Alice, Marbles, and Eternity
by C L Spears
Flash-Dark Humor (first line prompted)
When she was eight, Alice Henderson briefly held the world record for filling her mouth with marbles. Briefly, as it were, because she died shortly thereafter.
The Guinness committee looked on pensively as they counted the final marbles toward the record.
89, 90, 91, 92.
She pulled and plied at the skin of her cheeks, but her mouth was about to burst. Alice was finished; she calmed herself and breathed steadily through her nose.
Bulbs flashed, and shutters clicked as she maintained the awkward pose for the record books.
Her macabre impression of a hamster was recorded–marbles and teeth blending into one. It was the second most uncomfortable experience of her life. The first, of course, was the moment one marble rolled partially down her windpipe.
Alice gagged; the marbles clinked as they were forced together by her suffocation. Her tiny fingers pointed at her throat, followed by a muffled plea.
Her mother gasped, and she rushed toward her daughter. The committee stared in fright.
Alice leaned forward, marbles cascading from her mouth to the floor.
92, 91, 90…
It was a wonderfully colored vomit of rainbow and sparkles as the marbles caught the photographer’s key light. The panicked voices of the adults drowned out the soft thud of marbles on the carpet.
One committee member rushed forward, trying an upright Heimlich Maneuver. His unskilled hand smacked against her back.
Alice dry heaved again, trying to force out the lone marble that had started the fiasco. Her face turned a lovely shade of blue and purple as she attempted to breathe from any other part of her body. A valiant effort to stay alive, that was unfortunately in vain.
I reached forward and brushed her shoulder, liberating her eternal soul from her mortal body.
I received a Post-it earlier that morning with her name, an address, and the current time: 10:42 am. When I received the note, I had no idea she would be so young, but fate is indifferent. Each living thing has an appointed date and time.
In the early years of this job–if being a grim reaper could be considered a job–I often contemplated the sheer panic that would arise if people knew of us. Despite all their primping, preening, and posturing; a small note would arrive one day signaling their demise. How would they react? All I can say for certain is that Post-its would fly off the shelves every October… and perhaps April 1st.
Alice’s spirit looked over her young body as it collapsed to the floor. Her mom attempting CPR, but provided no relief from the marble. In fact, her rushed movements had only caused the marble to slip further into her trachea.
I gripped Alice’s ethereal hand and pulled her away from the sight of her mother weeping openly. Alice’s eyes lingered at the terror stretched across her mother’s face and her arms gesticulating frantically.
I too had had an abrupt end, but at least made it to the age of thirty. At my appointed date and time, a freak snowstorm had caused icy conditions. The smooth tires of my midsized sedan aided in liberating my car from the surface of the road.
I found it odd to see a beautiful young woman standing near my car after sliding into a retaining wall. She had been my reaper. I didn’t have much time to ask questions before she slipped off into the afterlife. Apparently, I was her replacement.
Alice pulled on my sleeve and looked up at me, her formerly chestnut brown eyes now a thin shade of blue.
“Was that me on the ground?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
“What comes next?”
“I don’t really know. I’m just a middleman.”
“Will my mom be, okay?”
“Not really.”
“Oh,” Alice said with a small whimper. Her small hand wiped at her eye. This impulse was merely a vestigial memory of life, there were no tears to be dabbed away.
In the life before this veritable purgatory, I had been concerned with tact and preserving people’s feelings. But after years of ushering people to the next world while trapped between them, there wasn’t much time for walking on eggshells.
I thought about comforting her, but the death of children always threw me off. It seemed a bit unfair—they got to experience so little of life. On the other hand, at least they got to skip some of the awkward trappings of adulthood.
As my brain started to construct a pleasant thought to pass onto Alice, a mystical sight appeared before us. Rows of bluish trees sprung forth from the ground, creating a dense forest with a narrow passageway zig-zagging out of site. A few blue bunnies hopped along, and an azure deer pranced across the forest path.
It seemed, once again, I would be trapped between worlds. Left to usher yet another soul into the great beyond. This portal was for Alice.
It’s probably for the best, I muse. A childlike grim reaper would be too jarring for most.
My train of thought arrived just in time, and I bid Alice a farewell.
“Your mother won’t forget you. You’ll be with her always. Best be going now,” I said, encouraging Alice down her path to eternity.
Alice looked up at me one last time, a hint of a smile crossed her face. She then turned and skipped off down the path. Eternity had that effect on people, like a carefully crafted doormat, their final vision was exactly what they needed to accept fate.
As Alice disappeared into the forest, the trees and animals sank into the living room floor. I turned to see a paramedic loading Alice’s limp body onto a gurney. A stark reminder that tomorrow would bring another note, another name, another soul to reap.