First Look at Death's Touch

You know how you're doing the dishes, thinking deep thoughts, and BLAM! it hits you? Well, several months ago I was doing just that, and I suddenly had a thought for a story. A story with a very deep meaning. Death. But not specifically death, not just death itself, but also what happens after death. And how death can happen to anyone, no matter your age. I felt like it was a story that was placed on my heart for a reason. So I wrote a little about it, and put it in my to-be-written stories. Recently, this story has come to my attention again. It will not be a novel, but more of a short story, or novella. It won't be my biggest project, and I'm not even sure if it would be a story I would sell, or if it would be one I published online, so that it might help others. Right now I don't know. But I thought you guys might like to hear a little bit about it, and I'm even going to share with you the first bit of the story.

 I've never done a story like this. And the style of writing is different as well. I hope you will enjoy it anyway. :)

 Enjoy.

For some death is a doorway. For some it comes to soon. But it must come, for all. For it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this, the judgement.

 

The clock strikes eleven. There is an empty silence felt. It is real- more real than anything felt. It is a heavy silence. A silence that can mean only one thing. Death has arrived.

  If you stood in the empty hall of this Victorian-era home, you would stare at the varnished grandfather clock standing like a sentry in the corner. You would note the time that Margaret Dale passed from this life, and you would remember.

 If you were Margaret’s daughter, Louisa, you would have walked into the second room on the left, and watched her departure. You would have gripped her hand, and begged her not to go, even if ninety-three was a nice long life.

 But you are not Louisa, and if you were, you would be brought to the understanding that all have a time appointed to them, and your mother’s time is up.

 She looks at the ceiling, her face glowing with a joy you may have never witnessed. Louisa holds her hand even tighter. She is not willing to let go. You want to go to her, but you are a spectator. You cannot be part of the scene. No one is aware of your presence. You are here to learn.

 “I see the angels,” Margaret breathes, the lines around her eyes- once so shrouded, now clear- turning into a smile. “They are singing.”

 Louisa strokes her mother’s white hair, once a deep shade of chestnut. “Mother, oh mother, I’m not ready.”

 If you looked around the room, you would notice something immediately. Not the large four-poster bed, or the colorful carpet of red and gold, or the antique bureau. No, you would feel, see, the complete emptiness of the room. There is no one at the bedside, or in the entire house, but Margaret and her loving daughter.