When Death came to call, I was planting flower bulbs in the garden. There was a strange whistling sound before their descent. Like an arrow piercing the air. Then, Death landed with a thud on the newly unearthed soil. A moan of something like pain. A wing askew and broken.

Death looked at me, hollow-eyed and weary. Skeletal fingers grasped a handful of earth and it trailed from their hand like sand from an hourglass. 

‘It’s not my time,’ I said.

Death didn’t reply, only touched their broken wing, head tilted to one side, as if confused or disoriented.

I stood up, offered my hand. ‘Come inside, let me help.’

*

Death stayed for three days while I nursed them back to health. Though they didn’t speak, their presence was oddly comforting. Familiar, like an old friend. I told them about my life, my family. The ones that had already left me. The ones that hadn’t. The good I’d done. The mistakes I’d made. The dreams I still had.

Death didn’t judge. Only listened. While they rested, I carried on my day-to-day – called on friends and family, then finished planting my flowerbed. New life would bloom in Spring. 

On the fourth morning, I found Death by the window, wings outstretched. Sunrays illuminated them in an ethereal glow. They reached out a hand.

But I stepped away. ‘It’s not my time,’ I said, again.

Death lowered their head, solemn. For a moment, I thought they’d fly towards me, take me in those skeletal arms, and soar back up into the sky. But then with a flutter of wings, they flew from the window and disappeared into the cold grey morning. 

*

Some years later, Death returned. They didn’t fall from the sky this time, merely appeared by my window with the birdsong at dawn, as I lay half-asleep in bed. They looked different – their face had changed. More solid, less featureless, almost a reflection of my own. And I realised why back then they had seemed so familiar. Why we had been able to sit like old friends. 

When they approached my bed and reached out their hand, I took it this time. A scratch began at my shoulders. Baby feathers bristled.

When Death came to call for the second time, I was ready. Together, we left the world as equals – wings new and unbroken.