I saw Death in Philadelphia.

 

Or Death saw me.

 

It’s dark out. Activity in the streets is fading. We’re in a diner.

 

You need to relax on that thing, she says.

 

My ringless fingers halt their progress on my presentation.

 

You have all of tomorrow to polish it off, she says.

 

She’s some bleached blonde half my age.

 

I guess you’re right, I reply. Let’s go do something.

 

I pack my computer into it’s bag.

 

Then we’re outside. An ambulance siren wails. She walks beside me with the confidence of someone who has the time to not live a life she truly wants. We enter a gelato parlor. The only difference between gelato and ice cream is the price.

 

An expanse of flavors stares back at the small seating area. Two other people are there. An old fat man calmly eating and a tall, clean shaven olive skinned man standing behind him. I make sudden eye contact with the latter.

 

His pupils are dark. They seem almost vacant and empty, continuing into a huge expansive darkness.

 

I knew this man.

 

My mother knew him.

 

My father knew him.

 

My brother knew him.

 

My grandparents knew him.

 

My daughter knew him.

 

He appears as a vague taboo joke until suddenly he’s there. I’ve spent my entire life denying and avoiding any acknowledgment of him. My entire life. But what does that matter now? He’s right before me.

 

Death.

 

I froze where I stood. She walks a few steps ahead of me then looks back.

 

Are you okay? she asks after a few quiet moments.

 

Death’s eyes widen, broadening the holes to the void. His face melts into a look of shock and confusion.

 

Don’t you see him? I ask.

 

See who? She says.

 

I drop my computer bag. Forget it.

 

Every impulse in my brain fires. This is one of the most natural feelings a man can feel.

 

Run.

 

I burst out of there. As I sprint down the sidewalks I convince myself I can feel the blossoms of Death’s depths getting weaker.

 

Hey, she calls after me. What’s wrong?

 

I keep going.

 

What’s wrong? she shouts.

 

I hear a faint sound of surprise followed by a violent wheeze in the gelato parlor. My adrenaline screams at me, Go, go, go. Save yourself. Protect yourself. Preserve yourself.

 

One of the most natural feelings a man can feel.

 

Forget the computer. Forget the hotel room. I had to get out of there. So I tried to head for the airport. My flight doesn’t leave tomorrow anymore, it leaves now.

 

Vehicles get us places faster. That’s why we invented them. So we don’t drain our lives away walking and get out of danger quicker.

 

I pull out my phone. The screen is black. A deep aching black with only emptiness inside of it.

 

Then the screen turns on. Never mind.

 

The Uber is called. It leaves me no choice but to pause on a street corner. Every cell of me jitters. My head spins all around the maze towering buildings. Death could be waiting. Just waiting to peer his head around anyone of them. Rear his head, dark eyes locked on me, sneaking up behind and-

 

Are you-

 

Yes. Airport. Now, I say.

 

I get in the car.

 

Hurry.

 

He drives off. The car rattles down the street. I swear I can feel Death standing on every street corner.

 

We get on I-95. The car soon comes to a halt behind a field of numbingly red taillights.

 

Crap, I say.

 

Sorry, man. There’s been a huge pileup, my driver says.

 

The car never moves. Other cars soon fill the space behind us, boxing me in. I’m not getting farther from Death. It seems like at any moment Death could step out of a car and walk right over here and there would be nothing I could do about it.

 

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

 

I opened the car door and got out.

 

Dude, where are you going? my driver asks. I’m already gone.

 

Cars seem to slide by me as I sprint by them. I’m probably giving everyone a great mystery of the evening.

 

Why is that guy sprinting between lanes?

 

Because he’s avoiding Death.

 

That’s not even that unusual of a thing. Everyone else here is doing it too.

 

I keep going.

 

The flashing red and blue lights are getting closer. Soon I’m at the site of the pileup and it’s not pretty.

 

Several ambulances, a firetruck, cop cars. Shattered glass crunches under my feet and I see officers standing around an upside down obliterated car.

 

It’s as though I’ve gone unnoticed. Except when I run by a couple of EMTs placing an oxygen mask on a man in a stretcher. Standing beside him is the fat old man from the gelato parlor.

 

How did he-

 

That’s not him.

 

We make eye contact.

 

The same dark abyss. Reaching out and corrupting all that isn’t under it’s control. And he scowls in confusion.

 

I’m too panicked to scream.

 

He found me.

 

He’s right here on top of me.

 

Go, go, go. Save yourself. Protect yourself. Preserve yourself.

 

I dash by him on to an area of the freeway clear of all traffic. I’m completely exposed but there’s nowhere to run.

 

Keep on to the airport. Keep on to the airport. Keep on to the airport.

 

Before I realize it I’m on the ground. My face is scraping into the concrete. All that skin I’ve spent so much time tanning and all those moisturizers and supplements I use to look young is getting sanded into ground.

 

I swear I can feel Death on me. He’s getting closer. He’s right beside me.

 

I look up, blood trailing down my face to see Death face to face.

 

Nothing’s there. Never mind.

 

Picking myself up, I make it for the airport.

 

I keep sprinting for nearly hour until I reach it.

 

My timing was perfect. A flight was about to leave for Silicon Valley and there was an open seat.

 

I get on. Buckle my seat. Swivel my head between the window and the cabin. Making sure Death is nowhere near.

 

But the flight doesn’t leave.

 

I just keep waiting and waiting and waiting. Nothing happening.

 

Come on, come on, come on, come on, I keep whispering.

 

Death could be coming at any second. Walking straight to me and I’d have no escape.

 

Come on, fly the plane away already. Please, I get up and shout.

 

A few heads lazily turn toward me.

 

A flight attendant walks over.

 

I’m terribly sorry, sir, but there has been a hold up. A couple of people on a connecting flight are coming and-

 

Get this plane in the air now, I scream. Now.

 

Sir, calm down please.

 

Now.

 

Calm down.

 

I’m in danger.

 

Sir, if you don’t calm down we are going to have to remove from the flight.

 

Fine.

 

I sit back down and keep waiting.

 

Your precious flight is at risk? My life is at risk.

 

I see a dark figure walking up the runway. Is that Death?

 

A paunchy man wrangling a backpack, duffle bag and suitcase walks in. Is that Death?

 

A few more people start to follow after him.

 

Are they Death?

 

I don’t want to make eye contact with any of them.

 

Eventually, the plane gets on the runway and makes it into the air. Goodbye, Death.

 

#

 

I can’t sleep.

 

The constant humming of the plane as it cruises through the air makes me worried that it will go silent. What then?

 

There are many things to be worried about. What if Death was already on the plane? What if he’s here waiting for me? What if at any moment he gets up and-

 

The plane shakes.

 

I gasp.

 

It’s fine. It’s fine. Death’s not going to get me.

 

The darkness outside the plane feels like it goes on forever.

 

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

 

I was such an idiot for dropping my computer bag earlier. But what was I going to do? Run with it?

 

Maybe it would have been worth carrying. That’s the entire reason I’m going to Silicon Valley. On that laptop was the only copy of a presentation for a conference. I spent months working on it.

 

The presentation was on mind uploading. An entire detailed rundown of potential breakthroughs in information technology that could lead to us being able to copy our brains into a computer. Then we could live forever. No more death.

 

Everything dies, but ideas, beliefs, morals and the imagination remain. Those are information. Your mind is information. Translate that into the a computer, you’ll escape death.

 

Just imagine the potential. No one truly wants to die.

 

Some are fascinated by death and all the things around it. But I can’t stand it.

 

When my grandpa died, he had an open casket funeral. I refused to go and my parents forced me into the car. Made my mom cry because of it. Then at the funeral, I clamped my hands over my eyes the entire time. And by that I got what I wanted. Never looked in the coffin. Because in that casket wasn’t my grandpa. It was just an empty pile of meat dressed up in a suit already starting to rot.

 

When my dad was dying in the hospital, I left the room in his final moments and never came back in. The moment that last gasp of air was forced out of his mouth by trembling lungs, my dad was no longer in there. Just a husk.

 

When my daughter died, I only picked my wife up from the hospital. What would there be to see? Just a small pale corpse that used to my daughter but was now an object?

 

If I can get through life without needing to see it, then why see it at all?

 

The guy sitting across from me is staring.

 

I can feel his eyes.

 

Eyes that might be holes to a vast realm of blackness and the blackness wants me. Maybe he’s been waiting since I got on the plane and he’s been just waiting for the right moment.

 

Sir?

 

Don’t reply. Don’t reply. Don’t reply.

 

Sir?

 

Surprisingly formal for Death.

 

Sir? he says more loudly.

 

If I don’t look it’s not real. If I don’t look it’s not real. If I don’t look it’s not real. If I don’t look it’s not real.

 

Sir?

 

What?

 

You dropped your phone.

 

He held out his hand holding my phone. I quickly made eye contact. Bright blue eye’s that don’t show me anything.

 

Oh, thanks, I say taking it back.

 

It’s all good.

 

#

 

The plane lands. The electric white cabin lights burn my eyes as they brighten.

 

We reach the gate.

 

Thank you for flying with us toni-

 

I spring up and shoot down the aisle. Many other passengers are already standing up, eager to get off too. Maybe they’re escaping Death too.

 

A few people start to step out. I collide with some old lady. She yelps and I go down and fast hard. Something hits my head. I groan.

 

Everything’s blurry. I feel bright hot and wet blood creeping down my face. My vision is flood with stars.

 

Breathe.

 

I try and force myself to get up. My fingers are fired with tense crushing pain.

 

Breathe.

 

I scream.

 

Breathe.

 

Oh my gosh, man. I’m so sorry.

 

Breathe.

 

Someone just stepped on my hand.

 

I can’t breathe.

 

I get up and go all the way down the aisle and across the passenger boarding bridge.

 

Soon I realize that all the car rentals are closed. I quietly curse in fury.

 

That’s when I finally get the clarity that I must be an idiot.

 

I just flew clear across the country. There’s no reason to be running anymore. For all I know, Death is still back in Philly.

 

Taking a breath, I sit down on a bench outside. A couple of cars and shuttles lazily drive by. Something sharp hits my head.

 

I spring up in panic.

 

Get away from me, I shout to no one.

 

Looking back, I see a small twig. It fell from the dying tree behind the bench. There’s nothing I can do but take a good long look at it.

 

Grey, gnarled and crusty. Ready crack into a million pieces like old clay. A few webbed husks of leaves desperately cling to it, refusing to say it’s dead.

 

I divert my eyes away from it and toward a trash can. An old half eaten burger sits shriveled on the rim like an abandoned bird nest. A couple of maggots squirm around it, made like writhing orange warts under the lone streetlight.

 

Death is here.

 

I take off running down the street. I can outrun Death. I swear I can outrun Death.

 

No time to wait for a bus. Death is all around me.

 

My chest deeply aches. My lungs burn. My breath is short. My feet burn. My skin glistens with sweat.

 

But I have to keep running.

 

Go, go, go. Save yourself. Protect yourself. Preserve yourself.

 

I make it to the hotel I booked. The bored deeply indebted college student at the desk tells me my room is clean and ready. Taking my key card I jog up the stairs. Death could be waiting for me in the elevator.

 

At my room’s floor, I try and make it down the hallway as fast as I can. An intense crushing ache screeches through my weary chest and I collapse to the ground. My skinned face slamming down and once again oozing with blood.

 

The whole world is blurry and shaking. The pain feels like a prison I can’t handle. The deep syrupy light of the hotel room hallway makes it seem as though I’m trapped in an unending nightmare. I shiver through the pain as the image of Death emerging out of one of the doors explodes in my mind.

 

With an ugly groan, I force myself back to my feet. Almost there. I agonizingly hobble down the hall and reach my room.

 

Slamming the door behind me, I stable myself on the wall.

 

I must be safe here.

 

I have to be safe.

 

I can’t run anymore.

 

I just can’t.

 

If only I could have been alive in a different era or didn’t have to worry about this now. Only a few more years. Just a few more years, I swear. The way technology is developing, we could upload our minds and live forever. I could live forever. Death will be no longer a problem for us.

 

A thin translucent string of saliva dangles out of my mouth.

 

My presentation. I can still give it tomorrow. Inform the public. Inform the programmers. Inform the shareholders. Get them interested in the idea. Just imagine it. No more Death. We could escape it. I could escape it. I swear.

 

I get my phone out of my pocket.

 

I just need more time.

 

I dial up her number.

 

Only a few more years. After this presentation, everything will be secured. No more Death. For real.

 

Hello? she asks groggily. What the heck happened? Why did you run?

 

I gasp and spit.

 

Did you pick up the computer bag? I force myself to say coherently.

 

What?

 

Did you pick up the stupid computer bag?

 

Uh, yes. What’s going on? What is this?

 

I’ll fly you over here.

 

What? Why?

 

I need that bag. I need the computer. I need you to bring it.

 

For the presentation?

 

Yes, for the stupid presentation. I need you over here, I shout.

 

Are you okay?

 

I need. I need. I need. I need. I need. I need, I sputter.

 

Are you oka-

 

Beep. Beep. Beep. The phone sounds dead and solid. Almost obnoxious and uncaring. I angrily tap at it, trying to call her again but it only goes to voicemail. Stupid internet must have gone out.

 

No. I need. No. I need. No. No. No, I rasp.

 

I back myself up to the wall and slide down to the ground.

 

My head rotates to stare into the dismal darkness of my room’s entryway. It’s seems deep, black, vast and with no end. Not even a bar of light below the door where the hallway light harshly seeps in.

 

Please, no, I say.

 

Footsteps. Slow calculated footsteps softly sinking into the carpet.

 

Please, no. Leave me alone, please, I cry.

 

I see Death emerge from the darkness. A short, pale, skeletally thin woman in a blue hospital gown and a few wiry bits of long hair desperately clinging to her scalp. Death walks toward me, arms unmoving.

 

No, I scream helplessly. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

 

Death walks around me like a predator then stops.

 

Please, no, I say. I don’t want to. You can’t.

 

Death extends hand for me to take.

 

I feel my body starting to give out. I can’t even move my legs anymore. Glancing at my phone I can see the internet is already back but what good will it do me now? Do I really think the police will stop Death?

 

I sigh.

 

Please, no, I whimper. I can’t.

 

It’s time, Death says.

 

No. I can’t die.

 

Death extends her arm closer to me.

 

I sigh again.

 

Before I go. May I ask something of you?

 

Death nods.

 

Why were were you surprised to see me in Philly?

 

I was surprised to see you there because I had an appointment with you here tonight, Death says.

 

I let out a sad pained chuckle.

 

It’s time, Death says.

 

Can I tell my story?

 

Death nods.

 

And now, there’s no more to tell.

 

I’m ready to take Death’s hand.