Tyler is a journalist from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in English from Penn State University, and is trying to rekindle that creative fire news writing beat out of him.
The Worst
Sound
There’s an
unforgettable sound that precedes death—recognizable as the scratchy gasp from
a grandparent or pained whine from a family pet seconds before they leave our
world for the next.
As a boy I had grown tired of death.
Even then, at such a young age as I was, grief gave way to anger at the loss of
a life I adored. Once I stared at a
faux candlestick behind my mother’s patterned curtains. Through them the light
appeared muffled, dim. When finally I unplugged the plastic flame, it slowly
faded into nothingness like the dog’s eyes when he arched his back, kicked out
his feet, and howled one last time earlier that night.
It was a sad episode for my family,
but I imagine it must be sadder for he who caused it. That’s why I decided to
meet him: Death; ask why he would turn off someone’s lights when people loved
them; and why he would make them make such a terrible sound.
I had it in my mind to wait under my
grandmother’s bed each night after she grew sick and forgetful, and came to
live in our spare room.
The cold room.
I wasn’t supposed to be in there, I was
warned, but I had some words for this fellow hurting me, hurting everyone,
everywhere in the world.
When late one night he cracked her
door and silently glided through, I slithered from beneath the bed. He stopped
and stared (probably), I wasn’t sure since he was faceless.
He heaved a sharp finger at me,
“You… think it… fun?” the voice sloughed from somewhere beneath that
black hood.
I froze, unable to remember the speech
I had prepared to skewer him with.
“Why?” was all I managed.
He stood unmoving for what seemed like
minutes. I was unsure if he heard me, or even understood with how he turned his
gaping black hole sideways when I spoke, as if pushing an ear he didn’t have
toward me to better understand. It was what my dad did when he practiced French
with his drinking friends.
“You… don’t understand.
Cannot.”
His arm waved toward my grandmother
with a rattle of bones and he floated away. His lanky shoulders drooped.
And she didn’t gasp when she died.
She chimed.
What an odd sound. It sounded exactly
like the wind chimes that hovered above our English Ivy on the porch.
Death did me a favor.
Although all the years after, and
still, I remember my grandmother’s death, and that hazy interaction with Death,
whenever I pass a house and the wind stirs the chimes.
