I am haunted by humans.
With every step I take I hear them whispering, telling stories, faint echoes left behind by innumerable lives. Every human has a story to tell, you see, but not everyone gets a chance to tell it. And so when I come for them – gather their fragile souls into my arms and carry them far away from the raw ugliness of the living world – they often try to tell me their stories, a last-ditch attempt against mortality.
But I am not a listener.
I am merely a deliverer, a collector, an agent of the Powers That Be. (For what is life really but an ever-increasing debt to be paid?)
I am naught but the pall-bearer, ensnared by an eternal, solemn dirge. Judgment is not mine to make.
The Book Thief tells me no stories when I come for her, but I did not expect her to. We walk together along the remnants of Himmel Street , a place long-forgotten by the living, and her old eyes gaze at the weeds and rubble with a certain melancholy fondness.
"Frau Diller's house was right here," she whispers, voice paper thin. "I can almost see it before me." And then she turns to me and smiles, eyes crinkling, as if I was a human child and she was my doting grandmother. "But I'm sure you are tired of memories, are you not? I will speak of such things no longer."
I nod, oddly touched by her kindness (though emotions, you see, are not something I was meant to possess), and from my robes I pull a small black book. The cover is almost worn through, graying and fraying around the edges. She takes it from me reverently, running her gnarled old hands along the spine and flipping it open to look at the faded pages. Her eyes begin to brim with tears.
"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you so much."
I am unsure what exactly she is thanking me for. For keeping it?
Or for reading it?
She hugs the book to her chest for a moment, breathing in the smell of innocence and pain, laughter and childish tears, words and secrets, and then hands it back to me. "Please, hold on to it," she murmurs, and I nod again. I have done so for a lifetime, and I always will. (Forever's not so long, you see, when you deal in the endings of others.)
"What's next?" she asks, that old curiosity getting the better of her, and I pause.
"I do not know," I say truthfully, my voice hoarse and rough from disuse.
I had tried to answer this question before, long ago. But I realize now that there are no guarantees when it came to the great beyond. Each human is different, and each human dies with different regrets, different memories, different hopes and fears. In the end, though, no soul is worth more than another. Some may feel lighter in my arms, yes, free of all taint and spoil, but that does not mean they are free of man's burden. Underneath it all they are all human, a race accursed by its own innate nature.
"I've always loved surprises," she says, and smiles. It is the old souls and the young ones that take the least convincing, I've found. The old have lived through enough – they are weary of the world and tired of the aches and pains that plague them. The young haven't lived through enough – they love and learn, yes, but to them everything is fleeting.
The Book Thief is both young and old. For though I look at her and see a wizened woman, lines on her face telling the many tales of life, I see also that little girl sobbing in the dust, kissing Rudy Steiner's still-warm lips and begging him to please, please wake up.
I take her by the hand and lead her into the light.
--
Liesel knows that she is dead before she even opens her eyes. There is a certain numbness to her body and broadness to her mind that cannot be explained, and in the back of her mind is the vague memory of consorting with Death (a very nice fellow, if not a bit quiet).
She gets to her feet unsteadily and glances down at herself, and is glad to see a corporeal form. Being a soul without any type of body would be a tad troublesome, she thinks. But wait… She holds up a hand – slightly blurred around the edges, she sees, like a watercolor painted too hastily – and stares, amazed, at her young, unwrinkled skin. A mirror hangs on the wall nearby, and she steps in front of it.
She is ten years old again. Her too-thin face gawks back at her, wide-eyed in astonishment. Her lithe fingers skim across her cheekbones, her eyelids, her lips. It feels real, and Liesel take a deep, shuddering breath to calm herself.
From the next room comes the sound of an accordion.
And Liesel runs.
The warm sunlight illuminates her father's face, reflecting off the silver in his eyes. Smoke from his cigarette lingers near him, swirling like grey mist around his head, and his fingers move masterfully across the accordion's monochrome keys.
"Papa," Liesel whispers, blinking back tears, and he looks up with a smile.
"Oh, Liesel," he says. "I've been waiting for you."
--
Humans are accursed beings, yes.
(But that is what makes them beautiful.)