed.

"I’m… angry…"

—Oh, well… your face says the complete opposite.

"Are you slow or something? Let me say it again—I’m angry!"

I could see the fear on her face. I think she noticed it too, which is why she buried herself under the blankets again.
I got it. It was something simple—anger—but at the same time, not so simple.
She wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

"I get it… no, I mean, I’d get it, but coming from you…" My voice trailed off before I could finish. I tried peeling the blankets off her, but I could feel her gripping them tight.

"How do you… humans… deal with these… sensations?"

"They’re called emotions."

"Don’t interrupt me with technicalities!"

"Okay, calm down, alright? Just… you know, do what you always do—talk."

"I don’t know how to explain it…"

"I don’t know how to explain half the things I feel either, and that doesn’t stop me from spitting words out like watermelon seeds."

I waited for a laugh that never came.

"Idiot…"

"Yeah, I’ll make sure they carve that on my tombstone. Can we talk now? You don’t even have to come out of your blanket cave."

"I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I don’t understand how to process it. I don’t understand what to do about it. I don’t know how to stop feeling like this."

"Look, it’s not that hard to grasp, just—"

"Shut up, I’m not done…" she said, emerging from the blankets. Her hair was a complete mess, like she’d been trying to dig around inside her own head under that ‘fort’ of covers. "There’s… something else…"

"You’re full of surprises, huh…"

She grabbed my hand and placed it on her chest. Yeah, I got a little nervous in that moment—it was kind of ‘intimate.’
Her skin was cold, as always.
Five minutes of heavy silence passed between us. The internal thud nearly made me jump off the bed.
Strange, almost impossible—no, definitely impossible—but undeniable. It was a heartbeat.

Her heart was beating once every five minutes.

"How can you live with this constant feeling? How do you know what to say, what to do when you feel… like this?"

"One thing at a time. First off, a human heart beats between sixty and a hundred times a minute… not five."

She looked up at me, then back down at my hand on her chest.

"Second, a lot of the time we don’t know what to say, let alone what to do. We wing it as we go. Emotions get the better of us, like, 90% of the time, you know?"

"How do you live like that? How do you go through your days with emotions you don’t fully control? And with those ‘thuds’ inside…"

"Yeah, it’s a rough morning for both of us" I said, letting out a small laugh. "Our hearts beat from the moment we’re born, so our brains get used to it. As for emotions…" I paused to think. "I wouldn’t know what to tell you. I’m not good with that stuff. If I were, I wouldn’t be trying to die."

She gently pushed my hand off her chest and pulled the blankets back up, leaving only her face visible.
"Is this… how you feel?"

"With the added bonus of the full spectrum of emotions, but yeah" I said, trying to sound casual, though we were far from a casual chat, and the day had barely started.

"Is there more?"

"A lot. What you’re feeling is a piece—no, a fraction—of everything humans can feel."

"Is that why you make that choice?"

"Which one? To die?"

She didn’t answer but nodded.

"Some of us do… when we feel like we can’t take it anymore…"

"So that’s what they all felt in the end" she whispered, to herself, as if answering a question she’d asked long ago.

"What’d you say?"

"Nothing. I think I understand what’s going on inside you a little better now."

"Are you saying you’re finally gonna help me?" I asked, flopping onto her bed with a sigh, too close to her.

She watched me for a while, didn’t speak, just shook her head.

"…So…?"

"Are you still planning to kill yourself?" she asked, barely letting the blankets slip.

I got up, slow and lazy—after all, I hadn’t even had breakfast yet—and walked to the door.

"Hey, I asked you something!"

"What, are you gonna get mad again if I don’t answer?"

"I-I don’t know… probably…"

"Great, that’s how it works. If you get mad, yell at me or something—let me know. Don’t try to handle it on your own."

"Why not?"

"Because I can almost guarantee this is the first time in your existence you’re ‘feeling’ something instead of just ‘acting’ based on how humans are supposed to feel.

"So what?"

"It’s too much to face alone…"

"How do you know?"

"Because I’ve always been alone."

We didn’t talk during breakfast.

I made two cups of tea, like always, thinking maybe now she could feel the warmth of the cup or taste the tea.
I seemed to be wrong, one way or another. Like I said, it was a quiet breakfast—I wasn’t focused on the moment.

What happened last night and what happened this morning kept pulling me back to my first days with her, after I left the hospital.

Once my observation period ended, the doctors told me I could go home.
I wasn’t eager to get back, but I wasn’t about to stay in the hospital either. Before letting me go, they said they didn’t know how, but my coat—a green parka—had gotten lost in the laundry.
Probably mixed up with other patients’ clothes, they said, and told me to come back in a few days to check for it.

I didn’t need to.

As I crossed the exit threshold, there she was again, waiting.
My coat wasn’t lost—she’d stolen it. And I say stolen because she never gave it back.

"Do people see a floating parka?" I said, approaching her. My brain was calmer by then, so I figured I’d take the lead. Probably the anxiolytics kicking in.

"How do I look? Ironic, isn’t it? Death wearing a parka" she let out a couple of laughs between her words.

"Don’t answer a question with another question."

"No one can see or hear me except you, but I can manipulate objects."

"That’s a general explanation, not a direct answer to my question."

—No, suicide boy, they don’t see a floating parka" she rolled her eyes, resigned. "If I’m wearing it, they can’t see it either. I’ve gotta keep up with the times, fashion-wise."

"But you said no one can see you."

"It’s more of a personal preference."

"In other words, you’re telling me…"

"Yep, that since it looks good on me, it’s mine now."

I didn’t feel like dragging out that pointless chat, so I just walked home.
It was starting to get cold—autumn was winding down.

Even though I took a different route on purpose, I could hear her footsteps behind me.

"How far are you planning to follow me?

"The right question is how long" she replied, speeding up until she was walking beside me. "I told you I wasn’t gonna let you kill yourself."

"Guess if I decided to throw myself in front of a car right now, you’d stop me."

"Uhm… no. That’s not how it works…"

"How what works?"

"My 'resignation' letter."

Was being Death just another job?
Could you quit?
I didn’t think much about it at the time and didn’t keep talking to her either. For a moment, I’d forgotten I was the only one who could see her, and people stared at me like I’d escaped a mental hospital.
Yeah, I’d been in one, but it wasn’t a psych ward, and I didn’t escape—they discharged me.

Her voice sliced through my memory like when you’re watching a show and someone turns off the TV without warning.

"Hey, did you hear me?"

"I was remembering stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Nothing important… What’d you say?"

"Oh… uh… I asked about what you said earlier, in the room."

"I said a lot of things."

She frowned, clearly annoyed by my dodging. "You said you’d always been alone."

"That’s what I said."

"‘Had been alone.’"

"Yeah, I had been" I replied, catching my distorted reflection in the tea for a moment before looking up. "I think… it’s been a while since I stopped being alone."