Her name was Cinnamon.
Alec was sitting at a table in a rather seedy, but not entirely unpleasant night club. Lights flashed, people danced, lovers groped in dark corners. But Alec was oblivious to it all. His attention was completely riveted to the girl sitting across from him, and the word she had just uttered.
"Cinnamon?" he repeated in disbelief.
The girl smiled. "Cinnamon. The spice. You know. Comes in sticks, put it in your tea..."
"I know what cinnamon is," Alec cut in, "it's just a bloody peculiar name to have."
Much like everything else about the girl. She was dressed like many of the club's other patrons: black tank top, black jeans, black hair, slightly pale skin protecting a tiny frame. She was wearing an ankh around her neck, Alec noted, which was at least slightly more original than the pentagram or anarchy symbol most kids would have opted for. More interesting was the odd curlicue pattern under her right eye. Was it eyeliner? Body paint? Tattoo? The design seemed as natural a part of her features as the deep brown eyes the symbol complimented. But the peculiarity wasn't in her dress, it was in her demeanor. While she may have been decked out in the latest "goth" fashion, she was infectiously cheerful. What's more, unlike some others in the dark room her ecstasy didn't seem to be induced by the substance of that name. Her eyes would frequently dart about the room as if expecting to soak up every image in sight. The world seemed to fill her with the kind of wonder you'd expect in a newborn babe. She spoke with an unbridled enthusiasm for anything and everything, and when she emphasized her words Alec could almost see the bold type hovering in the air between them. He found her utterly fascinating.
"You're staring," she said.
She was right, he realized. Alec blinked and gave a fraction of a grin in apology. "I'm sorry, it's just...I mean...I just can't help but wonder what you're doing in a place like this."
Her gaze resumed scanning the room. "I don't know. I felt like watching people enjoying themselves. Being happy." Something caught her roving eyes, and they brightened with delight. "Do you see those people over there?"
Alec looked in the direction she had gestured. There was a couple in one of the booths, staring at each other so intently they seemed to believe they would coax some secret meaning out of the lines and curves of the other's face.
"I see them," Alec stated. "They're probably both high as a kite...you wouldn't believe some of the shit these kids put in them nowadays..."
"No, no," the girl who called herself Cinnamon interrupted. Her gaze was still fixed on the young couple. "No, it's completely natural. They're only high on each other. On love."
"I find it amazing you can say a line like that with a straight face."
"It's not a line. It's the truth. Sometimes we spend so much time looking for beauty we completely ignore the beauty already around us. It's everywhere. The couple...the way the fog turns into a kaleidoscopic haze when it reaches the lights...that cigarette butt slowly burning away in that ashtray there. Everything's so alive. Life is everywhere, we just forget it sometimes."
The girl gave Alec an intense look. "That's why I'm here. It helps me get a perspective on things. You could say this is research."
Alec's expression reflected his confusion. "Research?"
"For my job."
"You're not anyone famous, are you? You look awfully familiar..."
The girl smiled as if sharing a private joke with herself. "Oh I'm certain you've seen me, though you wouldn't remember it. I...get around. But no, I'm not famous. Let's just say I work with people."
She looked in Alec's direction. "So what's your excuse?"
"Excuse me?"
"I told you why I'm here. Now it's your turn. This obviously isn't your scene...why are you in this place?"
Alec paused and sighed as if debating where to begin. "I just woke up an hour ago. I'd been having this dream...well, more of a nightmare really. Do you know much about dreams?"
"A bit. That's more my brother's area." "Well...anyway. I was in a hospital - which was a bad sign from the start since I hate those places - and I was just pacing around the waiting room. I was the only one there. There was some straight-to-video movie on the TV, Good Housekeeping magazines on the tables. Stale coffee sitting out, PA system paging names of doctors you've never heard of and immediately forget. You know the scene. I was worried about something, but I didn't know what."
He glanced up to verify his audience was listening. She was, smile plastered on her face as if it were the most gripping tale she'd ever heard.
He stopped and chuckled softly. "You know, I don't know why I'm telling you this."
The girl was still smiling. "Because you want to," she said with gentle admonishment. "Go on. You were worried..."
"Uh...right. I was worried, but I didn't know why. The nurse came in and she had one of those looks, where you know nothing good can follow. She didn't need to say anything. At that point I realized what was happening. My wife had died."
Alec shivered as he relived the moment.
"Then I woke up. And I realized everything was fine. I rolled over to tell Eleanor about it, and she wasn't there. And I remembered then...she was hit by a pick-up truck six months ago. Died instantly."
He didn't appear too upset; obviously he was good at hiding his emotions and had been doing so for some time. But an astute observer would have noticed a moment when his mildly handsome profile was overshadowed by a profound emptiness in his eyes, like hazel caverns echoing with loss. The moment was fleeting, however, and soon vanished.
The girl was no longer smiling.
"So I guess I'm here for the same reason as you," he continued. "Watching people, trying to get my mind off that dream. Trying to put things into perspective."
"Is it working?"
"Not particularly."
"Did you try talking to your family? I find that helps at times, no matter how infuriating they can be."
"No...I was found in a basket at the orphanage door when I was less than a month old. I was adopted by an elderly couple with no real family of their own. They died a few years back, within a week of each other."
He looked up to find the girl was standing up from the table.
"Where are you going?"
"There's only so much living you can do in a club. I think I'll go for a walk." The smile returned to her face. "Wanna tag along?"
Alec considered the invitation for a moment. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
The moment he had seen Cinnamon, Alec suspected she was unlike anyone he had met before. Every moment since then only proved his suspicions were well-founded.
They had walked through the city all night, through places Alec had never seen or heard of. They walked, they sat, they watched and listened to the world around them. And they talked. They took hold of any piece of conversation they could find, touched upon every facet of the subject, left no avenue of thought unexplored. There was magic in the air tonight, Alec was sure of that. But it wasn't until one of their quiet sits on a bench, watching the lavender sun peeking over the eastern horizon, that he realized the magic had always been there.
"I really like you." It took a moment for Alec to realize the words had come from his mouth.
The girl smiled even broader than normal. "Why, thank you. I really like you too."
"No, you don't understand. When I was in the club, I wasn't planning on returning to the apartment and falling asleep again. I wanted to die. I hadn't worked out the 'how' yet, but I figured I'd know the right way when the time came." He chuckled again, something he'd done more times in one night than the entire past month. "Nobody ever tells you that kind of stuff. Suicide's supposed to be a release, but it's so stressful. How do I do it? What's the least painful way? Do I want it to be painless? What do I write in the note? I mean, suicide notes are supposed to be grand, eloquent things, you can't just scrawl them on a restaraunt napkin...
But it's different now. This night...I realized something. I couldn't have killed myself, because the past six months I haven't been alive. Not really. My heart was pumping, my lungs were inflating, blood flowed through my veins. But for all effects and purposes, I was dead. You know this is the first time I've been outside since she died? I didn't even go to her funeral, I was too upset. Her family must think I'm a monster."
He laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world. "But now...now I know what it is to LIVE. And it's thanks to you. All thanks to you."
He looked back at her, expecting to be greeted by that wonderful smile, but was sadly mistaken. "What's wrong with you? You look like someone walked over your grave."
Her face was suddenly very weary. "No," she said in a quiet voice. "Not mine."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The rest of the walk was silent. He followed Cinnamon; she simply told him they were going to the journey's end, and he accepted her guidance without question.
It was morning, the last vestiges of flame and passion gone from the sky, when they stopped.
"This is it," she said.
"What? You live here?"
"No." She was still visibly saddened by something, but by what he couldn't guess. "But this is where we say goodbye. For the moment, at least."
Alec wasn't sure why, but these words bothered him, and panic began mounting within his gut. "What are you talking about? Why did you bring me here? Where-"
He didn't hear the sounds until it was too late. There was a rumble from behind and above him, and in a split second he registered three things. The first was, "The wall is collapsing, and it's going to land on me." The second, "I'm going to die." The third was not a thought, but an image: the young girl, an expression or her face halfway between sadness and calm duty, staring directly into his eyes.
The rest was blackness.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Alec woke up a few moments later. He opened his eyes to see the familiar alley, the collapsed wall. I made it!, he thought. And then he saw Death.
Or rather, he saw Cinnamon, but her true identity was no longer in doubt. Her skin was paler, but that was the only visible change; no, he knew the truth because we all know Death when we look it (or she) in the eye.
He looked up from the ground, all sorts of voices running through his mind asking how you talk when you're dead, before one voice finally out- shouted the rest and suggested talking like he always talked. But his body no longer seemed to no longer fit him, like wearing a winter coat in the Florida Keys. His tongue was like a granite slug and seemed determined to refuse his every command. But at long last he managed a single word.
"Why?"
This minor milestone achieved, he became comfortable enough with his body to form a sentence.
"Why...why now? Why me?"
The girl was maddeningly calm. "It was your time to go."
"BULLSHIT!" His own force of will shocked him, and it took him a moment to recollect the barely-functioning nerves and muscles of his vocal box. "You knew I was going to die. Why did you do that to me? Why did you talk with me and lend a sympathetic ear? Why did you..." He lost control again. "Why did you give me hope?"
The girl seemed genuinely sympathetic to his plight. "Once every 100 years I take human form. Even I don't fully understand why, but it's basic purpose is for me to experience the world, and to understand the people whose lives I greet and wave off when their time is up. Like yours was. Like everyone's is, in time."
"But why me?"
"You were there. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry! I'm the one buried under a ton of fucking bricks!"
Death looked at him with pity in her fathomless eyes. "Believe it or not, I understand how you feel. You weren't the only one who felt alive today. Like I said, I came here for perspective, and you gave it to me. And I thank you for that."
Alec seemed to calm a bit. "Yeah. Well." A glimmer of hope reached his face. "I supposed I'll see Eleanor again. We'll be together again, right?"
Death smiled solemnly. "You'll find out, won't you?" She extended her hand out to the crippled form on the ground.
"Alec...take my hand."
His arm reached out to touch hers, but seemed to reconsider. His hand snapped back to his side.
"Just tell me one thing. Why Cinnamon? I mean, you could have chosen any name on the planet...why that?"
Death appeared thoughtful as if considering this for the first time. "Cinnamon isn't me, I don't think. It's my centennial birth on this plane. When I take human form. Cinnamon in its purest form is terribly bitter and inedible. But with a little seasoning...a little sugar added...it's as sweet as can be. That's what these visits have taught me. Look at life as a big picture, in its purest form, and you're only going to get the bitter side. The sweet stuff you have to find and add yourself."
Alec seemed to mull this over in his head. "So in this visit...which was I? The bitterness or the seasoning?"
Death didn't seem to hear him.
"It's time."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Alec was gone. He had gone where all mortals go, in their time, and where even the Endless must go eventually. Death returned from the sunless lands to her realm. The goldfish were hungry, and she fed them without any real thought. Her mind was obviously elsewhere.
Her pets taken care of, she went to the wall and removed a mirror. In the realms of her six siblings, a painting of an ankh suddenly went black.
Death sat down then. What she was thinking is not made known to mortals, and it would be useless to guess now. But an astute observer would see that the design under her eye was no longer a solid black, but almost lucid, seeming to glisten and gleem in a rippling pattern. Perhaps the symbol is mere decoration. Perhaps it marks the path a tear makes on its way down her porcelain cheek. No one knows. The thoughts of the Endless are not made known to mortals.
Alec was sitting at a table in a rather seedy, but not entirely unpleasant night club. Lights flashed, people danced, lovers groped in dark corners. But Alec was oblivious to it all. His attention was completely riveted to the girl sitting across from him, and the word she had just uttered.
"Cinnamon?" he repeated in disbelief.
The girl smiled. "Cinnamon. The spice. You know. Comes in sticks, put it in your tea..."
"I know what cinnamon is," Alec cut in, "it's just a bloody peculiar name to have."
Much like everything else about the girl. She was dressed like many of the club's other patrons: black tank top, black jeans, black hair, slightly pale skin protecting a tiny frame. She was wearing an ankh around her neck, Alec noted, which was at least slightly more original than the pentagram or anarchy symbol most kids would have opted for. More interesting was the odd curlicue pattern under her right eye. Was it eyeliner? Body paint? Tattoo? The design seemed as natural a part of her features as the deep brown eyes the symbol complimented. But the peculiarity wasn't in her dress, it was in her demeanor. While she may have been decked out in the latest "goth" fashion, she was infectiously cheerful. What's more, unlike some others in the dark room her ecstasy didn't seem to be induced by the substance of that name. Her eyes would frequently dart about the room as if expecting to soak up every image in sight. The world seemed to fill her with the kind of wonder you'd expect in a newborn babe. She spoke with an unbridled enthusiasm for anything and everything, and when she emphasized her words Alec could almost see the bold type hovering in the air between them. He found her utterly fascinating.
"You're staring," she said.
She was right, he realized. Alec blinked and gave a fraction of a grin in apology. "I'm sorry, it's just...I mean...I just can't help but wonder what you're doing in a place like this."
Her gaze resumed scanning the room. "I don't know. I felt like watching people enjoying themselves. Being happy." Something caught her roving eyes, and they brightened with delight. "Do you see those people over there?"
Alec looked in the direction she had gestured. There was a couple in one of the booths, staring at each other so intently they seemed to believe they would coax some secret meaning out of the lines and curves of the other's face.
"I see them," Alec stated. "They're probably both high as a kite...you wouldn't believe some of the shit these kids put in them nowadays..."
"No, no," the girl who called herself Cinnamon interrupted. Her gaze was still fixed on the young couple. "No, it's completely natural. They're only high on each other. On love."
"I find it amazing you can say a line like that with a straight face."
"It's not a line. It's the truth. Sometimes we spend so much time looking for beauty we completely ignore the beauty already around us. It's everywhere. The couple...the way the fog turns into a kaleidoscopic haze when it reaches the lights...that cigarette butt slowly burning away in that ashtray there. Everything's so alive. Life is everywhere, we just forget it sometimes."
The girl gave Alec an intense look. "That's why I'm here. It helps me get a perspective on things. You could say this is research."
Alec's expression reflected his confusion. "Research?"
"For my job."
"You're not anyone famous, are you? You look awfully familiar..."
The girl smiled as if sharing a private joke with herself. "Oh I'm certain you've seen me, though you wouldn't remember it. I...get around. But no, I'm not famous. Let's just say I work with people."
She looked in Alec's direction. "So what's your excuse?"
"Excuse me?"
"I told you why I'm here. Now it's your turn. This obviously isn't your scene...why are you in this place?"
Alec paused and sighed as if debating where to begin. "I just woke up an hour ago. I'd been having this dream...well, more of a nightmare really. Do you know much about dreams?"
"A bit. That's more my brother's area." "Well...anyway. I was in a hospital - which was a bad sign from the start since I hate those places - and I was just pacing around the waiting room. I was the only one there. There was some straight-to-video movie on the TV, Good Housekeeping magazines on the tables. Stale coffee sitting out, PA system paging names of doctors you've never heard of and immediately forget. You know the scene. I was worried about something, but I didn't know what."
He glanced up to verify his audience was listening. She was, smile plastered on her face as if it were the most gripping tale she'd ever heard.
He stopped and chuckled softly. "You know, I don't know why I'm telling you this."
The girl was still smiling. "Because you want to," she said with gentle admonishment. "Go on. You were worried..."
"Uh...right. I was worried, but I didn't know why. The nurse came in and she had one of those looks, where you know nothing good can follow. She didn't need to say anything. At that point I realized what was happening. My wife had died."
Alec shivered as he relived the moment.
"Then I woke up. And I realized everything was fine. I rolled over to tell Eleanor about it, and she wasn't there. And I remembered then...she was hit by a pick-up truck six months ago. Died instantly."
He didn't appear too upset; obviously he was good at hiding his emotions and had been doing so for some time. But an astute observer would have noticed a moment when his mildly handsome profile was overshadowed by a profound emptiness in his eyes, like hazel caverns echoing with loss. The moment was fleeting, however, and soon vanished.
The girl was no longer smiling.
"So I guess I'm here for the same reason as you," he continued. "Watching people, trying to get my mind off that dream. Trying to put things into perspective."
"Is it working?"
"Not particularly."
"Did you try talking to your family? I find that helps at times, no matter how infuriating they can be."
"No...I was found in a basket at the orphanage door when I was less than a month old. I was adopted by an elderly couple with no real family of their own. They died a few years back, within a week of each other."
He looked up to find the girl was standing up from the table.
"Where are you going?"
"There's only so much living you can do in a club. I think I'll go for a walk." The smile returned to her face. "Wanna tag along?"
Alec considered the invitation for a moment. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
The moment he had seen Cinnamon, Alec suspected she was unlike anyone he had met before. Every moment since then only proved his suspicions were well-founded.
They had walked through the city all night, through places Alec had never seen or heard of. They walked, they sat, they watched and listened to the world around them. And they talked. They took hold of any piece of conversation they could find, touched upon every facet of the subject, left no avenue of thought unexplored. There was magic in the air tonight, Alec was sure of that. But it wasn't until one of their quiet sits on a bench, watching the lavender sun peeking over the eastern horizon, that he realized the magic had always been there.
"I really like you." It took a moment for Alec to realize the words had come from his mouth.
The girl smiled even broader than normal. "Why, thank you. I really like you too."
"No, you don't understand. When I was in the club, I wasn't planning on returning to the apartment and falling asleep again. I wanted to die. I hadn't worked out the 'how' yet, but I figured I'd know the right way when the time came." He chuckled again, something he'd done more times in one night than the entire past month. "Nobody ever tells you that kind of stuff. Suicide's supposed to be a release, but it's so stressful. How do I do it? What's the least painful way? Do I want it to be painless? What do I write in the note? I mean, suicide notes are supposed to be grand, eloquent things, you can't just scrawl them on a restaraunt napkin...
But it's different now. This night...I realized something. I couldn't have killed myself, because the past six months I haven't been alive. Not really. My heart was pumping, my lungs were inflating, blood flowed through my veins. But for all effects and purposes, I was dead. You know this is the first time I've been outside since she died? I didn't even go to her funeral, I was too upset. Her family must think I'm a monster."
He laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world. "But now...now I know what it is to LIVE. And it's thanks to you. All thanks to you."
He looked back at her, expecting to be greeted by that wonderful smile, but was sadly mistaken. "What's wrong with you? You look like someone walked over your grave."
Her face was suddenly very weary. "No," she said in a quiet voice. "Not mine."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The rest of the walk was silent. He followed Cinnamon; she simply told him they were going to the journey's end, and he accepted her guidance without question.
It was morning, the last vestiges of flame and passion gone from the sky, when they stopped.
"This is it," she said.
"What? You live here?"
"No." She was still visibly saddened by something, but by what he couldn't guess. "But this is where we say goodbye. For the moment, at least."
Alec wasn't sure why, but these words bothered him, and panic began mounting within his gut. "What are you talking about? Why did you bring me here? Where-"
He didn't hear the sounds until it was too late. There was a rumble from behind and above him, and in a split second he registered three things. The first was, "The wall is collapsing, and it's going to land on me." The second, "I'm going to die." The third was not a thought, but an image: the young girl, an expression or her face halfway between sadness and calm duty, staring directly into his eyes.
The rest was blackness.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Alec woke up a few moments later. He opened his eyes to see the familiar alley, the collapsed wall. I made it!, he thought. And then he saw Death.
Or rather, he saw Cinnamon, but her true identity was no longer in doubt. Her skin was paler, but that was the only visible change; no, he knew the truth because we all know Death when we look it (or she) in the eye.
He looked up from the ground, all sorts of voices running through his mind asking how you talk when you're dead, before one voice finally out- shouted the rest and suggested talking like he always talked. But his body no longer seemed to no longer fit him, like wearing a winter coat in the Florida Keys. His tongue was like a granite slug and seemed determined to refuse his every command. But at long last he managed a single word.
"Why?"
This minor milestone achieved, he became comfortable enough with his body to form a sentence.
"Why...why now? Why me?"
The girl was maddeningly calm. "It was your time to go."
"BULLSHIT!" His own force of will shocked him, and it took him a moment to recollect the barely-functioning nerves and muscles of his vocal box. "You knew I was going to die. Why did you do that to me? Why did you talk with me and lend a sympathetic ear? Why did you..." He lost control again. "Why did you give me hope?"
The girl seemed genuinely sympathetic to his plight. "Once every 100 years I take human form. Even I don't fully understand why, but it's basic purpose is for me to experience the world, and to understand the people whose lives I greet and wave off when their time is up. Like yours was. Like everyone's is, in time."
"But why me?"
"You were there. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry! I'm the one buried under a ton of fucking bricks!"
Death looked at him with pity in her fathomless eyes. "Believe it or not, I understand how you feel. You weren't the only one who felt alive today. Like I said, I came here for perspective, and you gave it to me. And I thank you for that."
Alec seemed to calm a bit. "Yeah. Well." A glimmer of hope reached his face. "I supposed I'll see Eleanor again. We'll be together again, right?"
Death smiled solemnly. "You'll find out, won't you?" She extended her hand out to the crippled form on the ground.
"Alec...take my hand."
His arm reached out to touch hers, but seemed to reconsider. His hand snapped back to his side.
"Just tell me one thing. Why Cinnamon? I mean, you could have chosen any name on the planet...why that?"
Death appeared thoughtful as if considering this for the first time. "Cinnamon isn't me, I don't think. It's my centennial birth on this plane. When I take human form. Cinnamon in its purest form is terribly bitter and inedible. But with a little seasoning...a little sugar added...it's as sweet as can be. That's what these visits have taught me. Look at life as a big picture, in its purest form, and you're only going to get the bitter side. The sweet stuff you have to find and add yourself."
Alec seemed to mull this over in his head. "So in this visit...which was I? The bitterness or the seasoning?"
Death didn't seem to hear him.
"It's time."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Alec was gone. He had gone where all mortals go, in their time, and where even the Endless must go eventually. Death returned from the sunless lands to her realm. The goldfish were hungry, and she fed them without any real thought. Her mind was obviously elsewhere.
Her pets taken care of, she went to the wall and removed a mirror. In the realms of her six siblings, a painting of an ankh suddenly went black.
Death sat down then. What she was thinking is not made known to mortals, and it would be useless to guess now. But an astute observer would see that the design under her eye was no longer a solid black, but almost lucid, seeming to glisten and gleem in a rippling pattern. Perhaps the symbol is mere decoration. Perhaps it marks the path a tear makes on its way down her porcelain cheek. No one knows. The thoughts of the Endless are not made known to mortals.