A Pondering Paradox's Palace

This idea popped into my head after a long day of fighting to keep a dying bunny alive. She died earlier today and so I wrote this when I had some free time.  If it’s any good, consider it in memory of Parsley. If it’s bad, blame it on my over-worked brain.

When I was a month old, my mom past away then two weeks later, my dad died. That’s when Death and I first met. That’s when it really all started. Before that, I was a cute, innocent, chubby-cheeked baby named Milo, after Death and I met was the beginning of the end for me, now I call myself “The Reaper”.

I was five when it happened again. It didn’t really seem significant at that time. Well, to my five year old brain it was, but not to anyone else. My foster parent had gotten me a frog the day before my fifth birthday as a present. The minute I saw that frog, I knew I loved it. In the survival of the fittest society of foster care, there was no one I really trusted or loved, but this frog represented something more, something I could love. I made a home for it, named it, feed it and stayed up late so I could watch its little throat bulge in and out whenever it breathed. When I woke up the next morning, it was dead. My little heart-broken sobs that rent the air surprised both of my foster parents, but they decided that the frog’s death was most likely due to some disease from the pet store, and told me to stop crying. I did. But I didn’t forget what had happened.

Death didn’t stop there though. When I was twelve I fell in love with a girl who loved across the street from me. A week later she died.

When I was fifteen I had a best friend, a guy who hated foster care as much as me and would sneak out and meet me late at night. Two months later, he died in a shooting incident.

It may already make sense to you, but it took me a while to figure out. What’s the secret to The Reaper’s curse? Whenever I love someone unconditionally they die.

Yeah, call me paranoid. Call me crazy. I really don’t care; I’m used to it by now. All I know is every time I’m willing to die for someone, they end up dying instead.

I’m still not sure why it happens. Maybe Death got cheated once too often, maybe Hell’s just too empty for Satan’s liking. Maybe I was supposed to die as a kid and this is the punishment for me not being dead, or  maybe it’s just one long stream of impossible coincides that happened to occur. But if you can, you explain to me why every living thing I love ends up dying.

Death and me are almost on talking terms now. I’ve gotten so use to seeing people die. Don’t think I try to love people though, I learned long ago to avoid that, but loving seems to be like breathing.  As long as you’re alive, you can’t help but do it.

A long time ago, I thought I could solve the problem if I just died myself. After all, if I was dead, how could I love someone? But that doesn’t seem to work out for me. I don’t seem to die.  I shot myself point blank in the head after my best friend died, and somehow managed to miss any major arteries as well as my brain. The doctor called it a miracle, but then he doesn’t know that I’m The Reaper. I jumped off a cliff, and only sprained my ankle. Killing isn’t an issue for me, but dying is. So I try to make up for what I do by saving people’s live.

Yup, that’s me, the paramedic. I didn’t dare go to medical school. What if I ended up sitting next to some pretty girl in class, fell in love with her and deprived the world of the next greatest brain surgeon? No, instead I decided to be one of the glorified taxi-drivers who speed around the city and load people into ambulances. I avoid talking to people; I try not to look at them. The less I care, the less likely I will be to kill them. Reclusive, withdrawn and misunderstood, those are the words that people use to describe me. But that’s alright, because I’ve learned to live with what I can’t change and this is my story. Take or leave it. Just don’t make me love you.