Daring Death's Door

Darting Towards Death's Door
The sun shone brightly over a vast expanse of sea as Harold looked out from the shore. The sea was calm, the gulls were not yet out among the reefs. Harold watched and waited quietly for the sun to reach just the right spot in the sky; patience was a great virtue in his line of work. When, at last, his patience was rewarded he ceased to marvel at the beauty of the expanse before him and ran down to shore. Kicking up sand, with rod and line in hand, he reached his wooden dinghy and took his ore in hand; pushing off the bank and into the water, his boat splitting waves as he stroked at water on either side, he felt the salt spray across his face and knew the day would bring with it a great bounty.
The waters were smooth and the winds were fair; he cast his line without a care, into the deep. For three hours and thirteen minutes he sat, pulling up more fish in every hour than he got on some days. Looking into the sapphire sea, frothing with its emerald foam, he wondered what had driven so many more fish to his waters that day. This had always been a good fishing spot, but never this good. Gazing with strained eyes over the side of his boat, Harold saw something floating beside him.
Beside his boat floated a chain of gold. Each link of this chain was as thick as Harold's arm; he thrust his hand out into the sea, so that salt water washed over his hand and up to his arm, and caught hold of the chain. He pulled the chain, and as he pulled his boat started to lurch; he kept pulling, thinking how nice the chain would look above his fireplace. Pulling at the large golden chain, he felt as if the sea itself were fighting to keep hold of it at the other end; every muscle in his arm hurt as he pulled at it, hoping to finally gain his glimmering prize, but every time he got it out of the water he had to let go because his boat threatened to capsize.
At last Harold decided to cast off the inhibition that stopped him pulling his hardest; even if the boat flipped, he was close enough to shore that he could swim back. With this thought in mind he counted to three and pulled with all his might, and as he got the chain out of the water his boat flipped over. He was flipped to the other side of his boat, and fell into the ocean still grasping the golden chain. Pulling himself up to the surface by the chain, Harold now perceived that the chain and been nailed to the opposite side of his boat from where he had been pulling at it; furthermore, Harold also perceived that he was no longer in the sea.
The boat that had capsized in the ocean was now floating in a pond; Harold climbed up on top of the boat, leaving the large, glimmering, golden chain that he supposed was working much like an anchor for the capsized boat- his stone anchor no longer being connected to the boat. Harold sat on the wet bottom of his wooden boat and looked long and hard at the land surrounding the pond. Yellow trunked trees with red leaves surrounded him, the grass was not grassy green but sea green, and the sky above him was ocean blue. “Where am I?”, was the only thing Harold could think to say.
Behind him he heard a croaking laughter and felt a warm, slimy touch on his neck; at this he would have jumped, but seeing that the water beneath him was black as death’s maw and probably twice as deep he thought better of it. He turned his head slowly behind him and saw a green frog with red eyes and slitted pupils sitting on his back with one hand on his neck. The frog was croaking hysterically but at last stopped, laughter still in his croaking voice, to answer Harold's query.
“You fell for my prank, now you are dead. Dead, or going to be dead; it's not my job to know which you are, you should go see death if you want to know the answer.”
Harold wanted to wrap his hands around the frog's throat but he thought better of it, the slimy frog would slip from his wet grasp like a bar of soap. Besides Harold needed help figuring out where death was; if he wasn't dead yet, he figured, death might do him a solid and return him to his body so that he could swim back to the surface.
Harold asked the jovial murderer,“where can I find death to find out if I am actually dead.”
The croaking slim bag on his back laughed and spit slimy green spittle onto the side of his face, then said “figure it out yourself.” He then tried to hop off of Harold's back, but years of hunting and fishing had taught him to pay close attention to his prey’s movements; Harold noticed the frog tensing to jump and grabbed hold of him by the slime covered leg, digging his nails in for a better grip.
Harold held the frog upside down and slowly began pulling its legs in opposite directions and, as the croaks of laughter became rees of pain, he spoke again to his amphibious malefactor.
“You may have killed me and now you will help me find out whether I am alive or dead. If you won’t, I will be eating frog’s legs this day.”.
At these words the frog swore loudly that he would tell him all that he knew. Harold made him point out the way to death's door. When he had done so Harold threw him at the black waters at his feet and the frog hit and bounced off of it, going high into the air. Harold got down and stood on the hard black surface, which paradoxically moved like liquid but was solid as rock; he walked off into the golden-wood forest in the direction pointed out by the frog, wondering all the while how the black water had been liquid when he climbed out of it but solid when he climbed on to it. The sea green grass seemed to shift in a wind that was not there, the trees golden trunks reflected sunlight from a sun that Harold had yet to catch even the slightest glimpse of as he walked along that unbeaten path towards the spirit whom he had spent a lifetime warding off with carefulness. Birds like none he had ever known ran and flew in that forest; there were beautiful blue birds with long legs running and flapping azure wings as they chased brown hens of similar size and build, there were birds flying overhead who were black as crows but who seemed to radiate purple light, and there were fat little grey birds who picked at the seeds that dropped from the ruby tops of golden trees.
As Harold walked he marveled at the many strange creatures he saw; he would never be able to relate a tenth of what he saw, so indescribable was so much of that world. He chose, as a result of this worlds strangeness, to focus only on what seemed most familiar and ignore what he had no words for.
Soon he came across a row of fallen trees, all lying on their left sides; the points at which they were cut were smooth and straight as the lines made by a hot knife cutting through butter. Harold wondered at this as he walked and became so enamored of the mystery of this strange occurrence that he was badly startled by the sound of a newly felled tree hitting the ground. At the sound he jumped like a spring hare with a wolf on his tail. Looking over behind the felled log he saw who had felled it. A giant the size of two men and as hairy as an ape held in his hand an axe like nothing Harold had ever seen. The axe was so straight as to be all but invisible when not looked at from the sides; like a 2 sided square with a three dimensional wooden handle through it, was the axe. The beast wielding it lumbered towards Harold and his first instinct was to run, but seeing the giants long legs he realized that running would achieve nothing at all. So he put up his hands in a gesture of surrender and called to the giant, “hold on; I mean you no harm. I was just passing through.”
The giant came close and bent over, bringing himself face to face with Harold. A brown nostril flared as he sniffed at the tiny human before him, trying to divine what exactly this creature was. Harold was also examining the giant in return, the black furred, brown skinned creature smelled like a mixture of cigarettes and sugar water that had been left out in the sun too long. The creature said, “little ape, have you been swimming in blackmult?”
“What is blackmult?” asked Harold
“What you've been bathing in.” said the giant.
Harold asked, “but what is it?”
“frog piss.” he said, “one particular frog anyways.”
Harold tugged at his clothes a bit, sniffed them and recoiled. He then asked the giant why he was felling the trees; he said that the row of trees was diseased and had to be removed. The giant said, “the source of the disease is still unknown, and the forest king is sleeping and refuses to wake and fix it. If you see him on your way, wake him up for me and see if you can get him to do his job.”
Harold agreed to do so and parted ways with the hairy giant.
Harold trudged through the brightly colored forest a bit longer before he tripped over a mass of fur that was blocking his way. Harold fell face first into black mud consistency of jello; scrambling to his feet, he turned around and saw a tiger with black stripes on golden fur and paws the green of sea foam rising to its feet. Harold took a step back, wondering if a dead man can be eaten; the tiger took a step forward for every backward tread he trod. The beast spoke then, with a voice like dueling tidal waves crashing against one another, “stand still little man. Yes, I know that you are man; I am old enough to remember when your kind were to be found in our world.”
Harold was almost more surprised by the tiger's words than by its ability to speak. What did it mean by ‘were’? What had happened to the humans who ‘were to be found’ here? Harold imagined in that moment every horrible thing that may have befallen them; every horrible thing that could very well befall him.
The green-pawed cat answered his thoughts, “they were banished long ago. Cast off to a distant world, much harsher than our own; one that the gods have often toyed with for the mere pleasure of doing so. You go the way to the ladies home; heed my counsel. Should you escape me, as my prey is very want to do- go into the mountains and seek not her door. Only death awaits.” The tiger then licked his golden lips and said, “I am hungry now, so forgive me that one of us must die.”
With the agility that was a tiger's birthright he lunged for Harold's throat. Harold jumped to his left at the moment that he saw the tiger tense to jump. Falling and recovering, Harold rose to his feet and took a large stick in hand. He pointed it threateningly at the predator, knowing full well that it would do him no good; the bluff, however, seemed to keep the tiger momentarily at a distance. As Harold went through everything he knew about tigers, trying to find a way to divert the beast's attention and escape, he heard a loud croak and saw a black pool of slush fall down on the tiger's head. The slimy green frog jumped onto the tiger's back and his antagonist tried with all his might to throw him off; the mult was hardening as he bucked and kicked. Soon the tiger was a statue of black mult.
The frog leaped off of him and said in his croaky voice, “you sure are stupid. You could have run while he was distracted by your stick.”
“Distracted by my stick?”
The frog croaked out a laugh, “he thought it might be magic; you humans used to be good at enchanting sticks. You made metal pieces fly out of them with fire about them and killed endlessly with your magic sticks.”
Harold wanted to ask where the humans who “used to” do this were and where they had gone; but the frog leaped away feeling as clean as a baby after a bath, his guilt asuaged. Harold decided not to dwell on it and continued his trek through the golden forest, but before leaving he turned to the encased tiger and said, “when you escape, fix your diseased trees.” He could hear the tiger grumble from inside its casing.
He continued in the direction of deaths doors; the tiger had said that he would find only death- that was the idea of his seeking her, but he said it in such an ominous way. Harold was now considering reconsidering his course. He knew, however, that seeking at death may be his only chance at life.
Harold took heart at the realization and knew that he ought to face death with the dignity of one who eagerly seeks her. He struck up an upbeat tune in his mind and raced over the sea green grass and many colored plants and rocks that lay in his path; fallen logs were lept over and floating slabs of ruby stones were ducked under. Not one obstacle- be it bird, beast, or barrier- would deter him from his path.
Harold feared no danger ahead as he made his way forth; at last he saw a black cabin in the distance. Running towards it, it seemed to move farther away the closer he got; Harold knew, as by instinct, that the cabin was running from him. He decided that the best thing he could do was make camp where he stood. Both he and the cabin must have been exhausted and giving them both a break by ceasing his run seemed in both their best interest; thus he had thought to himself before sitting down, panting like a bitch in heat from the exertions of the day.
The bright landscape now irritated his eyes; so many bright colors surrounded him that he fell like he'd been dropped into a gay pride parade being held in a pot full of a compulsive paint-eater’s vomit. The world around him seemed all the worse when he realized, after an hour of trying, that he could not sleep. It was not that he wasn't tire; it was just not physically possible for him to sleep anymore.
Harold figure that this, more or less, answered the question of whether or not he was dead. The living slept, the dead did not.
He decided that he still needed to see death; he needed her now more than before. If he was both dead and conscious right now then that meant that something came after death, and if something comes after death then he needed to reach it. Harold didn't want an eternity in this many-colored hell.
Rising, with an assured purpose, he gazed for a moment in the cabin’s direction then cried out to its inhabitant. “Death, if you're in there come get me. Do your fuckin’ job and drag me off to heaven, hell, or wherever.”
A few long moments passed as he waited for an answer. Nothing. For a long time, or what felt like a long time, nothing. Then the cabin came over to where he had made camp; it was of a black wood that he had seen nowhere in the forest, red etchings were carved into the stone foundation of it, and its windows looked drawn on- so crooked were they.
A creature exited the building and the very sight of it made every fiber of Harold's being want to disintegrate. Its flesh was leathery and yet slimy in appearance, it had twelve eyes with pupils dilated and constricted at different rates, and its hands had tentacle like fingers that wiggled with seemingly no purpose behind their movements. Death approached the man, who was frozen in fear, and stuck out a long tongue so dry that its touch shivered his skin and licked from his ear to his cheek. The tongue was then forced into his mouth, mingling viscous slime with saliva, and the whole world, in all its manifold colors, went black.
Harold was dead.