One Last Night Together - Part Four

One Last Night Together – Part Four

By Brandon Palzkill

            Duncan contemplated Angela’s cryptic statement, while he offered her a seat in his armchair. Absently, he picked up his abandoned glass of scotch and sipped it, as he took his own seat at the foot of the bed.

            “What depends on me?” He wondered, aloud. “What are you talking about?”

            “A choice that will determine your future,” she said, ominously.

Something in Angela’s cold, business-like tone hinted that she took no pleasure in being there. He had never known her to be like that, and it troubled him. Now that she was here, once again before him, he longed to hold her in his arms and whisper sweet, loving nothings into her ear. He would have expected her to feel the same, and the absence of those feelings discouraged him. Had Angela fallen out of love with him? Was this really even Angela? 

“I promise you, I’m me,” she uttered, as though reading his mind. “And I’ll never stop loving you. If I had, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Explain,” Duncan nearly demanded.

“Well…” she started. “I had died. We didn’t expect it, and couldn’t plan for it, so there you were, suddenly alone…”

Duncan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, at Angela’s nonchalant mention of her own demise, but he remained quiet and listened intently.

“You’d mourned my passing, as any devoted husband would naturally do, and that was a necessary step, before you could ever truly begin to heal. But as the months and years went by, you hadn’t really healed. Your grief had become an enormous weight that is pulling you deeply beneath the water, and you’re not even trying to fight against it…”

“I didn’t know it was a crime to…” Duncan interrupted, indignantly, but stopped at the sight of Angela’s scowl. 

“Your life,” she resumed, “has been wasted, these past years. You’ve shut yourself off from the world, blinded by this pain that you refuse to let go off, and that’s no way to live. That’s why I’ve come to you with an offer.”

“What kind of an offer?” Duncan asked, cautiously.

Angela eyed him up, piteously, and she seemed hesitant to continue speaking. This hesitation, more than anything else that had happened, seemed to unnerve Duncan. He expected her to ask him to sell his soul, in exchange for tremendously valuable, but ultimately damning. 

“What I offer is this,” Angela said, her eyes narrowing, shrewdly. “Because you seem to be suffering, more than one should, I’ll take you away from here. We’ll go to the place beyond this, and we will spend our eternity together, just like you so desperately desire.”

Duncan was both terrified and elated by her offer; the prospect of sharing an eternity with his one great love would have been worth absolutely anything to him… anything. But as soon as that notion had crossed his mind, suspicion once again swept through his heart, and he was forced to contemplate what they could possibly want, in return, because he was certain, beyond anything, that there would be a cost.

“What’s the catch,” he asked, warily.

“Isn’t that obvious,” she asked, taken aback. “You’ll die.”