Angel of Death

Azrael bit back a sigh as he watched the young girl scamper about the playground.  They’d nearly reached the rip, that edge in the veil between his reality and her’s, when the 6 year old had spied the now twilight-dimmed swing set. There’d been little he could do to keep her from jumping on, her insistent “Fly now pwease!” bringing a slight smile to his face along with a sob to his throat.  

He’d held the title and position of the Angel of Death for centuries, and in that time he’d come to one agonizing truth: the children were always the worst.  Adults often knew their time had come.  They might fight it, screaming defiance with their last breath; they might, instead, slide easily into death as if into the cool waters of relief.  Death was in turn a blessing or a curse to the grown, but still it was a known quantity.  All life ended in the mortal realm.  That was simply accepted.  

Children rarely seemed to realize what had happened.  There were exceptions of course.  Those for instance who had struggled against some long disease or the dangerous ‘affections’ of an abusive adult might recognize the moment of their release.  These were the exceptions, however.   Most were like this smiling little minx, utterly unaware that her short span on this plane had come to such an abrupt end.  

She’d been playing too close to the street, and her mother had been just an instant too slow with the car had come careening by.  

So now, she was dead, and didn’t have a clue.  

It was heartbreaking, even for one who’d served as long as Azrael had.  He had no doubt that it was the children who had driven his predecessors out of the exalted position, just as he had no doubt that he, too, would be forced to leave his post or lose his compassion.  

It was that same compassion that had led him to pause by the playground as she’d insisted, and compassion that led him to join in her simple games.  Soon enough, they’d pass through the veil, and she would become whatever it was that mortals became after death.  Such things were mysteries even to God’s oldest children.

The young girl’s shriek of pleasure as she slid down the slide startled a true grin onto the face of the dark eyed angel, and, for a moment at least, he allowed himself the joy of play.