In Death There Is A Sadness

IN DEATH THERE IS A SADNESS

I am playing chess with Death. I'm no good, of course, but that's fine. It's just practise.

____"I have to be able to beat the 'no good' too, don't I?" – he says. "Now stop asking questions – I'm a busy man... Or a skeleton... or something."


It's a lovely set he has, this. Exquisitely hand-crafted. Death made it himself.

But Death isn't fond of the word lovely, and Death has access to a lot of bones. So on balance he's probably right.


_____"Carrion!" – he says, suddenly. "Decay! Cadavers! Ineluctable decline..."

Death has a sort of death Tourette's.

_____"Shush" – I say. "I was about to move."

_____"Ineluctable, though" – he says. "Come on – in-e-luc-ta-ble... Blissful! Like rolling a lychee across your tongue!"

_____"Lychees make me think of eyeballs" – I mutter.

Death laughs. Like tombstones tumbling. It's usually him who's the morbid one.


There is a word that Death can never understand. Perhaps it's the most beautiful there is.

(Say it now. Say it for yourself. Say it slowly, softly, tenderly, say it out loud: pusu... pu-su... Feel how your mouth moves. Feel how it forms the action, forms the word, forms a kiss – that's what pusu means, that's what pusu is).

But Death knows Finnish. He just doesn't have lips.