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L’ AMORT
Laure Thibault
Death fixed her hair. She was Then it was her turn to be
nothing like the skeleton so many surprised – not many reacted like
cultures expected. She took the him. Some wept, some cried out,
face of a loved one, or someone some even lunged at her.
loveable, or someone forgotten. She said, ‘No use explaining why
There was no malice in her; she I’ve come.’
simply came along. This time, she
dressed as a young woman of “I’ve been lying here long enough.
twenty. Her hair, so black that it I know there are only two ways
absorbed the light, was the only out.”
difference between her and the “Then let’s not delay any longer.”
living.
“I won’t let you do it. I don’t care
She’d always appreciated people
in comas. Death approached the how charming you are.”
bed of a young man in a hospital She smiled. A little action, at last.
bed. Normally she’d take a soul “We can talk. I’ve all the time I
in a fraction of a second, but here need.”
there was the chance to talk, to
spar with someone who’d become “We have that in common.”
a prisoner of their body. She sat at a chair on the other
side of the bed.
The young man was sitting in the
corner of the room, watching his “Haven’t you got anyone else to
own form in the bed. He glanced kill?”
up as she appeared, his surprise
quickly fading. She let out a short laugh and
avoided the question.
‘I thought you’d be worse to look
at,’ he said glumly.
27.
