The silent visitor

One night, when it was far from their minds, death came. They had no reason to consider it was coming. Their day went as normal until death came. She watched television, he read a book, everyone else was asleep.

They recollected the events of the day later. Was anything out of place, both wondered, as if death had moved a vase while it crept closer. Could we have seen it coming, they thought unjustly. Did we overlook something obvious. They spent the rest of that sleepless night and most of the next day asking questions that they could not answer with assurance, for both were now unsure of what they had seen, and what they had failed to see. Every moment that day now held a significance that they did not recognise earlier. Enough hints had been made, they just failed to grasp them. Guilt had begun making a grand entry.

Everything changes from here, they thought without knowing how this would happen. They were right. Change came over them slowly but as surely as death had. Death was long gone but its shadow remained. They learned to live with the shadow, walking around it, stepping into it occasionally. The shadow reminded them of the past. For no reason they would launch themselves into this past, and though it twisted their memories and especially their heart, they jumped in again and again and again. They now expected death to come, bracing themselves for its sudden arrival. They wondered if it would be as surprising as last time. But they did not behave like people who know that death is coming. For that they would need a date, a definite period of living. Expecting death, each day of theirs became numbered. As time went by their senses dulled, and if death visited them as suddenly as it had earlier, it would have been just as surprising. They were thoroughly unprepared.