Behold, the Reaper Cometh

It turns into our driveway, the long, black limousine. Its sleek ebony finish gleams with an ethereal sheen. Its windows are tinted, dull and darkly opaque. It resembles an imposing hearse come to collect its fare for the day.

It creeps up the driveway in no special hurry, reflecting the nature of its occupant seated inside. The orders have been given; why rush? Nobody misses that meeting.

I shiver as if someone has just walked across my grave. Even the dog senses the gravity of the moment and slinks off, hiding behind the sofa. I face the circumstances, walk to the door, await the guest.

The limo door opens slowly, a bony finger grasps the door, a skeletal foot emerges, partially enshrouded by a black cape. Where a face should be is only a dark void, a veil, hidden inside the cape’s hood. With certainty of purpose the occupant walks slowly to the door. I know why he’s here, even as he does. I invite him in.

I’ve been around long enough to know The Reaper is a chameleon, a master of disguises. His purpose is singularly simple…he comes to reap, to clean up all of life’s messes, a creature of carrion. And he never leaves empty-handed. It’s his job. Why is he here, I wonder?

Reapers can arrive in a variety of ways. Like that Ford Victoria pulling up in your driveway with an IRS emblem on the door. Or the Repo man who shows up in the dead of night to confiscate the nice Cadillac you forgot to pay off. Reapers come every week with the lawn mower to give the grass a haircut; or make compost of dead leaves. Reapers are everywhere.

“Come in. I’ve been expecting you but not so soon.”

“Ok, but not for long. Deadlines loom. COVID’s got me behind. Essential services, you know.”

“What brings you to my house?”

“Your number came up, but you look pretty healthy. Still, the Boss rarely makes mistakes. Must be something here that needs cleaning up.”

“Sit down, let’s talk about it.”

“Nice home here, pity to leave it.” He looks around and glances at the doctor’s report on the table.

“Ah, looks like you’ve been ignoring the blood test results. Diets of simple carbs and sugar will lay you out faster than waving a Confederate flag at NASCAR. Your arteries and heart have petitioned the Boss for help. You must have a death wish. Maybe I’m just in time. I rarely come early. I’ve seen people croak at the very sight of me.”

“How’d you know about my blood test? “

“We have ways and means. We heard you discussing it with the doctor through the light bulb.”

“Light bulb?”

“Yeah, sounds vibrate light waves, transmit your voice. You know Alexi, right? She’s our mole.”

“You must stay very busy.”

“Yeah, all hours, day and night. Never know when the call will come. Plus, a lot of stress with this new quota system the Boss imposed.”

“Reaping must be a grim job.”

“Yes, no fun at all. Always bad news. It helps to be callous, impervious to wailings and gnashing of teeth, the wringing of hands, the tears and pleadings of those begging for a reprieve. I’d rather be a Sower of good news. Nobody likes a Reaper. It’s a bad rap. But somebody has to do it, or the messes would just keep compounding themselves. Imagine it.”

“Why are people afraid of you?”

“Bottom line? I’m basically a janitor. I clean up the messes people leave.”

“How so?”

“Simple. I balance all books, discharge all debts, adjust all open accounts, equalize all imbalances. I ameliorate ancient animosities, finalize all feuds and lay a hatchet to the hubris of nations and politicians.”

He continues. “Many call me the Great Emancipator of people, helpless prisoners of the earth. I equalize all perspectives and eliminate all illusions. I am the vintner of the vats of the grapes of wrath, the final umpire of all games and healer of all ills. I’m the real deal here. I’m a busy fellow.”

I’m speechless.

“Nice talking to you. Better listen to your doctor and lay off those carbs and sugars, or I’ll be back.” He moves like a ghost to the door but leaves his scythe as a reminder.

“Hey, wait, you have my last box of Godiva chocolates and my stash of Kettle Chips with Himalayan salt.”

“I never leave empty-handed. See you again, sooner or later.”

**********

Behold the Reaper cometh…and his words, “I never leave empty-handed,” still ring in my ears. But the “sooner or later” troubles me.


Bud Hearn
June 29, 2020

Ruminations of an Addled Mind

It was the best of days; it was the worst of days. Such is often the dichotomy of life.

**********

There’s a lot of confusion going on these days. Have you noticed? Are we sowing the wind again; will we reap the whirlwind?

Our fallow fields of yesterday are being ripped up, row by row, by the hard and merciless steel plow of change. Who knows what will blossom from the wild seeds being sown in the newly plowed ground?

Maybe it was my birthday, or the in-place sheltering and the social distancing dictates that have made sausage of my mental state. I seem to have emerged from the fog of a long sleep. Nemesis, goddess of divine justice and retribution, stalks the streets, accompanied by the Furies, arbiters of Justice. All offenses are captured on YouTube, names are taken, chastisement is instant. Hello, Buford T. Justice.

I wake up this morning feeling like Rip Van Winkle. Remember him, the fellow who was an idler, who wandered off into the woods to escape his nagging wife? Well, after a few skoshes of white lightnin’ he fell asleep. And slept for 20 years.

When he woke up, he found himself in a changed world, unrecognizable, strange. He had slept through the American Revolution. King George was out, Washington was in. A seismic societal shakeup had occurred. His wife and dog had died. Confused, he resorted to his old idleness for normalcy. Can fables become facts?

After deep contemplation brought on by brain overload from too much information and constant babble from the media, I decide to take up as a sure defense the pursuit of the manifold pleasures of an idle mind, a mind excused from the daily burden of explaining the world’s insanity by any plausible metaphor, a mind that has as its sole virtue the singular pursuit of nothing more than sitting quietly on the porch, passing the time flipping with my thumb the heads-tails of my one puny vote while contemplating an imaginary solid brick wall in concert with the family dog that lies beside me, himself doing likewise, contemplating nothing more than the width and breadth of the illusionary mortar joints that seem to hold the imposing barrier in place, which engages the shallowness of my mental depth that’s completely derelict of any curiosity or purpose save wondering what lies behind this blank barrier to the outside world, a world currently seething with rivalries, confusion and unappeased appetites. To draw parallels and conclusions to these contemplations is beyond my addled reach. Whew.

Alas, a mind can only be corralled for a short time. It’ll soon go sideways as mine did, back again to RVW. I try to imagine how he must have grappled with the changes. Did he struggle mentally with the emerging vicissitudes or troubled by the pyres and graffiti art desecrating the revered statues of status quo?

Did his psyche squirm trying to grasp the emerging model of the new mosaic? Where might he fit into this brave new experiment being assembled by the voices of public dissent demanding change? It’s a weariness of life to wrestle in such mental mud.

Were bricks sailing through the plate glass windows of his unsettled mind, shattering its serenity, or looters rummaging through the contents of his brain, their Molotov cocktails torching his perceived sense of sheltered safety?

Did the recurring cruelty of a few inflame the militant ire of many, provoking protests of injustice in the yellow brick cobblestones of his dreams? And did prostrate bodies lie strewn in the viral streets, surrounded by blue-coated avatars of brutality?

Were the nerves of that day on edge, hypersensitive, alert for all empirical signs of injustice, name-calling, inequality and brutish activity in thought, word and deed? In which Instagram lab of the post-American Revolution was this new order being incubated and hatched?

Had the thinly veiled veneer of brotherly love finally cracked? Did the bad air of discontent, like miasma hissing from a belching coal mine, soil the fabric of the emerging nation’s soul? Did clinched fists beat the empty air amid chants of “I can’t breathe,” as if the air itself were void of oxygen? Such is the stuff of revolutions.

But here we sit, Bogey the dog and I. The coin toss of my vote is settled. As for everything else, well, solvitur ambulando…it’ll have to work itself out as we move on.

**********

It was the best of days; it was the worst of days. It all depends on perspective. RVW, RIP.


Bud Hearn
June 15, 2020