Midnight Duet



  MIDNIGHT DUET

  By J.R. Rodriguez

  Midnight Duet

  by John Rodriguez

  © 2011 John Rodriguez. All Rights Reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without properly crediting John Rodriguez as the sole author and creator of this content. This story is provided to you free or charge and should not be sold in any way, shape or medium, print or digital. It may be reprinted for personal use, but you may not reprint it in an anthology or other media form without first contacting the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situation are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  MIDNIGHT DUET

  Things that are easily given are just as easily withdrawn. Life is no acceptation. The taker is Death and it exists for nothing more. It took many forms but it all had the same purpose: to take. Part of the fun was being able to take as many shapes as the human mind could dream (And there were many). Tonight, Death was a young woman. Her emerald green eyes blazed in contrast to her waxy pallid skin. She had a thin face with delicate features and full scarlet colored lips. Her fire red hair was pulled back into short sausage curls that were bound into a large rounded plait. There was some personal business to take care of and this was the shape with which the person was comfortable. The issue of attire was another matter: it had to comfort the intended victim the same way that her face did. Her immaculately clean dress was that of the Victorian era; it was jet black and made of shiny satin-like material and lace with a large elaborate bustle. This should work perfectly. She materialized in front of a decaying Victorian mansion at the edge of a patch of dense dark woods. As she walked towards the door, she could hear the sounds of chirping of crickets and croaking frogs. Nature was interesting: it went on no matter what happened. Death was nothing. Birds still sang, fish still swam, and bees still flew. They didn’t care. They just did what they had to do and nothing more. It was also interesting to see the places in which people died. While many of them seemed the same to her, they were all different in the eyes of the about-to-be deceased. They saw them as home while she saw them as mere waste pits at which to collect garbage. She knocked on the door. It was soon answered by a tall figure still hidden within the shadows of the interior. This was the resident of the home and the one who had called her here tonight.

  “Come in,” it said motioning for his guest to enter the house, “I’m glad you could make it.”

  “You should’ve known I’d come. I always do.”

  The Lady stepped into the spacious living room. It contained few pieces of overstuffed antique furniture covered in layers of dust and cobwebs; a couple of fat black spiders still resided in some of the silky netting. The windows had been shuttered, but that wood had long since out served its purpose. Bright moonlight shined through breaks in sickly white beams. This in itself lit the place, but there was a single lit candelabrum sitting on a low coffee table in front of the sofa. The homeowner wasn’t quite the type of person she normally visited. Some called him a ghost and some a zombie. The name didn’t matter because it was apparent the man belonged neither in the land of the living nor the domain of the dead. He was tall and extremely emaciated; his blotchy green-tinted skin had long since rotted and now looked more dried than putrefied. Traces of his former blonde hair stuck out in patches and his eyes seemed as if they’d fall out at any minute given they bulged so much. His own Victorian clothing hung off in dusty tatters and revealed jutting bone in a couple of places. He motioned his bony hand towards the sofa.

  “Please have a seat,” it said.

  The Lady crossed the room in wide graceful steps. She lifted her bustle, sat on the ancient piece of furniture, and talked over her shoulder in a haughty tone. “How are things? I have not seen you around in a long time.”

  “It’s been one hundred forty five years.”

  “Has it? Seems like just a hundred.”

  “Time doesn’t effect you, does it? Everything’s the same no matter how long it’s been. To answer your question, though, things aren’t great. That’s why I called you here.”

  The Lady tried to feign interest; she sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. The dead were boring, the living insufferable, and things like her host were somewhere in between. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I need something from you.”

  “I thought I had done that.”

  The creature ambled over to where his guest sat and threw his arms up slightly to draw attention to his body. “Oh, you mean this.”

  “What? You are not pleased?”

  “Pleased? How could I be pleased?”

  The Lady saw no issue with what the man was showing her and didn’t see his point. She pushed on, trying to make him hurry with what he had to say. “You’re still here are you not? I did you a favor. I do not see why you are so angry, William.”

  “There’s a name I haven’t heard for a long time. Forgot I even had one.”

  William turned away from the figure on the sofa, walked to one of the windows, and peered out into the night. “That’s another thing to add to the list,” he said in a soft tone.

  “What list? You are not making any sense.”

  “The list of grievances I have with you, my lady, that list.”

  The Lady frowned, stood, and walked behind William. Her voice was firm and tinged with anger. “You are very ungrateful. I gave you what I have taken from others and you have issues with me? You should be proud of the gift you have.”

  “What you gave can hardly be called a gift. I say it’s more a curse than anything else.”

  The remark caught her off guard. Her face temporarily blurred and flickered. The human visage gave way and a skeletal one took its place. This only lasted a few seconds. She regained her composure. “I do not see immortality a curse. You live forever. Many mortals would give anything to have it.”

  How could he make her see his point? Flowery speech didn’t seem to work. Perhaps directness was a better approach, so he spoke flatly. “I don’t feel the cold or warmth on my skin, I can’t enjoy a well prepared meal, I can’t sleep. I don’t get pleasure from doing the things I did when I was whole. Existing isn’t the same thing as living. As long as I am this way, that’s all I’m doing. There’s no beauty or romance about it. But you have to be human know that. ”

  “These things do not matter. You do not need to eat nor do you need to seek protection from the elements. You have been set free from the trappings of being truly alive.”

  William spun around to face his creator. There was a livid light within his otherwise dead eyes. His voice was now a shout. “The things that make life worth living are gone! I am suffering!”

  The Lady’s face again roller her eyes. “What do you want me to do? Take you away?”

  “Yes! That’s what you do!”

  “No, I only take away that which is gone.”

  “Exactly!”

  The Lady backed away and walked towards the living room. She stepped up to and peered into a dirty mirror on a far wall. For a few seconds there was silence. With a hand, she traced the contour of her pale face and patted her curls. “You realize you ask something which has not been done before. I do not make mistakes. Taking you back would be like saying I made one. Your mortal brothers and sisters would not see me the same way again. The fear would be gone. I do not know if I can do that.”

  Willia
m came in and stood beside the contemplating reaper. “What? Is Death not merciful?”

  “No,” she answered coldly, “I am absolute. There can not be room for anything else.”

  “Then what would you call me? My being here shows that you’re not absolute. It shows you’re faulty.”

  It was now the young woman’s turn to be angry. Odd she didn’t have these primitive emotions until he took human form. It was distressing. “No! I am always right in my actions!”

  “Again, I ask you to look at me and say that. Is that really right?”

  Calm again settled the room.

  The Lady stood for a few seconds admiring her form some more before speaking. She talked to her progeny as if he were a small child. “You try my patience, William, and Death waits for no one. I spared you because you showed me a courage that no other man ever showed. You had to tenacity to challenge my very being. People have challenged my work before, but none ever challenged me. Who dares to question the very law of life itself? No one. It is foolhardy. However, I thought it deserved a unique reward, so I let you live in both mind and body forever. I cannot take that back. Don’t think you cheated me in any way. It was all my doing.”

  “Then you are not an absolute.”

  The Lady turned to face William. The rage that had burned in the man’s eyes had gone.