One More Name for Death

by Paul Radcliffe

   “Time itself is one more name for death.”

                  C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

          Time was a hanging lantern. The light it shed flickered at the edge of his memory, but it was clear as the dawn that crept across the harbour. He had never forgotten, though days and distance had conspired over the years that went by. Someone had once written that time does not take everything, hard though it tries. And it had tried. Different faces, different times. Masks that slipped, his own and others. A pantomime of assumptions that left as they arrived, with warnings unheard.

          He had seen another face, however, and he had not forgotten it. It lingered patiently, it did not shout or clamour for attention. It did not need to. Glimpsed occasionally, perhaps on a cold railway station, a glance through a  grimy carriage window as the train pulled away, night closing round it and realization dawning. Now, another railway station at the far edge of the known world. The known world, however, is not the only world. Other worlds overlap and blend with it, though few can see this.

She walked across a station concourse. When he saw her, he remembered why he had not forgotten. Time had enhanced her, where it is its habit to take away. It was late evening. As they crossed the platform to leave, they were watched from the upper floor of the station, from a room that had once been a nursery. A toddler, long dead, stared down, saw them leave, and faded back into the shadows of the office. They had not seen him, but he had been there. As with memories, neither he nor they had ever left. He never would.

It was a short walk to a darkened house in a quiet street. There was much to talk about, but little was said. There are times—as most of us know—

when words are unwelcome. The city’s weather was unpredictable, and a gathering wind pushed against them as they walked. It brought with it the first drops of rain. There was a towering hill nearby, and she saw the trees move.

Somewhere on the hill, there was a shelter for animals, animals lost and abandoned. Unseen by either of them, a puppy opened its eyes as a shade drifted past, accustomed to its fate. The shade brought no malice. The puppy went back to sleep. It was used to the sound of the wind.

The woman saw the leadlight, the patterned window. A heart, pierced by long grey swords. As all hearts are, sooner or later. This was a truth they both knew. Some heal. Perhaps. The house was haunted by memories and dreams ripped away as the wind tore at the rain. They went into a room, a warm room with a round polished table. The lighting was subdued, and he thought candles should have burned there. They did not, and the ghost who was watching did not mind. He had been there since his death, coughing blood and consumed by fear, in a bedroom that looked out onto the angry harbour.

He watched as the woman sat at the table, and the man placed a bottle of wine there. A bottle of the country’s Sauvignon, straw-yellow, and two glasses. The glasses themselves held a story, which he would later tell. The two were looking at each other.

Before the glasses were filled, and while they held each other’s gaze, a reflection appeared in the smooth glass of the wine bottle. It was easy to miss, even had they not been looking at each other. A misted outline that did not linger long in the glass, eyes dark hollows and thin shoulders. Their glasses clinked, and the ghost heard something. The woman was speaking of time and distance, and a path to be walked, not far away. The ghost knew something of time, and even more of death. In life, he had been a decent man, and even as he found himself now, he did not bring spite or jealousy to the two people who drank wine. He left them to their magic and became one with the night. He wished them happiness on this evening, though they could not hear.

          Time does not take all things. Hard, though it tries.

As the spectre vanished quietly, it heard the man speak her name and saw her smile. After that, just the wild rain on the windows and the sound of the wind.