Death comes to Marvin as a little girl in a loose white dress, black curls wild and unruly, with twinkling pale eyes — barefoot and giggling.
She looks the same as the day he took her home, to their home.
Her embrace is warm and happy, the boundless safety contained in the small arms circling around him lulls him into the kindness of the dark, fear drains away into solace, all his worries and all his sorrows melt away as if they never existed at all. It's not that terrible, she tells him, and it's the most important secret ever, shared with him during snack time with invisible, imaginary beverages in pink plastic tea cups. Not all darkness and tragedy.
She sounds childlike-wise and a bit mischievous as she always does, the wit of dozens of geniuses wrapped around her little finger, pulling on his sleeve instead of holding his hand, a habit of hers she never resolved. Come, there's nothing to be afraid of. We'll be together forever.
Light spills into the void, curls around him like a purring cat, he finds himself in Vera's old bedroom he had to close up after she moved out, but it's not at all the lonely, desolate place it is. Everything's back to how it used to be, messy and cozy just like how she liked it, metal parts she's taken apart scattered everywhere so dense he can't see the color of the rug anymore, a collection of cups decorating the nightstand, her mastic and clove scent is a blanket.
His daughter is tucked next to him, he's carried her away to bed after she fell asleep on the couch. He can hear the boisterous laughter of his coworkers coming from the next room, it's one of his cookouts.
He's never known serenity this all-encompassing, has never felt this weightless, it's the sweetest remedy on his aching, worn-out body. A honeyed, heavy slumber spirits him away, the merry noises fade and disappear altogether.
The last thing he sees is his child. She wakes him up at the crack of dawn to take him on a new adventure to that fishing trip they never ended up going.
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The concrete was rugged and wet against Leon's cheek, the chill penetrating his skin sending icy waves of a damp throb around his skull.
He could work with mildly uncomfortable.
It was bearable at worst compared to what the bullet carved into the back of his tactical vest had done to his body. That little point of impact from such little distance had knocked him out straight away; and no, he wasn't harmed per se, his back was going to be extremely sore for a while really, but the bitter reminder of the familiarity with being made to lose consciousness and how scary it could be returning to him was a pesty relative he'd cut contact with long ago — untimely and uncalled for.
