THE LAST REQUEST by Judy Colella (summer reads TXT) 📖

“No, not anything. For instance, you can’t ask to go back in time to undo whatever killed you. This request has to take the form of a mental exercise. Of you seeing something, a last glimpse, if you will, of your world.”

Varian nodded. He narrowed his gaze, wracking his memory for something that he’d want to see again. He certainly wasn’t enjoying the view below him – they were removing his body from the car and placing it on a stretcher while someone put a yellow tarp into the windshield.

As had been noted, Varian loved to indulge himself with two specific past-times – playing online games and watching Jeopardy. At one point, he’d even considered trying to get on the game show, convinced he’d do well. So he’d trolled the library shelves, gathering a wealth of trivial knowledge in preparation. In the end, however, he’d decided it wasn’t feasible. He knew himself too well to imagine he wouldn’t nearly die of stage fright, freeze when asked questions, making an utter fool of himself on national television. But the knowledge was still in his head, and there was one crazy, little-known factoid scratching at the door of his memory…

“All right. I have it.”

Death did something that looked like a shrug. “I’m ready. What would you like to pass before your mind’s eye?”

“The entire population of China, in a line, one person at a time.”

A silence followed this request that seemed to be acting as a barrier between where Varian and Death hovered, and the shriek of disbelief that was surely bouncing around the universe. And then Death did something it had one only once or twice before – it sputtered.

“W-what…are you…but that…the population of China?! But my dear, mortal! The number of people in China is…I mean, that line you’re requesting would never end because of the rate of reproduction!”

Varian grinned. “Bingo!”

Death groaned. The sound was unmistakable. “Fine! But you’ll have to watch it go past, you know! Every day for the rest of your, well, yes. There is that. I mean…listen. You’ll have to see through it to see anything else, you understand, yes? And your lifespan – good heavens, man!” Death’s smokiness whirled a little more tightly, as if it were gathering itself. “Clever. Very clever. But one of these days, your race is going to end itself – wipe out the entire Asian continent, I’m told. That will put an end to your – your – your parade!”

“Are you angry with me, Death?”

The whirling eased. “Of course not. I don’t get angry. Not really. That is, I – oh, just go, will you!”

~`~`~`~`~`~`~

Varian opened his eyes, shifted on the stretcher and cleared his throat, startling the living daylights out of the EMTs, the policeman who was standing beside them, and the few onlookers who had overheard the officer being told that the driver was dead. “Hey, may I go? I have a date.”

“You had no pulse…what the hell!” The first EMT to recover had pulled back the blanket covering what he’d clearly thought was a corpse.

“I’m fine. Could you undo these straps?” Varian smiled, noticing as he did that a nearly transparent figure had passed between him and the tech. It looked like an older woman carrying a basket on one arm, a bundle of…bamboo shoots, maybe?...in her free hand. She was followed a moment later by a little boy. The “parade” had begun.

The tech shook his head, undoing the buckles, and Varian, free from the restraints, sat up, flexed his shoulders, and got to his feet.

The policeman continued to stare, the EMTs sharing a look of disbelief and one of them giving a low chuckle. Varian, meanwhile, was checking the front of his car. He couldn’t remember what had distracted him, causing him to go off the road and bump lightly into one of the trees lining the road’s landscaped median.

“Not too bad,” he murmured. “I can get that fixed pretty easily and the headlight seems to be intact. Huh.” He got back in the car, realized that if the policeman knew his seatbelt was useless, a ticket would be issued along with orders not to drive, and quickly shut the door. He started the engine with no problems, hoping his continuing view of China’s citizens wouldn’t cause another accident, and drove off.

Glynis was even prettier in person, and her reaction to Varian made it clear she felt the same about how he looked. But better than any of that was the way their personalities meshed. They sat in the coffee shop until closing, and went to an all-night diner afterward.

Once it was clear to Varian that this girl was going to be a permanent part of his life (made even clearer when she said yes to his marriage proposal six months later), he began wondering if it would be wrong to tell her about his personal slide show. Because it had occurred to him that if he was going to be around virtually forever, he would have to continue his life without her at some point. So why not explain his situation, then offer to kill her after telling her how to come back the way he had, and under the same stipulation? Then they could be together forever.

On the other hand, what if he got tired of her after, say, two thousand years? Would they have to stay together? Something about the way Death had reacted to his request told him he wouldn’t be able to end his own life, that he would simply keep coming back even if he did get killed by his own hand or some other way. The same would be true for Glynis, too, then. He hoped he’d never tire of her, or she of him, but that could change.

Then there was the small detail of his having to commit murder first, and he hadn’t thought to ask Death about things like Hell and all that. So he never said anything to her, let her think his occasional look of distraction was in response to some thought or moments of deep contemplation about life. And all in all, they went along through life very happily together. In the end, Varian had accepted the idea of outliving his sweet Gynis, but concluded it would be for the best.

Out in the universe, between gathering the spirits of the dead, Death watched Varian’s progress. The only thing bothering this dark being was the thought that when the human had finally figured out that the only way to die was to take the vast resources he would have amassed over the centuries and use them to contaminate all the water and soil in Asia, thus forcing its citizens to move elsewhere, he might still want to live.

At that point, all Varian would have to do is make the more common, simpler request: to see his entire life pass before his eyes…             

Text: Judy Colella
Publication Date: 06-24-2014

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