Woolgathering

  ***

  In a lackluster hospital no place in particular, a coma patient two weeks running moaned, tossing his dark hair. There was a woman beside him. She’d been there for two weeks, and she had warm brown eyes that widened as he stirred. Immediately she took his hands, calling his name, but she stopped, gasping when she realized he wasn't groaning at all.

  "Death can't smile," the man slurred instead. "Not really. That would be mockery, indescribably cruel, and the ferryman knows it. But what a weight he bears—what a weight!" His dry lips cracked as he pursed them against a hiccoughing sob. "It's too much to ask that he never grin. That's why—that's why when he stretches his lips we call him something different, something proper…"

  “We call him…” the man trailed off, sinking back into repose. Frantic, the woman above him made to call for the nurse, fearing suddenly that he might never wake again as she reached to shake him. But the moment she touched him something like a shock tore through the man’s spine, and he cried out again.

  “We call him—!”

  “Please—!” the woman began, and her voice rent the air, opened it wide.

  "—We call him Life!" Icarus gasped, and he opened his tear-filled eyes.

  Living