He had to stoop to fit through the doorway, his head pressed against the ceiling. He stood for a few moments, blinded by the sudden darkness, searching the dark interior. He panicked for a moment, not understanding how she could have disappeared. It was a tiny playhouse with only one door, and he had watched her step into the small doorway five minutes ago and hadn’t seen her leave. Gradually, his vision adjusted, and he finally saw her sitting quietly in the corner, staring at him with wide eyes that made him melt inside every time he saw them. He sat down next to her on the bench, wrapping her tiny hand in his. They sat in silence for a while as he watched her stare out the window.
“Daddy. It is a magic car.”
She was only two and a half, but her mother had taught her to speak in complete sentences before her first birthday. He was awed by the women in his life. Janet had been a world-travelling multilingual who surprised him when she slowed down enough to say ‘yes’ and agree to be his domestic other half. When their daughter was born, she set out to teach her to speak so she wouldn’t have to guess what their infant wanted. Emilia was an apt student, quiet like her father but brilliant like her mother. Janet was constantly pointing out didactic milestones, but he simply loved listening to his daughter’s voice.
He glanced out the window at the abandoned station wagon parked in the weeds. It might once have been blue or green, but now its color was a mystery, faded and covered in dust. All four tires were flat, the rubber bent into weird shapes that would never roll again, and the windows were white with dust and glare from the sun. He decided to play along.
He turned to his daughter and asked, “Who drives the magic car?”
She answered right away. “The little boy.” Her voice serious, she nodded emphatically.
And where does he drive to?”
The answer was again quick and sure. “To the hospital for the little boys and girls.”
The father was shocked. She had never been to a hospital. He didn’t even think she knew the word. Hearing his child speak about life and death made him shiver in fear. “Little boys can’t drive cars.”
“The scary man tells him where to go.”
He wanted to end the made-up story on a positive note, so he tried a different angle. “Does he make the little boys and girls better?”
The little girl tilted her head, as if waiting to hear an answer. “Sometimes.”
The father was confused by the strange story, but it was almost time for dinner and her pre-bedtime ritual. They began their farewell to the playground routine. Emilia always managed to coax another five minutes of playground time out of him, and today was no different.
That night, after the bath and cleaning up the flood in the bathroom, after the fifth repetition of this week’s favorite bedtime story, after the second cup of water that she didn’t really drink, he kissed her forehead and went down to the living room. He sat back in his chair while his wife bought him a cup of tea, sitting on the sofa across from him. Nursing the baby, she waited for him to catch his breath so they could have a relaxed chat.
He shook his head in disbelief as he sipped his tea and thought back on the episode in the park. “You’ll never believe what she said today.” He related the story of the magic car. They laughed, amazed at the imagination contained in a three-year-old mind.
After lunch the next day, Janet took her daughter to the park, meeting a friend and her daughter on the way. She sat under a tree, letting the children play while she spoke with her friend. At one point, she looked up to see her friend’s daughter playing by herself. A quick scan of the playground left her a little worried. Emilia was nowhere in sight. Janet excused herself and searched the playground, finding her daughter in the little playhouse. She sat down next to her daughter, but the little girl was absorbed, looking out the window at the abandoned car.
“Is that the magic car?” Janet asked. The little girl nodded grimly. “Is the little boy driving?”
Another solemn nod from Emilia. “He’s a good boy. He likes my mommy.”
Janet glanced out but couldn’t see anyone through the glare on the glass. “Is the scary man with him?”
The little girl shook her head. “No. Today, the nice man sat next to the boy. He is white with pretty wings. I like the white man. He smiles at me.”
The mother glanced nervously at the car, not liking the idea of strange men hanging out at the playground. The car was covered in dirt and surrounded by tall weeds that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. “What did he say to you?”
“He said that he would come again very soon. He said he would be coming for me.”
The mother sat in shocked silence as her young daughter skipped out of the playhouse and ran to the swings. That night, after her daughter was asleep, Janet sat in the living room with her husband and told him about the white man.
“What should we do?”
Her husband was confused. “About what?”
Her voice took on an annoyed edge. “A strange man approaches our child in the park, and you think that’s alright?”
He shook his head. “She said he was white and had wings. That’s not exactly a description we can give to the police. It sounds like a new imaginary friend.”
“I’m calling the city tomorrow. I want that old car towed away. It’s a hazard to the children at the playground. It’s probably full of sharp rusty edges.”
She never made the phone call. In the middle of the night, they woke up to their daughter screaming. Flushed and sweaty, her unfocused eyes flitted around the room, unable to see her parents desperately trying to soothe her fear. They took her temperature and were shocked at how high her fever had climbed. Just a few hours before, their sweet daughter had climbed into bed, healthy and happy.
The father wrapped her up in blankets, and they rushed to the hospital. The doctors tried to reassure them, saying that little children get fevers that spike suddenly and disappear just as quickly. But when pressed, the medical staff shuffled their feet and stammered, unable to name the cause of the little girl’s life-threatening sickness. She lay in a bed that was much too large, tubes sticking into her, snaking in a tangle to bags of chemicals suspended over her head. After three days of not moving from her bedside, her exhausted parents began to hear the words ‘irreversible damage’ mixed in with the snatches of murmured consultations. The father comforted himself by holding his daughter’s hand, careful not to disturb the tubes that filled her with chemicals he believed kept her alive. The mother sat in a corner, coming no closer, but never closing her eyes. For three days, she kept her vigil, her eyes never straying from her daughter, as if she believed her willpower kept the tiny body alive.
Just before midnight on the third day, Janet got up from her chair and approached the bed. Her hand rested lightly on her sleeping husband’s shoulder for a brief moment before she turned and left the room. Driving through the sleeping town, she parked in front of the dark and empty playground. As she got out, she hesitated before going forward. The abandoned car seemed to glow in the moonlight, giving it an ominous energy that it lacked during the day. She stood for a few moments before moving closer. As she approached, a boy stood up from behind a clump of weeds, blocking her from the car. He couldn’t have been more than five years old, but the calm defiance in his eyes made him look much older.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
She felt her fear grow, but anger and desperation overcame it. “I need to talk to the man in black.” He shook his head, but she cut him short as he began to speak. “I know he’s coming tonight. I will talk to him.” The boy shrugged and turned to the car. The door groaned and squealed as he pulled it open and sat in the driver’s seat. After closing the door, he looked out the jagged hole in the side window and nodded to her. “Coming?” She crossed to the passenger side and opened the front door. A chill ran up her spine, making her shudder as he reached across and gripped the handle, stopping her from climbing in. “No. This is his seat.”
She sat in the back, waiting and watching. The little boy gripped the bent steering wheel and began to sway back and forth. Sweat broke out on his forehead as his lips moved silently. The weeds whispered in the gentle night breeze as a wall of fog crept across the playground, hiding the car from view. Janet cried out as she was thrown back into the broken vinyl seat. The hood over the missing engine tilted up, and the cracked rubber wheels pulled free of the weeds. A final groan escaped the boy’s lips as the car leapt into the air. Wind whistled through the windows as the car climbed faster and higher into the starlit sky. The woman called out to the boy, but either he ignored her, or her trembling voice was drowned out by the wind that filled the car and chilled her to the bone. They entered a cloud, and the car was filled with swirling vapors that blinded her, making her eyes water. When the mist cleared, a man dressed in white robes was sitting in the passenger seat, his wings folded behind him. He swiveled in his seat, looking at the woman with a cold eye. She shivered, unsure whether it was due to the damp night air or to the new occupant.
He chuckled, his voice like gravel sliding across the rusty floor. “Well, what do we have here?”
The boy’s eyes remained focused straight ahead, his lips moving furiously in a silent chant. The woman spoke, suddenly aware of the silence that had filled the car. “I need to talk to the other one.”
His bleached eyebrow arched. “Are you certain that is what you want?”
She nodded grimly. “Death is coming for my daughter, and I need to stop him.”
He chuckled again. “Then it is I that you must speak with. I am death.”
“But my daughter said that she liked you, that you were nice.”
He smiled grimly. “Yes. Children have no pretenses. They know that life is cruel and death is the end of all suffering. They aren’t afraid of me. They remember me fondly. They have recently left my domain to spend a short time in the world.”
“Why do you dress in white?”
“Is that really what you came to ask?” She remained silent. “I am not a result of human stereotypes. I am their source. People who come in close contact with me react in fear. They wish to distance themselves. They know that death is white. I am pure and return the soul to its source of light. They dress in black to push me away. Life is black, full of pain and struggle, dirtying all who are touched by it. Filth is the unavoidable state of mundane existence.”
“You will not take my daughter.” She was ashamed that her voice shook, but it was all she could do to push the words out of her frozen lips.
The angel shrugged. “She is mine for the taking, if I so choose. If not today, then tomorrow or the next day. You cannot stop me.”
“Take me instead.”
The car shook with his laughter. “You are mine for the taking also. There will be no trades.”
Tears came to her eyes. “Then what do you want?”
His eyes glowed. “Death wants nothing.”
A small voice filled the silence. “No. That isn’t true.”
The angel leaned towards the boy, his wings unfolding to fill the car. “Silence, boy.”
The boy clutched the wheel, his knuckles turning white. Tears came to his eyes, yet he continued. “There is something you want. It sometimes works. I’ve seen it.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me. For god’s sake, tell me now.”
“Pray!” the boy shouted as the angel’s hand shot across and slapped him hard across the face.
The boy slumped unconscious in his seat. She looked at the boy for a moment before turning to the passenger. “Is that all? Prayer?”
The car tipped down, and she saw them beginning to dive towards a jagged range of black mountains. The angel’s eyes were locked forward, staring at the growing cliffs with unrestrained terror, his features pulled into a grimace by fear. “Is that all?” he said incredulously. “Woman, you have no idea what you are about to do, where you are about to take us. The lad was not accurate. I don’t want prayer, but it can be my master. When God created the world, he gave you this power. You creatures of flesh and blood treat it so lightly, yet it can shake the very roots of creation. Only Man dares to argue against the will of the Creator. Only man dares to rip the world apart and rearrange it according to his own desires. Your daughter’s fate was divinely decreed, yet you humans think that it is your place to dispute the will of your Creator.”
Janet hesitated. She had never prayed, but nothing would stop her from trying to save Emilia. Her lips began to move as she silently spoke to God.
The angel shrieked. “Prepare yourself. The world is about to be destroyed. All of creation is about to turn back upon itself. All for the sake of one child. When you return, everything will appear the same, but know that it is a lie. You have destroyed the world, changed it forever, and denied the creator’s will. How do you people dare?”
He screamed, and she saw them hurtling towards a wall of black stone, a red gash opening slowly before them. Flames leapt up to meet the car. The angel of death screamed again. “Lord help us! The fires of creation.” They dove into the flames as she closed her eyes, not in fear, but to concentrate on the words that came pouring out from her heart.
The sun rose over the quiet hospital, filling the room where the little girl slept with an orange glow. The father was asleep in the chair next to the bed, his body spilled across his daughter as if he could protect her from disease with his body. The mother opened the door, entering precisely as she had left, without a word. Crossing the room, she gently stroked her husband’s shoulder, her hand hovering for a moment above her child’s hair. She sat in the chair on the other side of the hospital room, watching her husband and child, waiting quietly. A few moments went by before the little girl stirred, a soft moan escaping her lips, calling out weakly for her mother. Her father sat up, shaking the sleep from his eyes as his daughter reached out to be picked up. He called for a nurse, careful of the tubes as he hugged her. The mother sat across the room for several minutes, content to watch. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head before getting out of the chair to join her family. As she hugged them, she stared out the window at the new day. Her eyes jumped from cloud to cloud, filling with tears, as she drowned in the blueness of the sky.
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